Chapter 161: Perilous Straits

"Is that so?" Mo Wu smiled, saying nothing more, and walked straight up to the cart laden with treasures. This made Luo Kui feel a creeping chill wash over his entire body, causing his scalp to tingle with dread.

"My Lord, you are weighed down by countless affairs of state, and the safety of the entire Ghost City rests entirely upon your shoulders—we have all witnessed this. Perhaps Your Lordship might care to select a few items from these treasures as a meager token of my utmost respect." Luo Kui seemed to realize something, and he cursed bitterly in his heart, thinking the other party's appetite was altogether too insatiable.

When he first arrived, he had already offered the customary tribute according to precedent. Yet judging by the present situation, it was painfully clear that upon laying eyes on this cart of treasures, the other man's greed had flared up once more.

At this thought, Luo Kui's heart suddenly relaxed a fraction. Losing a few external possessions mattered little; anyway, he had never intended to make off with this cart of treasures in the first place.

From beginning to end, the sole purpose of this cart was merely to pull wool over people's eyes. Once he reached the outside world, he would have discarded this cumbersome baggage without a second thought.

It was true that he had made his fortune through wealth, but ultimately, without cleverness and wit, no amount of wealth would ever be of any use.

"Very well, Brother Mo, you needn't waste any more breath on him."

At that precise moment, an untimely voice suddenly rang out.

Luo Kui's heart skipped a violent beat, and his head roared as if about to explode. He felt as though an invisible, crushing boulder were pressing down upon his chest, leaving his mind a complete blank.

In an instant, he fully comprehended his current plight, and a profound sense of despair chilled him to the bone.

"Haha, sometimes properly seasoning one's mood possesses a rather unique flavor after all." Mo Wu smiled. His teasing just now had been a mere whim, but it was terribly amusing, wasn't it?

Luo Kui could not help the twitch at the corner of his mouth, and he nearly blurted out a string of curses. Yet after pondering the identities of the two men before him, he promptly dismissed this dangerous notion.

He had no intention of breaking the jar since it was already cracked—not yet, anyway. From start to finish, he could be considered utterly innocent. However, if he made a full and honest confession, perhaps he still stood a sliver of a chance at survival.

Though exceedingly slim, that chance depended entirely upon the person wielding it. If dealing with ordinary individuals, they would typically spill everything at once, only to be slaughtered to vent the other's anger the moment their usefulness expired.

Luo Kui would rather face death in silence than suffer such a cowardly end.

Next, the only way he could temporarily preserve his life was to demonstrate his remaining value.

As for what to do in the future, that was not something he needed to ponder right this second.

"Lord Bai, there may be some slight misunderstanding between us. Why not hear my explanation first? It won't be too late for Your Lordship to pass judgment afterward." Luo Kui took a deep breath, forcing his terror-stricken heart to steady itself, though the result left much to be desired. He had long held a deep-seated awe and reverence for these Commanders—a reverence bred into him over a long period of time—and it was difficult to shed it overnight.

Bai ShiCheng chuckled as though he had just heard the most ridiculous joke in history, his gaze toward Luo Kui filled with playful mockery. "Every person at death's door says the exact same thing as you. Yet not a single one of them is innocent. Since you've already done it, do you lack even the courage to face the consequences?"

With that, Bai ShiCheng walked directly up to the carriage behind Luo Kui. Luo Kui made no effort to stop him; matters had already reached this juncture, and rather than engaging in such futile resistance, it was far better to rack his brains for a countermeasure.

Bai ShiCheng's gaze narrowed. Barring any accidents, his wife ought to be concealed within the very carriage before him. He swiftly unloaded the treasures stacked inside, and the true appearance of the vehicle was soon revealed. The interior space differed vastly from the exterior height; anyone possessing even a shred of intelligence could instantly spot the anomaly hidden within.

"Bang!"

Bai ShiCheng gripped the sides of the carriage and exerted a sudden, fierce burst of strength. In an instant, a fissure split right down the middle of the vehicle, exposing Lady Bai's graceful figure.

"Hmph, is this a misunderstanding too?" Bai ShiCheng's expression turned grim and terrifying. First, he checked his wife's vital signs and, finding no abnormalities, turned his gaze back to Luo Kui. If not for the fact that the man still served a purpose, he would have loved to hack him into ten thousand pieces right then and there to vent the hatred burning in his chest.

"May Lord Bai examine the facts clearly. The reason matters have evolved to this stage is that I, too, was driven by bitter circumstances beyond my control," Luo Kui said with a bitter grimace.

"Ha! The tricks you use to exonerate yourself are altogether too crude. Out of ten criminals, nine will claim it's all a misunderstanding. If I were you, I'd skip straight to the point—that might actually make me change my mind. But with ironclad evidence before us, do you really think these explanations carry any weight?" Bai ShiCheng scoffed. Despite Luo Kui's seemingly sincere demeanor, he refused to swallow a single word of it. Once or twice might be dismissed as coincidence, but all the prior evidence pointed the finger squarely at Luo Kui. Now, that was a problem worth pondering deeply.

Furthermore, with the iron-clad evidence lying mountain-high before them, for Luo Kui to attempt to wiggle out of it was nothing short of wishful thinking.

Luo Kui had bitterness in his heart that he could not voice. Looking at the resolute Bai ShiCheng before him, a sense of utter helplessness crept into his soul.

At the very beginning, he had still harbored a modicum of confidence, but by now, even he could no longer predict just how far this situation would spiral out of control.

"My Lord, surely you already know of the matter where I tailed your wife earlier. All I wish to say is that, until today, I genuinely believed I was merely carrying out Your Lordship's own instructions. The message was passed to me by a burly, broad-shouldered man surnamed Yan..." Luo Kui now had no other choice; he could only treat a dead horse as if it were still alive, recounting the whole tale of how he had been framed from start to finish to Bai ShiCheng.

Plans truly could never keep up with rapid changes; the rhetoric he had meticulously prepared earlier now felt entirely ill-suited for the present moment.

His original plan had been to embellish the previous events with exaggerated flourishes, weaving in a few fabrications of his own. Truth and falsehood mattered little; as long as Bai ShiCheng could be made to believe him, the moment the Lord sought to uncover the true mastermind, he would never dare to kill him rashly.

"Yet you possess no evidence to prove your own innocence, do you?"

"On the contrary, countless pieces of evidence point all accusations directly at you."

"How do you explain all of that?"

Although Bai ShiCheng was not fickle enough to let a single side of the story sway his prior convictions, Luo Kui's arguments flowed logically. Coupled with the deeply convoluted nature of the affair, it inevitably sowed a sliver of hesitation within his once-impenetrable resolve.

"My Lord, if I may be so bold as to ask: with my meager strength, how could I possibly have snatched Lady Bai away without a sound, right under the heavily guarded noses of the Bai Estate?" Luo Kui thought to himself: since he could not force the man to trust him, he might as well plant the seeds of suspicion instead.