Scheming Emperor X Hunting Eunuch - Chapter 6.1

When Pei Yanci regained consciousness, everything before his eyes was pitch black.

He tried to raise his hand, only to discover that both hands were bound behind his back, and his ankles were also tied. He struggled to turn his numb body, and his knee suddenly hit a wooden board.

He was in a cramped space.

Outside, the faint sound of horse hooves could be heard, though not very clearly.

After groping around in the darkness for a while, he gained some understanding of his current predicament.

He was in a place similar to a coffin, surrounded by wooden boards on all six sides, as if trapped in a long, narrow crevice. Through the gaps between the boards, he could smell the scent of vegetable leaves.

Every few days, the manor outside the city would send fresh vegetables to the Crown Prince’s Mansion, departing before the city gates closed.

Pei Yanci listened carefully. They were now traveling through mountain forests, and he didn’t know how much time had passed since he was knocked unconscious.

There was someone beside him, with a warm body and a stout build.

It was Wuli.

“Ugh…Oh my god, I’ve gone blind!” As soon as he moved, he bumped his head.

“You’re not blind, we’re being held captive,” Pei Yanci said quietly.

“Why am I being held?” Wuli wasn’t stupid either. This situation was clearly bad, so he also lowered his voice considerably.

“How would I know?”

“Did you offend His Highness the Crown Prince?” Wuli recalled that before losing consciousness, he had seen Zhang Huairu, and said irritably, “You offended someone, so why did you drag me into this too?”

“Does His Highness need a reason to kill you? Ask the Elu Bureau – when they killed Fei Yuan, did they ask for a reason?”

Wuli fell silent reluctantly.

After a long while, he said, “His Highness isn’t that kind of person.”

“Then how are we here?”

“It’s all because you offended His Highness. I’m the poor one who got implicated – it’s all your fault.”

“If His Highness is the good person you think he is, how could he implicate an innocent person like you?” Pei Yanci asked in return.

Wuli fell silent again.

“You being here is all His Highness the Crown Prince’s handiwork,” Pei Yanci said. “Or perhaps you also did something to offend His Highness, but you don’t know it yourself.”

“I didn’t. His Highness must have been deceived by his subordinates.” Wuli said with determined conviction, as if trying to bolster his own courage. “It must be Zhang Huairu acting behind his back against us.”

He choked up and asked unwillingly, “Are we going to die?”

He no longer cared who was harming him – he just wanted to know if he could still live to see tomorrow’s sun.

“I don’t know either,” Pei Yanci sighed.

Since ancient times, human hearts have been difficult to fathom, especially those who have long been involved in politics.

These past two days, Wuli and the others had praised Gu Jiuqing’s benevolent heart without exception. When he had just borrowed this corpse for his soul, that group of servants had been disloyal to the Crown Prince. At first glance, it seemed this Crown Prince was weak, incompetent, and easy to manipulate – he couldn’t even control the servants in his own mansion.

After today’s encounter, this person wasn’t benevolent – he was cold.

Because of his coldness, these lowly servants and menial workers were too distant from him, which made his benevolence apparent.

Just like how Zhang Huairu treated him.

In just a few words, what Gu Jiuqing revealed was indifference toward Pei Yanci’s life and death.

The lofty Crown Prince could not possibly have any emotional response to the life or death of a slave servant.

Even though Pei Yanci was eloquent, even though he saw the hesitation and calculation flash in Gu Jiuqing’s eyes.

But ultimately, compared to protecting him, His Highness the Crown Prince still firmly stuck to his own plan.

To use Pei Yanci’s amnesia to bite back at the Elu Bureau.

If he couldn’t withstand the Elu Bureau’s torture instruments and confessed things unfavorable to the Crown Prince, then Gu Jiuqing could use his amnesia to make a big fuss, exposing the Elu Bureau’s cruel practices and despicable forced confessions.

At this moment, Gu Jiuqing appeared to be in grave danger, pressed step by step by the Elu Bureau, but as long as he sent out an insignificant servant from the mansion, he could achieve great victory from this situation, maintaining his pitiful image of being persecuted by the Elu Bureau in everyone’s impression.

Especially in the current Emperor’s impression.

If positions were reversed, Pei Yanci would do the same thing, and the other party wouldn’t even have a chance to meet him.

But now he was in a subordinate position. Earlier, Steward Zhao had found an excuse to send him out of the mansion. As soon as he left the mansion gates, without even thinking, he knew what awaited him would be the Elu Bureau’s torture.

The only way out was to find a path through Gu Jiuqing.

He had failed.

This was an undeniable fact.

From the moment Gu Jiuqing finished speaking his last word, he understood.

Even with the hesitation in between, from beginning to end, Gu Jiuqing looked at him as nothing more than an insignificant chess piece.

In his heart, he wasn’t worth any extra thought.

And this chess piece of his shouldn’t have thoughts of worrying about his own life.

Once he had his own ideas, look – suddenly his life and death became uncertain.

In the darkness, a rare flash of anger crossed Pei Yanci’s eyes.

And desolation.

At this moment, his hands and feet were ice-cold. He didn’t know if it was because he’d been bound too long, or because this unexpected rebirth was about to meet life’s end.

The carriage stopped at some unknown time, and the wooden board in front opened. Four figures stood solemnly beside it.

The leader gestured with his eyes to the two men beside him, who worked together to drag the stout Wuli from the compartment beneath the carriage.

When the carriage stopped, he had received Pei Yanci’s repeated instructions to first pretend to be unconscious, then act according to circumstances. Now as his body hit the ground, the broken stones on the riverbank embedded into his flesh, but he could only grit his teeth and endure silently.

“Both still unconscious?” The leader’s voice was hoarse and somewhat difficult to understand. Looking carefully, there was a faint scar on his neck.

After pulling Wuli down, Pei Yanci was also dragged out and thrown to the ground.

Feeling a finger near his nose, Wuli endured the severe pain and tried hard to slow his breathing.

“Brother Hai, that’s right, they’re still asleep,” someone confirmed after checking multiple times.

Several quiet voices spoke around them.

The roaring sound of the river came rushing with the wild hunting wind, accompanied by the misty night rain. Pei Yanci opened his eyes a crack and barely made out their faces.

They were guards from the Crown Prince’s Mansion.

“Brother Hai, it’s getting late. Let’s finish this quickly – His Highness is still waiting for news.”

“Bad luck. No matter how unruly we were before, we never laid hands on our own people.”

“Even you, Northern Hero Shadowmad Hand, have such cowardly moments.”

….

Wuli’s face gradually turned ashen.

Earlier when Pei Yanci told him, he didn’t believe it. Now hearing those people’s words, he finally believed completely.

It was His Highness who wanted his life.

In the forest, shadows flickered eerily under the pale moonlight.

Wuli felt his shoulders and legs being grabbed. The next moment, his whole body was lifted into the air. Not understanding what was about to happen, his body suddenly experienced a sensation of weightlessness.

“Ah!”

He opened his eyes in terror, instinctively wanting to struggle a few times, but his hands and feet were already bound. He could only watch helplessly as the people on the embankment grew farther and farther away.

“They’re awake!” Brother Hai shouted. “Stab the other one to death before throwing the body.”

Several people turned to look, only to see that Pei Yanci, who had been lying unconscious on the ground, had already rolled to the edge of the embankment. He pushed off with his feet and leaped into the river.

They hadn’t expected someone to actively jump into the river themselves. By the time they reacted, they had missed their chance.

“What do we do? They won’t swim ashore alive, will they?”

Wuli struggled a few times, but with his hands and feet bound, even if he could swim, he couldn’t use his abilities. Soon his body began sinking into the water.

The rising river surface showed only faint ripples stirred by the wind, with no extra splashes for a long while.

The four figures climbed back onto the carriage with relief and gradually departed.

In the river.

The moment he touched the water’s surface, Pei Yanci’s entire body was struck by intense, severe pain.

The embankment wasn’t high – about three zhang above the water surface. After falling from height, his bones and muscles were compressed by the force of the water, causing pain so intense he wished he could die on the spot.

After his entire body was submerged, water flooded his ears and nose. When he opened his mouth, even more water rushed into his throat and lungs.

The burning sensation, the feeling of water invading and occupying his five senses, was so unbearable he nearly lost his reason, leaving only the instinct to survive.

But with his hands and feet bound, all his struggling only accelerated his body’s descent.

Fortunately, his consciousness was only dazed for a moment. From Pei Yanci’s sleeve slid out Fei Yuan’s carving knife. It was better to keep this thing in his own hands rather than leave it with Wuli.

Thankfully, it was now proving useful.

Holding his breath, he struggled to use the carving knife to cut the rope. But the rope was too sturdy, the carving knife wasn’t as sharp as a dagger, and with the awkward position making it hard to apply force, he couldn’t cut through it.

His heart and lungs began burning with fierce pain from lack of air.

Bubbles involuntarily escaped from his mouth.

The panic of suffocation was so intense – so intense that every inch of blood in his body seemed to boil, burning with fierce pain.

Even his final moments on the dragon bed hadn’t been this unbearable. Then, he had only coughed a few times, closed and opened his eyes, and his body had become like this.

Whether it was the pain of near-death or something else, in that stream of bubbles, he saw almost forgotten memories.