Master once said: those whose worldviews don’t align cannot be friends.

If they can’t even be friends, what about husband and wife?

Chi Xue walked over, interrupting her self-questioning.

She had successfully gotten the story of recent events from the old woman and child.

The disaster had occurred half a month ago in the middle of the night. Suddenly a group of people charged into the village, stealing all the grain and anything of slight value. The folk customs in the northern lands were fierce, and the village’s able-bodied men tried to resist, but they were all beheaded and their heads hung on doors. After that, the villagers scattered and fled, but they were all hunted down and killed.

This old woman was seventy years old. In the poor villages of the northern lands, elderly people of this age who couldn’t work and only wasted grain would not continue to be supported. When they reached a certain age, their sons would dig a hole, carry the old mother to the hole, cover half the entrance, and then respectfully let her fend for herself below. This old woman’s son was even more efficient – too lazy to even dig a hole, he borrowed the cellar under the village shrine that was originally used to store miscellaneous items, put his mother inside. Who would have thought that on the very night she was put in, they encountered brigands slaughtering the village, and the old woman actually survived.

As for the child, he had been running a high fever for many days before the incident. His family, seeing he couldn’t be saved, wrapped him in hemp cloth and sent him to the shrine, planning to bury him on the back mountain. Later when the village was slaughtered, those people thought the child was already dead and didn’t bother giving him another stab. The child also had a tough life – he actually woke up, accidentally found the cave, crawled inside, and from then on depended on the old woman for survival. All their food was what he crawled out to scavenge from house to house. The two barely survived many days until finally Tie Ci and the others arrived.

One old, one young – the old one was already confused and couldn’t remember things clearly, the young one was also muddled, speaking incoherently. Chi Xue spent great effort to barely get this much out of them. They only knew that all the men had died, all the women had been taken captive, and many corpses were thrown directly into the mountain hollows. The dark, thin child stared wide-eyed and said, “Don’t dare go out at night, the uncles and grandfathers haven’t left yet!”

The “uncles and grandfathers” he mentioned should refer to the dead villagers. Saying the uncles and grandfathers hadn’t left – could he mean the villagers were haunting the place at night?

Was there still some activity in this village after nightfall?

Tie Ci recalled the situation when they entered the village last night. She had gone into houses to check and found that there wasn’t much dust on the tables in the main rooms.

If the village massacre had occurred half a month ago, given the windy and sandy climate here, there should have been a thick layer of sand and soil on the tables by now.

Unless…

She was deep in thought when suddenly she heard sounds from ahead. Looking up, she saw several soldiers who, hearing no movement above for a long time, had already moved away the stones and sand blocking the cave entrance and were about to poke their heads out to look.

Tie Ci’s mind raced, and she shouted urgently, “Wait—”

But it was already too late.

She watched as the soldier who poked his head out to look suddenly trembled, then stood there rigidly motionless. The ground above their heads began to vibrate slightly. The soldiers below were still completely unaware, reaching up to push their companion above: “Hey, what did you see… Ah!”

Something suddenly crashed down, hitting his shoulder and splashing countless liquid that rolled down his body.

The top cracked open with a crash, letting in a line of light. The man saw himself drenched in blood and was stunned like a wooden chicken.

And the rigid person above him also fell down like a broken piece of wood – his head was already gone.

The neck’s cut was neat and slightly angled.

This scene shocked almost everyone, except for Tie Ci and Feiyu.

The two had already flashed to either side before the head fell. Tie Ci grabbed the soldier who was blocking the exit below and still in a daze with one hand, and with the other hand seized a piece of coffin board she had conveniently broken off, holding it over her head. Just as she was about to leap out, she suddenly smelled a pungent odor.

The smell of oil!

Someone was about to pour oil down, and the next step would be to set it on fire!

With dozens of people crammed into the small cave, if someone set it ablaze and then pressed something heavy on top, everyone would turn into roasted chickens.

Tie Ci’s expression changed as she shouted in a low voice, “Get away from the cave entrance!” She conveniently tore off a piece of her hem to cover her face.

With a flash of her figure, she was already out of the cave, crashing headfirst into something hard and rough, so solid it made her grimace in pain.

At her nose came an unpleasant smell mixing sand, earth, cattle and sheep meat, and human body odor.

Above came a cry of pain – it was a person who had been hit quite hard by her collision.

The person staggered backward. Tie Ci didn’t look up, keeping her head down as she struck out with one punch.

With a muffled bang, the massive body flew up, sliding far across the ground before hitting a pile of broken tiles and walls and finally stopping.

An already lit tinder stick traced a dark red arc through the air before falling to the ground in the distance and going out.

With a whoosh, Feiyu emerged from the cave, kicking away the oil at the cave entrance with one foot.

He had also alertly covered his face.

On the ground, more than ten large men looked up in astonishment.

Dawn had not yet broken. The former shrine no longer existed – everywhere was earth, stones, and broken bricks. These large men were resting among the earth piles, some drinking water, others resting.

Now seeing the person at the cave entrance being struck and sent flying, they all stood up alertly.

These people all wore gray-yellow coarse cloth robes and gray-white head wraps – the attire of sand pirates from the desert across the border. The faces exposed outside their head wraps also wore masks, each person’s mask different, all very roughly made. Curved sabers hung from the leather belts at their waists.

Tie Ci and Feiyu said nothing and charged into the crowd.

The next moment, the ground was littered with bodies.

The two had each brought down half, neither holding back, but each had tacitly left one alive.

The reason they didn’t hold back was that both could see that although these large men were dressed as ordinary desert people, the style of the leather belts and curved sabers at their waists were Western Rong.

Although the two countries maintained good diplomatic relations, and Western Rong accepted Da Qian’s “aid” every year, those who violated our national territory must be punished no matter how far they fled.

Moreover, these people had immediately tried to set fire upon discovering the cave – such vicious cruelty could not be spared.

With two prisoners remaining, the two exchanged glances and each took one aside for interrogation.

Tie Ci removed these people’s masks. The skin under their masks was very rough, obviously long weathered by wind and sand.

The one Tie Ci interrogated was a man with a high forehead. She could see this group had good quality – after being captured, he silently tried to bite his tongue to commit suicide. The experienced Tie Ci dislocated his jaw. He then closed his eyes and refused to speak. Tie Ci broke his finger bones. He trembled all over from pain but still wouldn’t open his mouth.

Tie Ci glanced at Feiyu’s side. There were no screams, no blood – she only saw that person’s continuously convulsing body. She paused, and the Ten Great Tortures of the Qing Dynasty that her master had taught her flashed through her mind.

However, killing people was no problem, but slowly torturing people wasn’t something anyone could do. Breaking bones was her limit.

Her fingers moved and moved again, but ultimately she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She sat cross-legged there, thinking that Master had said those in high positions cannot be soft-hearted. But was this really true? Emperors were not cruel officials. If emperors were bloodthirsty, could they truly embrace the world with compassion for all people?

Feiyu stood up, wiping his fingers with the white cloth from that person’s head. He deliberately stood upwind for a while. At first Tie Ci didn’t understand what he was doing, but when he walked over and her sensitive nose caught the faint bloody smell, she realized Feiyu was trying to air out the scent.

Feiyu walked over, tossed aside the bloodstained cloth in his hand, and instead of rushing to speak, sniffed his own hand and smiled at her: “I figured you probably wouldn’t like this smell.”

Before Tie Ci could speak, Feiyu had already crouched down halfway, his hands resting on her knees, gazing into her eyes as he said softly: “If you turn your back on me, I will keep chasing your retreating figure until I catch up.”

Tie Ci was momentarily stunned, then realized he was answering the question that Chi Xue had interrupted earlier.

If one day there comes a time when you and I must part ways due to different worldviews or different positions, then I will choose to keep pursuing.

Until I overtake you, block your path, or you turn around.

Tie Ci met his gaze. Just like those literary novels Master had mentioned, his eyes contained stars and seas.

Stars sparkled in the high heavens, oceans surged before her eyes. Every ray of light, every wave reflected her image, flickering and undulating endlessly.

She remembered how moments ago when he finished interrogating the prisoner, his gaze had been cold and cruel, but when he turned to her it became infinitely tender.

This made her feel rather mixed emotions inside.

Everyone is an independent individual. Everyone becomes an independent individual due to their environment and acquired influences. What virtue or ability did she have to ask someone to change themselves for her, to constantly pursue her retreating figure?

But Feiyu seemed to sense her mood. He comfortingly stroked her hair, stood up to look at Tie Ci’s prisoner, and said: “He’s already talked, so what’s the use of keeping your mouth shut tight?”

The man gave a cold laugh, opened his eyes, and chattered a string of words. Though it sounded calm and peaceful, Tie Ci could tell he was cursing. Cursing Feiyu as neither male nor female, a castrated demon.

As the crown prince, she needed to dabble in the writing and languages of neighboring countries.

Feiyu listened quietly, gently turning Tie Ci’s head to one side with one hand while extending the other toward the prisoner.

Tie Ci heard an inhuman shriek.

She stared at the weeds on the ground, wondering whether Feiyu had understood the Western Rong language or not.

Learning a foreign language wasn’t easy – only imperial families and wealthy houses would get involved in such things.

Feiyu said softly: “You Western Rong people aren’t afraid of death, right? But you value intact burials, not being defiled, don’t you? Tell me, how about I throw your head into the latrine of Di Yiwei’s camp?”

The man’s expression changed.

Feiyu continued: “Tunneling through a mountain, digging a passage – you think I can’t guess what you’re trying to do?”

The man’s expression changed again.

Feiyu stared at him, suddenly smiled, and flicked his hand.

With a crack, that fine head fell off.

Feiyu casually kicked it aside, saying: “As if anyone really wanted your confession.”

Tie Ci could see at a glance that he had already obtained a confession from his prisoner and had come here merely to observe expressions and verify, not needing this person’s confession for corroboration at all.

Quite confident in his own interrogation skills.

For a moment, Tie Ci thought of the Embroidered Guards, Liaodong’s intelligence organization.

This organization was also on Da Qian’s court’s key watch list, because not long ago when she was in Dongming, she had received news that someone had tried to assassinate her. After being fooled by a body double in the suburbs of the capital, Father Emperor had recalled the double to the palace, and then assassins had appeared in the palace as well, suspected of still targeting the Crown Princess.

Xia Houchun had sent people to investigate, and the news that came back suspected the Liaodong Embroidered Guards. But it couldn’t be confirmed.

Tie Ci was puzzled – she had no grievances with the Liaodong Embroidered Guards, so why this endless hostility?

But precisely because of this, the Crown Princess’s Nine Guards had specially sent people to Liaodong for a brief investigation. The leader of the Embroidered Guards was still in Liaodong, recently highly valued by Prince Da’an.

Could Feiyu be from the Liaodong Embroidered Guards? It was said the Embroidered Guards had a group of members who didn’t care about background and specifically sought talented individuals. With Feiyu’s abilities, he would indeed qualify.

The Embroidered Guards had a bad reputation, and intelligence organizations required secrecy. If Feiyu had such background, then his being so secretive about himself would make sense.

But something still felt off.

Tie Ci glanced at Feiyu, thinking she didn’t know when Xia Houchun would catch up with her.

Now with no one around her, she couldn’t investigate anything she wanted to.

Feiyu said: “This group of Western Rong people is the advance guard of a Western Rong army unit, specifically responsible for scouting. On the other side,” he pointed to the other side of the mountain, “they found a narrow path that can pass through the mountain, but it’s extremely narrow with very poor terrain, making it easy for accidents during military movements. So their advance teams take turns opening the route, widening the path so the main army can pass through quickly.”

Tie Ci already had her suspicions and wasn’t surprised. After all, if the Western Rong people hadn’t discovered an important passage, there would be no need to return to this already massacred village. And there was no need to massacre the village either – after all, village massacres were too unconscionable and could easily cause trouble.

This Fushan mountain had loose rock that was extremely prone to landslides. Over the years, internal cracks appearing was normal.

If they widened a passage and Western Rong armies secretly passed through the mountain into Da Qian territory, Di Yiwei’s camp would be caught completely off guard and would suffer major losses.

“Is this already completed?”

“Not yet, because there’s a mountain ridge in the middle that’s narrow and slippery, extremely prone to accidents, so these scouting teams have been constantly searching for other alternative routes.”

Tie Ci thought the sounds the old woman and child had heard from above might have been the movements of batches of scouting Western Rong armies.

No wonder the child said the uncles and grandfathers hadn’t left yet – he had encountered human figures at night and thought they were the vengeful spirits of those tragically dead uncles and grandfathers.

“But if I remember correctly, across the way is the Western Rong Hanli Khan Desert, with harsh conditions where only sand pirates appear, with no armies stationed. Those people just now were also dressed as sand pirates. This is strange – how could Western Rong armies appear in this direction? Since they’re regular troops, why disguise themselves as sand pirates?”

Feiyu examined these people’s packs, which contained very crude food.

These people also had scars on their bodies. Their belts and curved sabers were very worn, with many cut marks on them, obviously from frequent combat and inability to replace equipment in time.

Combined with what the mountain folk had said earlier about medicinal herbs being roughly stolen, this should have been the work of this Western Rong army unit.

It felt like a military unit in poor circumstances.

Tie Ci’s gaze swept over the corpses on the ground.

“Since the route isn’t completely open yet, this team will still need to return, right?”

Their eyes met, and Feiyu already understood her meaning, nodding.

Tie Ci stood up, preparing to notify the people below to come up and select people for disguise.

Since they had already killed this team, if this team was delayed in returning, the Western Rong side would certainly notice and become alert, which wouldn’t be good.

It just so happened that she also needed to lead a team into Western Rong territory. Entering through this crack would both block the passage and infiltrate Western Rong – killing two birds with one stone.

Just as she was about to get up to call the people below, Feiyu pressed down on her hand.

With daylight now breaking, Tie Ci’s gaze fell on his hand. Looking closely at close range, she discovered that his fingers had somehow gained many thin, long scars.

Those scars were so fine and mostly on the sides of his fingers that they weren’t easily noticed.

Were they caused by cooking?

Feiyu took out something thin from the bundle he had been carrying on his back and handed it to her.

The thing was folded several times. Tie Ci curiously unfolded it and found it was a white, thin vest-like garment, but much heavier than a vest. She reached out to press it, but Feiyu stopped her: “Careful, it’s very sharp. Don’t press hard.”

Tie Ci could feel the vest had layers – the inner layer was fine hard objects, the outer layer was silk fabric. It could be folded into a very small piece. The edges of that small piece were distinct, and the inner layer didn’t seem like fabric at all.

Feiyu pressed the bottom of the vest and like magic drew out a thin thread. The thing sparkled with pale purple light under the sunlight.

He held the thin thread upright against a stone. Tie Ci watched with her own eyes as a tree leaf drifted past the thread and was cut in half.

With this degree of sharpness, she couldn’t help but think of abyssal iron, but could abyssal iron be ground this fine and woven into clothing? Besides, the color didn’t seem right either.

It was too incredible.

“Try it on. I originally wanted to weave it densely into clothing, but later found that would be too heavy, so I wove it into patterns. Afraid it might spring out and hurt you, I used an extremely flexible silver silkworm thread – no blade, however sharp, can cut through that silkworm thread. There are over three hundred fine threads woven in here. Besides protecting you from blade injuries, each one can be used to kill.”

“What material is this?”

“A type of iron from our Liaodong called indigo iron. When forged into weapons it’s extremely tough and sharp, but the output is extremely small. I had great difficulty accumulating this much and spent over half a year making these.”

Tie Ci slowly stroked the smooth surface of the silk fabric, feeling the hard texture underneath, murmuring: “How long must this have taken to grind…”

Feiyu smiled without answering.

Tie Ci’s gaze fell on his fingers – those fine, dense, mottled white scars, layer upon layer.

Were they caused by grinding these extremely sharp silk threads?

She suddenly remembered that before leaving the palace, Father Emperor had mentioned bringing palace treasures – protective armor – for her, but when the Treasury Supervisor was summoned, he said this armor had been bestowed on ministers by the previous emperor years ago. When they went back to check the records, it was listed as lost. Father Emperor angrily scolded the Treasury Supervisor but ultimately had no solution.

At the time she had said that protective armor sounded impressive but was obviously something like a bulletproof vest that would be heavy enough to give someone cervical spine disease and make them look like a turtle when worn – better to do without.

Father Emperor had scolded her again then, and the matter passed.

Now she finally had protective armor – lighter than imagined, and when worn didn’t make her look like a turtle. It was thin and exquisite, with the white silk base highlighting the blue-green woven patterns underneath, creating a unique beauty.

She wanted to say “actually you need one too” but felt it would be affected; wanted to say “thank you” but felt it lacked meaning. In the end she just smiled, took off her outer garment, and immediately put on the vest.

It was actually still somewhat heavy, but it pressed down the clothing and was quite warm.

Feiyu smiled as he watched with his chin propped up, saying: “See, the style I wove for you is especially beautiful.”

Tie Ci looked down and only then noticed that the pattern woven on the chest of the vest was spiral circles that even protruded slightly.

Tie Ci: …You shameless thing.