Just as Wenshu was closing in on Wang Jue, a voice suddenly echoed from behind her: “I spent so much time searching, only to find that the person you once were has long since vanished into this misty, autumnal scene of Jiangnan. Time has transformed us into strangers; memories are so terribly powerless. In the end, we have grown distant.”

Wenshu spun around sharply to see Xiaoyu approaching her, drenched in blood and clutching a sinister, black spike. Her face instantly turned ashen. She backed away toward the rock wall, glancing left at Wang Jue and right at Ming Xiaoyu. The dagger in her hand trembled uncontrollably.

The moment she considered leaping forward to take Wang Jue hostage, Wang Jue darted away with a swoosh to Xiaoyu’s side, standing tightly beside him while glaring fiercely at Wenshu. Ming Xiaoyu kept pressing forward step by step. Wenshu grew so tense that sweat poured down her face. She shuffled slowly along the rock wall, inching toward the spot where Wang Jue and Hou Dayong had just stood. When she reached the vicinity of the Treasure-Gathering Basin Wang Jue had leaned on, she suddenly swept her hand out. A dozen crystal pillars instantly shot up from the ground with a shua shua shua. Xiaoyu executed a nimble flip, leaping clear of the encirclement, and stood outside the cage formed by the crystals.

Seeing she had successfully escaped danger, the tension instantly drained from Wenshu’s expression. Just as she was about to feel smug, a flash of light blinded her. Wang Jue and Hou Dayong were standing shoulder-to-shoulder outside the ring of crystal pillars; Ming Xiaoyu was nowhere in sight. Moreover, what Hou Dayong held was not the gloomy Soul-Nailing Spike, but half a broken crystal shard. This realization threw the beauty into a panic. She yelled across the crystalline barrier, “How could you do this?”

“That’s called misdirection,” Hou Dayong remarked with a slight smile after glancing at Wang Jue. “Leaving a friend in danger is not my style.”

“How did you know that trick would work?” Wang Jue turned to ask him.

“Because you nervously reminded me of that secret just now, looking like a kindergarten student caught doing something wrong,” Hou Dayong said with a hint of dry humor.

Wang Jue looked up at the cavern ceiling. After a moment of silence, he murmured, “Are you certain she can’t open the door among these crystal pillars from the inside?”

“I don’t know, but her expression suggests she might be capable,” Hou Dayong replied. With that, the two turned and walked toward the other end of the tunnel. Wang Jue occasionally glanced back at the woman, seeing her sitting quietly behind the crystal pillars, making no move to pursue them. He felt momentarily relieved.

Having escaped the trap set by Fan Jia, Wang Jue felt a slight easing of the pressure in his heart. Although not everyone was safe yet, at least Hou Dayong and he were free to search for Xiaoyu, Xiaoshu, and Zhang Yuqiu, ensuring they wouldn't betray the hopes their friends placed in them during the crisis.

“Right, how do you think Wenshu disappeared inside that wooden cabin earlier?” Wang Jue asked, not quite satisfied with the earlier explanation.

“It’s obvious she set a trap for us to fall into. It wouldn’t be strange for her to vanish using any method,” Hou Dayong commented with a touch of melancholy.

“If it hadn't been for me, she wouldn't have been able to trick you. None of you would have been endangered,” Wang Jue admitted with some guilt.

“Don’t think that way; isn’t coming here precisely what we intended to do?” Just as Hou Dayong was consoling him, the two arrived beside a three-way fork. The two living dead who had gone out to capture them just moments before were climbing out of the pool. The tall one wrung out his sodden clothes while spitting, “I knew running into a jinx meant nothing good would come of it.”