An Jiu poured out the water from his teacup and refilled it. He sat down and continued drinking tea as if no one else was present.

The woman in blue dared not make a sound.

Shortly after, Chu Dingjiang appeared silently in the room. He paused briefly upon seeing an unfamiliar woman sitting across from An Jiu but said nothing.

“Shall we go?” An Jiu asked.

Chu Dingjiang nodded.

As they left, one after the other, the woman in blue bit her lip, unable to call out to them.

Chu Dingjiang led An Jiu out of Xijin Prefecture before asking, “Do you know that woman?”

“No, but I knew she was trying to assassinate Liao people, so I lent a hand,” An Jiu replied. Recalling the man in white, he added, “I just met someone who looks very similar to Gu Jinghong.”

Chu Dingjiang, who had arrived when those people burst into An Jiu’s private room, inquired, “You mean that Khitan man in white?”

“You saw him too?” An Jiu turned his head to look at him. “He does look alike, doesn’t he?”

Chu Dingjiang had never seen Gu Jinghong’s unscarred face. The only time he saw him, Gu already looked skeletal. Thus, he didn’t know what Gu Jinghong looked like and offered no opinion. Instead, he asked, “Do you know who he is?”

An Jiu looked puzzled.

“That’s Yelü Jinglie,” Chu Dingjiang explained.

“What about Yelü Jinglie?” An Jiu wondered, confused about why this person seemed important.

“He’s the Great Prince of the Northern Court of Liao,” Chu Dingjiang elaborated, seeing An Jiu’s lack of knowledge. “In Liao, both the Privy Council and the Prince’s Court are divided into Southern and Northern branches. The Privy Council has merged its Southern and Northern divisions, but the Prince’s Court remains separate. Although the official positions in the Southern and Northern Courts are the same, their responsibilities differ greatly. The Southern Privy Council is equivalent to the Ministry of Personnel in the Great Song Dynasty, while the Northern Privy Council manages all military affairs in Liao. The Northern Privy Councilor is the highest official position in Khitan, usually held by members of the royal Yelü clan or the empress clan, the Xiao family.”

“Currently, the Liao Privy Council’s duties are similar to those in the Great Song Dynasty, but Liao has many tribes, and the Prince’s Court mainly manages these tribes.”

The Privy Councilor and the Great Prince were relatively independent positions with little overlap. One was the head of the Privy Council, the other the head of the Prince’s Court.

An Jiu vaguely understood that this so-called Great Prince of the Southern Court was not like the royal relatives she had imagined, but an official position. As the leader of the Northern Court, while birth was certainly important, to achieve such a position at a young age truly indicated an extraordinary talent!

An Jiu muttered to herself, wondering if everyone who looked like that was a genius.

“Yelü Jinglie must be in his twenties, right?” An Jiu asked, feeling he looked quite young from her glance.

Chu Dingjiang paused for a moment before replying, “He’s thirty-four this year.”

An Jiu said nothing, patting Chu Dingjiang’s shoulder in consolation.

While others looked in their early twenties at thirty-four, Chu Dingjiang looked like their uncle at twenty-five. How rough must his life have been to age him so?

Changing the subject, Chu Dingjiang asked, “Can you guess the relationship between Gu Jinghong and Yelü Jinglie?”

Intrigued, An Jiu responded, “Uncle and nephew? If they’re related, is Gu Jinghong still a good person?”

“An Jiu,” Chu Dingjiang stroked her head, “There are no absolute good or bad people in this world.”

Moreover, the murderous Gu Jinghong was far from being considered “good.” In the Konghe Army, what goodness could there be? Fearing to discourage her, Chu Dingjiang kept these thoughts to himself.

“People in this world can roughly be divided into two types: useful and useless,” Chu Dingjiang said, attempting to guide her toward a more pragmatic view.

An Jiu stopped walking and stared at him intently.

She understood Chu Dingjiang’s nature well enough. For someone as calculating as him, such words weren’t surprising. However, she wanted to know, “So, what use am I to you?”

“Many uses,” Chu Dingjiang replied, noticing her solemn expression. He smiled slightly and took her hand. “So many that you’ve become indispensable.”

In the golden-red sunset, Chu Dingjiang’s face was hidden behind a mass of unkempt beard. Though not handsome, as An Jiu looked into his smiling eyes, she felt her heart pounding. Strangely, this irregular heartbeat didn’t make her uncomfortable; instead, she felt extraordinarily at ease.

“An Jiu,” Chu Dingjiang, keenly observant, hadn’t missed the subtle changes in An Jiu’s expression. He pressed on, “When we return to Bianjing and find your mother, shall we retire together?”

“Would someone as ambitious as you be content with mediocrity?” An Jiu asked, clearly skeptical.

Chu Dingjiang gently corrected her, “It’s not ambition, but aspiration.”

He paused before continuing, “My aspirations, my discontent, seem to have been left behind in the distant past. Even if I were to accomplish something earth-shattering in the Great Song Dynasty, it would hardly fill that void of discontent…”

Without a clan, one was like a lone leaf adrift. To date, Chu Dingjiang’s greatest resentment was being abandoned by his clan members. He had a strong sense of clan identity, yearning for a return to his roots—a feeling An Jiu couldn’t understand even if she went back a thousand years.

However, when he learns he has been reborn into the Hua clan, his first reaction isn’t joy, but rejection.

He no longer needed a clan that had abandoned him!

“It’s not discontent,” An Jiu said. “You’re just getting old.”

Before Chu Dingjiang could respond, she added, “Let’s go together. When you feel the urge to pursue your aspirations again, we can always come back.”