Can a System Have Bad Intentions? - Chapter 182

【Help me, help me, I can’t breathe, help me.】

【Punishment task is loading】

【Please save me, I’m in…】

【@#￥%……】

A garbled voice echoed through the system, mingled with two distinctly different tones.

One was the voice Lu Tang had grown accustomed to recently, while the other was cold, mocking, and scornful, reminiscent of the system she first encountered.

For a moment, Lu Tang sensed something was wrong.

The system she interacted with might not have been the same system all along.

“System, system…”

Lu Tang called out twice, but there was no response from either voice.

It seemed like someone was about to suffocate. Where exactly was this person?

Lu Tang was anxious, her limited intelligence failing to spark a sudden inspiration or an epiphany to pinpoint the location.

She held the protagonist’s position but lacked the wisdom a protagonist should possess. Her intelligence hadn’t suddenly advanced because of her transmigration.

Agh!

The Crown Prince, enraged, walked up to Gu Zongming, grabbed him by the collar, and slapped him hard across the face.

“You think we can’t find them without you? You spy dog, how dare you bark! If I don’t make you understand the consequences of barking, I’ll write my title upside down! Do you think your arrogance scares us? Let me tell you, Gu Zongming…”

The Crown Prince couldn’t stop cursing. The Crown Princess, fearing a waste of time, quickly pulled him, “Saving people is urgent, villains die from too much talking.”

The Crown Prince choked on his words, glaring at Gu Zongming, “Men, bind him and drag him to plow the fields. Stop only when the person is found.”

Lu Tang thought “plowing the fields” meant tying Gu Zongming up and humiliating him like walking a dog. However, what the Crown Prince meant was literally plowing the fields.

To her surprise, they found a farmer’s plow from somewhere. The plow was hitched to a horse, with Gu Zongming tied to the plow behind it.

An Imperial Guard sat on the horse’s back, whipping it. The horse began plowing Gu Zongming’s villa, dragging him along.

A parrot flew above Gu Zongming’s head, never stopping its babbling. The Crown Prince’s unsaid words were all uttered by the parrot.

Even so, Gu Zongming stubbornly clenched his teeth, refusing to speak.

But the system’s voice, that of the person pleading for help, sounded like they were about to suffocate.

Lu Tang was so anxious that sores formed in her mouth. Suddenly, she remembered the prince’s consort who could control insects and hurriedly tugged the Crown Princess’s sleeve, “Who can control insects? Where is she?”

“The Third Princess. Why?” The Crown Princess looked at Lu Tang.

Xu Shen, standing nearby, said, “The Third Princess is outside with the insects.”

Lu Tang urgently said, “Do we have any tracking insects that can follow a scent or consciousness?”

“We do, but we don’t have anything of Zhao Yue’s…”

It had been many years.

“I might have something. Have her give me an insect.” Lu Tang urged.

The Crown Princess was stunned, looking at Lu Tang in shock.

All the surrounding discussions fell silent for a moment. Except for Gu Zongming’s screams and the parrot’s curses, the courtyard was quiet, filled only with the sound of breathing.

Time was running out. Lu Tang had no time to explain. “No time to explain. We’ll talk about this later. I need to find the Third Princess. Even if I share one insect, it shouldn’t delay her search. Let’s treat a dead horse as if it’s still alive.”

The Crown Princess didn’t hesitate and ordered the Sixth Princess, “Take her to the Third Princess.”

Without a word, the Sixth Princess grabbed Lu Tang, wrapping an arm around her waist and leaping forward.

Xu Shen and the others followed.

The Third Princess was in the woods outside the Gu villa, setting the insects with her maids, all skilled in handling them. Seeing Lu Tang and the Sixth Princess approach and hearing their request, she immediately took out a small bamboo tube from her waist, pouring out a crystal green insect.

She pricked Lu Tang’s fingertip with a dagger, just like drawing blood at the hospital, squeezing out a few drops of blood. She placed the green insect into the blood.

Quickly, the insect turned red and burrowed into Lu Tang’s fingertip.

Once the insect entered Lu Tang’s body, the Third Princess took out another green insect and placed it on the ground.

The insect immediately started crawling swiftly.

Its reaction startled the Third Princess, “Oh, it seems to know where to go.”

Lu Tang’s heart pounded, her clenched fists were sweaty.

Xu Shen and Liang Cheng surrounded her protectively.

Seeing her friends, Lu Tang forced herself to stay calm. If the voice in her head was really related to Zhao Yue, based on her desperate plea, she had a strong will to live.

Right now, Lu Tang feared most that this will would be extinguished.

As long as she was alive, she would maintain her will to survive.

Following the crawling insect, the group continued forward.

Eventually, they returned to the Gu villa, to the very place where the earlier fight had occurred.

The insect crawled straight into the flowerbed.

Lu Tang was stunned.

Hadn’t this place been searched already?

The insect stopped moving in the flowerbed.

Was it because the person’s will had entirely dissipated, or…

Seeing the already overturned flowerbed, everyone’s faces looked grim, as if visiting a grave.

The Third Princess nudged the insect, trying to get it to move, but it remained still.

She turned to the Crown Princess, “Either it’s here, or we’ve lost contact.”

Lu Tang rushed over, “Dig again, dig deeper, dig it up.”

She grabbed a hoe from the ground and began digging right where the insect had stopped.