Chapter 106: A Place Not to Be Entered Unless The Country Is Under Siege

That person was clearly shocked, but he did not panic.

After pressing down on the stone bricks again, he waved his hand and summoned a golden sword. He stabbed it into the crack at lightning speed and twisted the sword, blocking the secret door.

However, this was only the beginning. In the blink of an eye, that person took out three long swords of different colors from thin air and stuck them into the secret door. Then, he lay on the secret door and hooked his hands and feet around the hilts of his swords.

After he was done, the banging began again.

This time, the force was clearly stronger than before. However, with the help of the four swords, the secret door could no longer be pushed open, but the huge force still shook that person until he almost vomited blood.

The morning breeze blew past, blowing up his messy hair, revealing Lin Ran’s exhausted face filled with some lingering fear.

After holding on for nearly fifteen minutes, the thing that was hitting the secret door finally stopped.

“Phew—it finally stopped!”

Lin Ran heaved a sigh of relief. As a Half-Saint and the number one swordsman in the Heavenly Saint Dynasty, at this moment, he actually looked relieved that he had survived a disaster.

After another hour, Lin Ran finally had the strength to get up from the ground.

“I didn’t expect there to be such a thing under the palace. What were the people who built it back then thinking?”

Lin Ran muttered to himself. Then, he rode the sword straight to the empress’s bedroom.

In the bedroom.

After a night of rest, the empress had mostly recovered. However, the imperial physician told her not to go out as much as possible, so she got someone to move all the scrolls to the bedroom.

After a few days of idling around, the scrolls were piled up like mountains.

The empress felt dizzy after reading a few scrolls. Just as she was about to go to the dragon couch to rest, she turned around and saw a ragged person climbing into her bedroom from the window.

“Guard…”

“Don’t shout! It’s me!”

A familiar voice sounded. The empress was stunned for a moment before asking, “Lord Lin?”

“Um… Yes.”

Lin Ran brushed his messy hair away and smiled awkwardly.

The empress burst into laughter. “Lord Lin, you’ve always taken your appearance very seriously, but why do you look like a beggar today? Why do you have to get in through the window like a thief when you can walk through the door?”

“You still have the cheek to ask me that? It’s all your fault!”

Lin Ran crawled past the window and arrived in front of the empress in a few steps. He probed with a serious expression, “Have you been to that place yourself?”

The smile on the empress’s face instantly disappeared. “I don’t know what Lord Lin is talking about.”

“Stop pretending!”

Lin Ran stomped his feet angrily and took out a ruby necklace and a green jade hairpin that had been passed down in the royal family for generations.

When she saw the ruby necklace, the empress did not react. However, when she saw the hairpin, her expression instantly changed.

“Give it to me!”

As the empress spoke, she reached out to snatch it, but how could Lin Ran let her have her way? In a flash, he appeared dozens of feet away. In another flash, he appeared on the other side of the empress, almost knocking down the small mountain of scrolls.

“What’s the hurry?”

Lin Ran patted his chest and said anxiously, “I’m not in full control of myself now. If you continue like this, I can’t guarantee what will happen.”

Hearing the seriousness and anxiety in Lin Ran’s tone, the empress calmed down a little and said worriedly, “What do you mean you are not in full control of yourself?”

“My cultivation.”

Lin Ran replied with a complicated expression, “After coming out of that place, my cultivation seemed to have gone out of control. I wanted to ride my sword to your bedroom, but in the blink of an eye, I was already outside the city.”

The empress looked at Lin Ran in confusion, clearly not understanding what he meant.

Lin Ran didn’t explain. He placed the ruby necklace on the table and asked seriously, “Now tell me if you have ever been to that place.”

“I…”

The empress hesitated for a long time before shaking her head in silence.

“That’s good.”

Lin Ran suddenly heaved a sigh of relief. “If you had been there but didn’t warn me, I would have been very angry with you… Since you haven’t been there, it’s fine.”

As he spoke, Lin Ran placed the jade hairpin on the table. The empress immediately took it away and held it tightly with both hands, as if she was afraid that Lin Ran would snatch it back.

Seeing this, Lin Ran couldn’t help but be puzzled. “Is this hairpin that important? I’ve seen it. The material is just ordinary green jade without any divine sense attached. Why do you value it so much?”

“This is my mother’s belongings.”

Lin Ran smacked his lips. “My condolences, but why is this thing in that place? Is it also a secret?”

historical

“I’m not sure.”

The empress shook her head and replied, “This hairpin had always been by my side, but since I ascended the throne, I haven’t seen it. After that, I secretly investigated for a long time before I realized that the hairpin might be there.”

Lin Ran immediately sensed that something was wrong. “Since you know the whereabouts of the hairpin, didn’t you think of getting it yourself?”

“According to the royal family’s rules, the secret place is not to be entered unless the country is under siege.”

The empress sighed and replied. Suddenly, she thought of something and looked at Lin Ran. “By the way, you said that I didn’t warn you. What should I warn you about? Is there danger in the secret place?”

“Well, there’s a… a… um…”

Lin Ran nodded, but he didn’t continue. He frowned as if he didn’t know how to describe it. After a long time, he continued, “Something very powerful and dangerous.”

“How powerful?”

“More powerful than me anyway.”

Lin Ran shrugged and replied, as if he was talking about something ordinary. “I almost died there.”

The empress’s eyes widened. “With your current strength, you can be said to be unrivaled in the Heavenly Saint Dynasty. There’s actually someone more powerful than you?!”

“I have to correct you on two things. First of all, I’m not unrivaled. I’m invincible.”

Lin Ran said this without intending to show off. Then, his expression turned strange. “Secondly, that thing is not human. I don’t know what it is, but it’s definitely not human. It’s impossible for a human to be so powerful, not even a Saint!”

The more the empress listened, the more confused she became. “But if that’s the case, how can you come out alive?”

“I don’t know.”

Lin Ran shook his head honestly. “But I think it should be related to something special about that place.”