“Other than the secret tunnel that Master took us once, does the Palace have another secret tunnel?” Luo Yu asked and looked at his Master: “We only found two secret tunnels in the Palace, we don’t know of any more in the Palace.”
Their knowledge was limited and though they had searched everywhere, they weren’t able to find any clues.
Upon hearing this, Feng Jiu’s eyes flickered: “There is another secret tunnel, I think they have probably left using that secret tunnel.” As soon as she had finished speaking, she walked in the direction of the secret tunnel.
Everyone followed behind her quickly. Under Feng Jiu’s leadership, they arrived at the secret tunnel Su Xi had sent Little Feng Ye and Zhao Yang through that night. They discovered that the mechanism to the door of the secret tunnel had been destroyed and the door was completely sealed off. They were more certain that they had left from this secret tunnel because of this.
“Have someone open this door and follow the secret tunnel to find them. Also send some men to Tianlin City to look for them. If I’m correct, they should be there.”
“Alright, we will go right away!” Luo Yu and the others responded and split up.
On the other side, in the Trafficker’s Market in one of the neighbouring cities to the Imperial City were large iron cages with many slaves locked within them.
There were big slaves and small slaves, old and young, male and female. They were also sorted into upper class, middle class and lower class, and kept in the iron cages to await being sold. Other than a few who were sold there by their Masters, most of these slaves were sent here.
There were more children than adults. Within one of these iron cages were Zhao Yang and Little Feng Ye. The two of them were sitting leaning against the iron cage, their faces were dirty, and the clothes on their body no longer looked like what they used to.
Although they had escaped the arrest of the tall thin man, they were unable to escape being targeted by traffickers. A few traffickers had waited for them in secret and ambushed them. Though they struggled, they were unable to escape and finally, they fell into the hands of these men and ended up being locked in here.
“Sunny, what shall we do?”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” Zhao Yang whispered and spoke a few words in his ear while he dug for two pills in his waist belt. They each swallowed one pill.
After the time of about half a stick of incense, their bodies were covered in red spots and they screamed: “Ah! It’s so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable…” The two of them rolled on the ground and cried.
“What’s going on!” The people outside walked over to take a look and saw five or six children sitting on one side of the iron cage, and on the other side, two people were rolling around on the ground, their skin covered in red spots.
“Why do these two little devils have red spots on their bodies?” The person with a whip in his hand asked suspiciously.
The other person said: “Look at the red spots, doesn’t it resemble smallpox? Could these two little devils have smallpox?” He took a few steps back as he spoke.
When the person with the whip heard what he had said, he was also taken aback and backed away hurriedly: “Smallpox? If they infect the others, how will we be able to report to our superiors?”
“Let’s put these two little devils in the firewood shed in the back first, then we will find a doctor to determine if it is indeed smallpox.”
Therefore, after their discussion, they summoned two odd-jobbers and removed Sunny and Little Feng Ye from the iron cage. They took them directly to the firewood shed in the back and locked them up.
When the two of them were thrown into the firewood shed, they cried loudly until they heard the people leave. Zhao Yang then stepped forward and helped Sunny up: “Get up, let’s find a way out of here.”
Little Feng Ye looked around the firewood room and said: “But the door is locked, how will we leave?”