“The matter with Yelu Qianqian—it was actually a demonic sound illusion, not real.” Baili Weisheng had finally gotten the words out.
But even after he’d spoken, no one in the room reacted at all. Everyone stood frozen, the room so silent one could almost hear every heart pounding—thump, thump, thump!
Baili Weisheng looked at everyone, utterly unable to understand what was going on!
“This matter with Yelu Qianqian—what exactly is it?” he asked timidly, but no one answered him.
Still, he didn’t press further, glancing suspiciously around at everyone before letting out a small breath. At least, at least he’d managed to remember that much.
But just as he began to relax, his head suddenly began throbbing again, so painfully that he stumbled back several steps and collapsed heavily into a chair!
In the midst of the pain, looking at Ziqing, he felt an inexplicable, faint sense of familiarity, for some reason!
A feeling as though there were something he was supposed to tell her.
Very much like the matter with Yelu Qianqian!
Could it be that there was something else, equally important, that he still hadn’t remembered?
Baili Weisheng truly didn’t dare think further. His head wasn’t just aching now, it was spinning too, and he instinctively clutched at it, frightened even by himself.
“Don’t think about it, not yet… slow down, just slow down for now!”
That was all he could tell himself to calm down. But just then, in the silence, Yelu Qianqian suddenly burst into tears with a loud wail, so utterly wretched!
“Waah…”
In the quiet camp, the sound of her crying seemed all the more desolate for it!
Yelu Qianqian threw herself into Situ Haonan’s arms, burying her face against him, and yet she still couldn’t hold herself back—once the sobs broke free, they wouldn’t stop!
It sounded like release, like collapse, like despair, and yet somehow like relief too!
That crying broke everyone’s heart along with it!
And yet, this time, it wasn’t Yelu Qianqian’s heartbreak they felt—it was the man’s.
How could he have been so foolish!
How could he have been so stubbornly set in his ways?
Ali, what am I supposed to do now?
Ziqing desperately wanted to cry, and yet she couldn’t shed a single tear. She stood rooted to the spot, her whole being thrown into disarray, watching Yelu Qianqian sob and wanting to wail along with her—but she couldn’t cry!
Was grief, at its most extreme, something even tears couldn’t express?
Yelu Qianqian, cry for me. Cry for Ali in my place! That fool! How could he be so foolish! Why couldn’t he let go of it, why did he have to be so unyielding!
Watching Yelu Qianqian, Ziqing began to sway. Jun Beiyue quickly pulled her into his arms, murmuring low, “Silly girl, cry if you want to. Don’t hold it in.”
Ziqing curled up against Jun Beiyue, her heart aching so badly it physically hurt.
Beiyue, do you know—when it comes to Xuanyuan Lige, I can’t even manage to shed a single tear.
Beiyue, do you know—I so badly want to see him one more time, so badly want to give him a piece of my mind!
But it’s too late…
For a moment, everything fell utterly silent, leaving only the sound of Yelu Qianqian’s weeping, while Ziqing neither cried nor spoke, sitting numbly in Jun Beiyue’s arms, worrying enough to make anyone anxious just watching her.
Cry it out. Maybe crying it out would help.
But in the end, Ziqing still didn’t cry. And over the three days that followed, she went the entire three days—no matter how Jun Beiyue pleaded, no matter how Xiong Xiaobao begged—not only saying not a single word, but refusing even a drop of water!
She seemed entirely hollowed out, as though every ounce of spirit had left her.
On the fourth day, Jun Beiyue personally prepared breakfast and brought it to her, only to find Ziqing gone. That sent him into a frenzy, and he immediately searched the entire camp.
But he searched the entire riverbank and couldn’t find her anywhere.
Jun Beiyue was nearly out of his mind with worry, when a guard came to report, “Your Highness, Nanzhao has sent an envoy requesting peace talks—waiting on the opposite bank.”
“Let them wait for this king!” Jun Beiyue said coldly, both furious and anxious—compared to Ziqing, what did a war matter, what did the Nanzhao king’s plea for peace matter at all!
“We couldn’t find her, she must have left! Where would she go!” Jue Mingzi said, still relatively composed.
Situ Haonan set down the sobbing, half-fainted Yelu Qianqian and joined the search as well.
This whole affair—one couldn’t exactly say they’d wronged Xuanyuan Lige, but he’d been despicably cruel to Yelu Qianqian too, and that had hurt her all the same!
With things having come to this, he didn’t want to dwell on placing blame any further—finding Ziqing was what mattered now!
If something happened to Ziqing because of all this, and she did something she couldn’t take back, the two of them would never know peace for the rest of their lives!
They said Xuanyuan Lige had been foolish, but honestly, Han Ziqing was just as foolish!
“We’ve searched the entire west, and still no sign of her.” Xiong Xiaobao had mobilized every poisonous beast he had, on the verge of tears with worry—his mommy missing was, to him, nothing short of the sky falling!
Jun Beiyue said nothing, his eyes dark, and gradually, no one dared say anything either.
But then, a moment later, Jun Beiyue suddenly turned and walked off—heading east!
East, toward Yuqiong Mountain.
At that moment, Baili Weisheng stood before the sealed cave entrance, breathing hard, while Ziqing pounded her fist against the stone at the cave’s mouth, again and again, heedless of the fact that her knuckles had already been beaten into a bloody, mangled mess.
Seeing this, he quickly grabbed hold of her. “Have you lost your mind!”
“Let go!” Ziqing said coldly.
“Didn’t I already tell you—it was just a pool of blood in an instant, nothing left at all. It’s been so long now, there’s probably not even blood left, nothing worth seeing! Let’s go, Jun Beiyue must be worried sick.” Baili Weisheng pleaded earnestly.
Ziqing said nothing at all, shoving him away and throwing another punch, blood splattering straight across Baili Weisheng’s face!
An inexplicable surge of anger took hold of him, and Baili Weisheng immediately seized both of Ziqing’s hands, saying coldly, “Enough!”
He was genuinely angry now, deeply angry, and seeing her hand beaten to such a state only made him angrier.
“Let go!” Only then did Ziqing finally speak!
“The dead cannot be brought back to life. What good does this do? Why didn’t you cherish him while he was alive?” Baili Weisheng demanded.
That single question left Ziqing utterly speechless.
Cherish…
Lige, how was I supposed to cherish you?
Ziqing froze, her once-furious little face going quiet, her eyes lowering, filled with nothing but sorrow.
Baili Weisheng found that sorrow strangely, deeply familiar, as though he’d once seen it in someone else’s eyes before—only he couldn’t remember whose.
He let out a breath, released Ziqing, turned, and threw a series of hard punches, one after another, until at last he shattered the stone sealing the cave entrance.
But breaking through changed nothing—the cave held not even the faintest trace of the bloody scent from that day. Nothing remained but the smell of mildew, as though nothing had ever happened here at all. Even the pile of clothes Meng Wanyue had left behind had crumbled entirely into ash.
Ziqing walked in, step by step, though in truth, she had no idea what she’d even come here to do.