Guests who had previously been "invited out" of the hall were now in a side hall of the Shu King Manor.

The deafening explosion was just a wall away from them.

Thick smoke billowed into the sky, as if to block out the starlight.

The Shu King had long been escorted away.

The eminent monks of Yongling Temple, the Annamese monks, and the Wu De Guard Tiqi (imperial bodyguards) guarding the side hall all changed their expressions when they heard the explosion and rushed to the main hall.

Only the pale-faced crowd remained in place, looking at each other.

What exactly happened in the main hall?

Song Shuqing ignored the others and walked quickly to the wall of the courtyard. He took out a writing brush from his arms and drew a simple door on the wall.

With the last stroke, a wooden door suddenly appeared on the brick wall.

A gentle push revealed the street outside the backyard of the manor.

On the hitching post across the street,

Two ropes were tied, attached to two horses.

Song Shuqing turned around and said calmly to the dignitary who had brought him to the banquet, "Sir, this way."

The dignitary was stunned for a moment. "What is this?"

"Lüzhou is about to be in chaos, it's better to escape as soon as possible."

Song Shuqing said urgently, "The manor is the most unsafe place right now."

He didn't actually know the specific situation in the main hall, nor did he know who had the upper hand.

But when the White Lotus Sect and the Wu De Guard officially broke off all pretense of cordiality, and fought fiercely over the auspicious sign,

For him, a solitary person with no affiliation, to get involved would truly be courting death.

The sound of buildings collapsing outside the courtyard wall continued.

The dignitary didn't waste any words, quickly stepped forward, passed through the door, and ran to the horses that were prepared in advance.

Some of the guests who came to the banquet quickly called out the dignitary's name, scrambling to squeeze through the wooden door and escape the manor.

Song Shuqing stood guard by the wooden door, not preventing others from passing through. When the dignitary had mounted his horse,

He passed through the wooden door, and looked back at the "guests" who were still in the courtyard, with various expressions on their faces, seemingly not planning to leave.

These people had all come to seize the auspicious sign.

Even if they couldn't snatch it from the clutches of the White Lotus Sect and the Wu De Guard,

They could take advantage of the chaos in Lüzhou to fish in troubled waters and seize benefits for themselves.

"We'll meet again if fate allows."

Song Shuqing cupped his fist in farewell, and his figure disappeared on the other side of the gradually closing wooden door.

————

"Cough, cough."

Beneath the main hall, Yu Qingqiu, the Thousand Household of the Western Bureau of Investigation, covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, suppressing the cough caused by inhaling dust.

He was in what seemed to be a tunnel.

The tunnel was dark and lightless, and not too low. Even the tall Yu Qingqiu could walk normally without bending over.

Shua.

Yu Qingqiu took a small, exquisite cyan bamboo tube from his waist.

As the rope protruding from the end of the bamboo tube was pulled off, a swarm of fireflies immediately flew out of the small hole at the front of the tube.

These fireflies had slender bodies, and were red all over. The ends of their tails emitted a bright orange-red light, illuminating the dark and gloomy tunnel.

By the cold light, Yu Qingqiu discovered that the cross-section of the tunnel was generally a regular circle, and the edges were smoother than he had imagined.

He could see some yellow-gray plant roots exposed along the edges,

And various unknown small insects, crawling and moving through the cracks in the soil.

Something's not right...

Yu Qingqiu was still covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, his slightly squinted eyes looking into the darkness ahead.

The fireflies in the bamboo tube were rare variants cultivated by the secret service. Normally, they could illuminate a distance of ten meters away.

But in this tunnel, the light of the fireflies could only illuminate three or four meters ahead, and couldn't reach any further.

This tunnel seemed to be devouring light.

Yu Qingqiu reached out and touched the edge of the tunnel, and found that the surface of the seemingly rough mud and rocks was covered with a layer of viscous, slippery, transparent substance.

It was like the mucus on the surface of fish scales, but without the strong fishy smell.

Rumor had it that among the tomb robbers who specialized in stealing graves, there was a lineage called the "Moving Mountain Taoist,"

Who were able to domesticate and raise a strange beast called Fenshan Juezi Jia (Mountain-Moving Mole Armor), which could silently dig through sand and stone, excavating tunnels.

But the Fenshan Juezi Jia didn't seem to leave behind this kind of mucus...

Yu Qingqiu slowly exhaled a mouthful of stale air. The entrance he had entered from had already collapsed and been sealed off.

Even if the Western Bureau of Investigation subordinates above wanted to dig open the ground for rescue and support, it would take a long time.

What's more, there were the White Lotus Sect demons with their strange behavior blocking the way.

Forget it, he should find the auspicious sign first.

At this banquet, Yu Qingqiu had already discussed it with Li Yushan, and set up an inescapable net, deliberately revealing flaws in the Shu King Manor of Lüzhou,

In order to catch all the evildoers who coveted the Annamese auspicious sign in one fell swoop.

The plan was full of substance, but reality was thin.

No one expected that a Bai Yongyan would appear halfway.

No, that person was definitely not Bai Yongyan, but some kind of "thing" wearing Bai Yongyan's skin...

Yu Qingqiu took out a short dart from his arms and stuck it on the side of the tunnel as a marker to inform his subordinates of his whereabouts.

As the Thousand Household of the Western Bureau of Investigation, he bore the important task of escorting the auspicious sign to the capital. Now that the auspicious sign was missing, it was entirely his incompetence and dereliction of duty.

He had to retrieve the auspicious sign no matter what.

"Hmm?"

After inserting the short dart, Yu Qingqiu took a few steps forward and found that the tunnel was winding and twisting, sometimes going up and sometimes going down, and there were also three intersections blocking his path.

Above the intersections, there was also a line of writing.

"Fa Qiu Seal, Mo Jin Talisman, Moving Mountain and Unloading Ridge Dragon-Seeking Incantation?"