SFS Chapter 1398 Yunrui's Sincere Inscription: An Obvious Trap
Chapter 1398 Yunrui's Sincere Inscription: An Obvious Trap
The moment Qi Ruixiang emerged from the secret passage, he immediately grabbed a nearby tree trunk and began coughing violently.
The damp, musty smell and earthy stench in the secret passage made his throat ache. The dry straw that covered his body fell off with each movement, and tiny bits of straw were stuck everywhere—in his hair, between his collar and the seams of his trousers. It itched so much that he couldn't help but reach out and repeatedly scratch at them, his fingertips covered with a mixture of mud and straw juice.
He subconsciously glanced back at the entrance to the secret passage, his expression complex.
Tai followed closely behind, crawling out and collapsing onto the ground, panting heavily. He frantically brushed the straw off his body, cursing incessantly, "Damn it... this secret passage was too much... I almost suffocated..."
He patted for a long time, but found that the straw seemed to stick to his body. The more he patted, the messier it became, and more fine straw fragments fell into his collar, causing him to shiver.
He glanced at Qi Ruixiang's empty back and couldn't help but ask, "What's the point of revealing your hand but not bringing anyone out?"
"Then why did you get so angry when that woman begged us to take her away?" Qi Ruixiang withdrew his gaze, his tone calm but with a hint of certainty, "This matter was never that simple."
As he spoke, he reached out and carefully covered the vines and fallen leaves at the exit of the secret passage again, making sure there was no trace of it. The exit was hidden in a dense bamboo forest behind Black Rock Village, surrounded by bushes taller than a person and intertwined bamboo branches, which was extremely secretive in itself. With the deliberate concealment, even if someone passed by, they would never be able to find it.
Tai was speechless for a moment. He had just witnessed Qi Ruixiang's two faces and began to re-examine the person in front of him.
He admitted that he was somewhat arbitrary at first...
"Aren't you afraid that woman will sell us out?" he said, brushing the grass clippings off his trousers and scanning the surroundings. The bamboo grove was so dense that sunlight could hardly penetrate it, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves, soft and yielding underfoot. There were no footprints, indicating that it was rarely visited.
"What are you selling? How are you selling it?" Qi Ruixiang sat down next to Tai Ge and began to clean the straw off his body. "Didn't you notice? This secret passage is dug extremely deep. The entrance is at the end of the ventilation duct in the underground cell of the main laboratory. It's only wide enough for one person to crawl through. The inner walls are all made of rammed earth and have been specially treated to prevent moisture. How could someone of her status know about such a secret passage?"
Tai belatedly realized that something was amiss, but dared not express his opinion easily.
But he quickly remembered something else, and his expression instantly turned serious: "You already knew that woman was suspicious, so why did you so easily reveal your purpose? What if she..."
Qi Ruixiang smiled, a hint of understanding in his eyes, and gently flicked away the straw from his sleeve: "What would you do if I told you that this woman might be bait planted by that guy surnamed Shen?"
"You mean to play the long game?" Tai frowned. "What do you mean? Did that Shen guy already know we'd be in the village?"
“Think about it carefully. The timing of when we bumped into her coming out of Shen Chengyu’s room was too coincidental,” Qi Ruixiang said slowly. “We had just figured out the shift change pattern of the lab’s guards and were planning to find a place to lie in wait when we saw her staggering out. Her disheveled appearance was clearly an act for us. Moreover, the marks on her body—the red marks on her neck, her disheveled clothes, and the tears in her eyes—were too deliberate, as if she was afraid we wouldn’t notice that she had been wronged.”
He paused, his tone becoming serious: "What really aroused my suspicion was when I asked her those questions later in the storage room. I asked Gu Yunxi where she was being held, the password to the underground cell, and even confidential information. Her reaction was too abnormal—she answered without any hesitation and in great detail, even down to the number of digits in the password."
"Yeah!" Tai suddenly realized, slapping his thigh. "I found it strange back then. How could she know so many secrets? How could Shen Chengyu be so unguarded with a plaything he could summon and dismiss at will? She's just the sister of a genius, not a genius! Otherwise, Shen wouldn't have needed to kidnap Gu Yunxi."
“That’s the biggest flaw.” Qi Ruixiang nodded, his eyes sharpening. “Someone who knows so many core secrets, Shen Chengyu would never really treat her like a plaything and discard her at will. Think about it, what kind of person is Shen Chengyu? Ruthless, suspicious by nature, he doesn’t even fully trust his own confidants, how could he be so open with a woman? So there’s only one possibility—she’s a pawn that Shen Chengyu deliberately planted, with the purpose of waiting for ‘outsiders’ like us to appear, and then using her to find out our background and purpose.”
Tai felt a chill run down his spine and subconsciously looked around, as if Shen Chengyu's men might emerge from the bamboo forest at any moment: "Then you still dare to tell her your true purpose? Aren't you afraid that she'll turn around and reveal our entire plan to Shen Chengyu?"
"Since Shen Chengyu has already made it clear what he wants to eat, what reason do I have not to make this dish?"
Qi Ruixiang's lips curled into a cold smile.
“He had already discovered that outsiders had infiltrated the village, but he was unsure of our purpose or how many of us there were. That’s why he had the girl deliberately act weak, pretending to be abused and abandoned, to lure us in – he knew that we people, whether we were trying to save someone or for something else, would always have a bit of compassion in our hearts, and seeing her like that, we would most likely lend a hand.”
“Once we rescue her, she will have a reason to approach us.” Qi Ruixiang continued to analyze, “The more straightforward and detailed her answers to our questions, the easier it will be for us to trust her and reveal our true purpose to her. What Shen Chengyu wants is our true purpose – he guessed that we came for Gu Yunxi, but he needs a definite answer, and he also wants to know our escape route and follow-up plans, so that he can catch us all in one fell swoop.”
"Then why did you deliberately tell her your real purpose?" Brother Tai was still puzzled. "Isn't that just falling right into Shen Chengyu's trap?"
“That’s how it appears on the surface, but in reality, I was just going with the flow,” Qi Ruixiang explained. “I deliberately told her that I came to save Gu Yunxi, and pretended to completely trust her, so that she would pass on the message that ‘we’re going to escape through the secret passage’ to Shen Chengyu.”
He paused, then added, "The 'secrets' she knows are most likely things Shen Chengyu deliberately let her know. For example, the code to the underground cell might have already been changed by Shen Chengyu."
Tai was stunned. It took him a while to react before he couldn't help but give him a thumbs up: "You're something else! You actually thought of all these twists and turns! I thought you were just acting on impulse, but I didn't expect you to have seen through Shen Chengyu's scheme all along and even used his pawns instead!"