Chapter 810: Panic

Upon hearing that chilling shriek, the entire camp instantly erupted. Believing they were under attack, everyone immediately grabbed their weapons and rushed out.

Beside the tent, Bi Linglong and Zu An were also jolted awake. Bi Linglong realized she had spent the entire night sleeping against Zu An, and her pretty face instantly flushed red like an apple.

However, as the Crown Princess, she was not as easily flustered as an ordinary young girl. She quickly focused on the matter at hand, stood up, and looked towards the direction of the sound.

Unfortunately, sleeping in that position all night had affected her circulation, and standing up too quickly made her dizzy for a moment. Her legs gave way, and she was about to fall to the ground.

Zu An quickly supported her. He couldn't help but notice how soft she felt.

He quickly composed himself and said, "The sound seems to be coming from outside the camp."

At that moment, Pu Duandiao rushed over to report, "Crown Princess, a dead body has been found outside the camp. It appears to be Bi Chang."

His gaze fell upon Zu An's hand supporting Bi Linglong's waist, and his scalp tingled slightly. What was going on with the Crown Princess? She didn't seem to resist at all.

The Crown Prince was still in the adjacent tent. Just because he was foolish, did it mean she could openly betray him like this?

However, he didn't have much affection for the Crown Prince. These guards privately preferred the beautiful and noble Crown Princess, believing her marriage to the Crown Prince was like a beautiful flower stuck in cow dung.

Yet, no matter how much of a "cow dung," he was still the Crown Prince. Didn't the Crown Princess know the consequences of such actions?

Forget it. There were too many sordid affairs within the royal family; this was nothing new. It was best to pretend he hadn't seen anything.

He and Jiao Sigun had analyzed yesterday that, whether due to Zu An's relationship or their own interests, pretending not to see anything was the best course of action.

Otherwise, if they exposed it, they could easily be silenced by the Crown Princess or the Bi family. Even if those two were dealt with, the Emperor might still execute them, the witnesses, to preserve the royal family's reputation.

Ultimately, they were minor figures, unable to control their own destinies. Therefore, it was best to avoid getting involved.

Bi Linglong quickly shifted away, subtly pulling free from Zu An's hand. But upon hearing the name, her face instantly turned pale. "What!" she exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" Zu An asked, curious. The name sounded like someone from the Bi family. Was it a relative of hers?

Bi Linglong's expression was grim. "Bi Chang was the person I sent back to the secret realm entrance yesterday to deliver the message!"

Zu An was also moved by this. The person sent to deliver the message was dead?

Even stranger was that he had been heading back, while the main group was moving forward. They were going in completely opposite directions, so why was he dead ahead of them?

Bi Linglong clearly realized this too, and a chill ran down her spine.

A group of people quickly arrived at the scene. Zhao Xi and others were already gathered there. Seeing Bi Linglong and Zu An approach, they all bowed. "Greetings, Crown Princess."

As for Zu An, they automatically ignored him.

Zu An quietly observed the body suspended in mid-air. It looked somewhat familiar; indeed, it was the man who had been sent back to deliver the message yesterday.

The man was impaled on a tree branch, his face contorted, eyes bulging, and blood-tears streaming down. Combined with his pale complexion, he looked like a vengeful ghost, akin to something from a horror movie. No wonder the person who found him had let out such a bloodcurdling scream.

"Who killed him?!" Liu Xian's voice trembled slightly, and he instinctively shrank behind his cousin, Gao Ying.

Meng Pan lightly tapped his foot, agilely leaping onto the branch. After examining the body, he said in a deep voice, "Judging by the wound on his chest and the color of the blood, this isn't the crime scene. He was killed elsewhere and then impaled here."

Watching him calmly examine the corpse, Zu An was secretly surprised. These aristocratic young masters weren't all useless; no wonder they were chosen by their families for such an important mission. Each of them had a specialized skill.

"What concerns me more is why his body is here. He was heading in the opposite direction yesterday, so he shouldn't possibly be ahead of us," Zhao Xi voiced the same question that Zu An and the others had just pondered.

"Could it be a ghost wall? He might have thought he was going out but actually lost his way?" Pei You speculated.

"Impossible," the Gu brothers said in unison. "He was a scout carefully chosen by the Bi family. His cultivation might not have been the highest, but his reconnaissance experience was extensive. Someone who survived countless battlefields wouldn't get lost."

"Exactly. We haven't encountered any maze-like terrain along the way," Zhao Xi nodded.

"Then could it be some fierce beast? I've heard of a 'Butcher Bird' that likes to impale its prey on branches like this," Liu Xian suggested. Although his cultivation was average, he had read many miscellaneous books.

Meng Pan shook his head. "Impossible. If it were a Butcher Bird, there would be puncture marks from claws or pecking marks from a sharp beak on his body. While he has many wounds, none are consistent with those. Furthermore, I noticed he doesn't seem to have any fatal injuries."

"No fatal injuries? Then how did he die?"

"Could it be a ghost?"

The group instantly cried out, a chill running down their spines.

At this moment, Zu An's voice rang out. "It's not that there's no fatal injury; it's just that his fatal injury was concealed. He was likely killed by a direct shock to his heart meridian. The impalement on the branch was intended to hide the damage to his heart meridian in his chest; the other wounds are just a distraction."

Having been an Embroidered Uniform Emissary for so long, he possessed this basic deductive ability.

Meng Pan was startled and quickly re-examined the body. "You're right, his heart meridian is severely damaged. It appears he was killed with a single blow."

The others, who had begun to feel that Zu An wasn't as useless as he previously seemed, were all shocked by this statement. "Killed with a single blow?"

Bi Linglong stated grimly, "Bi Chang was a fifth-rank cultivator, vigilant, and skilled in concealment and self-preservation. To kill him with a single blow, the assailant's cultivation must be at least one major realm higher than his."

Because the messenger was crucial, she had specifically chosen Bi Chang yesterday, never expecting such an outcome.

"Huh?" Hearing the Crown Princess's analysis, everyone's expressions turned extremely strange. There were only a few people in this group whose cultivation exceeded the sixth rank, implying the killer must be among them.

Bi Linglong keenly sensed the shift in the atmosphere and continued, "There's no need to jump to conclusions. The killer is likely an outsider."

"But according to our intelligence, there are no indigenous inhabitants in this secret realm. And with Master Bi and the others monitoring, it's impossible for anyone else to get in," Zhao Xi said, showing a surprising attention to detail.

Bi Linglong stated, "Before we have evidence, let's not be suspicious of each other and risk internal conflict."

Pei You asked, "Should we send someone back now to report our situation here? I have a bad feeling about this."

Bi Linglong looked at him deeply, then turned to Zu An. "Master Zu, what do you think?"

Zu An understood the meaning in her gaze. She had always been somewhat suspicious of the Pei family's motives, having mentioned several times last night during their conversation that he should be wary of Pei You. He replied, "The assailant deliberately created this terrifying and bizarre state for the body to instill panic in us. Given the current situation, either our main group turns back, which means the mission fails, or we continue sending scouts back to deliver messages, which would be a piecemeal approach, allowing the hidden individual to pick us off one by one and gradually deplete our strength."

"But what if we don't send the message out? If something happens to us here in the end, no one outside will know the specifics," Pei You said with a frown.

Zu An replied, "Don't worry. The fact that the assailant deliberately chose this method of creating panic to divide us proves that their strength is not yet sufficient to confront us directly. That's why they resorted to such a devious tactic. We just need to be more careful from now on."

Hearing his analysis, the commotion among the crowd gradually subsided.

The group continued their journey, but today, everyone's spirits were lower than yesterday, and their faces were grave.

Fortunately, nothing happened for the next two days, and everyone gradually relaxed.

However, Zu An's expression grew serious because they had now entered the deep mountains and were getting closer to the red danger zones on the map.

So, he began to alter their route, trying to bypass those red areas as much as possible.

But because of the detours, a journey that would have taken half a day by direct route would now take two or three days. These young masters could hardly endure such hardship.

They complained incessantly, and many even went to the Crown Prince and Crown Princess to lodge complaints.

The outspoken Zhao Xi expressed his dissatisfaction: "Crown Princess, isn't Zu An overreacting?"

"Exactly," Gu Xing added, "He keeps saying it's dangerous here, but where have we encountered any danger along the way?"

"If we keep going around in circles like this, when will we ever find the Heavens Measuring Jadeite Dragon, and when will we complete the mission?" Meng Pan grumbled.

"Ah, I really miss the soft comforts of the capital. Sleeping in a tent every day, my back is aching," Liu Xian said, rubbing his shoulder.

"Alright, everyone, we must trust Master Zu. It's precisely because he's guiding us that we haven't encountered any dangers," Bi Linglong tried her best to calm everyone down.

However, things soon changed, as several scouts who had gone ahead to reconnoiter disappeared!