The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 23: The Cage That Broke The Third Prince’s Mind

Chapter 23: The Cage That Broke The Third Prince’s Mind

The sun had barely crested over the peaks when Sun Longzi and Zhu Deming descended the mountain trail with the Third Prince’s cage in tow. The four remaining soldiers staggered under its weight, their uniforms torn and soaked in blood, but they said nothing.

In fact, no one had spoken since they left the clearing.

However, Zhu Lianhua hadn’t stopped crying.

His sobs came in fits—sometimes high and choking, sometimes soft and wheezing like a child. At some point during the descent, he had soiled himself, but no one acknowledged it. To do so would be to invite death to several generations of their family.

The royals protected themselves, so it would already be an act of heaven not to die for letting the Third Prince get into this state, let alone seeing something so disgraceful like soiling himself.

The cage, on the other hand, was something that no one had ever seen before. It had a solid bottom, and the bars on either side were so close together that maybe an arm could fit through it, but nothing else. The soldier wasn’t far off when he called it a bird’s cage. Only this one was easily six feet tall.

Unfortunately for Zhu Lianhua, it was too well built to open easily, and no one dared pry it apart until they returned to the camp. Of course, it didn’t help that they couldn’t even see how the cage opened. There was no door, no hinges, nothing.

The Demon Lord, Sun Longzi, remained at the head of the party, with Zhu Deming close beside them. The two of them could feel the eyes of someone or something watching them from the shadows... and neither man wanted to confront whoever or whatever it was.

They went down from 52 highly trained men to six, and that was a heavy blow to the two men who looked at the members of the Red Demon Army like they were family.

Soon enough, the village came into view like a vision— the mud walls, wooden houses, and smoke curling gently from the cooking fires that had once looked so ordinary were now a beacon of hope for the survivors.

A woman chased her son with a wooden spoon. Chickens clucked. Life, quiet and stubborn, carried on as if the men from the Capital hadn’t just had the rug pulled out from under their feet.

The villagers stopped what they were doing to stare, but not a single one rushed to greet them.

Zhou Cunzhang stood in front of his forge, hammering steel like he had been all morning, barely raising his head even as the soldiers approached. The sound of his anvil echoed like war drums.

One of the younger soldiers broke ranks and approached the other man. "Please—do you... or anyone else know how to open this cage?"

Zhou Cunzhang, in the middle of an important part, didn’t stop hammering. If he stopped now, the entire sword would be useless, and he would have to start over again from the beginning. "Why would I?" he asked casually with a shrug of his massive shoulders.

"It’s forged with a locking mechanism none of us can decipher," Sun Longzi announced, stepping forward. "We need someone skilled enough to dismantle it without killing the one inside."

Zhou Cunzhang’s hammer paused mid-air for a split second before returning to his rhythm. "The one inside... is still alive?"

"Barely," acknowledged Sun Longzi. "But if we want to keep him breathing, we need him out."

"I suppose I could take a look," the blacksmith muttered, stretching his neck back and forth. He prided himself on his work, but even he knew that he was an amateur compared to Zhao Xiuying. That woman had metal in her blood and could manipulate it as easy as breathing. "But I’ll need tools. Set it by the trough. I’ll get to it after I finish this blade."

"Now," Zhu Deming snapped, his voice was low but sharp as steel. "We don’t have time for pride."

Zhou Cunzhang narrowed his eyes as he looked over his shoulder at the other man. When he realized that Zhu Deming wasn’t about to back down, Zhou Cunzhang let out a long breath and wiped his hands. "Fine."

As the soldiers moved the cage toward the smithy, a few villagers came to watch—not because they were curious, but because it was clear that something terrible had happened. The mountain never gave back what it didn’t want to. This—this was a message.

Only they didn’t know who the message was intended for.

Zhu Deming remained still, his gaze lingering on the cage and the man inside. The Third Prince was curled on his side, whispering to himself, too broken to speak properly. His once-fine changshan was tattered, hanging from his hips in ribbons. Blood had dried at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were more white than anything else.

The prince had always taken great pride in his appearance. His silk robes were custom-embroidered, his hair oiled and combed into perfection every morning. He had favored colors that stood out—crimson, white, silver—but now he looked like something that had been buried and clawed its way out of a grave.

"I can’t promise that I can open this, you understand that, right?" sighed Zhou Cunzhang, looking over Zhao Xiuyang’s exquisite creation.

"You didn’t craft this?" asked Sun Longzi softly as he glared at Zhou Cunzhang. He catalogued each one of the man’s movements, trying to discern if it was his traps that the soldiers had sprung in the woods.

After all, the village chief was the only metal smith for days, and every trap had a layer of metal to it.

Zhou Cunzhang snorted as he continued to work through just how to open the cage. "If I had this type of skill, do you really think I would be in a village out here? I could charge a fortune for my craft in the Capital, and people would still be racing to buy more."

Zhu Deming snorted, but didn’t deny what the other man had said. It was true, only a highly skilled craftsman could create things like this. Not even the blacksmith in the Red Demon Army could design and create such a cage, and he was considered to be the best in the world.

"Just do what you can," sighed Sun Longzi, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.