A thousand enlightenments in one night, starting from being a menial apprentice.

Chapter 391 Shame
It was just dawn and the sound of chickens crowing could be heard from afar.

Duan Rong crawled out of a hole in the dirt, his face covered in dust. His head, face, and neck were all covered with fine dirt debris.

He had a shovel on his waist. When he climbed up, Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan were sitting there gasping for breath. Both of them had a layer of sweat on their foreheads and their eyes looked a little dull from exhaustion.

Four or five days had passed, and the inner rooms on both sides of the main hall were filled with excavated earth debris.

In fact, it was fine at the beginning because the tunnel was not long and the two of them could easily carry out the debris shoveled out by Duan Rong. But as the tunnel became longer and longer, their workload doubled.

The tunnel was narrow and full of dirt, so climbing it was very exhausting. The key point was that Duan Rong was digging very fast, so the two of them had to take turns to barely keep up with Duan Rong's progress.

Seeing Duan Rong crawling out, they both breathed a sigh of relief. They finally got through the hard work of the night.

In a corner of the main room, there was clean water that Liu Shushan had already drawn. Although no one had lived in this house for several years, there was a deep well in the yard that was quite solid.

Duan Rong washed his hands and face with the clean water in the basin. His neck and body felt itchy as if they were pricked by hair. He knew it was the dirt that was causing the itching.

While wiping his face with a towel, he turned around, shrugged his shoulders and shook himself, and suddenly his clothes made a rustling sound.

Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan looked at him, and all three of them smiled slightly.

They took out some dry food on a wooden table that had been deformed due to age and had one corner lifted up.

In fact, the dry food prepared by Liu Shushan was quite good, including sesame cakes, dried meat, and some pickles. They drank some water and started to eat.

All three were hungry. They ate in silence, the sound of their chewing filling the quiet house.

Liu Shushan swallowed a piece of bread with pickles. He glanced at Duan Rong, who was sitting opposite him with a serious expression.

Over the past four or five days, many of his ideas have slowly changed.

He initially thought Duan Rong's strategy was absurd, but over the past few days, Duan Rong worked silently and hard every day, and he could feel a kind of confidence from Duan Rong, a kind of confidence that came after careful consideration and confirmation that he could control the direction of things.

Also, Duan Rong asked him to buy that big sack of stuff, but there were still a lot of things he hadn't used yet? Duan Rong's plan was definitely not as simple as just digging a tunnel.

If they just dug a tunnel, even if they rescued Shen Yanliu, how could they guarantee that they would not be exposed?
After Shen Yanliu was rescued, Chen Xun and the others would be the first to target Shen Mizhi, and Xiao Yu went back with Shen Mizhi to investigate the case. If they were to bring out the truth, wouldn't they all be pursued?

Although Liu Shushan was sure that Duan Rong must have a clever plan in mind, he himself racked his brains and couldn't figure out how to save Shen Yanliu without attracting Chen Xun and others' pursuit? This seemed impossible!
Liu Shushan was thinking this. Duan Rong had finished eating. He touched his mouth, drank some water down his throat, and then lay down on the haystack in the corner to sleep.

Early in the morning, in the flower hall at the back of the government office in the prefectural city.

Chen Xun had gotten up early. While eating breakfast, he looked at several confessions and some attached materials in his hands.

That was the detailed information that Li Hong had investigated about the relationship between Shen Yanliu and his daughter.

What caught Chen Xun's attention most was a statement made by Qiu Hen, Shen Mizhi's personal maid.

According to Qiu Hen, when Shen Mizhi was upset, she would tend to self-harm. There were several scars on her arms, all of which were scratched by herself. But Shen Mizhi never let her tell anyone about this.

By the time Chen Xun finished his breakfast, he had already read through all the investigation materials.

His hands tapped lightly on the mahogany round table, his eyes deep in thought.

"Isn't this girl holding a grudge against her father in her heart?" Chen Xun speculated with flickering eyes.

There was another piece of information in the data, that Shen Mizhi's mother died of illness when she was young, and at that time, Shen Yanliu was not with them.

Chen Xun suddenly said to himself, "Let's put ourselves in his shoes. With a father like this, in such a dead end. Giving up on rescuing him and drawing a clear line, even if I will be branded as unfilial, it's better than ruining my life."

When Chen Xun walked out of the flower hall, he had already let go of Shen Mizhi's matter. Although he still instructed Li Hong to notify the people over there to keep a close eye on Shen Mizhi, he no longer thought this was an abnormal sign.

It turns out that it’s not the things that are abnormal, it’s the people who are abnormal.

Late at night on the ninth day, after working continuously for several days, the tunnel was finally dug to the designated location before the deadline.

Duan Rong released his spiritual consciousness, covering the surroundings. He was at the end of the tunnel, only about half a meter away from the target cell above.

But now is not the time to dig through directly. The timing is not right, and he still has a lot of preparatory work to do.

Duan Rong immediately retreated from the tunnel, and in the cover of night, he took Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan away from the place and returned to Liu Shushan's villa.

All three of them were covered in dust and dirt, and their clothes, shoes and socks were full of dirt.

Liu Shushan found three sets of clean clothes, and the three of them stripped naked and started taking a bath right at the well.

While rubbing the soap nuts on his body, Ximen Kankan stared at Liu Shushan's dark butt and said, "Shushan, you have a good figure, but your butt is small and thin!" Liu Shushan glared at him and said, "Get out of the way. Don't comment on my butt."

Ximen Kankan picked up a towel and whistled while scrubbing his body. He began to sing as he whistled. "Liu Shushan has a white butt. He will get richer as he gets older. Liu Shushan has a black butt. He will enjoy more happiness as he gets older."

Liu Shushan's face suddenly turned darker than his butt.

Ximen Kankan was singing happily when Liu Shushan suddenly kicked her, causing her to stagger. His kick left a black muddy footprint on her big white butt.

The wellside was quite slippery because they were bathing, and Ximen Kankan narrowly avoided falling. He touched his buttocks and found it covered in black mud.

"Okay! You were the one who started it!"

Ximen Kankan said as he wiped his butt with a towel and then threw it on Liu Shushan's face. Then the two of them chased each other in the yard with their bare butts.

After playing for a while, they suddenly found that Duan Rong was gone from the well. They walked over and saw that one of the three clean clothes originally hung on the tree by the well was missing.

They stopped fighting, washed themselves, put on their clothes, and went to the hall.

The two walked into the hall and saw that Duan Rong had already poured out all the contents of the sack and seemed to be sorting them.

Just then, a servant came over and said that the wontons and buns had been bought.

It was already late at night and the restaurant had closed long ago, but there was still a stall selling wontons on the street. While Liu Shushan was getting clean clothes for the three people, he told the servant to go to the street and buy some.

Liu Shushan walked out of the hall and took the food, and the servant left the courtyard. Liu Shushan had already told them not to come in unless summoned.

As soon as Liu Shushan brought the meal in, Ximen Kankan took it and started to eat it with a slurp. He had been eating dry biscuits and meat for eight or nine days in a row and felt like vomiting. Now, eating these hot meals, even if they were just wontons and buns, he tasted like Eight Treasure Gourd Duck.

"These wontons are really good, Duan Rong. If you don't eat them, they will be gone soon." Ximen Kankan shouted at Duan Rong.

Duan Rong slowly stood up, walked sideways to the table, and looked at the things placed on the ground.

The things that were originally in the sack had now been neatly placed on the ground. The densely packed things almost filled up a corner of the hall.

Duan Rong sat at the table, slurping wontons, his eyes fixed on the things on the ground, a thoughtful look flashing in his eyes from time to time.

Ximen Kankan turned his head to look at the thing on the ground, then looked at Duan Rong and stopped talking. He could feel that Duan Rong was under a lot of pressure at the moment.

Tomorrow is the tenth day, and Duan Rong’s plan has obviously reached the final critical moment.

After they finished eating, Duan Rong squatted in the corner again and started tinkering with the pile of things.

Liu Shushan asked: "Brother Duan, do you need us to help you?"

"No need. Go and rest."

Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan were indeed tired. They had been working very hard over the past eight or nine days. They looked at each other and went to rest.

Duan Rong fiddled with it for a long time before suddenly coming to the yard. He found some dead branches and dry leaves, gathered them into a pile on the open space at the entrance of the hall, and lit them with a tinder.

Then he placed a small porcelain pot on the pile of firewood to heat it up. A black and two yellow objects were already in the small porcelain pot. As the pot heated up, it emitted a sizzling sound of hot oil, and wisps of green smoke began to rise. The entire courtyard was filled with a disgusting smell that made people want to vomit...

As the temperature rose, Duan Rong continued to add various things...

The next morning, Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan slept for a while and came to the hall again, and found Duan Rong still tinkering there. However, his main venue had become the open space at the entrance of the hall, which had been messed up by him. There was also a strange smell in the air, and Duan Rong's eyes were full of bloodshot. It was obvious that what he was doing was very exhausting.

Ximen Kankan and Liu Shushan were standing there, and Duan Rong walked past as if he didn't see them. Duan Rong was seen walking back and forth, picking up this and that.

The two men stood there, feeling that they were in the way. They couldn't even ask Duan Rong if he wanted them to help, because the ground was full of things in a mess, and Duan Rong was moving quickly, picking up and putting down things. They watched for a while and felt dazzled. How could they help?
The two of them quickly retreated from this area, leaving this space to Duan Rong alone.

This is how he can be most efficient.

It was not until noon that Duan Rong finally stopped. He was seen peeling off a piece of face from a wood carving.

It was a lifelike human face. Although it was just a piece of skin, the facial features already looked quite three-dimensional. However, there was a small hole the size of a green bean on the right side of the face. At first glance, it looked like a fly was lying in it.

The wood carving with its face peeled off was actually carved on a wooden stake. If there was someone present at the time, they would be able to see that the wood carving was of Shen Yanliu, with extremely lifelike facial features and an extremely lifelike expression.

Duan Rong looked at the photo in his hand. His face was slightly translucent in the midday sun, and suddenly he smiled evilly with red eyes.

(End of this chapter)