Empress Fu Yao [Volume 2] (Completed)✔

Every Desperate Step (Part 1)

The gloomy, shadowy moonlight shone onto the ditch.

Wild grass grew all over in the ditch, shielding the body that lay submersed within. A long time later, the "corpse" curled its fingers, grabbing ahold of the wild grass. After struggling for a time, he slowly straightened his body.

Gasping for breath, he finally crawled up bit by bit from the mud. The fresh blood and clumps of mud covering his whole body rained down from his clothes nonstop.

A terrifying gash trailed down his back. It was almost a huge hole, with exposed flesh and white bone. In the deep darkness it still looked completely sickening.

That was the wound cut from Meng Fuyao's last knife that struck through three men. Originally it actually was not this large. In the moment he was struck, this man used the force of the blow to leap into the gutter, and the wound on his back was not life-threatening at all. However with the help of Zong Yue's corpse-dissolving powder, the gash spread much larger.

As for why his injury did not get even worse and transform him into bone dust like the other dozen corpses, if Zong Yue were here and saw the bizarre grass by the gutter, he would immediately understand.

"Hooked Grass" was the greatest counter to the main ingredient in the corpse-dissolving powder. Usually the grass would grow by steep cliffs, yet now it actually appeared inside the gutter. When falling, the man had crushed some of the Hooked Grass. When the snapped grass fell into the water they were picked up by the agitated waves, surging into his back wound, and halting the more extreme rotting effect of the corpse-dissolving powder.

The rare corpse-dissolving powder had actually happened upon Hooked Grass; the endangered Hooked Grass had actually grown in this small, urban water ditch; the grass had further coincidentally saved the life of the Rong man who had landed in the gutter, allowing him to become the fish who slipped out of the massacre net! These mysterious coincidences of life, could only vaguely be explained as heavenly will.

Heaven desired for the dense web of secrets to tear with a small gap, igniting a flaming beacon heralding troubled times, and finishing a girl's critical plans.

The Rong man stood up with difficulty. He panted to catch his breath underneath the off-white moonlight. Stagnant gutter water shone on his face, filled with a putrid expression of unreconciliation.

Unsteadily staggering while trying to straighten up, he bent over and held onto the wall and trees to steadily move out of the alley.

On the dark stone slabs of the alleyway road, two trails of fresh blood and mud were left behind, barely visible under the moon. The footsteps led into the distance —-

As the moonlight was rising, Meng Fuyao was supporting the daughter-in-law of the old Han named Hu as she knocked on the office gates of the Official Su Xuanyong. At first, she had gone to the citizen shelter, but unexpectedly the assistant officer had refused to allow this family to live there without the city master's or vice-master's personal written command. Fuyao had no choice but to bring them to the county administration. She and Zong Yue would have needed to come here and meet with the city master anyways.

To her surprise, the large gates of the offices were tightly shut. Only after knocking on the door for half a day did an office attendant lazily come out and say, "Look at the time! What are you knocking for? If you disturb the elder official's rest, there will be consequences!"

Fuyao held back her indignance. She didn't want to fuss around with this snobbish lackey who could only bully others with his backing, so with as calm a tone as she could manage she said, "Respected bureaucrat, can I bother you to send a message? This woman's entire family was bullied by the Rong, with even their house burned down, and they need the elder official's personal order to seek refuge at the shelter ..."