Chapter 257 -

Chapter 257: Chapter

"They dragged her out through the back," Lu Yue gasped, her chest heaving.

Nine jumped out of the carriage, his playful system persona completely gone. In its place was a terrifying, cold look. "How long ago?"

"Just now," Lu Yue said, looking at the faint footprints leading into the narrow alley passage. "The ground is still disturbed."

She looked back at the remaining assassins, her hand gripping her sword hilt till it bled. "Leave one alive."

Nine looked at her. "Why?"

"We need to know who ordered this!"

Nine marched straight toward the nearest assassin, who was trying to crawl away into the main street. He grabbed the man by his collar and yanked him up into the air, slamming his back against the carriage wheel.

"Good afternoon," Nine whispered with a dark, frightening smile. "Who hired you?"

The assassin spat a mouthful of blood at Nine’s boots. "Go to hell."

Nine’s smile widened, though his eyes remained frozen like ice. "Ah. So you want to do this the hard way."

It took less than five minutes of Nine’s brutal questioning for the assassin to break.

The men were hired thugs from the capital’s shadow market. They had been paid in heavy gold to ambush the guards, distract them, and snatch the woman in the cloak. They were ordered to deliver her alive to a secondary carriage waiting near the southern market.

"Who was waiting at the southern market?!" Nine growled, tightening his grip on the man’s throat.

"I-I don’t know!" the assassin choked out in sheer terror. "He wore a black mask! He just gave us the gold and told us to hand her over!"

Nine threw the man hard against the cobblestones, knocking him out cold.

Lu Yue wiped the blood off her sword, her face filled with pure panic. "Nine, we have to go to the southern market right now!"

"We will," Nine said, his voice deadly serious. "But first, we need to send a message to Wenzhe."

Lu Yue froze. "How... how are we going to tell the General that we lost his wife?!"

Nine rubbed his forehead, letting out a frustrated groan. "Would you rather I tell him she went for a sweet afternoon stroll and forgot her way home?!"

"Nine!"

"I’m thinking!" Nine snapped, pacing back and forth.

For the very first time since his system updated, Nine wished he could just bypass the system restrictions, turn on his master tracking map, and pinpoint Yueqing’s location. But his system powers were locked under strict world laws, rendering his high-tech map completely useless.

[Host, you troublesome woman!] Nine cursed in his mind. [You had better stay alive!]

Nine looked at Lu Yue. "Find a fast horse. Send a secret message straight to General Xi’s command tent. Tell him Yueqing was kidnapped by masked men, and that we suspect the Empress."

Lu Yue nodded quickly. "Should I tell him to rush into the city?"

"NO!" Nine warned sternly. "Tell him NOT to abandon his post or march his army into the capital out of anger! If he charges in blindly, he will fall straight into the Empress’s trap!"

Lu Yue grabbed her horse’s reins. "I’ll handle the message."

Nine looked down at the white silk veil still clutched in his palm. "We’d better find her fast..."

Meanwhile, inside a moving, dark carriage, Yueqing slowly opened her eyes.

A sharp, pounding pain throbbed inside her head, and her body felt completely heavy. She tried to move her arms, but her wrists were bound tightly together behind her back with coarse rope.

She let out a weak gasp, looking around the dim space.

The carriage windows were covered with thick, black curtains, blocking all outside light. Sitting across from her was a heavy-set man wearing an ordinary grey robe, a sharp scar running down his cheek.

"You’re awake," the man said coldly.

Yueqing immediately pressed her back against the carriage wall, forcing her fuzzy mind to clear up.

[Nine... Lu Yue... Wenzhe...]

The memories came rushing back in a flash, the market, the pink tree, the ambush, and the sweet-smelling medicine pressed against her nose.

"Who are you?" Yueqing asked, keeping her voice as steady as possible despite her dry throat. "Where are you taking me?"

The man didn’t answer, staring blankly out the small gap in the curtain.

Yueqing took a slow breath, forcing herself to calm down. Panic wouldn’t save her.

She noticed the carriage was riding over smooth stone pavement, meaning they were already deep within an official sector of the city. The men had attacked her the moment Nine and Lu Yue were occupied, meaning this wasn’t a random robbery. Someone had tracked her movements from the market.

And there was only one person in the whole capital who would want her out of the way before the grand feast.

The Empress.

Yueqing’s eyes narrowed under the dim light.

[That wicked woman really can’t let me live in peace for a single day,] Yueqing thought, a cold spark of anger flaring in her chest.

She leaned her head back against the cushion, pretending to still be weak from the drug. If the Empress had taken her, it meant she was being moved to a secret holding place. But more than her own safety, Yueqing’s heart ached with worry for Wenzhe.

If Wenzhe found out she was gone... he would lose his absolute mind.

At the secret Xi military camp, General Xi Wenzhe stood over a giant wooden table covered with military maps.

Xiao Chen, Commander Guo, and several top shadow captains were gathered around him, placing red and black wooden markers to finalize their strike routes for the banquet in three days.

"Xiao Chen’s five hundred elite shadow guards will enter through the eastern secret tunnel," Wenzhe instructed, his voice deep and commanding. "Once inside, you hold the eastern gate at all costs."

"Don’t worry, General," Xiao Chen replied, leaning against the table with a sharp gaze. "The Empress won’t even see us coming."

Suddenly, the heavy fabric of the tent flap was yanked open!

A soldier rushed inside, looking breathlessly terrified. "General!"

Wenzhe lifted his head, his sharp eyes cutting through the air. "What is it?"

"A urgent message from the capital, General! It was delivered by Guard Lu’s personal bird!"

Wenzhe reached out his hand immediately. The soldier placed a small rolled parchment into his palm.

Wenzhe unrolled the letter. The moment his eyes scanned the first sentence, the entire atmosphere inside the command tent instantly froze.

Young Madame has been kidnapped.

The parchment crumpled tightly inside Wenzhe’s fist.

The temperature in the room dropped to absolute zero. A dark, terrifying aura erupted from Wenzhe’s body, so suffocating that the surrounding captains involuntarily took a step back in fear.

Xiao Chen noticed Wenzhe’s deadly expression and stepped forward, his heart dropping. "Wenzhe... what happened?"

Wenzhe raised his head. His dark eyes were completely bloodshot, filled with pure, murderous rage.

"Yueqing has been taken," Wenzhe spoke, his voice sounding like grinding steel.

"WHAT?!" Xiao Chen roared, slamming his hand onto the table, knocking over half the wooden markers. "Who took her?!"

"The Empress," Wenzhe spat, his teeth grinding together.

Xiao Chen’s face went pale, then instantly flared into wild anger. "That crazy woman! I’ll take a hundred men right now and tear the capital apart until I find her!"

"STAY DOWN!" Wenzhe barked, his voice echoing through the heavy tent like thunder.

Xiao Chen glared at him in disbelief. "She has my mother! How can you stand there and tell me to stay down?!"

"Because that is EXACTLY what the Empress wants!" Wenzhe roared back, stepping right into Xiao Chen’s face. "She wants us to lose our minds! She wants us to rush into the city like blind fools so she can capture us and execute the entire Xi family before the banquet!"

Wenzhe’s chest heaved as he forced his deadly rage down into cold, calculating focus. He looked at his captains.

"Send ten of our top shadow tracking units into the city in plain clothes. Tell Nine and Lu Yue to search every secret property owned by the Empress and Duke Xi outside the palace grounds. Investigate every single lead!"

"And what about you, General?" Commander Guo asked nervously.

Wenzhe drew his heavy steel sword half an inch from its sheath, the sharp metal flashing under the torchlight.

"I will stay here and hold the army in place for two more days," Wenzhe whispered, his dark eyes burning with terrifying fury. "If Yueqing loses even a single strand of hair... I will personally turn the Empress’s palace into a sea of blood."

Inside the grand Imperial Palace, Li Mei was quietly arranging a tray of warm herbal tea in the Empress’s outer courtyard.

As a fake maid working undercover, Li Mei moved with absolute caution. Every step she took, every smile she gave, was carefully calculated to avoid raising suspicion.

Suddenly, a young palace eunuch hurried past the courtyard, whispering nervously to a senior guard near the gate.

Li Mei slowed her hands down, carefully straining her ears to catch their conversation.

"...the shadow guards caught someone outside the southern market," the eunuch whispered quietly. "The Empress ordered the western old courtyard to be locked down tight. No one is allowed in or out."

Li Mei’s heart did a sharp flip in her chest.

The western old courtyard?

That was an abandoned, heavily guarded pavilion near the edge of the imperial garden, used decades ago to lock away disgraced concubines!

Just then, a small palace servant swept past her, subtly dropping a tightly folded slip of paper straight into Li Mei’s wide sleeve.

Li Mei kept her face completely calm. She finished setting the teacup down, stepped into a quiet storage closet, and unrolled the paper.

It was a urgent message from Nine:

Yueqing was kidnapped by the Empress’s shadow men. Find out where she is being held inside the palace immediately.

Li Mei’s breath caught in her throat. Her face went pale as paper.

Yueqing had been captured!

Li Mei closed her eyes, forcing her racing heart to slow down. She crumpled the note, threw it into the burning tea stove, and watched it turn to ash.

[The western old courtyard...] Li Mei realized, her eyes sharpening with deep resolve. [She must be locked in the western old courtyard!]

Li Mei quickly picked up her tea tray, adjusting her silk collar. She couldn’t rush in blindly, but she knew the palace layout better than anyone. She had to find a way to get a message to Yueqing and let Nine know her exact location before the Empress decided to harm her.