Cold Crow Devil Lord
The Lin family girl was still chattering away to Sang Ying, completely unaware that Sang Ying had grown suspicious of her.
Though Sang Ying had begun to doubt the Lin family girl's identity, she gave no sign of it. Before long, the guard came back.
Unlike the one who had brought Sang Ying out of the sedan chair, this guard looked no different from an ordinary person. But he wore a mask, hiding his features.
The guard was bad-tempered. Seeing that Sang Ying was awake, he pulled a white porcelain bottle from his waist without a word and reached out to grab her, intent on stuffing a red pill from the bottle into her mouth.
Naturally, Sang Ying wasn't about to let him have his way.
But she couldn't reveal her identity now, and before she could think of a solution, a commotion broke out at the other end of the dungeon.
The guard paused in the act of feeding her the pill and leaned out to look. Then he heard someone shouting in the distance, "Come and catch them! Don't let them escape!"
The guard immediately abandoned Sang Ying and rushed toward the disturbance.
He left in such a hurry that he didn't even lock the cell.
Sang Ying looked at the iron door, still wondering how to persuade the Lin family girl beside her to escape with her.
When she looked up again, however, Miss Lin had already slipped out of the cell and was beckoning to her.
"Hurry! Let's take this chance to run!" the Lin family girl urged in a low voice.
Sang Ying followed at once. Neither of them had any intention of taking all the girls in the cell with them. For one thing, there were too many girls; if they brought them along, they would likely be discovered before they got very far. For another, the girls were all dazed and confused. Even if the cells were opened for them, they probably wouldn't run.
Besides, Sang Ying had never intended to leave just like that. She wanted to explore the dungeon.
As it happened, the Lin family girl had the same plan. She led Sang Ying outward through the dungeon, whose passageways were complicated and looked exactly alike everywhere.
After who knew how many turns, the two finally made it out of the dungeon and saw daylight again.
As soon as they emerged, the Lin family girl cautioned her, "Miss, we finally managed to escape. We absolutely can't let them catch us again. How about this? We'll run in different directions. That way, even if those people discover we're missing, at most one of us will be caught. The other can spread word of what's happening here and get those immortal cultivators to wipe out these villains!"
"Immortal cultivators"? Sang Ying remembered that the people of Willow Village had all called cultivators "immortals." This Miss Su had used the correct term with such certainty; she evidently knew the difference between the two.
Sang Ying already had a guess about the other girl's identity.
She said nothing about it. Instead, she went along with the suggestion, choosing a direction and pretending to leave.
The Su family girl watched her departing figure for a long time. Only when she was sure Sang Ying had left did she breathe a sigh of relief and return to the dungeon.
By now, all hell had broken loose in the dungeon. The cells holding the girls had all been opened, and several young people with orchids embroidered on their hems were steadily leading the girls outside, feeding them some medicine along the way.
At the same time, they stood with swords raised against the guards. The guards were few in number and not very strong. They were soon at a disadvantage and were subdued by the people in white.
As soon as the Lin family girl arrived, the people in white nodded to her and called out, "Senior sister!"
The Lin family girl answered, then seized a guard and demanded, "Speak! Who ordered you to capture these girls under the pretense of a monster taking a bride and use them to test medicine?!"
The guard's mask had been removed. Beneath the sinister demon mask was a perfectly ordinary face.
He had been captured and had no chance of escape, yet he showed no concern at all. Instead, he sneered. "Don't get cocky. Do you think you're the first to notice something strange here? Who knows how many came here to court death before you? Didn't they all end up in our master's hands? Just you wait!"
The Lin family girl hurled him to the ground and didn't question anyone else.
"Hurry and get everyone out. This isn't so simple. I'm afraid we've really gotten ourselves into serious trouble!" The Lin family girl frowned deeply. She could tell the guard wasn't merely putting on a brave face and making empty threats; he truly believed he would be fine.
And from what he had said, someone had discovered what they were doing before. Those people might even have tried to rescue the girls, only to fail in the end.
The people in white didn't dare delay. They immediately followed their senior sister's orders and hurried toward the dungeon exit with the girls.
Unfortunately, they were still a step too slow. The dungeon gate was right in front of them, and it seemed they would all escape to safety in the next moment.
But what greeted them was not the daylight outside the dungeon, but a figure wreathed in chilling Evil Qi.
The newcomer blocked the gate completely, not letting a single ray of light through. A glossy-feathered crow perched on his shoulder, its pitch-black eyes fixed on the people below.
His gaze swept over their clothes, and his lips curved into a smile. "Oh my, I never thought my humble little dungeon could attract cultivators from the Plain Robe Pavilion. What a pleasant surprise!"
"Caw!" The crow on his shoulder suddenly cried out, as if echoing his words.
Seeing this, the Lin family girl—or rather, the Plain Robe Pavilion's eldest senior sister-shouted, "Retreat!"
The young disciples immediately obeyed their senior sister, retreating back into the dungeon with the girls.
"Senior sister, who is that?" a youthful-looking disciple asked in a whisper, coming up beside his eldest senior sister.
Though their cultivation was low, they could still feel the powerful pressure coming from the man.
Nan Gurong's face went pale, and her heart filled with dread. "I remember Master saying that there are a few old monsters in the Nascent Soul Realm among the Devil Cultivators. One of them always has a crow with him. He's exceptionally skilled at making poison and has a grudge against our Plain Robe Pavilion. Master warned me that if I ever met a black-robed cultivator with a crow, I had to run as fast as I could..."
At the time, she had thought she was just a nobody. How could she ever encounter a Nascent Soul Realm Devil Cultivator? Yet, unexpectedly, she really had run into one today.
Nan Gurong suddenly felt a little regretful.
The Plain Robe Pavilion was one of those rare sects composed mainly of medical cultivators. Though its elders' cultivation wasn't high, their pill refining and medicine making were first-rate.
Cultivators were bound to have a few enemies, and fighting and getting hurt were everyday occurrences. So even though the Plain Robe Pavilion wasn't known for its cultivation, it had always prospered.
Over the years, the only person to bear a grudge against the Plain Robe Pavilion was the Cold Crow Devil Lord, whose whole body was poisonous. The feud between them had begun only because the Plain Robe Pavilion had once saved someone he wanted to kill.
Now that the Devil Lord had personally come to block their escape, with only her Foundation Establishment Realm cultivation and a dozen or so fellow disciples in the Qi Refining Realm, rescuing the girls was out of the question. Even keeping themselves alive would likely be difficult.
Nan Gurong bit her lower lip hard. She bitterly resented her own naivety, having acted before investigating the matter thoroughly. Today, she might truly drag these fellow disciples down to die here with her!
As Nan Gurong led her fellow disciples deeper into the dungeon to hide, blaming herself all the while, several booming sounds came from overhead. Her expression hardened, and she immediately ordered everyone to scatter.
The next moment, an opening was blasted through the ceiling above them.
A lovely face peered through the breach. "Quick, follow me out!"