"Mr. Li, is your health okay?"
In the pitch darkness, a lamp lit up inside a carriage. Cui Yongquan and Long Yue sat together in a carriage, inquiring about Li Qingmu’s condition.
Li Qingmu’s face always looked unwell, pale and bloodless, truly worrying.
Especially now, after this tiring journey, it might worsen his condition.
"No problem."
Li Qingmu glanced faintly at the pitch-black night outside. This street was the most bustling area here, lined with shops. In the past, it was filled with thousands of lights and a constant flow of people, but now it’s dim, only the lights of so wealthy households unwilling to leave are still bright.
Ordinary citizens were willing to leave when asked; they hardly had any assets, taking along the small savings they’ve accumulated over the years was sufficient.
The wealthy refusing to leave? Then they must fend for themselves!
Li Qingmu looked towards the west, where red and yellow flickering blaze continued to appear, showing that the magma underground was still erupting relentlessly.
"In the future, Guyang County will be completely gone, and the surrounding area will be uninhabitable."
Cui Yongquan sighed with emotion. This was definitely bad news, and who knows how furious His Majesty would be when the news reached Capital City?
Li Qingmu remained silent, just watching the streets outside where groups occasionally ran by. There were so things he would speak of only with the Emperor.
"Bang!"
A young man stumbled and fell to the ground, convulsing all over, gradually losing consciousness.
"Dalong, what’s wrong with you? Wake up, please wake up!"
Beside the man was an elderly woman who hurriedly went up to shake the young man, her voice filled with urgency and panic.
"He has been poisoned by the Tomb Miasma Poison!"
Long Yue rely glanced and imdiately knew he was poisoned.
The symptoms of this poison are not the sa for everyone; the cases of her and Li Qingmu are considered lucky. So people went insane, foaming at the mouth...
When Long Yue went to Nanyuan Palace, after she detoxed and woke up, seeing the others’ conditions nearly scared her.
She rembered being thankful for a long ti that she wasn’t in that condition!
"Let’s go!" Li Qingmu resolutely said, "We can’t save anyone now. If we try to rescue them, then we can forget about leaving here! Yue’er, we can’t be trapped here!"
"I understand!"
Long Yue understood his intention; it wasn’t callousness, rely the forced choice. They must leave; only then can they have more energy to arrange plans and eventually return to rescue the disaster victims here.
If Long Yue tried to administer aid, then those poisoned and sick will discover soone can save them, certainty would create chaos, mobbing them and preventing their escape.
It’s impossible to act against these defenseless civilians, isn’t it?
Moreover, they tacitly felt there was a hidden hand behind this promoting the chaos.
Hence, they must leave even more urgently!
"Quickly, get to the city gates!"
At this mont, Li Qingmu saw another blaze of red light in the west direction; this indicated the underground magma erupted again, and this ti the light was more intense than the previous ones!
Thick smoke continued to spread around with these eruptions.
"Hyah, hyah!"
The carriage dashed madly toward the city gates.
Half an hour later, the city gates appeared faintly in the front.
Suddenly!
"Boom!"
A loud noise echoed, the entire ground shook thrice, followed by a cloud of rolling dust.
"What’s going on?"
Cui Yongquan, feeling a bit sleepy, was startled awake and quickly poked his head out.
"It’s not good, sir. It seems the city gate has collapsed!"
Long Yue was speechless; how could the city gate suddenly collapse when it was fine?
Moreover, if it collapsed, shouldn’t it make it easier to leave?
But soon she realized sothing was wrong.
Why was there so much dust?
"It’s the wall above the city gate that collapsed, blocking the road with debris. For now, not only is the carriage stuck, but even people can’t easily go out."
"How convenient that it fell right as we arrived?" Long Yue sneered, convinced it was her father behind this.
This was a blatant attempt to trap them here!
"No, with Mr. Duanmu here, we can get out!"
Li Qingmu glanced at the carriage that followed from behind, focused and said, "I suspect it’s a delay tactic... bad, the Emperor is in danger!"
Li Qingmu’s face changed dramatically, almost wanting to rush off the carriage towards Shengjing.
Long Yue had also realized.
First, sending assassins to murder Li Qingmu, then the magma eruption in Guyang County; although they didn’t know how the opponents accomplished it, Duanmu Nan’s descriptions showed they had entered the tomb cluster beforehand, detonating it.
Then there were the disturbances from the nobility and gentry obstructing civilians’ evacuation, up to the city gate collapse!
All of these events aid to hinder them.
Delays ant that the intention behind them was not directly concerning!
The couple simultaneously thought of the Emperor far away in Capital City, who only had the loyal Chen Zhong and people from Yulong Pavilion around him - could they fend off the enemies?
It’s worth noting that the Ghost Child almost killed Li Qingmu right in front of Yulong Pavilion’s people!
If they summon help from Tianxing Pavilion, then... Qi Yun would be in danger!
"Yue’er, we must hurry back!"
Suddenly, anxiety appeared on the ever-calm face of Li Qingmu; the Emperor in Capital City was his biological father, and now he might be in danger, how could he not be anxious?
Long Yue understood his thoughts, quickly stepped forward to grab his hand, "Don’t worry, we’ll definitely get back quickly!"
"Yue’er, the road ahead is blocked."
Behind, Duanmu Nan’s carriage caught up as the two got off the carriage, seeing the situation ahead.
"Master, soone is trying to delay us from returning! The Emperor may be in trouble!"
Long Yue said only two sentences, but the information was rich. Duanmu Nan was intuitive, surely understanding the deeper implications?
Soone was obstructing them from returning, wanting to harm the Emperor, and the ordeals they encountered here were more or less impedints.
Furthermore, the underground magma eruptions were largely their doing too.
This changed the aning entirely.
Duanmu Nan’s deep eyes turned icy cold!
It was impossible not to feel grieved over his ancestral land being devoured by magma; however, the urgent situation had him bury his sorrow, also seeing it as a Duanmu Family’s mission.
But if he could identify who destroyed the Duanmu’s ancestral land, he would ensure that person regretted ever being born!
"The city gate collapsed, the only way out is to dig through that section of road, but that takes half a day, Yue’er, my junior sister and I will take you out!"
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