Legendary Son-in-Law: The Man with Poison Talismans

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When Prince An saw the stone gate tremble slightly, his feelings were extremely complicated.

He had been locked in this secret room for who knows how long, barely holding on with his cultivation. Now even breathing was difficult for him, and he could only estimate the time by counting the muffled sounds of water rippling above his head while leaning against the wall.

He wasn't sure why the stone door, which had been silent for so long, had suddenly started moving.

Was it Gu Changfeng finally having a change of heart and letting him go, or was it Qingyi, or something else entirely?

He stared at the opening that was slowly opening, his heart pounding like a drum, but his face remained tense, and he even suppressed his breathing.

He remembered what happened that day.

That day, he, the princess, and Commander Lu Tan were discussing the various rumors circulating among the people, thinking about how to tell His Majesty.

At this moment, Gu Changfeng ran over to him in a very urgent manner, saying that he had caught a suspicious person outside the mansion. The person was very arrogant and called himself "Zhanlang". His words and actions were strange and he said that he came from "Wolong Manor".

Gu Changfeng said he was afraid that releasing the person would cause trouble, so he temporarily locked him in a secret room. However, he was also worried that the person's identity was unusual, and he was unsure of what to do. He wanted his father to identify the person himself.

Prince An frowned as soon as he heard the words "Wolong Manor".

That was a hidden place recorded in ancient books, which has been lost for many years. How could someone suddenly claim to have come from there?

He thought it over and realized that this was no small matter, so he said to Gu Changfeng, "Guests from afar, how can we lock them in a secret room?"

He turned around and led the princess and Lu Tan toward the secret chamber. The princess echoed his sentiment, saying that they should indeed not be neglected.

But when he led his men through the secret passage, pushed open the stone door, and entered the secret room that was supposed to be where people were imprisoned, he found it to be empty, with no "Slaying Waves" at all.

He was about to turn around and ask Gu Changfeng what was going on when he heard a heavy thud as the stone door closed behind him. When he turned around, the door was already shut tightly, without even a crack.

Prince An immediately realized that he had been tricked.

Gu Changfeng didn't catch anyone at all. The "Wolong Manor" and "Zhanlang" were all fabricated pretexts to trick him into bringing the princess and Lu Tan into this secret room, and then seal them inside forever.

Ironically, this secret room was built using the same materials as the Soul Locking Cudgel.

The four stone walls would seal off cultivation and suppress power. Even though he and Lu Tan were both powerful figures, they were trapped in this small space and could not display much of their abilities. All their collisions and struggles were completely eliminated by the stone walls that could absorb their power.

Prince An tried pushing the door with the help of three people, but the door did not budge.

He quickly stopped, realizing his efforts were in vain.

This secret room was designed by him personally. The door inside is heavier and more securely locked than the one in the study outside, and it can only be opened from the outside.

Even more critically, the restrictions within the secret chamber also sealed off all means of teleportation.

In other words, unless someone opens the door from the outside, the three of them will never be able to get out on their own in this lifetime.

They struggled to survive by relying on the supplies in their respective storage bags, but those supplies had long since been exhausted.

Now, that stone door, which was supposed to be unshakeable from the inside, was being pushed open from the outside.

Prince An stared intently at the light streaming through the crack in the door, as if trying to confirm that it wasn't a hallucination caused by his hunger.

The crack was widening little by little, and the dim firelight seeped in from outside, illuminating his chapped lips and sunken eye sockets, causing him to squint involuntarily. A chaotic mix of emotions surged within him.

His first thought was of Gu Changfeng. Could it be that he came in?

That good-for-nothing son, that bastard who locked him in this secret room.

He was furious, so furious that he didn't even feel the pain as his nails dug into his palms; so furious that he wanted to rush up and grab Gu Changfeng by the collar and ask, "Are you really my son?"

He was heartbroken, heartbroken that the child he had raised would go to such lengths for power.

Then came the worry. Perhaps it was about Gu Qingyi, wondering how she had been doing lately.

He was thinking about the official business he hadn't finished, the things he hadn't explained to Gu Qingyi, and the things he had plenty of time to do. Now, all of them were stuck behind this stone door, and he couldn't get out.

However, the person who came in was a stranger.

Prince An squinted at the blurry outline at the door for a long while before finally recalling a vague impression from the depths of his memory.

No, he had seen this person before, though he had only seen his portrait once or twice in those tabloids that were based on hearsay.

That was the son-in-law Qingyi had her eye on, the seemingly ordinary but highly accomplished man featured in the tabloids.

Prince An hadn't expected to see him here, under these circumstances. The tension in his heart didn't ease; instead, it tightened even more.

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Lin Mu stepped across the threshold, holding a torch in front of him to illuminate the scene inside the secret room.

Three figures were scattered in the corner. Two of them had already fallen to the ground against the wall, unconscious, covered in a layer of dust, as if they hadn't moved for a long time.

There was another person leaning against the wall, struggling to look up at him with chapped lips and sunken eyes, as if he had used all his strength to barely keep his eyelids open.

Seeing the robe whose color was no longer discernible and the remaining patterns on the belt, Lin Mu had a general idea of ​​what was going on.

Without asking any further questions, he squatted down, took out water and dry rations from his storage bag, and carefully fed a few mouthfuls to the person leaning against the wall.

The man choked at first, then seemed to be awakened by some instinct by the saliva, swallowed hard, and took a few more sips before he could breathe normally. His lips were no longer so chapped, and his eyes became slightly more focused.

Chapter 320 The Strange Tide of Sand City

Lin Mu then fed some water to the other two people, and only after their breathing had stabilized did he straighten up and look around the secret room.

These must be Qingyi's father and mother.

There was also a man with a full beard, presumably Lu Tan, the missing commander of Mengzhong.

He summoned the divine beast, the skeleton, and the moon spirit, instructing the three of them to work together to move Prince An, the princess, and Lu Tan outside.

The divine beast arched its body to lift one person, the skeleton carried another, Yue Ling led the way, and Lin Mu supported Prince An as they walked out step by step.

Although the secret room was safe, it was obviously too safe. The feeling of the stone wall sucking away one's strength was too uncomfortable. Lin Mu felt heavy all over as soon as he stayed there for a moment longer.

Once in the study on the ground floor, Lin Mu settled the three of them in relatively clean chairs and gave them some water. After Prince An recovered somewhat and the other two woke up one after another, he sat down and recounted everything that had happened during this period.

From Gu Changfeng's usurpation of the throne, how he and Gu Qingyi escaped from Mengzhong, to the great calamity, the rampage of monsters, the siege of Bichon, to the Empress leading the defense of the city, his joint effort with the Empress to kill the Crimson Moon Demon, and finally to his solo teleportation back to Mengzhong to investigate the situation.

He spoke concisely, without any embellishment, but every sentence sent chills down one's spine.

Prince An sat in his chair, his hand holding the water glass never lowered, his knuckles turning slightly white. His gaze was fixed on the ground, as if he were processing the information, or perhaps piecing those words back together with the world in his memory.

Those things he thought were still there, familiar and stable, had all been dismantled during the time he was locked in the secret room. The reassembled shapes no longer matched his memory, and he needed some time to reclassify those fragments.

The princess leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, her face still bearing the traces of weariness, but her breathing was much more steady than before, as if those words, though heavy, were at least a little better than the chaotic thoughts in the darkness.

Lu Tan sat in the corner with his arms crossed, listening silently without interrupting. He would only occasionally glance in Lin Mu's direction, as if trying to verify the truth of what he was saying.

Prince An placed the water glass on his lap, looked up at Lin Mu, his voice still a little hoarse, but steadyer than before: "...Qingyi, is she alright?"

Lin Mu nodded: "She's fine. She's leading people from Bichon this way, preparing to attack Shabak..."

As he spoke, he took out all the dry food and water he had bought a long time ago, which he had always complained about not finishing, from his Qiankun bag and stacked them in a row on the table.

He actually harbored some resentment. If Prince An hadn't summoned Gu Qingyi back and placed her under house arrest, he wouldn't have had to take such a huge risk to rescue her, and perhaps things wouldn't have turned out this way.

He glanced at the faces of Prince An and his wife, whose cheekbones were so thin they protruded, and said nothing, simply pushing the stack of dry rations toward them.

Prince An and his two companions were already starving. When they saw the row of dry rations on the table, they didn't care whether they tasted good or not. They picked them up and started gnawing on them, chewing quickly and forcefully, as if they wanted to make up for all the food they had missed during this period.

The princess also took a piece, and although she was a little slower than Prince An, she ate it just as earnestly.

Lin Mu didn't look at it for long. He left the divine beast squatting at the door and the moon spirit hanging by the window to guard the study door, telling them to recover their cultivation here first and not to rush out. Then he turned around and prepared to leave.

As he reached the door, Prince An's voice came from behind him, lower than before, but without the probing and suspicion: "Take good care of Qingyi."

The sound wasn't loud, but it was clear enough in the quiet study, like a stone finally falling to the ground from a great height, no longer hanging in mid-air.

Lin Mu glanced back at him, didn't say anything, just nodded, and then turned and left the palace.

He mounted his horse and spurred it out of the city, heading towards Shabak along the old, worn-out road in the Gobi Desert. The wind blew from the side, carrying the scent of sand and dry grass stems, and the horse's hooves made a soft, rapid sound as it trod on the gravel and hard earth.

After leaving Tucheng, the scenery along the way was more desolate than I had imagined.

Mengzhong was originally a desert, and now, ravaged by the great calamity, it is even more desolate. The wind whips up sand and gravel that stings the face.

Scattered along the road were items discarded by people fleeing the disaster.

An overturned cart frame, tattered rags, a few broken pottery jars, and skeletons half-buried by wind and sand.

Some of the skeletons were still curled up, as if they were desperately trying to avoid something before they died, their fingers still clutching half of a bundle's strap, the other end of which had rotted away and was now just a few loose threads.

As Lin Mu spurred his horse past the wreckage, he didn't look at it much, but simply gripped the reins tightly.

However, we didn't see any monster corpses along the way, because the rules of this world would devour the dead monsters completely, leaving no trace.

As they approached Shabak, Lin Mu could see the broken gaps and charred marks on the city wall from afar.

There were still many monsters surrounding the city, a dark mass, mostly Zuma-type monsters.

They were packed tightly together on the open ground outside the city walls, fighting fiercely.

Shabak's walls were much thicker than those of Tu City, but they were still damaged in several places, with dark burn marks and cracks covering the surface, clearly having withstood more than one wave of attacks.

Lin Mu reined in his horse, intending to find a high vantage point to observe the situation, when he suddenly heard the sound of hooves behind him.

He turned around and saw a familiar figure riding towards him from afar.

Liu Qingshuang.

She looked travel-worn, as if she had traveled a long way.

She reined in her horse and approached Lin Mu, her voice slightly breathless from the journey: "His Majesty was worried and sent me to meet you, saying that the situation in Mengzhong was unclear and he was afraid you wouldn't be able to handle it all by yourself."

Lin Mu glanced at her, said nothing, just nodded, and turned his gaze back to the city surrounded by monsters in front of him, silently calculating how to get closer next.

Just then, Lin Mu's gaze was suddenly drawn to a particularly conspicuous figure among the monsters.

It was a colossal monster with a goat's head and a human body, its entire body covered in rough, bronze-colored skin and flesh, its muscles bulging and bulging like iron ingots hammered into its skeleton, its shoulders and chest covered with dark, ancient patterns, like marks left during a sacrifice.

It has a pair of backward-curving, jet-black horns on its head, with a hideous metal mask attached to the base of the horns. Only a pair of eyes burning with a dark red, fierce light and a gaping maw with bared fangs are visible. The fangs are interlocked and protruding, as if they have just been pulled from a pile of flesh and blood.

Chapter 321 What to Eat Tomorrow

Each shoulder was covered with a spiked black iron shoulder guard, and the wrists and ankles were bound with iron rings covered with barbs. A dark red battle skirt, faded from washing, was wrapped around the waist. The feet were bare, and the toes were sharp and curved like animal claws, with dried dark marks embedded in the nail crevices.

Liu Qingshuang followed his gaze, her expression darkening. She lowered her voice and said, "Master Zuma. It's much bigger than the one we've seen before."

Lin Mu didn't reply, but just stared at the bronze-colored figure for a long time.

He discovered that the thing did not rush towards the city wall like the other monsters, but instead remained standing behind the monster horde, like an altar standing in the center of the battlefield.