Chapter 64 Seduction

Li Quanan led Prince Chang back to the chamber where the gold, silver, and jewels were stored. True enough, there were no signs of anything having been moved or disturbed on the ground, nor were there any fresh footprints of anyone walking about.

Prince Chang was utterly baffled. "These items have truly vanished into thin air without leaving a single trace. How bizarre is this!"

"How on earth did they pull this off?"

Rack his brain as he might, Prince Chang simply could not figure it out.

Unable to find an answer, he had to set the matter aside for the moment; his most urgent task now was to recapture the escapees.

In the end, Prince Chang had no choice but to lead his guards out of the cave once more, dispatching them to search the surrounding area in all directions.

Yet, despite searching until nightfall, they found absolutely nothing.

Not a single suspicious clue could be found.

Exhausted to the bone, Prince Chang finally found a flat rock and sat down to rest.

The longer the time dragged on, the worse his mood became.

His complexion was alarmingly dark, and his deep-set eyes radiated an endless aura of murderous intent and suppressed fury, with nowhere to vent it.

The guards trailing him did not even dare to breathe heavily, terrified of provoking this tyrannical prince and bringing down a fatal calamity upon themselves. Every single one of them walked on eggshells.

At last, his personal bodyguard could not help but ask, "Your Highness, if you do not return to the imperial encampment tonight, His Majesty will surely ask questions. We must have some sort of excuse ready!"

Prince Chang pondered for a moment before speaking, "Send someone back to the Emperor with some game we hunted. Tell him that I am pursuing a ferocious tiger tonight and will not be returning to the camp for the time being, so he need not worry."

"Also, send someone to my mother and the Prince Duan to report that we are safe. Brief my elder brother on the search results, ask if there is any news on his end, and relay it back to me."

"Understood, Your Highness!"

The two guards acknowledged the order and departed.

Prince Chang raised his head, gazing at the deepening twilight, and his heart grew heavier still.

Earlier in the afternoon, Prince Duan had sent him a message. Through their planted informants, it had been preliminarily confirmed that neither the Emperor nor the Crown Prince showed any abnormalities, and there was no sign of Wei Zixing's whereabouts.

At that time, he had let out a heavy sigh of relief, feeling that the heavens were still favoring them.

Wei Zixing had not yet completely slipped out of their grasp.

Yet, scouring the entire hunting grounds over the course of half a day without yielding a single clue filled him with a sense of frustration.

With his pent-up anger having nowhere to release, he ultimately ordered his remaining guards, "Execute the two men responsible for guarding the cave and delivering the meals. Unless I kill them, it will be hard to appease the hatred in my heart."

After resting for an hour and eating some dry rations, Prince Chang led his men to continue the search under the cover of night.

***

Meanwhile, Lin Chuyan and her two personal maids were locked away alone in a crude, dingy cell.

The dungeon was dark and damp, filled with a sharp, suffocating smell of mold that hung heavy in the air.

In the cell directly opposite, several prisoners were crammed together.

Those men were dressed in rags, gaunt and emaciated, with disheveled hair and beards, looking utterly unkempt and slovenly.

Upon seeing the three exceptionally pretty and delicate young ladies locked in the cell across from them, the male prisoners' eyes gleamed with a greedy, feral light, and they almost drooled.

Especially the beauty among the three—delicate, fragrant, and breathtakingly charming—an unforgettable sight that left an indelible impression upon them.

The men's eyes revealed a terrifying and obscene lust, resembling starved beasts catching sight of long-craved prey, making no effort to conceal their hunger and thirst.

Some stuck out their tongues, smacked their lips, stretched their hands out through the cell bars toward them, and hooted incessantly.

With leering grins, they stared fixedly at their prey across the way, refusing to give up.

Terrified to the point of tears, Lin Chuyan had never witnessed such a scene before.

When had she ever suffered such humiliation?

She cowered in the corner furthest from the opposite cell, shrinking into a ball at the sight of those wolfish gazes. Covering her face with both hands, she wept uncontrollably, not even daring to raise her head.

She ordered her two personal maids to stand in front of her to block the sickening gazes from across the hall.

Yet the men opposite refused to let her go, continuing to hurl foul and obscene language at her.

"I heard this little beauty is the foremost belle of the capital, and she truly lives up to her reputation. That face, that chest, that figure—just one look makes my whole body burn."

"If I could touch that smooth, porcelain-white skin of the little beauty, I'd feel it was worth dying on the spot!"

"What's the fun in just touching? At the very least, spend a night with her; the bare minimum is to get a kiss."

...

Not only were those men spouting vulgarities, but they also shouted without pause, "Little beauty, raise your head and let your big brother take a good look..."

"Little beauty, I fell for you at first sight. I adore you..."

"Little beauty, oh little beauty..."

...

Frightened out of her wits, Lin Chuyan curled into an even tighter ball as her tears fell endlessly.

She felt on the verge of madness, unwilling to stay in this place for even another quarter of an hour.

She had to find a way out.

Earlier that afternoon, she had bribed the jailers through her maid to send a message and plea for help to her parents and Prince Chang.

Aside from her parents managing to smuggle in some silver and a letter via the jailers, there was not a single scrap of news from Prince Chang—not even a single word.

This caused her heart to sink heavily.

Had he not promised to help her?

Could it be that he was merely toying with her and passing the time?

Yet Prince Chang's usual, unreserved displays of affection toward her did not seem fake.

What on earth was going on?

She had no way of knowing that the irritable and anxious Prince Chang was currently scouring the dense forest, having long since cast her to the back of his mind.

Lin Chuyan could not make sense of the situation, but her sorrow and disappointment were entirely real.

Her mother had told her in the letter that they were figuring out a way to rescue her, instructing her to use silver to buy off the jailers so as to avoid harassment and to make sure she protected herself.

Terrified of meeting a grim fate in prison, Lin Chuyan took the silver and, before it was even warm in her hands, generously gave two hundred taels of it to the guards.

"Thank you both elder brothers for your trouble. Please take this silver to buy yourselves some fine dishes and wine!"

Upon receiving the silver, the two jailers beamed with smiles, their attitudes turning even more deferential. "Third Miss Lin, whenever you need anything done in the future, just give the word. We brothers will certainly spare no effort, even if it means going through fire and water."

Lin Chuyan gave them a charming, captivating smile, which utterly bewitched the two men.

They had to stay on good terms with the jailers; otherwise, as three weak women, if the guards played even the slightest trick on them, their end would be unimaginably miserable, and sooner or later, their chastity would be stolen by those filthy beggars.

As a once-glorious noblewoman of the capital, once her purity was lost, she might as well be dead.

With still no word from Prince Chang, Lin Chuyan knew she could not simply sit and wait for death; she had to think of another way.

At that moment, she thought of Prince Gong; perhaps he could become her straw in the wind.