Baili Xiaosheng, in truth, hadn’t actually recognized the undying blood at all, nor could she identify it herself. She’d only heard of it before. She’d asked Qin Chu how he’d been able to identify it, and he’d told her that this blood never clotted, never dried up, no matter how much time passed.
It was only afterward, when she’d used a drop to raise poison, that she’d come to believe him.
She and Guxi exchanged a look, both equally puzzled.
“If it really was something Consort Qin hid away, then… why would she hide it? And where did she get it from in the first place?” Baili Xiaosheng mused seriously.
“Even if it wasn’t Consort Qin who hid it, the same questions remain. Strange indeed…” Guxi said flatly.
Whoever had hidden the blood had clearly come from within the palace. If they’d known it was the undying blood, they surely would have brought it out to win over the Poison Clan back when the Nanzhao royal house stood isolated and without support.
What was now certain was that whoever had hidden the blood hadn’t known its true purpose at all.
But that raised another puzzle—if they hadn’t known how precious the blood was, why hide it at all? What would have been the point?
“Girl, this undying blood… is it human blood, or animal blood? There has to be some origin to it,” Guxi asked seriously.
Baili Xiaosheng shook her head. She didn’t know either.
In the underbrush, the short one and the tall one had been listening to their whole analysis, utterly absorbed.
“Boss, how are they so smart?” the shorter one said.
“Did you actually understand what they were saying?” the taller one shot back.
The shorter one shook his head. “That’s exactly why I think they’re so smart.”
The taller one smacked him again. “Idiot. They’re discussing where the undying blood comes from!”
“It only appears once in a thousand years, from the body of a Five Elements Vessel—which is why it’s also called the Five Elements Blood. And it’s not all the blood from a Five Elements Vessel’s body, either—only a small portion of it. It never dries up, which is why it’s called undying,” the shorter one recited seriously.
The taller one shot him a look. “Nobody asked you.”
By this point, Baili Xiaosheng and Guxi had already decided to make a trip to the ruins of the Nanzhao royal palace.
Seeing them get up to leave, the tall one and the short one both perked up with delight—more travel to tag along on! After all, with so much forest to cover in Nanzhao, the two of them had already gotten lost more than a few times.
And so, once again, the two of them happily followed after.
With Da Zhou’s armies on the march, Nanzhao’s fractured territories fighting amongst themselves while also resisting Da Zhou’s forces, the entire region had descended into unprecedented chaos, and the ruins of the Nanzhao royal palace had long since been picked clean, leaving nothing but a few crumbling towers and halls.
Baili Xiaosheng and Guxi made their way through, sending people ahead to gather information about Consort Qin, though it yielded little of use.
Half a month later, having combed through every corner of the Nangong palace ruins, they had still found nothing.
By now the two of them sat on a stone pier, lost in thought.
Something this valuable—if it never surfaced, so be it, but now that it had appeared, they had to find some way to claim it. Because if they didn’t want it, someone else eventually would—and if it fell into the wrong hands, it would pose a serious threat to Duku.
The tall one and the short one, having tagged along for half a month now, were resting nearby just like them.
“Boss, that Consort Qin’s tomb they mentioned—where is it? Let’s go dig it up,” the shorter one whispered.
The taller one’s blood-red eyes went wide, and he began smacking the top of the shorter one’s head over and over, like pounding a radish, hard enough to nearly drive him into the ground.
“Don’t you know our kind despises grave-robbing more than anything? Are you sure you’re not some kind of impostor?”
But just then, Baili Xiaosheng suddenly stood up. “Guxi, let’s go. Let’s dig up Consort Qin’s grave!”
At those words, the tall one and short one nearly jumped clean out of their hiding spot in shock.
“Boss, this woman… she’s just awful!”
“Idiot. If this woman’s the one digging up the grave, and we’re just tagging along, then technically we’re not the ones robbing it!”
The shorter one felt genuinely wronged. Why was he always the idiot?
Back when Consort Qin had allegedly surrendered on behalf of Nanzhao, her whereabouts afterward had actually remained unknown. Some said she’d been put to death and buried on a barren hill outside the imperial mausoleum; others said she hadn’t been executed at all, and had instead gone to Yuqiong Mountain to take her own life, dying somewhere in a mountain ravine.
Guxi and Baili Xiaosheng made a trip to the imperial mausoleum. Although they found Consort Qin’s grave there, digging into it revealed only an empty memorial tomb.
“Looks like she really did go to Yuqiong Mountain,” Baili Xiaosheng said flatly. She’d only learned afterward of the deep devotion Consort Qin had once held for Xuanyuan Lige.
Guxi didn’t know the full story, and simply said, “Let’s head back. We’re not likely to find anything more anytime soon. Qin Chu probably hid it somewhere well—if he never talks, that thing may never surface again.”
Baili Xiaosheng nodded, and the two of them finally made their way back to Duku, hand in hand.
The tall one and the short one, this time, didn’t follow.
“Boss, they’ve given up the search. What do we do now?” the shorter one asked urgently—he’d grown so used to tailing people that not doing it now left him restless all over.
“I’ll go take a look at Yuqiong Mountain myself. You head back and report to the Guardian,” the taller one said, unusually serious.
“Why? Let me go to Yuqiong Mountain with you first, then we’ll go back together!” the shorter one protested.
“Idiot. What if someone else picks up this same lead? I’m letting you go back and take credit for it!” the taller one said, annoyed.
The shorter one suddenly understood, giving an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Boss, you really are the smart one!”
No sooner said than done, the two brothers split up to go their separate ways. Unfortunately, the taller one’s trip yielded nothing either—the trail concerning the undying blood seemed to have gone cold.
Baili Xiaosheng and Guxi returned to Duku. Guxi had entirely forgotten about the matter of Shiliang, but Baili Xiaosheng had kept it in mind the whole time—the moment they got back, she dragged him straight to the secret chamber in the back mountain.
Guxi let himself be pulled along at a light jog, a gentle, radiant smile playing at the corners of his handsome lips, one that seemed to fill even the dim cave with a warmth like sunlight.
At last, Baili Xiaosheng, slightly out of breath, came to a stop before the chamber door.
Guxi merely smiled and said nothing. They’d made an agreement—kill Shiliang, and he would stay by her side forever. At last, this girl was really going to get rid of Shiliang.
But to his surprise, Baili Xiaosheng just stood there smirking at him, saying nothing.
“Hm?” Guxi raised a suspicious brow.
“I… I… actually, before…” Baili Xiaosheng began stammering, clearly hiding something.
Seeing this, Guxi grew even more puzzled. “If there’s something, just say it.”
“Ahem, well… actually, I lied to you before. I can’t actually kill Shiliang right away,” Baili Xiaosheng admitted, timid.
Guxi’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “What… what do you mean?”
“Even back when I agreed to kill her, that time in the capital of Da Zhou, I couldn’t have done it then either. Even though I control her, she wasn’t entirely raised by me from scratch. So to get rid of her properly, I need certain poisonous substances and herbs, quite a lot of them, and they’re hard to come by. So… I’ve been searching for them ever since I got back to Nanzhao,” Baili Xiaosheng admitted honestly.
Guxi was too stunned to know what to say. This girl was more cunning than he’d ever realized.
“So you never actually meant to refuse me outright?” Guxi asked, raising a brow.
Baili Xiaosheng shook her head instinctively, then immediately backtracked. “No, no! Both, actually!”
“So you’re saying that back in the capital, you deliberately wanted to keep me around?” Guxi pressed again, unable to stop himself from laughing.
Baili Xiaosheng froze for a moment, then flushed deeply with embarrassment and threw an indignant punch at him. “You jerk!”
Guxi caught her hand, pressing it against his chest, and smiled. “Let’s search together, then. How much longer do we need?”
“Shouldn’t be too much longer,” Baili Xiaosheng said.
But even she never could have guessed that, with Nanzhao torn apart by war and so many mountains and fields destroyed in the chaos, this search would end up taking a full five years.
Five years… how much would happen in that time. How many people would grow old. How many would grow up.
Five years later…