In the wilderness, countless soldiers and Black Bureau constables gazed up at the sheer cliff.
Dongfang Liren stood with her hands behind her back, behind guards holding great shields, while the commander of the Zezhou troops fawned over her:
"Had Your Highness not sent Lord Ye along to assist us, how could a band of rough fellows like us have tracked them here in just a few days..."
After a short wait, movement appeared above the silent mountain ridge.
Driven into a dead end, Prince Wu ultimately failed to muster the courage to kill himself, yet lacked the face to go out and grovel before everyone, confessing his crimes and submitting to punishment. Seeing that all was lost, his vision went black and he fainted.
The four personal guards accompanying him had more backbone. Knowing they had no hope of survival and unwilling to suffer humiliation as prisoners, they drew their blades and slit their own throats after Ye Jingtang entered the cave.
Zhang Jinglin's reaction, however, was far calmer.
Zhang Jinglin was a medicine-obsessed madman through and through. His obsession with medicine had reached the point where he knew neither good nor evil and held nothing sacred, yet he was also extraordinarily gifted, capable of things others could not accomplish.
Someone like him could no longer be treated as a person, but as a highly valuable "resource," useful only while alive. Even if Northern Liang's imperial family, who hated him to the bone, captured him, they could not simply kill him.
Zhang Jinglin knew that Great Wei would merely have him continue his research after capturing him, so he had no intention of resisting. When Ye Jingtang entered, he rose with his little medicine chest on his back, looking much as though he were moving on to a better