Chapter Ninety-Eight: We’re All Friends, After All

Jiang Chen drew aside the curtain and looked in. Sure enough, the man hiding inside was Shi Guangjun.

“Young Master Shi, what are you busy with here?”

Although the poison that had once plagued him was already gone, and although they were now at the foot of the royal capital with his father, Shi Wanli, backing him, Shi Guangjun still could not help feeling an instinctive fear of Jiang Chen.

It had been beaten into him along the road, fright hammered into his bones little by little. He wanted to put on a brave face, but there was truly nothing he could do.

Now he could neither stay nor leave. Cold sweat poured down Shi Guangjun’s forehead in streams, and his whole body even began to tremble.

“I-I just happened to be passing by. That’s all.”

An excuse that flimsy was not even believable to Shi Guangjun himself. From afar, Yu Yuanliang, who had spotted him, also came over at that moment.

“Brother Shi, you came here too?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Yu Yuanliang thought of the injury on his face and the humiliating way Jiang Chen had just crushed him, and he instantly regretted speaking.

“I was just passing through. Brother Yu is here too?”

Shi Guangjun forced out a few awkward laughs, mortified beyond measure. He had originally wanted to see how Yu Yuanliang would make trouble for Jiang Chen, but to his disappointment, this useless fool was even more pathetic than he had been.

And now Jiang Chen had noticed him as well, so he could not even leave.

“So the two of you already knew each other?”

Yu Yuanliang looked from Shi Guangjun to Jiang Chen, utterly puzzled.

Jiang Chen smiled with easy naturalness. “Of course. Last time, it was Young Master Shi who used his family’s official vessel to send me to Jinyang City. We are very close friends.”

“Wouldn’t you say so?”

At a moment like this, no matter what Jiang Chen said, Shi Guangjun would nod and agree. He only wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and this jinx.

“I can tell the two of you are on good terms as well. Another day, let’s have a meal together. Remember to choose the finest restaurant in Jinyang City. My treat!”

Jiang Chen patted Shi Guangjun on the shoulder, all the while not forgetting to turn and look at Yu Yuanliang, who had come seeking trouble.

“Brother Yu, this should just be a misunderstanding today, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, yes, it’s definitely a misunderstanding.”

Shi Guangjun hurriedly chimed in as well. “I’ll pick the best restaurant myself and choose a day to host Young Master Jiang and Young Master Yu together. But it must be on me. How could I let Young Master Jiang spend a single coin?”

And so Jiang Chen toyed with Yu Yuanliang and Shi Guangjun as casually as if he were dismissing two household servants. Shen Xueying witnessed the whole thing with her own eyes, and she could not help finding Jiang Chen more and more difficult to read.

By Jiang Chen’s own account, before coming to the royal capital he had been nothing more than a down-and-out scholar living in some impoverished backwater. So what exactly did he rely on to so easily manipulate a spoiled young master like Shi Guangjun?

Truly capable people were often full of surprises, and Jiang Chen was precisely that kind of person. Shen Xueying was growing increasingly interested in him.

After sending off the two nuisances, Shen Xueying made an appointment with Jiang Chen to meet in front of that underground prison after midnight. By then she would use her connections to bring Jiang Chen inside without incident.

“What sort of connection do you have with that courtesan?” Duanmu Qing asked as she stepped forward. Her question seemed more likely to be on Wu Yue’s behalf.

“She has a way to take me to see Wang Qiaoling.”

“She?”

Duanmu Qing looked startled. Jiang Chen did not offer any further explanation, because Shen Xueying had warned him that the matter of the Night Execution Office and her true identity absolutely could not be revealed to outsiders.

Since Jiang Chen had already made a promise, he could only keep it secret from Duanmu Qing and the others for now, saying only that the brothel woman Yingying seemed to have some connection with the guards of the Wang residence, and perhaps could be of help.

Duanmu Qing did not suspect anything. She exclaimed, “You even managed to dig up a connection like that? You really do have quite the skill.”

After midnight, Jiang Chen arrived as promised outside the great estate. Who could have guessed that what had once stood here was actually a tightly sealed underground prison, though the outside world had always believed it to be Wang Qiaoling’s private residence.

He waited at the gate for a moment before a cloaked figure led him inside. The two-courtyard compound that had once required some effort to enter could now be walked into openly and without hesitation.

When he reached the waterside pavilion, Jiang Chen entered smoothly as well, encountering no trouble at all. Not even a single person stepped forward to question his identity.

As expected, connections were the simplest and most direct route. After entering the pavilion, Shen Xueying was already waiting for him.

“This prison has five levels in total: three above the water and two beneath it. The level we are going to now is the one underwater.”

As she spoke, Shen Xueying led the way. Holding her torch high, she descended the winding stone steps, step by step. The submerged section was even deeper than Jiang Chen had expected. By his rough count, they went down more than three hundred steps before finally arriving.

“At the very end of this corridor is the cell where Wang Qiaoling is being held. When I came to see him during the day, his mental state was exactly the same as before. There was not the slightest improvement.”

“We have invited many famous doctors, even Dream Masters, to treat him, but none of them have been able to get through the door.”

A Dream Master was a special profession, a branch of physician. They specialized in using strange and mystical methods to enter a person’s inner world in order to treat certain unusual forms of madness.

Those so-called methods included rites, soul-calling, dream techniques, and the like. As for what exactly they accomplished, that was not entirely clear.

Jiang Chen nodded. After Shen Xueying opened the prison door, he walked straight inside.

Within the range lit by the torch, he did not see Wang Qiaoling’s figure, but from a corner came the sound of heavy breathing. It seemed the man was hiding there.

Jiang Chen said, “Wang Qiaoling, I’ve come to see you.”

“Let’s have a little talk, shall we?”

After a long while, a hoarse voice answered from the darkness, “You’re a murderer. I won’t talk to you!”

“You’re here to kill me. You’re here to kill me...”

From Wang Qiaoling’s deranged behavior, it seemed he had been severely frightened before. Jiang Chen was not especially skilled in matters of the mind, but he had seen many people like this with his own eyes.

Some had barely survived the battlefield and developed post-traumatic shock. Others could not bear the drastic changes in their surroundings and began to seal themselves off from the deepest part of their hearts.

There were all kinds of different causes and manifestations for changes in mental state, and Jiang Chen could not tell which category Wang Qiaoling belonged to.

“He’s been like this all along. Anyway, we’ve been completely at our wits’ end. If there’s still no turning point after a few more days, we’ll have no choice but to let him out and leave him to fend for himself.”

“He can forget about ever serving as the governor of Yanzhou again.”

Jiang Chen thought quietly for a moment, then suddenly said to Shen Xueying, “I do have a method. Let me try it, at least. Please prepare a few things for me.”