Chapter 019: Another Passage

Ringtone woke up in a daze. Her lips felt parched, and the air around her was filled with a mixture of blood and decay. Every bone in her body seemed to be about to break apart; any movement caused pain everywhere. Her mind was fuzzy, and it took her a while to remember that she had followed Young Master Du Fan into the secret passage beneath the altar, then followed him to a certain place, where she seemed to have encountered the legendary Ghost Wolf. And then…?

At these thoughts, Ringtone suddenly jolted awake. She forced herself to open her eyes. The blurry vision cleared, and she saw Du Fan looking at her with a smirk.

Startled, Ringtone sat up abruptly. But this movement seemed to hurt some part of her body—she felt a sharp pain in her chest, yet the pain made her mind sharper.

The robe covering her body slipped down her silky skin. Ringtone couldn’t help but scream. Ignoring the pain, she covered her chest with one hand while trying to grab the robe with the other. But as a barbarian woman, how could one hand provide enough protection?

In an instant, her body was exposed, dazzlingly bare!

It was then that Ringtone remembered she should have been wearing leather armor instead of a robe. So this Du Fan…

Her expression changed drastically as she stared at Du Fan and stammered, “You… you… you…”

Du Fan smiled coldly, his gaze lingering on her full chest for a moment before he said lightly, “Miss Ringtone, did you sleep well?”

His gaze swept over her entire body again, and his smile grew colder. “Don’t worry. I have no interest in a unconscious woman. Even if I wanted to do something, I’d wait until she wakes up.”

Ringtone’s expression shifted several times before she finally let out a soft sigh. Instinctively, she pulled the robe over her body and said coldly, “Where is this place?”

“Where is it?” Du Fan sneered. “It seems I should be the one asking you that question, Miss Ringtone. Earlier, you deliberately spoke carelessly in front of me to lure me here, right? But what’s your real purpose? Coming here on your own? Don’t try to tell me you know nothing in such a situation. If you do… I’ll show you what happens when a young master gets angry—serious consequences!”

Reine’s expression changed slightly, and after a moment, she sighed softly and said, “I… I don’t know what place this is either… It’s just… I saw you go into that hole, and out of curiosity, I followed you down.”
“Oh, is that so?” Du Fan’s smile held a warmth that felt like a gentle breeze, “Then dear Miss Reine, it seems you still haven’t answered a few key questions, right? Why exactly did you lead me to the altar? According to you, you could send me back tomorrow, but before that, you wanted to arouse my curiosity and lead me inside the altar. How can you claim it wasn’t intentional?”
After hesitating for a moment, Reine bit her lip and said, “Well… since you’ve asked, there’s no point in hiding it anymore. You’re right… I deliberately led you to the altar so that you could see the inscriptions on it… But I never expected you to discover this secret below… I don’t even know what’s in here, so…”
Du Fan smiled lightly and said, “I see… Even you don’t know what’s down there… Alright, let’s ignore that question for now, shall we? Then please tell me, Miss Reine, why did you want me to see those inscriptions on the altar? Don’t tell me you suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to teach me something… If I’m guessing correctly, those inscriptions must be the secrets of your tribe’s three great mystic arts, right? It wouldn’t be good if an outsider saw them, would it?… Oh, and… I’ve been wondering why I could enter the altar so easily. It turns out Miss Reine had already made arrangements, right?”
Reine frowned and whispered, “You’re right… I deliberately told you that… so that you could see the secrets of those three mystic arts… Because… because… it was the teacher’s orders…”
“The teacher? High Priest Gannon?” Du Fan touched his nose, his eyes showing some confusion, “Alright, since you say so, I’ll take your word for it for now… But Miss Reine, please remember… Deception never leads to a good outcome… By the way, I accidentally damaged the human skin mask on your face… You should figure out how to deal with that yourself.”
Reine trembled slightly, touched her face, and couldn’t help but say, “You… you… saw it?”

“There’s nothing much…” Du Fan shrugged. “It’s just a human skin mask… Besides, since she’s so beautiful, it would be a waste not to show it off, right? But Miss Ringtone… I think none of this matters right now. Shouldn’t we discuss how to get out of here?”
Ringtone huffed and casually pulled off the human skin mask from her face, revealing her delicate, stunning face. Unlike her mature figure, her face resembled that of a teenage porcelain doll. Though her eyes were filled with helplessness, her dimples remained sweet, though her sun-kissed skin somewhat diminished her beauty.
Du Fan glanced at her casually and thought to himself, What a pity—such a perfect combination of youthful looks and large breasts, and yet she’s a shaman priest? And acting all mysterious all day long—how boring!
Ringtone tied her robe loosely around herself, covering her exposed curves, then looked around and asked, “What place is this exactly?”
Du Fan shook his head. “I don’t know. I carried you out of the cave where those shadow wolves appeared and ended up here. But look…” Du Fan stood up and pointed around. “The architectural style here is very similar to that of your barbarian tribes. If even you don’t know where this is, then I’m even less sure!”
Ringtone looked around and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know where this is either… So, what should we do now?”
Du Fan forced a smile. “Miss Ringtone, I can only tell you this… I don’t know either. Your skills are superior to mine. Just estimate—given our combined strength, can we even compete with those three shadow wolves?”
Ringtone closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head and sighed. “I… If it were an open area, even if we couldn’t defeat them, we could at least run. But in that place just now, I couldn’t even use my full strength. And you… though you’re skilled in both magic and martial arts, you probably can’t even take on one of them. So…”
Du Fan sighed inwardly, thinking that witchcraft wasn’t that great after all. He glanced around for a while, hesitated for a moment, then said, “If you don’t want to go back the way we came, there might be another path we can take.”
Ringtone asked, “Where?”

Du Fan pointed at a wall and said, “When you were unconscious earlier, I checked around. If I’m not mistaken, there used to be a passage there, but it’s been blocked for some reason. If we go through there, we might still be able to escape…”
Ringne nodded. Though her expression was grim, she still said, “Then let’s go that way… If it doesn’t work… we can always come back.”
Du Fan sighed softly, his face showing a half-smile. “Well, that’s the only option then. But Miss Ringne, you must remember… If you hide anything from me, it’s fine if I don’t find out. But if I do, you know better than I do what the consequences will be. For an angry man, a naked beauty might just be the perfect outlet.”
Ringne’s face turned pale. She forced a smile and said, “Lord Du Fan, you’re joking… Let’s just go…”
Du Fan took a breath and glanced at Ringne deeply before saying, “Alright… let’s go. But Miss Ringne… make sure to tell me everything… If we can’t be honest with each other at this point, then death might really be close. I don’t know if you care about your life, but I do. I have no interest in losing my life in your barbarian land…”
With that, Du Fan stood up. He summoned several small fireballs and brought them to the wall, tapping it lightly with his fingers. He closed his eyes and listened for a moment before sneering coldly and murmuring, “The barbarians’ traps really lack creativity…”
As he spoke, Du Fan stepped back a few steps, pulled out his Phantom Wand, and quickly created several wind shields in front of him. Then he swung out several wind blades.
With a loud noise, the entire cave seemed to shake. The dust slowly settled, revealing a dark entrance in front of them.
Du Fan clapped his hands and smiled lightly. “Alright… Miss Ringne, are you going to explore ahead or stay behind to cover our backs?”