She had long been resolute, no matter what happened, she would not turn back, "I am asking you one last time, do you want to go with me?"
Yu Rong sighed helplessly, the gentleness in her eyes completely vanished.
"Since you are so stubborn, then you cannot blame me!"
As the words fell, Yu Rong's eyes narrowed. With lightning speed, she directly grabbed Zhenzhu's wrist. With a slight exertion of force, the dagger in Zhenzhu's hand fell to the ground. Before Zhenzhu could react, that dagger was already pressed against her neck.
"You... you know martial arts..."
How had she not realized Yu Rong knew martial arts before? Ultimately, her cultivation was too shallow, and she hadn't recognized Yu Rong. Falling into Yu Rong's hands today, she accepted it.
"If people saw through me, wouldn't all my efforts to hide for so long be in vain? I kindly advised you, but you insisted on not repenting, so don't blame me for being ruthless!"
"Wait, at least let me die knowing. Who exactly are you?"
Yu Rong's identity was by no means as simple as she could imagine. Having been with her for so many years, she had never once realized Yu Rong knew martial arts, which showed how deeply she concealed herself.
"Like you, I am also a spy sent to the palace, punished and banished. Granny Sun placed me among you because she was worried someone might have ulterior motives, being disloyal to His Majesty or to Xiliang. Originally, for the sake of our living together day and night for these years, I intended to spare your life. But since you refuse to repent even unto death, then don't blame me for being heartless."
Just as Yu Rong pressed the dagger against her, a violent pain erupted from her head.
With a loud "bang," her head felt as if it had been struck by something with immense force. Before Yu Rong could see what was behind her, she was struck heavily again, and her entire body went unconscious.
After Zhenzhu saw who was behind her, the relief of escaping death had not yet subsided when she immediately became tense again.
"Why are you here?"
"If I wasn't here, you would be dead by now."
Lan Cui snorted coldly and said irritably. If she hadn't acted so quickly just now, Zhenzhu would already be a cold corpse. Instead of gratefully thanking her, she started questioning.
"Why are you standing there foolishly? Are you truly scared silly? Hurry up and lend a hand to get her into the room."
Leaving the person here was not an option. If someone passing by discovered them, they would all be implicated.
"Okay..."
Zhenzhu snapped back to reality and hurried to help. With great effort, the two of them managed to carry her inside.
"Heh... she's really quite heavy, I'm exhausted!"
Lan Cui panted heavily, not expecting Yu Rong, who looked quite thin, to be so heavy when carried, truly exhausting her.
"What about today's events... you..."
"I heard everything you said."
Lan Cui frankly admitted it. Zhenzhu, on the other hand, was startled and looked at Lan Cui with a vigilant gaze. The words on the tip of her tongue remained unspoken.
"You don't need to look at me like that. I won't reveal your business. If I really wanted to say anything, I wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to save you."
"I used to think you were pedantic, always listening to Granny Sun in everything. I never expected you could do something like this, it's truly unexpected. Given your intentions, I wouldn't betray you."
"What exactly do you want?" Zhenzhu couldn't quite discern Lan Cui's true intentions, so she asked directly.
"Are you truly foolish? Can't you see how obvious this is? I risked death to save you, which shows I want to live with you."
Lan Cui was exasperated by Zhenzhu's intelligence at this moment. She used to think Zhenzhu was quite shrewd, but at this critical juncture, she became muddled. Her intentions were so obvious, couldn't she see?
"You want to join me... to do this. If it succeeds, we can both survive. If it fails, we will..."
"If it fails, we die together. Didn't you just say it yourself? People like us don't even know how we'll die in the end. It's better to take our fate into our own hands. Even if we fail, it won't be a pointless death, better than dying ambiguously."
Sooner or later, a dead end awaited them. It was better to go all out, perhaps they could forge a path to survival, better than now, not even knowing why they were living.
Lan Cui looked at Zhenzhu with determination, "Tell me what to do, and I'll help you. I want to live."
"Good!" Zhenzhu nodded in agreement. The maintenance of their relationship was solely for the sake of survival.
"We need to win over others to join us. However, everyone is different, and I'm not sure what everyone truly thinks..."
"This is simple, I'll do it!"
"This is simple? We don't even know what everyone thinks. How can you be confident you can persuade everyone? I couldn't even persuade Yu Rong alone, and I almost got..."
Lan Cui snorted disdainfully, "That's because you never tried to understand what the sisters truly thought. Do you really think only the three of us, Cui'er, wanted to escape!"
"We all want to leave. Cui'er and the other two took everyone's belongings to sell them and get money to escape. We just didn't dare to do it. She carried all of our hopes... unfortunately, in the end... it still failed..."
"I never knew about these things..."
Zhenzhu lowered her head and remained silent. She never knew about these things. Having been with everyone for so long, she didn't even know what they were thinking.
"Of course you didn't know. Think about what you used to do, blindly obeying Granny Sun, following Granny Sun's orders to the letter. How could you open up to us!"
Now, thinking about Zhenzhu's former obedience to Granny Sun, Lan Cui felt annoyed.
She truly hadn't expected Zhenzhu to reach this point; it was indeed beyond her expectations.
"I did this wanting to earn merit, to let Cui'er leave here. I was too foolish, believing Granny Sun so blindly!"
It was precisely because of her foolishness that she almost endangered Cui'er's life.
She now wanted to correct this mistake and lead the other sisters to live.
"It's considered that you've repented, not entirely too late. I will tell the sisters about this, and everyone will be of one mind. It's just Yu Rong, how should we deal with her? When she wakes up, she'll definitely insist on telling Granny Sun. We can't keep her tied up here forever."
Lan Cui looked at Yu Rong, who was tied to a chair, and began to worry. If this wasn't handled well, she would indeed be a big trouble.
"Make her eat this."
Zhenzhu took out the medicine bottle that Feng Jin had given her when she was leaving. "This is a sleeping potion, it can make people unconscious for three days."