“What is that to you?” The cold voice of the nun in her plain garments rang out.

Her face was entirely ruined; there was no reading her expression at all — yet the killing intent in her eyes was something anyone could easily see.

It was not only the nun — even beneath her light veil, the expression of Long Feiyan had grown hard and dark. The eyes exposed above the veil flickered with a cold, icy gleam.

At some point it was unclear when, everything around them had gone utterly still.

No whirling wind. No drifting dust. No swirling dead branches or fallen leaves. Even the air itself seemed to have congealed.

“Who in the world are you?” Long Feiyan, unable to contain the fury surging in her chest, drove her palm outward with full force.

With a series of tremendous crashes, every tree in the path of her palm strike toppled in succession.

That face — ruined as it was, the contours were still clear, and that figure… how could it be possible?

The nun stared at the woman before her without so much as blinking, utterly unmoved by what had just happened.

The killing intent in her own eyes was every bit as dense as Long Feiyan’s.

A single dead leaf drifted down between the two of them. The nun did no more than furrow her brow, and the leaf ignited, reduced to ash in an instant.

“Announce yourself at once, or do not blame me for showing no mercy!” The nun clenched her fist and gave a cold snort.

“Who asked for your mercy!” Long Feiyan’s voice seemed to pour in from every direction at once.

No one could tell who had struck first. In the blink of an eye, the two figures that had been standing in the grove had vanished entirely.

The wind shrieked and raged, growing more ferocious by the second, as though it meant to sweep up everything in the forest and carry it away.

For one breathless moment, the entire world seemed to shake — utter chaos, as though the end of all things had come.

Before long, this place that seemed on the verge of obliteration finally fell silent once more, and the two figures who had disappeared dropped back down to the ground.

Around them, there remained nothing but the tree-pits that had not yet been filled — every last great tree had been wrenched up by the roots, flung to some unknown corner of the world.

The two women stood in the moonlight, and but for the fact that their complexions had grown a few shades paler, they appeared entirely unharmed.

Sensing someone drawing near, the nun’s eyes narrowed sharply, and she vanished from before Long Feiyan.

“My Lady.” Qing Ye appeared in an instant at Long Feiyan’s side, reaching out to take her arm.

Qing Zhi followed a step behind, arriving before the two of them.

“My Lady, are you injured?” Qing Zhi’s brow creased with worry as she moved to step closer.

Long Feiyan drew her gaze back from the direction where the nun had disappeared and waved a hand. The moment she moved, her brow furrowed sharply.

“My Lady.” Qing Zhi immediately stepped forward and took Long Feiyan’s other arm. “What manner of person is she? To have actually injured you?”

It seemed the Feng Clan was truly a place where tigers lay hidden and dragons crouched concealed.

“It is nothing.” Long Feiyan slipped her hands free from Qing Zhi’s and Qing Ye’s hold. “She is injured as well.”

“My Lady.” Qing Ye was still worried and kept close to her side. “Who exactly is she? Did My Lady get a clear look?”

Long Feiyan lifted her gaze and looked once more in the direction from which the nun had departed. Her crescent brows drew together slightly.

She drew a slow, quiet breath, then withdrew her gaze and swept her sleeve with a flick of her wrist — yet it could not conceal the killing intent still burning in her eyes.

If it truly was her — how could she have allowed her to go on living in such comfort?

Knowing her Lady would say nothing more, Qing Ye did not press further.

“My Lady, the Feng Clan holds no such peerless martial arts manual as you described — so why did you deceive the Young Lord into coming here?”

This question had been weighing on Qing Ye for far too long; she had suppressed it until she could bear it no longer.

“The Feng Clan has no such manual.” Long Feiyan said plainly.

Qing Zhi’s and Qing Ye’s brows furrowed in unison. Neither of them could make any sense of their Lady’s meaning.

“There is no manual — but there is a method to enable her to forge an invincible martial cultivation…”

Qing Ye and Qing Zhi exchanged a glance. Neither said anything, and both fell into step behind her.

The following morning, Feng Jiu’er slipped out of the Princess’ Hall early.

“I have not yet had my morning meal — where are you rushing off to?” Jian Yi cast a sideways glance at the person before him.

The least she could do was fill her stomach first. She had pulled him out of bed at the crack of dawn without so much as a bite of food — was this kind of employer not perhaps a little too demanding?

“I have not eaten either.” Feng Jiu’er’s footsteps were quick with urgency, as though she feared someone behind her was about to give chase.

“Where are you in such a hurry to go?” Jian Yi fell into step beside her.

“To find my Fourth Imperial Uncle.” Feng Jiu’er raised an eyebrow and said.

“Is there no morning meal in the Princess’ Hall?” Jian Yi could more or less guess why the girl was making such a hasty exit.

She had likely been frightened off by a certain very important personage.

“I like having my meals with my Fourth Imperial Uncle. Is that a problem?” Feng Jiu’er pressed her lips together, her tone somewhat put-upon.

“I never said it was.” Jian Yi curled his lips slightly, but in the very next instant, his handsome thick brows drew together.

Up ahead, a figure was sinking furtively out of sight.

Jian Yi glanced back at Feng Jiu’er, then turned and strode forward.

“Jian Yi, wait.” Feng Jiu’er caught a glimpse of a hem of fabric peeking out from behind a flower bed, and something shifted in the depths of her eyes.

“Come out. No need to hide any further.”

A palace maid crept out from behind the flower bed with nervous, faltering steps. She did no more than spare Feng Jiu’er one glance before lowering her head, sinking to her knees.

“This servant greets the Princess.”

“Rise.” Feng Jiu’er waved a hand. “What matter brings you to find me?”

She recognized this maid — this was the one her Second Imperial Brother had reduced to tears. Could it be she had come to lodge a complaint?

The palace maid climbed to her feet with trembling limbs, still keeping her head bowed, not daring to raise her eyes to Feng Jiu’er even once.

“Princess, this servant… has something to say to the Princess. Princess, could you perhaps… permit a private word?”

Feng Jiu’er looked at the maid, her brows drawing together slightly, but she did not refuse.

“Mm.” She gave a short nod, then turned and walked toward the lakeside. “Jian Yi, you stay here. And do not eavesdrop!”

A palace maid reduced to tears by her Second Imperial Brother — Feng Jiu’er did not read too much into it.

The palace maid kept her head low and followed behind Feng Jiu’er.

Jian Yi did not follow, but his gaze remained fixed on the two who were walking away.

Then, without warning, his eyes darkened. He bent low and vaulted forward, closing the distance in an instant.

“Jiu’er, watch out!”

At the same moment, Feng Jiu’er seemed to sense a thread of killing intent as well — something she had not felt at all from the maid before this.

She had barely begun to turn when, with a sharp cutting sound, a slash opened across her arm.

Jian Yi’s shout had startled the maid badly. In her panic, she gripped the short blade in both hands and brought it down.

There was a distance between them. The maid had her back to Jian Yi as she moved — and he had still arrived one step too late.

A palm strike landed on the maid’s shoulder. She cried out and crumpled to the ground.

“Jiu’er, how are you?” Jian Yi caught hold of Feng Jiu’er’s slender arm, his eyes full of remorse.

Feng Jiu’er glanced at the maid collapsed on the grass, blood spilling from her lips, then produced a handkerchief and wrapped it around the wound.

“I am all right. The cut is not deep.”

She had not sensed any particular killing intent from the maid earlier — and yet this woman, who did not seem to have the strength to overpower even a chicken, had tried to kill her.

What Feng Jiu’er had also noticed was this: the maid had struck out suddenly because she had been startled. But in the final moment when she gripped the blade in both hands and brought it slashing down, her eyes had been utterly vacant — dead still.

Which was to say — she had known that this strike would cost her own life. So why had she still done it?