The faint morning light filtered through the narrow ventilation holes of the county prison, illuminating the bloodstains on the floor.
Zhao Da had sent a message overnight. The shift had been taken over by an old jailer known as 'Old Smoker', who was even more shrewd and ruthless than Zhao Da. He banged on the iron bars while carrying a bucket of spoiled millet porridge.
'Liu Bingyi, I heard you were quite a handful last night?' Old Smoker squinted, clutching a leather whip soaked in salt water in his hand.
Huddled in a straw mat, Liu Bingyi's body was wracked with extreme hunger and aches from the previous night's enhanced transformation.
[System notification: Body Enhancement Progress: 30%. Hostile approach detected." [System Suggestion: Host's physical strength has not yet fully recovered. Forced breakout success rate: 40%. Acting Mode activation recommended.
Liu Bingyi took a deep breath, closed his eyes instantly, and switched from 'God-Level Mimicry' to 'A Dying Patient with Late-Stage Tuberculosis'.
'Cough... cough... cough...' A series of heart-wrenching coughs came from the haystack. Liu Bingyi's once handsome face instantly turned deathly pale and his eyes became bloodshot. His fingertips were bluish-purple as he trembled and reached out, as if he didn't have the strength to hold a bowl.
'Old Smoker, give me some water. I can't, I can't.'
Old Smoker approached suspiciously and poked Liu Bingyi's shoulder with his whip. 'Stop pretending! Yesterday, you scared that coward Zhao Da out of his wits, so how come you're a sick cat today?"
'Zhao Da... he saw a ghost...' Liu Bingyi's voice was barely a whisper. His eyes were unfocused and his pupils were dilating. This was Oscar-worthy body control — even the frequency of muscle twitching was perfectly simulated.
Old Smoker bent down and stared at Liu Bingyi's face.
[Eye of Insight Activated]
Target: Old Smoker's Real-Time Thoughts: 'Could this kid really have contracted the plague? If he dies in my cell, I won't receive the fifty gold coin reward and I'll be tainted by bad luck.'
Old Smoker took a step back in disgust. He didn't notice, however, that Liu Bingyi's left hand, tucked into his sleeve, was tightly gripping a piece of rubble that he had pried off the corner of the wall the night before.
'All right, don't die in front of me,' Old Smoker cursed, kicking the bucket of spoiled porridge into the cell with a loud crash and splashing Liu Bingyi.
Just as Old Smoker turned to unlock the door and check the next cell—
—the deathly despair in Liu Bingyi's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by two sharp, icy glints.
[System Enhancement Acceleration: 100% Complete] [Basic Attributes Unlocked: Strength +5, Agility +8]
"Whoosh!" Liu Bingyi moved. He sprang from the straw mat like a black panther lurking in wait. There was no sound of chains because he had used the "Imperial Guard Combat Technique" last night to skilfully loosen their joints.
Old Smoker had barely turned halfway when a cold, hard, iron-like hand gripped the back of his head tightly and another gripped his chin with sudden force.
Old Smoker didn't even have time to scream before Liu Bingyi pushed him into the bucket of spoiled porridge. His strength was that of an elite soldier, enhanced by the system.
'You like making people drink this kind of stuff?' Liu Bingyi's voice was cold and devoid of emotion.
He didn't kill Old Smoker. At this critical juncture, the deaths of two jailers would alert the Huo family.
'Listen,' whispered Liu Bingyi in the old smoker's ear, his voice laced with undeniable authority. 'From now on, I'm in charge of this cell. Send me two catties of cooked beef and a pot of water every day. If anyone comes to check, just say I'm dying."
The old smoker choked, his face covered in porridge as he stared in terror at the boy who had just been 'almost dead'. The old man was filled with a deep-seated fear at this boy's ability to manipulate events so easily.
"If you dare say anything…" Liu Bingyi lightly crushed the pebbles in his hand, instantly turning them to dust before the old man's eyes. 'This stone is your head.'
[Ding! Successful intimidation, Reputation +50. Due to the host exhibiting a 'dual personality', the system has triggered a hidden reward: a God-level Disguise Kit (Human Skin Mask Material Library).'
Liu Bingyi sat back down on the straw mat, reverting to his pale, sickly appearance. He smeared porridge on his face, making himself look utterly wretched.
'The first act is over. Now...' He looked at his long, slender fingers and a playful smile curved his lips. "It's time to arrange the 'death announcement' and go and see my starving newlywed wife."
A series of heavy, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor outside the cell.
'Old Smoker, is that kid dead yet? Steward Huo can't wait any longer. He insists on seeing this 'great-grandson of the Emperor' die with his own eyes,' said a sarcastic voice.
Liu Bingyi's eyes narrowed. It wasn't an ordinary jailer, but a Huo family servant and Huo Guang's informant.
[Eye of Insight Activated]
Target: Steward of the Huo family
Liu Si's real-time thoughts: 'If that kid isn't dead yet, I'll have to do it myself. Anyway, in this prison, a few deaths are no different to stepping on an ant.'
'Old Smoker' hadn't recovered from his earlier terror. He trembled violently and looked at Liu Bingyi pleadingly.
Liu Bingyi had already lain back down on the straw mat. He wasn't just going to act; he was going to put on a show of dying for Viper's benefit.
[System Command: Activate 'God-Level Mimicry - Tortoise Breath Feign Death'! [Reputation points consumed: 30. Duration: 15 minutes.]
Instantly, his skin turned from pale to ashen, his breathing became almost inaudible and his body temperature plummeted — a feat of physiological control that modern medicine struggles to explain. But with the system's support, he was now a warm "corpse".
With a clang, the iron door was pushed open.
Covering his mouth and nose, Liu Si disgustedly kicked aside the stale porridge bucket at his feet. He walked over to Liu Bingyi and poked his stomach with his gold-plated cane.
No response.
'Dead?' Liu Si frowned, feeling uneasy. He bent down and reached for Liu Bingyi's nostrils.
Silence.
Still not satisfied, Liu Si pulled a thin silver needle from his sleeve and plunged it deeply into Liu Bingyi's philtrum.
For an ordinary person, even without jumping up in pain, their muscles would instinctively twitch at such a deep insertion.
But in Liu Bingyi's mind, the system was issuing frantic alarms: 'Warning! Intense pain detected! Pain shielding function activated (80%)!"
Gritting his teeth, Liu Bingyi endured the pain deep within his consciousness. As a movie star, his fundamental principle was that unless the director yelled 'cut', he couldn't move, even if he were on fire.
His facial muscles were deathly still, not even his eyelashes twitching.
'Looks like he's really dead.' Seeing that it was completely bloodless, Liu Si pulled out the silver needle (Liu Bingyi had used the power of the Imperial Guard's fighting technique to control local blood circulation) and stood up with satisfaction.
'Old Smoker, well done. Throw this corpse into the mass grave outside the city to feed the dogs. Remember to clean up thoroughly afterwards." Liu Si tossed down a piece of silver and left the cell quickly, as if it were a plague.
Once the footsteps had completely disappeared, Old Smoker collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.
'He's gone. Young Master Liu, can you "wake up" now?' Old Smoker asked in a trembling voice.
Liu Bingyi suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze as clear as the stars and showing no trace of death. He pulled out the silver needle from his philtrum, casually flicked it, and it embedded itself deeply into the nearby wooden beam.
'Old Smoker, prepare what I need.' Liu Bingyi stood up and stretched, his joints cracking and popping as they strengthened.
'Tonight, I'll make this funeral procession in style.'
Late at night, a dilapidated carriage carrying the 'corpse' slowly drove out of the back gate of the county prison.
Zhao Da drove the carriage and Old Smoker followed behind. No one noticed that the straw mat which had once wrapped the 'corpse' was now empty.
In front of a dilapidated mud house in the south of Chang'an, a woman wearing a faded, coarse-cloth dress was mending a man's outer robe by the dim light of a lamp.
She was Xu Pingjun.
'Creak—' The door opened.
Xu Pingjun looked up in surprise. Before she could see who it was, she was embraced tightly by someone who smelt of blood, grass and wood.
"Pingjun, I'm back. From today onwards, no one will make you suffer anymore.'
Liu Bingyi's voice was no longer cold and distant, but tender and captivating. However, his gaze passed through his wife's hair and looked towards the majestic Weiyang Palace in the distance.
That night, Chang'an gained a dead man and a true dragon.