Everyone: “…”

The Emperor and Noble Consort: “!!!”

Tie Ci: “…”

What to do—was it still possible to stuff this grand-niece back to Ghost Island now?

Obviously it was too late. Pingzong had already confirmed that none of these men was her little uncle-in-law, frowning and glaring at Tie Ci: “You’re not with him anymore? Then where is he? Tell me so I can go find him.”

Tie Yan said: “Ci’er, what little uncle-in-law?”

The Noble Consort said: “Your Highness, have you already… outside?”

Tie Ci: “Can’t you tell this is a simple-minded child randomly spouting nonsense, and you believe it too?”

Pingzong: “You’re the simple-minded one!”

Tie Ci: “Look, everyone!”

Tie Yan glanced at Pingzong, then at Tie Ci.

It was precisely because she was simple-minded that her words were believable. Why didn’t she call the others little uncle-in-law? Clearly there really was such a person, and she had met him. Moreover, Ci’er had been very intimate with this person.

Looking again at the strange expressions on those young talents’ faces—except for Rong Pu who smiled faintly as if he hadn’t understood at all, the others all looked rather peculiar.

But imperial dignity and composure were still required. In front of subjects, it wouldn’t be proper to pursue these matters concerning the Crown Princess, so Tie Yan simply smiled without pressing further.

However, the Noble Consort couldn’t restrain herself and said softly: “Your Highness, if you have other close friends, why didn’t you invite them together this time…”

She looked at Rong Pu with some worry, her hint clear—the gift had already been given, but now if the Crown Princess’s true love appeared, what would the Rong family think?

Tie Ci said coolly: “Just a chance encounter. To conceal our identities, we pretended to be husband and wife as an act. No need to take it seriously.”

The Noble Consort looked toward Dan Shuang and Chi Xue—these two had been following the Crown Princess all along.

Dan Shuang nodded stiffly, while Chi Xue smiled and said: “Your Majesty, His Highness faced life and death outside, encountering many people and many situations. For survival, she also did many things. Would you like to hear every detail?”

Upon hearing this, Tie Yan immediately said reluctantly: “Enough, it was just a joke. Why pursue it to the bottom?”

Chi Xue lowered her head, a gentle smile at the corner of her lips carrying a faint desolate undertone.

The Noble Consort had no choice but to drop the matter, but after thinking couldn’t help saying: “Since it was just a chance encounter, there’s no need to worry about it. Still, one should cherish those before them.”

Tie Ci absent-mindedly hummed in agreement.

Afterwards, the atmosphere became inexplicably cold.

His Majesty the Emperor had been quite busy recently. After “dandling his grandchild” for a while, he departed early.

After leaving Yuxiu Palace, he said to the head eunuch beside him: “Send someone to summon Commander Xia Hou… no, better send someone to privately investigate the Crown Princess’s experiences during this year of trials outside. Be detailed—don’t miss any matter, large or small.”

“Yes.”

Tie Ci still had matters to discuss with Grand Tutor He, so she brought Rong Pu and the others to visit the Grand Tutor on duty today.

She left Pingzong to be settled in the palace, asking the Noble Consort to entertain her well.

After everyone had left, the Noble Consort felt more at ease. She did remember the Emperor’s instructions and personally took Pingzong to tour the Imperial Garden. However, when she spoke of fashionable jewelry and makeup popular in the capital, Pingzong didn’t understand and wasn’t very interested. When Pingzong told her about life on Ghost Island, she listened with continuous frowning. The two had nothing in common—after a while Pingzong ignored her and just played in the garden, while the Noble Consort also found it tedious. Where had this wild girl who lived like a savage come from, actually saying that raw fish was the freshest!

The more the Noble Consort thought about it, the more disgusted she became, even feeling that the girl emanated a fishy smell. Unable to stand it any longer, seeing that they were not far from her Dianfang Hall, she said she needed to change clothes, left two palace maids to accompany Pingzong, and returned first herself.

Pingzong didn’t care what she thought and wandered about the garden, then followed the corridor westward. Finding the two palace maids too slow, she walked faster. When the palace maids turned a corner and looked up, they discovered she had disappeared.

The two palace maids had to search everywhere. Walking along, they realized they were approaching Ciren Palace ahead. Not daring to approach Ciren Palace, they had to turn back and report.

Meanwhile, Pingzong found that the palace courtyards looked similar one after another, room after room, all appearing much the same. Going around and around, she could no longer find her way back.

So she leaped onto the surrounding wall, hoping to spot that courtyard from the height, but discovered she was above another large compound filled with countless palaces. Ahead was a building with all its windows covered in black cloth, from which came faint, barely audible moans.

Curious, she jumped down from the wall and headed toward that building.

Before she could approach within three zhang of the building, she heard a sharp crack. A fissure shot out from the building like lightning, reaching her feet in an instant. The brick pavement within three zhang before her cracked uniformly, with broken bricks piling at her feet.

This was clearly warning her not to advance another step.

Pingzong was proud by nature, and having reached the Grandmaster level, she regarded nothing under heaven as significant. She called that man grandfather only for money’s sake—she wasn’t intimidated by shows of force. Raising her hand and making a sweeping motion, an ice spear instantly formed, thrusting straight toward the building.

The person inside exclaimed in surprise: “Xuan Qiong?”

Before the words finished, the ice spear shattered into countless crystal shards, roaring as they transformed into a giant hand that grabbed down at Pingzong.

Pingzong didn’t retreat half a step. With a cold snort, flames like countless bright red serpents shot from her fingertips, weaving through the rain of ice shards. Wherever they passed, white vapor crisscrossed, melting into a cold rain.

The person inside exclaimed again: “Chi Fengli?”

Originally Pingzong could feel the cold rain rising from the ground, being stretched and thinned in mid-air into countless water needles rushing back at her. But with the mention of this name, the water needles paused in mid-air, then became countless drops of frozen rain hanging like crystal curtains before her eyes.

This name made Pingzong’s heart ache, and she said harshly: “You knew my mother?”

The frozen rain paused again in the air, then dissipated in an instant. The voice said in surprise: “You’re Chi Fengli’s daughter? Then how do you know Xuan Qiong’s martial arts?”

This made Pingzong even more angry, and she shouted: “None of your damn business!”

The person inside fell silent for a while, then muttered to himself: “Chi Fengli’s daughter knows Xuan Qiong’s martial arts… Has that hypocrite Xuan Qiong been clinging to Gui Haisheng’s side all these years? How can you have dual ice and fire abilities? You should not have survived past twenty… No wait, your internal fire is abundant, flowing endlessly—this is not something someone your age could have cultivated… Is Chi Fengli already dead?”

Pingzong hadn’t expected that without even seeing her, he could deduce so much. She felt alarmed inwardly but refused to show weakness, saying coldly: “My mother is dead, but her martial arts remain. If you keep spouting nonsense, I’ll kill you first.”

“Chi Fengli gave all her martial arts to you, so she died?” the person inside said. “Would someone like the Fire Phoenix sacrifice so much for a child? But wouldn’t someone like the Fire Phoenix know you couldn’t practice Xuan Qiong’s martial arts? Was her brain burned by fire?”

“You’re the one whose brain is burned! My mother didn’t know Xuan Qiong had taught me to cultivate Cold Abyss True Qi, so she killed Xuan Qiong too!”

“Killed her? Good, she should have been killed long ago. Xuan Qiong, that hypocritical, seductive slut—your mother could actually tolerate her calling Gui Haisheng ‘senior brother this, senior brother that’ behind him. Her brain really was fried by lightning.”

Hearing his disgust for Xuan Qiong made Pingzong feel better, and she asked curiously: “You seem very familiar with my parents. Why don’t you come out?”

“We all hung around together back then—how could I not be familiar? But after one shocking change, heroes scattered to the winds. All that grand swagger became old dreams, leaving only a bunch of old goods nobody remembers, each cowering and struggling to survive. Come out? Come out for what? To see the bones of old friends, the wrinkled old faces?”

Pingzong suppressed her choking voice: “My father was killed by lightning, and my mother killed Xuan Qiong, transferred all her power to me, and died too.”

“All dead then,” the person inside said flatly. “The Three Madmen and Five Emperors suffered heaven’s punishment and fell from the clouds. All these years since have been wasted living—death is good too. I hate that I can’t die and can’t leave, forced to stay here watching the eternally dark sky, watching one heavily made-up wrinkled old face.”

Pingzong looked at the black cloth: “You can’t see light?”

The person inside didn’t answer.

Pingzong raised her hand, ice and snow gathering and roaring in her palm, transforming and dancing, gradually condensing into walls. The wall surface extended forward like lightning, folding on four sides, piling higher and higher until it formed a square ice house.

Under the early spring sun that was warm but still carried chill, beneath the willows with their first pale green buds, among the glazed tiles and red brick walls, cold light flowed, crystal clear and transparent. The walls were covered with countless six-petaled frost flowers, beautiful as a dream.

She said: “I’ll build you an ice house—very bright, very thick and white, not very transparent to light, so you won’t have to stay in gloomy dark places anymore.”

Inside came a stretch of silence.

Pingzong said: “How pretty it is. When you’re thirsty you don’t even need to drink water—just lick the ice bricks. Just be careful not to get your tongue stuck.”

The person inside still didn’t speak or thank her.

Pingzong didn’t care about such things anyway. It was just that this person reminded her of her own parents—thinking how her parents had also been trapped on that island for years due to unknown reasons, unable to leave those waters, remembering how her mother’s lower limbs had been paralyzed early on, and how both had ultimately died in those waters.

She remembered how before dying, her mother had looked up at that sky from within the sea of fire, her eyes frozen with the desire to fly.

Mother must have yearned desperately for freedom.

Now, because this person also disliked Xuan Qiong, because of his words “Fire Phoenix,” she was willing to give him an ice house.

To step out of darkness and see light.

“If the ice house melts, I’ll come build you another one. I’m staying in this palace recently, helping to protect some people.” Pingzong waved and left.

After she left, the palace door opened soundlessly.

Black robes silently flowed out, taking advantage of a moment when sunlight was obscured, soundlessly gliding into the ice house.

The ice Pingzong had frozen wasn’t transparent—it was milky white with many ice flowers, which indeed blocked light to some degree.

But in darkness, it would sparkle brilliantly.

He leaned against the ice house. It was very cold here, but indeed there was no light yet it was very bright. Here he didn’t need to carefully avoid water, discarding all water-containing items, didn’t need to endure thirst all day without drinking water. Just as the little girl had said, when thirsty, he could just lick.

He rarely stretched out comfortably and lay down, staring at the various frost flowers on the ceiling, discovering that each frost flower actually had a different appearance.

Petal shapes, patterns—infinitely varied. Nature was so miraculous, creating different appearances yet all equally exquisite and beautiful.

After so many years, this was the first time he had escaped darkness, carefully contemplating the subtle beauties everywhere in life within bright light.

Only then did he discover that among all phenomena, each flower, each leaf was a world.

His sunken, gray mood seemed to let in light too. In the depths of his heart, floating dust danced, light and shadow scattered, gradually revealing a faint human figure.

He extended his finger, unconsciously drawing and sketching.

On the ice wall gradually appeared a simple portrait—a figure standing like jade, in dark robes light as clouds, smiling gently, elegant and graceful.

…

Pingzong continued forward, feeling this large courtyard was also very beautiful and wanting to explore it carefully.

Ahead was a flower garden where someone was trimming flowers—a petite woman who didn’t look young anymore, yet had snow-white skin.

Pingzong was quite envious. Born and raised on a sea island, she had previously thought herself incomparably beautiful, but today she had suffered repeated blows. Even random palace maids here were whiter than her, and even this old woman was whiter than her.

The old woman saw her and was stunned, a strange gleam flashing in her eyes before she smiled: “You’re a guest invited from Ruixiang Hall, aren’t you?”

“What Ruixiang Hall?”

“Oh, weren’t you invited by the Crown Princess?”

Pingzong stared blankly, then suddenly jumped up and shouted: “Ah, she’s the Crown Princess, the Huang Tainü!”

Although she had understood that those were the imperial family and this was the imperial palace, she hadn’t connected these with “Huang Tainü” until now. Only now did she react with an “ah” sound of realization.

The old woman watched her startled exclamation and frowned, thinking she had sent people to inquire about the person Tie Ci had invited—one who could wield both ice and fire, quite intimidating—but it turned out to be a fool.

Pingzong was stunned for a while. The mystery of “Huang Tainü” was solved, but should she still beat her up?

She was thinking about this, unconsciously murmuring it aloud. The old woman listened and raised an eyebrow.

So this person wasn’t clear about Tie Ci’s identity?

Their relationship also didn’t seem particularly good?

That could be worth trying.

She never put down the flower shears in her hand, and her smile gained a few more degrees of warmth.

“You’re not familiar with the Crown Princess?”

“Ah, the Crown Princess? No, we’re very familiar. She greatly admires me and specially invited me from the island to visit.”

“I could tell at a glance you’re extraordinary—indeed the Crown Princess’s guest.” The old woman put down her shears and smiled: “I like you very much. Would you like to come play at my place? I have more pastries than Ruixiang Hall, more interesting things to play with, better clothes and jewelry. Whatever you like, we’ll have it here.”

Pingzong stared at her, slowly folding her arms, tilting her head: “Grandmother, are you trying to steal me away from Ruixiang Hall?”

The old woman’s face twitched slightly, but she continued smiling: “A girl as outstanding as you—I felt an instant connection. Can’t I try to steal you away to play?”

Pingzong smiled smugly: “You have good taste. I think it’s possible.”

This time the old woman’s smile became several degrees more gentle. She reached out to summon the palace servants hiding to one side, but Pingzong shook her head: “But I won’t go with you.”

Old woman: “…?”

“Ruixiang Hall invited me first. I accepted their invitation and their gifts, so I should reciprocate. If I see someone who gives better gifts and treats me better, then switch sides—what would I become? A dog that can be called over with a bone? Do all you royal family like to treat people this way?” Pingzong shook her head. “Besides, I don’t believe you’d treat me well. That uncle in the back courtyard was invited by you, right? You make him live in a dark room. Just because he fears light, you make him live in darkness? Won’t you think of solutions?”

The old woman’s expression changed dramatically, and she said sternly: “You’ve seen Sang Tang!”

“His name is Sang Tang? Pretty name.” Pingzong said smugly: “I built him an ice house, so from now on he can stay in bright places. You go look and learn how to truly treat others well.”

She looked at the old woman, feeling her expression seemed very frightening for an instant, but that frightening look disappeared in a blink. The old woman smiled peacefully again: “I see. Then let me go look. I’m getting old—could you help me walk there?”

Pingzong wasn’t very willing—she felt this old woman was too heavily perfumed, overwhelming.

“Didn’t you say I should learn how to truly treat people well?”

Pingzong considered herself very reasonable and found this quite logical, so she extended her hand. The old woman immediately gripped her wrist tightly. She wore ornate enamel nail guards, their sharp tips scraping across Pingzong’s wrist.

Pingzong: “You scratched me!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Pingzong lectured: “Don’t wear such things in the future—they’re bothersome and ugly, like bird claws.”

The old woman’s face was twitching again. “…You’re right.”

She walked slowly toward the back, with palace servants avoiding them in the distance. Pingzong patiently accompanied her shuffling pace, regretting it ten thousand times over.

The old woman didn’t actually walk near the ice house, only looked from afar. Under the sunlight the ice house was dazzling, and she could vaguely see something dark inside. Pingzong was delighted: “He moved into my house!”

Suddenly she felt another pain in her hand. Looking down, she saw the old woman’s “bird claw” was gripping her wrist pulse again, this time even harder than before. Pingzong was displeased: “Hey, what’s wrong with you? You’re grabbing again!”

The old woman snapped back to awareness and said apologetically: “Seeing this house so beautiful made me feel rather ashamed, so I lost composure for a moment. Please don’t blame me.”

At her age apologizing like this, Pingzong couldn’t pursue it further, muttering: “That’s why I said you can’t deal with old ladies.”

Old woman: “…”

The two walked through the corridor. The old woman said: “Let me invite you for some good tea and pastries to apologize?”

Having built an ice house, Pingzong had expended considerable energy and felt somewhat hungry, so she followed the old woman into the main hall. While sitting down, she criticized the interior decorations: “This isn’t good—too dark, too much stuff, the colors too old-fashioned. Not as spacious and elegant as that palace just now.”

“You’re right,” the old woman smiled, personally pouring her a cup of clear green tea. The tea leaves in the water were red, which Pingzong found quite curious. The old woman smiled as she introduced it: “This is Luozhou Red Snail, famous for its snail-shaped tea leaves, but the brewed tea water is clear and green, lustrous as jade. It has a rich, mellow fragrance with a sweet aftertaste, and excellent effects for martial artists.”

Pingzong was delighted: “This looks good!” She picked it up and drank.