As crowds surged to watch, some survivors of the village massacres immediately recognized these bandit heads as the criminals.

It seemed the real Little King of Hell had appeared, eliminating evil for the people by executing those vicious bandits!

At that moment, someone began leading chants, and the crowd became passionately excited, shouting about the Meng family army being righteous men who eliminated evil for the people.

By the time Mu Hanjiang arrived, covered in dust from his journey, the Little King of Hell had already disappeared from the city wall.

Many people had seen the notice, and with such word-of-mouth spreading, removing the notice would be useless.

Mu Hanjiang was so furious that he lost control and violently threw his horsewhip to the ground.

Meanwhile, the Little King of Hell, who had proclaimed to the people from the city wall, after jumping down, boarded the boat Uncle Jin had prepared and sailed downstream, returning to the courier station.

The young woman’s usual monthly days hadn’t finished, and her body was quite weak.

After rushing against the wind for a day and night, by the time Xiaoying reached the station, she had truly caught a cold and developed a fever.

It seemed that staying in the palace for too long had made her body delicate!

She thought that next time she shouldn’t use a cold as an excuse, or else the heavens might make it come true.

Gritting her teeth, Xiaoying forced herself not to shiver or collapse outside.

The courier station was easy to exit but difficult to enter.

To avoid the shadow guards’ watchful eyes, Xiaoying timed her move. When a wooden cart delivering vegetables passed by, she quickly slid under it, keeping her body as close as possible to the bottom of the cart to enter the courtyard.

When officials came to inspect, she had already rolled to a nearby pile of firewood, then quickly went upstairs.

Jian Hu, seeing her return safely, looked her up and down suspiciously. When she saw the speckled bloodstains on her arm, she nearly cried out in shock.

Xiaoying reassured her: “It’s nothing, it’s someone else’s blood…”

Jian Hu was speechless with tears in her eyes—precisely because she knew it was someone else’s blood, she was even more afraid!

What kind of murderous business had this young woman been involved in?

Though Xiaoying had the advantage of a fast boat, traveling between several places had still taken a full day and night, plus half a day. She asked Jian Hu to prepare a basin of hot water, as she needed to wash up.

But just as she was undoing her clothes, the door that had already been bolted was suddenly pushed open violently from outside.

Feng Yuan, who should have been at the military camp across the river, had returned for some unknown reason.

Upon his return, hearing that the Crown Prince hadn’t left his room since eating breakfast yesterday morning, he removed his armor, tossed it to a guard beside him, and strode upstairs in a few large steps.

When he reached the Crown Prince’s door, the little palace maid Jian Hu was guarding it, and looking up to see him, she appeared somewhat flustered. She even tried to stop him from entering.

Feng Yuan pushed Jian Hu aside and kicked the door open with a cold expression.

When he strode around the screen, his usually indifferent, deep eyes began to widen gradually.

Before him, his fourth brother had disheveled clothes with black hair flowing down. The outer robe was removed, leaving only a half-undone inner garment. The snow-white neck extended downward, appearing as pure as snow under spring sunshine. If not for the thick bandages wrapped around the chest as a covering, his gaze could have traveled further.

The young woman seemed ignorant of the concept of shame. Although her cheeks were flushed red, seeing Feng Yuan’s intrusion, perhaps from shock, she didn’t even use her arms to protect her slightly open collar.

She merely stared with frightened eyes, helplessly hiding her arms behind her back, as fragile and thin as an offering to the gods.

If he just reached out and firmly gripped that slender neck in his palm…

Feng Yuan was stunned. He had imagined all sorts of mischief from this young woman, but hadn’t expected her to simply be undressing to wash up.

Although he had long known she was a woman, the vivid scene before him further deepened the impression in Feng Yuan’s mind…

It wasn’t until Xiaoying stared at him with wide eyes and asked, “Grand Prince, have you seen enough?” that Feng Yuan finally awoke from his trance, turned around, and strode out of the room, considerately closing the somewhat broken door behind him.

Xiaoying slowly relaxed and brought out the arms she had hidden behind her back—the speckled bloodstains hadn’t been completely washed off.

Fortunately, that madman’s eyes had been fixed elsewhere and hadn’t noticed her arms, otherwise he would have discovered the flaw.

After washing up and changing into fresh clothes, she weakly crawled into bed and said listlessly, “Imperial Brother, is there anything else?”

This time, Feng Yuan was much more polite, entering only with her permission. Earlier, he had noticed her flushed cheeks, originally thinking it was because his sudden intrusion had embarrassed the young woman.

But now, as she lay with closed eyes, the flush hadn’t receded. He reached out to touch her forehead and found it was burning hot.

It seemed the physician downstairs hadn’t been wrong—she truly was ill.

Xiaoying said weakly, “I’ve been feeling unwell since yesterday, not wanting to eat anything. If I wasn’t sweating just now and feeling uncomfortable, I wouldn’t even have bothered to get out of bed… Grand Prince, what did I do wrong to make you kick down my door?”

At this, Feng Yuan remained composed and retorted with reason: “When have you ever knocked on my door before entering my room?”

Xiaoying glanced at the broken door, nestled in her pillow, and asked somewhat annoyingly, “Did you think I ran away? Why so agitated?”

Feng Yuan didn’t speak, which might have been a tacit agreement.

Xiaoying continued to probe: “If I… were to leave without saying goodbye, what would the Grand Prince do?”

She had expected him to threaten her brother, warning her to abandon such thoughts.

Unexpectedly, Feng Yuan merely reached out to hold her chin, his expression profound and inscrutable, as if gauging how much truth lay in her words.

That hand gradually moved downward…

If this were the real Feng Qiyuan, he would likely be trembling with fear by now, suspecting that the Grand Prince was about to strangle him again.

Xiaoying remained composed, allowing those presumptuous fingers to touch her neck hollow before lazily grasping his wrist and smiling to ask, “What are you doing? If I wanted to escape, would you strangle me?”

Feng Yuan slowly lowered his head until their noses nearly touched, his deep eyes churning with dark currents as he said in a low voice: “If you’re so curious, you can try it sometime in the future.”

Such proximity was too intimate.

The madman who had been imprisoned in the Desolate Palace for ten years was extremely loyal to his body’s hungry instincts, devouring delicious food without hesitation when encountered.

As for desires similar to appetite, would he also pursue them by any means necessary, not understanding restraint?

Xiaoying had long noticed this person didn’t understand the boundaries between men and women. Looking at him now confirmed her suspicions.

Instantly, her desire to tease and provoke diminished greatly.

Feng Yuan was not like Feng Xiaoliu, an innocent child, nor was he like Mu Hanjiang, who maintained a dignified appearance and knew how to preserve elegance.

Provoking a wild wolf would lead to loss of control; once targeted, it would only be satisfied after tearing off a piece of flesh.

So she forcefully pulled his hand away and continued to lie under the covers, saying weakly, “Not feeling well, want to sleep a bit more.”

Feng Yuan stopped his erratic behavior, stood up, and soaked a wet towel, placing it on Xiaoying’s forehead: “The fever hasn’t broken yet. Is the medicine the physician prescribed working?”

Xiaoying lazily curled up under the covers: “After another sleep, I should be better. Also, the courier station is too bland, I can’t eat it. I want those tiger-skin pork trotters we saw on the street last time, and the glutinous rice chicken rolls, and the taro paste crab meat buns…”

This hardly sounded like someone who was sick—it was more like someone hungry.

Feng Yuan listened patiently. After Xiaoying listed a long menu of food items, she expected him to order servants to go buy them. Unexpectedly, he stood up and went downstairs, going to purchase them himself.

Someone unaware of the situation might think he was a caring elder brother.

After he left, Xiaoying sat up again and had Jian Hu call Jin Zhong, asking him to chat with the Grand Prince’s guards downstairs to find out why the Grand Prince had returned in such a hurry.

Before long, the busybody Jin Zhong returned.

It turned out that Elder Teng, seeing how well the Grand Prince got along with his fourth brother throughout the journey, and even remembering how he had given up half his tent when the Crown Prince couldn’t sleep well, considered it brotherly affection.

Now that the Crown Prince was ill and left at the courier station, after reaching Jin Shui County, Elder Teng was concerned about the Crown Prince and entrusted a military sergeant to bring a message to the Grand Prince, saying the Crown Prince was ill and asking him to check on the Crown Prince when he had time.

Originally, the Elder had only thought that since the military camp was closer to the courier station, he was merely informing the Grand Prince, who didn’t need to return immediately.

However, the Grand Prince seemed uncomfortable in the military camp, finding the shouting of training soldiers irritating. At night, the fog was thick, making it unsuitable for boating.

The next morning, he took a boat across the river and hurried back to the courier station.

Xiaoying gave a cold laugh. He was really afraid she would run away, so anxious that he couldn’t sleep all night.

As for the bastard kicking down her door, she would address that after getting enough sleep.

Thus, her “sleeping for a while” turned into sleeping for an entire day.

By the time she woke up again, lanterns were already being lit. If Yan Xiaoying was tired from her back-and-forth boat journeys, there was someone who was even more exhausted.

Played for a fool by that Little King of Hell, always a step behind, only able to clean up after the thief.

The frustration in Mu Hanjiang’s heart was truly difficult to resolve.

He had achieved success at a young age, and never had any assignment been as humiliating as this one.

Gao Qi, seeing his master’s black face, carefully asked if they should return to the military camp.

Mu Hanjiang was truly exhausted and didn’t want to travel by boat again, so he decided to return to the courier station to rest for a night before continuing.

Upon entering the courier station’s rear courtyard, he discovered that compared to his dusty journey, the Crown Prince was living like an immortal.

It was already dusk, with lanterns hung high. Those who understood health principles knew not to eat after noon.

Yet that courtyard’s stone table was laden with food, which didn’t look like the courier station’s cooking but rather seemed to be all sorts of miscellaneous food bought from the street market.

And the Crown Prince wasn’t eating alone—the Grand Prince, who should have been at the military camp, was also there.

This table full of delicacies was said to be what the sick Crown Prince had begged his imperial brother to buy for him.

Xiaoying, who had slept for a day and just recovered from her fever, wanted to eat in the courtyard for fresh air and was focused on devouring the braised prawns that Feng Yuan had just bought for her.

Seeing Mu Hanjiang enter, Xiaoying smiled and looked him up and down before waving and calling out, “Master Mu, I was just worried that I bought too much food. Why don’t you come and join us?”

Mu Hanjiang usually kept his distance from such unclean foods and wouldn’t normally approach Feng Yuan.

But today, with his heart full of frustration and having not eaten all day, he did want a few cups of wine to quench his thirst.

So after paying his respects, he sat down without ceremony and asked his attendant for a pot of wine, lifting his head to drink a cup on an empty stomach.

Xiaoying sucked her fingers and smiled, asking, “Master Mu isn’t wearing white today? This gray looks not bad on you!”

Gao Qi explained glumly from behind: “My master is wearing white…”

For a day and night, he and his master had been riding horses, constantly raising dust, turning the snow-white clothes into an ashen gray color.

After explaining, Gao Qi sensed trouble, as his master’s expression became even more gloomy.

After drinking the wine, Mu Hanjiang didn’t speak but repeatedly glanced at Feng Yuan, seeming to want to say something but hesitating.

Feng Yuan glanced at Mu Hanjiang and unusually took the initiative to ask: “…Does Master Mu have something to discuss?”

Mu Hanjiang gave a self-deprecating smile: “This subject… indeed has a matter requiring the Grand Prince’s assistance.”

Feng Yuan didn’t look up, continuing to peel prawn shells and then placing the prawns in the Crown Prince’s bowl as he asked indifferently, “What matter?”

Mu Hanjiang seriously said, “There is a set of martial techniques I’d like the Grand Prince to help me identify!”

Feng Yuan’s martial arts were inherited from Xiao Tianyang, whose martial arts achievements had actually surpassed those of his elder brother Xiao Jiumu.

His maternal grandfather had died early, interrupting the Mu family’s martial arts lineage.

Mu Shen, in educating his children, hadn’t particularly emphasized martial arts, so the Xiao family’s unique Cutting Breath Heavy Fist had been inherited by Feng Yuan, the prince with no blood relation, as the third-generation successor.

Mu Hanjiang had questioned the shadow guard, and though the dirty-faced boy disguised as a merchant wasn’t particularly skilled in martial arts, the stance of his fist technique was quite distinctive.

Mu Hanjiang had observed several sets of fist techniques demonstrated by the shadow guard, and they all looked like the Xiao family’s Cutting Breath Heavy Fist. But because he wasn’t familiar with it, he couldn’t verify it and had to ask the Grand Prince.

After speaking, Mu Hanjiang ordered the shadow guard who had crossed paths with the Little King of Hell to be summoned, and had him demonstrate and reconstruct the techniques before Feng Yuan.

Feng Yuan focused intently, remained silent for a moment, then said, “It does indeed somewhat resemble it…”

Hearing this, Mu Hanjiang’s eyes lit up.

If it were true, the bandit might be a disciple of Xiao Tianyang. If the direction could be confirmed, they might be able to uncover the Little King of Hell’s true identity.

“Then I’ll need to ask Third Grand Uncle to draft a list of his disciples for me to screen one by one.”

Hearing this, Feng Yuan coldly laughed: “Third Grandfather’s disciples and their disciples’ disciples are spread throughout the world. What you just demonstrated is merely the entry-level fist technique. If you truly want a list, I’m afraid it would require a cart to carry. I advise you not to waste your energy.”

By now, Mu Hanjiang had been consumed by his frustration and wasn’t willing to abandon any clue. He pointed at the shadow guard and said, “Tell me, what was the dirty-faced one’s build like? Let’s see if we can narrow down the criteria.”

At this moment, Xiaoying happened to stand up to reach for the tiger-skin pork trotters placed at a distance.

As a result, this shadow guard with poor ears now suffered from poor eyesight as well, pointing directly at the current Crown Prince and saying, “About the same build as this one…”

Xiaoying froze with the pork trotter in her mouth, then sat down and continued eating, smiling without saying a word.

Mu Hanjiang frowned and said sternly, “How dare you! How can you compare His Highness the Crown Prince to a bandit?”

That unfortunate shadow guard with bad hearing finally realized that those beside his master were the Crown Prince and a prince. Sensing the impropriety, he immediately panicked, quickly kneeling to beg forgiveness from the Crown Prince.

Xiaoying smiled and waved her hand, not speaking, continuing to focus on eating.

Fortunately, she was clever. When fighting with that Courage-rank shadow guard, she had deliberately used the broad and forceful martial arts she had secretly learned from Feng Yuan. Though it was just for show, it was enough to confuse the issue.

Now was not the time to speak, lest the shadow guard who had met her recognize her voice.

After Mu Hanjiang ordered the shadow guard to withdraw, Xiaoying began to comment softly: “They say the Dragon Scale Shadow Guards are elite, but how come this one doesn’t seem very bright?”

Mu Hanjiang frowned and defended his elite force: “He’s newly promoted, and just a low-rank Courage tier; his experience… is somewhat lacking…”

Xiaoying didn’t pursue the matter further, only smiling and holding up a pork trotter: “We haven’t seen you all day. You must be exhausted from your official duties. Come, have a pork trotter to replenish your strength.”

Normally, Mu Hanjiang wouldn’t eat such things, but today he was truly hungry. After a moment’s hesitation, he lowered his head and took a bite.

To be honest, these common foods did have their unique taste.

In the end, half of the food on the table ended up in Mu Hanjiang’s stomach, and he even mistakenly ate several bites of the braised pork intestines he usually avoided.

He drank about two jars of the strong local wine that accompanied the meal.

The local spirits were all potent old wines; the mild palace wines couldn’t compare with these fiery liquors.

The refined young master was already frustrated, and with a table full of spicy, appetizing salty foods, drowning his sorrows only increased them.

By the time the last jar of wine was empty, he was unusually drunk.

Xiaoying felt this meal was truly awkward. The three of them had nothing in common with each other.

Feng Yuan was someone who didn’t touch a drop of alcohol and merely coldly watched Mu Hanjiang drink alone.

Sitting together like this, not speaking, just sitting there, made her stomach hurt.

To ease the atmosphere, Xiaoying decided to make conversation: “Master Mu, you are the direct grandson of the great hero Xiao Jiumu and have Xiao Tianyang as your grand uncle. Why can’t you identify the Xiao family’s fist technique yourself, and need to ask the Grand Prince?”

Originally, this was just casual conversation, but unexpectedly, her question became the spark that ignited the fiery liquor.

Mu Hanjiang’s expression changed several times, and he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He grabbed the wine jar and smashed it violently on the ground.

Feng Yuan coldly said, “Master Mu, you’re being improper!”

Mu Hanjiang returned with an even colder tone: “Third Grand Uncle previously stayed in the palace, eager to impart all his skills to you. This subject also wonders what true teachings the Grand Prince has received from the Third Grand Uncle. Would you be willing to exchange a few moves with me?”

Feng Yuan looked at him and coldly mocked: “You’ve had a miserable day, why invite more misfortune?”

Mu Hanjiang laughed in extreme anger: “What? Is the Grand Prince afraid of losing control of his emotions and going mad again, only to be locked up…”

Before Mu Hanjiang could finish, Feng Yuan had already thrown a punch, sending him flying to the ground.

The shadow guards around suddenly emerged to protect their young master. But Mu Hanjiang, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, waved to dismiss them.

The grievances between him and Feng Yuan ran too deep to be resolved with a few insults.

Life offers few chances to get truly drunk. Since that was the case, regardless of whose son he was, why not let loose and have a fight!

So he stood up, wiped his mouth, and coldly smiled at Feng Yuan: “Come, let’s go to the forest outside and have a match!”

Before Xiaoying could speak up to mediate, the two tall men exited the courtyard one after another, heading to the forest for their duel.

Jin Zhong, standing behind Xiaoying, was dumbfounded and asked if she wanted someone to separate the two.

After all, one was a young official highly valued by His Majesty, and the other was His Majesty’s son. It would be difficult to explain if either were injured.

Xiaoying didn’t speak, only finishing the food in her bowl before slowly walking toward the courier station’s forest.

At this time, the men in the forest seemed to be in the heat of battle. Xiaoying narrowed her eyes, watching their exchanges of moves with great interest.

Feng Yuan was originally a martial arts prodigy, and with Xiao Tianyang’s guidance these days, his techniques had improved significantly, not just by a little.

Now, the man with fierce fist and foot techniques, delivering ruthless moves, could no longer be compared to the youth she had sparred with in the Desolate Palace.

Xiaoying estimated that if she were to encounter Feng Yuan for the first time now, she would likely be knocked to the ground within three moves.