Ju Li’s heart was as restless as her mind. The opportunity she had been waiting for had finally arrived. And it was one of the better scenarios she had imagined. It seemed the sect was under some kind of attack, the scale of which seemed pretty large. That meant there was a high chance of disorder within the sect and a diversion of their attention.

Such a situation was ideal for an escape attempt.

The first thing she had to do was to obtain the keys to unlock her shackles. Without them, nothing else was even worth considering. Fortunately, the wardens always kept a set of keys on hand, and she knew that among the pair of Gong San and Bing Wan, Bing Wan would be the one to carry them.

Ju Li had seen these keys before. They had been used whenever one of the captives was injured or fell ill. In such a situation, the wardens would undo the shackles and allow the captive to cultivate to heal themselves before being shackled once more.

While Ju Li hadn't ever fallen ill here, she did inflict injuries upon herself for the purpose of determining which of the keys was for her shackles. She did this multiple times until she was sure that the key never changed.

She knew exactly which key was hers.

Still. Knowing which key would undo her shackles wasn’t useful unless she could obtain it in the first place. That was why she had been preparing for that ever since she got here. One could even go as far as to say she had been preparing for it all her life. If there was a core teaching in the Ming Clan, it was to stay silent and to never need a second strike.

Ju Li took advantage of the short moment of confusion among everyone in the area to secure the chains which were hanging off her wrists, making sure to hold them taut with her left hand such that they wouldn’t make any noise as she moved.

‘Rule one: Blend into the shadows.’

Ju Li closed her eyes and focused inward. Every contraction or relaxation of a muscle that she had any say over was brought fully under her control. The tiny movements her hands would make were erased. Her breathing became smooth and slow. Even her irises didn’t dare move without permission. The only muscle which was allowed to do as it pleased was her heart, but even then, it was slowed to a crawl.

When she opened her eyes once more, even the light she was receiving had lessened dramatically. Her surroundings became darker and her peripheral vision was all but gone.

‘Rule Two: Become the target.’

After walking to the bars of the cell, only an arm’s length away from Bing Wan, Ju Li waited. She focused her eyes on his neck, seeing the minute movements of his upper body caused by his breathing and the subtle swaying of his skin as blood pumped through his veins. As her focus deepened, the man before her became nothing more than a network of blood vessels. The very areas she could strike most effectively.

After studying him over time, she knew that he would start to go through his spatial ring, bringing out miscellaneous things to entertain himself with. And, from time to time, he would bring out the keys to mock those inside the cell.

Ju Li was waiting for just such a situation.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have all day to wait. Ordinarily, her cultivation allowed her to sustain Rule One for hours on end, but without it, her body was in a state of hypoxemia, of oxygen deficiency. If she maintained this state for too long, it could cause irreparable damage to her internal organs.

If push came to shove, she would have to inflict an injury on one of the other women, forcing Bing Wan to bring out the keys, but doing such a thing would increase her chances of being discovered exponentially. One could say it would ruin her entire escape attempt. So she dearly hoped that Bing Wan’s more sadistic tendencies would manifest.

In anticipation of this, she placed her right hand’s index finger in her mouth and licked the nail.

He didn’t disappoint her. Ju Li could see that Bing Wan was in the motions of turning around. From the movement of the blood vessels, she could see that his facial muscles were contracted into a smile. This was the precursor. He was about to withdraw the keys.

The moment came. She saw the keys appear in his hand and immediately took action.

‘Rule Three: Strike before you’re noticed.’

Ju Li threaded her hand through the bars and had her sharpened fingernail jab Bing Wan’s neck.

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His reaction was quick. Extremely so.

“You little!” He used his cultivation to blow everything around him away, shattering the chair he was sitting on and sending Ju Li flying to the other side of the cell. He rubbed his neck and looked at his hand before turning a furious gaze to Ju Li, who looked like a wet dog, struggling to get up. “If you weren’t a yin physique, I would tear you to pieces you damn brat!”

Ju Li ignored his words and only looked to the point she had struck him.

‘Success.’

She saw a red smear. He was bleeding, and for a moment, it had been quite profuse. Judging by how much blood came out in such a short time, she had successfully pierced his skin and penetrated her target, the carotid artery, a direct pathway to the brain.

She ignored the pain her body was under and walked back to the bars, staying a little more than an arms-length from Bing Wan. She looked at him and said nothing while he reached in, trying to grab her.

“Why I ought to-”

Before he could finish his sentence, his eyes rolled back and he fell limply to the floor.

This was the result of Ju Li’s unique physique. The Poison Yin Physique. Her body fluids were laced with deadly toxins, and by licking her fingernail, she had created a poisoned dagger, which she used to tremendous effect.

Even so, Ju Li didn’t waste any time revelling in the success of her offensive. She didn’t have much time for that at all. The strength of her poison was directly correlated with her cultivation, meaning that as she was, her poison was at its least potent. There was no telling if Bing Wan was dead or merely paralysed. And she didn’t want to wait and see.

Other than that, she was still extremely wary of the other women in the cell. She had to be the first one to act, otherwise, things would fall out of her control.

Making use of the short period in which she was the only one who fully comprehended the situation, she grabbed the side of Bing Wan’s robe, pulling his body closer with all of her might.

While she may have been able to land a critical blow on this fully grown man, her strength was still that of a little girl, so she found this quite strenuous. Fortunately, she didn’t have to move him too far before the keys were within reach.

Not wasting any time, she grabbed the keys and undid her shackles.

That was when the other women snapped out of their dazes brought about by the sudden series of events.

“You… killed him?”

“How did…?”

“Never mind that! She killed him! This is our chance!”

“That’s right. We can actually get out of this wretched place.”

“Hurry up! Give us the keys!”

Ju Li felt traces of her previous cultivation returning to her. Her arms, —which had, just moments ago, been about as strong as wet noodles— now contained power enough to toss Bing Wan’s body around like a rag doll.

Needless to say, among everyone present, she had the most freedom to act.

The first thing she did was to check whether Bing Wan was alive or dead. His heart was still beating, so she bound him with the very same shackles that had been used on her. She then took his spatial ring to prevent any accidents and tossed his body over to the corner, where it was difficult to tell who he was.

Ideally, she wanted to eliminate the problem at its root, but she would rather not reveal the methods she used to deal with Bing Wan. In the case that he woke up, that would mean that his body had removed the toxin on its own, meaning it would be unclear as to how she had managed to incapacitate him.

If he were to die, then whatever toxins they found would only be a fraction of what she was truly capable of, which would lead them to underestimate her.

Both situations were preferable to them realising just how strong her poison could get. After all, her business with the Crimson Moon Sect was far from over. She would do to them what they had done to her clan.

After she had handled Bing Wan, she turned to the rest of the women, who had huddled up around her.

“What are you waiting for? We can all escape!”

“Mm. Give us the keys.”

Ju Li looked past her hair to the other women who all seemed to be quite excited. “That isn't going to happen.” She walked past them and went over to the lock to the cell door. Fortunately, it was such that she could unlock it from the inside by threading her arms through the bars. Out of everyone here, she was probably the only one small enough to do so.

“What are you talking about? Give us the keys!”

Ju Li ignored them and unlocked the gate before stepping out, closing it, and locking it again.

“How can you leave us like this? Don’t you have any sympathy for us?”

“After I escape, I’ll tell people about this place. You can hope that they will come to save you.”

“Why don’t you just let us out? There’s strength in numbers!”

Ju Li used her cultivation to break the keys and threw the shards into the cell. “The more of us there are, the more likely we’ll be discovered.” She then walked away, not giving a second thought to the insults that were hurled towards her.

‘Rule One: Blend into the shadows.’

With her cultivation unsealed, Ju Li’s techniques were now far more effective. Though she was still a ways from her previous peak, her body seemed to melt into the ground, merging with the various cracks and crevices in the cave-like interior of the walkways.

Even a minute realm cultivator would find it difficult to detect her without spending a significant amount of effort. Casual sweeps of spiritual perception would reveal nothing out of the ordinary.

Now came the time for her to use her knowledge of the inside of the sect. She was able to remember every twist and turn that was used to bring her to the cells in this maze-like environment.

***

It hadn’t been long since she left the cell when Ju Li saw Gong San heading back there. He ran straight past her, not noticing her presence at all.

What was unsettling to Ju Li was that, though he seemed to have been roughed up a bit, he had a relaxed smile on his face as he ran past her.

‘It seems things aren’t as bad as I had hoped.’

This meant that her escape would be discovered sooner rather than later, decreasing her chances of successfully making it out of here.

But Ju Li knew that to panic was the last thing she should do. She would trust in her training and would steadily make her way out. There was no way she was going to let herself get captured again.

Unfortunately, it seemed there was already a flow of traffic on her path.

Mere moments after seeing Gong San, she ran into another person. Long before they were close to her, she could sense their presence.

‘What is this light?’

From a distance, Ju Li couldn’t see the other person, but she was able to see a light. A white light. It was odd because the interior was lit by night pearls, so it wasn’t as if visibility was so low as to need a lamp.

‘No light source. Is it some kind of technique?’

As the figure got closer, she could see that there was no obvious light source. The light seemed to be emanating off the figure themselves.

When the other person got close enough, she could make out their appearance. A small figure, barely taller than she was, all dressed in black and wearing a metal mask. A strange appearance to say the least.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem she had been detected.

The other person walked steadily from start to finish and didn’t turn to her direction ever since she saw them.

That had been the case until they abruptly stopped right as they were about to pass her and turned their head to face her, seemingly looking straight into her eyes.

“…”

The masked one didn’t say anything, and neither did Ju Li.

As silence reigned, the masked one shifted their upper body, leaning to the right. Her eyes followed. They then leaned to the left and her eyes followed once more. Finally, the masked one straightened themselves up, placed a hand on their chin and leaned forward. Ju Li thought there may have been something interesting on the wall behind her, but that turned out not to be the case.

The masked one straightened themselves up again, raised their free hand to their elbow, looked diagonally down to the ground for a moment, then turned back to her.

“You can see me?”