Chapter 905: Useless Pawn

"You're really not joking with me?" Liu Yan suddenly shouted in surprise.

Yu Shumei moved her neck a bit, letting her body relax more against the wall, then glanced coldly at Liu Yan: "You're already a dead pawn; although that's harsh to say, staying here with you is pointless."

"No, are you really going to abandon me like that? Are you still human?" Liu Yan suddenly flew into a rage, glaring fiercely at Yu Shumei, his eyes seeming about to pop out of their sockets, veins bulging on his forehead.

Yu Shumei's face turned cold in an instant: "Now you're blaming me? Who decided on the tactic of stabbing into Shenxian Ling and launching a surprise attack on Nan Jun? Was it you? I opposed it—did you even listen to my advice?"

"We each go our own way; I'm not under your command, and don't drag me into your mess—I've never been helping you, just doing my own duty."

Liu Yan stared fixedly at Yu Shumei, then after a while, slumped in defeat: "I know, but I still hope you can think of a solution. My direct troops of twenty thousand are truly elite; you may refuse to help me, but we can't just let these twenty thousand troops be wasted here, can we?"

"I can guess a bit about your relationship with the Prime Minister—put bluntly, helping me is helping yourself; even in private we could discuss other matters!"

Yu Shumei's face turned terrifyingly cold, killing intent flashing openly in her eyes: "Do you know what I hate most about you? It's your constant scheming, regardless of place or time."

"I can tell you right now that everything you guessed is wrong. I'm merely an unfavored princess; I never acted like a princess in front of anyone, and everything I'm doing now is just for myself."

Liu Yan ignored her words, putting on a pleading face: "Your Highness, think again—twenty thousand elite troops can really accomplish a lot."

Yu Shumei simply closed her eyes: "Don't bother me, let me rest a bit!"

"Your Highness, please don't!" Liu Yan gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and blurted out the words he'd been holding back: "If Your Highness can find a way to save me and my brothers' lives, I wouldn't hesitate to kill the Prime Minister—just give the order, and I'll go through knife mountains and fire seas, I..."

"Shut up!" Yu Shumei snapped her eyes open: "I've never seen such a talkative man."

"Aren't you trying to launch a surprise attack on Nan Jun? If this road is blocked, can't you take another? Inside Shenxian Ling there's an ancient riverbed connecting three ancient mountain paths; the easternmost one leads straight to Chen Wuji's hometown, Xishan Village in Yunan."

Liu Yan's eyes lit up: "Really?"

"If you don't believe me, get lost!"

"I believe you, I believe you, I believe you—I wouldn't dare not trust the princess's words." Liu Yan immediately put on a smiling face: "I have some impression of that ancient riverbed; it's near the Wind and Rain Cliff… wait… isn't Chen Wuji's main force stationed there? Princess, are you really not sending me to my death?"

Yu Shumei rolled her eyes: "Can't you just detour over the mountains? You have short-term supplies now—can't you blaze a path? Discard the useless stuff, travel light, and make a forced march to Xishan Village—is that really impossible?"

"If you won't listen to me, figure it out yourself—just pretend I never said anything. But once Chen Wuji's main force catches up, you'll have no way to survive."

Liu Yan fell into troubled contemplation, and after a while finally made up his mind: "Alright, I'll obey the princess's order—let's do it!"

"But how exactly should we do it? We still need the princess to give direction. Deputy General, to put it bluntly, I'm completely in the dark right now, my thoughts a jumbled mess—I can't even figure out what I'm supposed to do."

Yu Shumei stared at Liu Yan, rolling her eyes hard: "You don't need to pretend with me—I still have a fair idea of your character."

"You couldn't possibly go through knife mountains and fire seas for me, and I don't want you to—but if this succeeds, I need you to do one thing for me!"

Liu Yan immediately protested: "The princess has a deep prejudice against me; I, Liu Yan, may not be a good person, but I keep my word..."

He hadn't finished speaking when Yu Shumei raised her hand to cut him off: "You don't need to tell me all that—I just need you to do one thing!"

Liu Yan felt regretful, helplessly asking: "What do you want me to do, Princess? Kill the Prime Minister?"

"You don't need to know for now, and you can rest assured—it won't be anything like that." Yu Shumei said.

Liu Yan nodded: "Fine, I'll follow the princess's orders, but she really misunderstands me deeply."

He still didn't forget to try explaining again.

Yu Shumei's face showed undisguised disgust.

We're all just passing time in the same place; saying certain things only makes the atmosphere worse and serves no good purpose.

Everyone already knows it's an old ghost, yet we still have to go through a Strange Tales plot—it's bound to be annoying.

Seeing Yu Shumei's expression, Liu Yan pinched the corners of his mouth, gave up on explaining further, his expression turning solemn as he asked: "Princess, I want to know—is it really possible to detour? Your people should be relatively familiar with this area, right?"

"As long as you find a way, there will definitely be a path in the mountains—it's impossible for everywhere to be cliffs!" Yu Shumei said: "My people also followed the ancient riverbed; they had no leisure to scout a second route out of these mountains."

Liu Yan: ……

Asking was basically like asking for nothing.

Still, he actually agreed with that answer.

In Shenxian Ling he had walked the toughest road of his life and endured the hardest suffering; finding a path was nothing—right now, in Liu Yan's mind it's not really a big hassle, for Shenxian Ling couldn't be full of places like Cai Jia Zhuang's sinkholes that you enter and can't exit.

He had over twenty thousand troops; sending out half of them, he refused to believe he couldn't find a road.

The reason he asked that was merely to give it a try.

"Second matter: does Chen Wuji have troops stationed in Xishan Village?" Liu Yan asked: "Your people have already been to Xishan Village—you should know this. I need detailed intelligence."

He didn't want to go through the pain of being hit in the head again.

Crossing Shenxian Ling to launch a surprise attack on Nan Jun, he had been full of confidence—but who knew the vanguard would just leave the mountains and get surrounded like dumplings? The eighty-thousand-strong army lost over ten thousand vanguard troops on the spot, not a single one returning.

To this day he still doesn't know how the enemy learned his marching route; he only knows that outside the mountains there are still ambushing forces eyeing him like tigers.

Due to terrain constraints, his troops had to leave the mountains in single file, while the enemy outside had set up an arrow formation.

No matter how he travels this road, it's a dead end.

Precisely because of this, he completely gave up on leaving the mountains, turned back, and inadvertently encountered the residents of Cai Jia Zhuang living in this sinkhole.

This utterly unexpected discovery let Liu Yan find this secluded utopia, giving him a temporary foothold, and he also replenished some supplies in Cai Jia Zhuang, avoiding the tragedy of the entire army resorting to cannibalism.