He looked at Ji’an. "A delicate little flower. Prime quality. Perfect. The Boss requested a noble boy tonight. Send him up to the Master’s private bathing chambers to be prepped."

Ji’an let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. ’Okay. Step one complete. I get into the boss’s room, I find the array core, and I shatter it. Simple.’

Then, Mad Dog’s eye landed on Xiao Yichen.

The Vice-Chief stood up slowly, a crude, predatory grin spreading across his scarred face. He stepped down from the dais, his heavy boots thudding against the stone, stopping directly in front of the kneeling, glaring Prince.

"Now this," Mad Dog rumbled, reaching out a filthy hand to grab Yichen’s chin, forcing the Prince to look up at him. "This is a woman? She looks so tall and fierce. Look at the fire in those eyes! She is totally built for endurance!"

Mad Dog’s gaze dropped blatantly to the travel pillows stuffed down Yichen’s dress.

Yichen’s dark eyes were pitch-black voids of murder. If looks could kill, the Vice-Chief would have been reduced to a fine red mist.

"The Boss doesn’t need both of them tonight," Mad Dog declared, licking his chapped lips. "I’m keeping this one for myself. Take the tall bitch to my private quarters. Tie her to the bed. I’ll deal with her after I finish this flagon of wine."

The entire tactical plan came to a screeching, catastrophic halt.

Ji’an froze. The shadow guards froze. Xiao Yichen went entirely, horrifyingly still.

’Wait. No,’ Ji’an’s brain scrambled. ’That wasn’t the plan! The plan was for both of us to be sent to the Boss’s room! If Yichen gets taken to the Vice-Chief’s quarters... we are separated! The explosive talisman to break the array core is hidden in his robes!’

Because she was disguised as a boy, her pockets had been deemed too shallow to hide the bulky array-breaker talisman.

The shadow guards had hidden the explosive rune exactly where no bandit would ever dare check until it was too late: inside one of the linen bundles stuffed into Yichen’s fake cleavage.

If they were separated, Ji’an would be sent into a Golden Core expert’s bedroom completely unarmed, without her Qi, and without the key to lower the fortress’s shields.

"Wait!" Ji’an cried out, breaking character in her panic, scrambling forward on her knees. "You can’t separate us! Please! She’s my sister! We must stay together!"

Mad Dog laughed, a harsh, grating sound, kicking Ji’an squarely in the shoulder.

Because her Qi was suppressed by the Null-Stone cuffs, the blow hit her with the full force of a Foundation Establishment cultivator striking a mortal.

Ji’an cried out, flying backward and crashing hard onto the stone floor, the air rushing from her lungs.

"Ji’an!" Yichen’s voice tore through the cavern.

The Prince completely abandoned his feminine disguise. He surged to his feet, ignoring the heavy ropes binding him.

The sheer, terrifying wrath in his dark eyes was so intense that the two bandits holding his tethers actually stumbled backward in fear.

"If you touch her again, I will tear your throat out with my teeth," Yichen snarled, his voice a deep, demonic rumble, straining against the Null-Stone cuffs with such raw physical force that the heavy iron links groaned.

He didn’t care about the mission.

He didn’t care about the array. Seeing her struck, seeing her thrown to the floor, triggered a violent, possessive madness in the Prince that completely overrode his mind.

Mad Dog blinked, surprised by the sheer ferocity of the "maiden."

"Feisty!" the Vice-Chief laughed, completely misinterpreting the threat. "I love a fighter! Gag her and drag her to my room! Now!"

Four burly bandits rushed forward, throwing their combined weight onto Yichen.

Even without his Qi, the Prince fought like a cornered tiger, headbutting one bandit and kicking another in the chest, but the sheer numbers overwhelmed him.

They forced a dirty rag into his mouth, tying it securely, and began dragging him away toward the eastern tunnels.

Yichen thrashed wildly, his dark, furious eyes locked onto Ji’an’s fallen form.

’I cannot protect him,’ Yichen’s mind screamed, absolute panic tearing at his soul. ’He has no Qi and no weapons! He is walking into a monster’s den alone!’ 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Ji’an coughed, rolling onto her side, clutching her bruised shoulder. She looked up just in time to see Yichen being dragged into the dark corridor.

She saw the look in his eyes. It wasn’t the arrogant smirk of a sociopath.

It was the desperate, agonizing terror of a man watching the only thing he truly wanted being ripped away from him.

"Get the pretty boy on his feet," Mad Dog ordered the remaining guards, turning away to grab his wine flagon. "Wash and perfume him, then, put him in the sheer silks. The Boss likes his meals clean."

Rough hands grabbed Ji’an by the arms, hauling her roughly to her feet.

The disguised shadow guards could do nothing but watch.

If they broke character now, they would be slaughtered by the hundreds of bandits in the cavern, and the mission would fail.

’I am on my own,’ Ji’an realized, a cold, terrifying clarity settling over her.

She was stripped of her strength and had no explosive talisman.

She was about to be locked in a room with a bisexual, Golden Core Qi-sucking vampire who wanted to drain her life force.

But as the bandits dragged her toward the heavily warded stairs leading to the Boss’s inner sanctum, Lin Ji’an didn’t weep or despair.

She closed her eyes, taking a slow, deep breath, visualizing the layout of a commercial kitchen.

’He thinks I am a meal,’ Ji’an thought, a slow, dark, incredibly violent smile curling the edges of her lips.

The arrogant, untouchable Head Chef rose to the surface, completely overriding the terrified hostage.

’Fine. If he wants a meal... I am going to serve him absolute hell.’

The bathing chambers of Blood-Hand Tu’s inner sanctum were obscene in their luxury.