On the night of October 14th in the third year of the Qian Yuan era, a palace maid in Cuiwei Palace killed herself by running into a pillar, unable to bear her master’s scolding. After death, her vengeful spirit caused havoc, resulting in the death of Concubine Rou’s personal attendant Nanny Hu. Concubine Rou inexplicably lost her hearing, remained incurable despite all treatments, and was disabled for life. From then on, the palace was filled with unease and restless hearts. The Empress Dowager specially ordered three days and nights of ritual ceremonies at Huguo Temple to transcend the departed soul. Three months later, the Emperor commanded Concubine Rou to move to another palace, and Cuiwei Palace was sealed.

On October 15th in the third year of the Qian Yuan era, Grand Princess Wen Chang requested to leave the palace to practice Buddhist cultivation with unshaved hair. In plain clothes with a simple retinue, traveling in a light carriage with only a few guards and several palace maids, she silently entered the ancient, dignified imperial convent hidden among green pines and cypresses in the Shanglin Estate.

A line of flying eaves slanted up among the lush verdant green. Beneath the eaves, Qin Chang Ge stood silently, watching the massive construction project underway in the palace – a flying bridge like a soaring dragon or rainbow piercing the sun, extending from the palace and connecting to the mountainside of Shanglin.

This was Xiao Jue’s command. Though Shanglin Convent was close to the imperial palace in straight-line distance, actually entering the palace required going down the mountain and taking a roundabout route, which was quite troublesome. To make it convenient for his sister to occasionally return to the palace, Xiao Jue specially ordered the construction of a flying bridge connecting the palace and Shanglin Convent.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Qin Chang Ge turned around: “Wen Chang, now that the sky is high and the emperor far away, I won’t delay any longer.”

“I’m going down the mountain tonight.”

Wen Chang was startled: “You have no martial arts skills now. How can you travel down the mountain in the deep of night?”

Qin Chang Ge smiled: “It doesn’t matter. Though I lack martial arts, my reflexes remain intact. Self-protection isn’t a problem. As long as I can find my former associates, future safety will be even less of an issue. If I stay in your convent, I’d actually feel uneasy.”

“But there’s no need to be so urgent…” Wen Chang was about to continue persuading when Qin Chang Ge sent over a glance full of flowing smiles, and she helplessly fell silent.

“The palace court stifles people to death…” Qin Chang Ge acted on her words immediately. “I’m going to clear my mind…”

She waved her sleeves, mounted the prepared horse, gave it a casual whip, and rode lightly down the mountain. In the night, soon only a faint yellow, delicate figure remained visible.

Wen Chang sighed, returned to the convent, and closed the door.

Qin Chang Ge rode quite far, then looked back to see the door had been closed. She smiled silently, dismounted, tied the horse by the roadside, and walked back on foot.

Initially she walked at a normal pace, returning all the way to Shanglin Convent, but instead of entering through the main gate, she circled around the perimeter wall until reaching the back of the convent.

Not far behind the convent was a forest – deep and dense, rarely traveled. Those trees, at first glance, seemed to grow in disorder, scattered here and there without pattern. Moreover, their shapes were somehow all strangely formed, crooked and ugly, extending their gnarled branches toward the sky like claws. Under the reflection of a ghastly pale moon, they appeared eerily frightening.

Qin Chang Ge closed her eyes and contemplated for a while, then stepped into the forest.

After taking just one step, she stopped and looked around, saying softly: “They haven’t forgotten me…”

Slowly following the pattern of advance three retreat one, left first then right, then advance two side left, then advance two retreat one, she moved in a winding, crooked path around the trees, step by step slowly approaching the forest’s interior.

Finally she stopped before an ordinary bluestone.

Crouching down, she slowly ran her hands over the bluestone, her fingers feeling inch by inch across its surface until, near the bottom, she felt a small protrusion.

Extending her hand, she pressed against an ancient tree beside the bluestone. The ancient tree had some knots, and Qin Chang Ge’s finger pressed precisely on the second knot from the top.

Angling her body slightly until she was clear of the ancient tree’s range, Qin Chang Ge pressed down on the protrusion.

A creaking sound echoed as the ancient tree’s unremarkable trunk suddenly revealed a square, dark opening.

Something was glowing faintly in the dark cavity.

Qin Chang Ge released her finger that had been pressing the knot, smiling sardonically as she cursed:

“A bunch of bastards. Don’t they know to occasionally change the mechanism? What if someone discovers it?”

Squinting at the mechanism, she thought that such a carefully protected secret place would indeed be very difficult to discover. For instance, just now, even if someone found the protrusion on the bluestone or accidentally touched it, without pressing the spring mechanism disguised as a tree knot, they would immediately be shot full of holes.

Taking out prepared cloth to wrap her hands, she carefully extracted the faintly glowing token resting on brocade within the cavity, being careful not to let her hands touch anywhere inside the opening. Qin Chang Ge smiled with slight self-mockery.

Years ago, when she had personally set up this mechanism, Fei Huan had leaned against the tree beside it. His beautiful features, lovely as a woman’s, showed complete coldness as he gazed absently at the bright moon on the horizon, saying flatly: “Truly a venomous woman who won’t rest until she’s placed people in mortal danger.”

Inside the cavity was one final killing move – the entire inner wall was coated with poison that killed on skin contact. Anyone who discovered this opening and joyfully reached inside would never imagine that after painstakingly breaking through layer upon layer of mechanisms, death still waited eagerly at the final step.

She, Qin Chang Ge, had always been a woman quite skilled at attacking people at their most careless moments.

And Chu Fei Huan… was a man whom even she, Qin Chang Ge, could not afford to treat lightly.

A prince of mysterious background, viewed as a ghostly aberration due to his strange prophetic abilities that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, suffering constant rejection and expulsion. Despite his outstanding talent and intelligence, learning martial arts from merely a tattered manual he’d picked up and even creating new techniques – a once-in-a-generation martial arts prodigy who would rather wander the ends of the earth, would rather follow her in that half-real, half-illusory way, than return to that luxurious, decadent palace to engage in life-and-death, blood-soaked struggles with his ambitious, power-hungry brothers and sisters over golden thrones, jade scepters, and worldly authority.

He was exiled, and also exiled himself.

Fei Huan, how are you now?

Have you returned to the Li Kingdom, or do you still drift about in Xiliang?

…

Suddenly a night owl shrieked sharply.

It flapped over the treetops with a rustling sound.

Qin Chang Ge raised her head, looking at the moon on the horizon that was faintly tinged with blood.

That pale red color, seeming to emanate a fishy smell, appeared as disgusting and unclean as blood rust that had formed on weapons that had killed countless people.

A similarly reddish cloud drifted over, covering half the moonlight.

Qin Chang Ge suddenly remembered that long ago, there was someone who, on such blood-moon nights, would behave strangely, enjoying carrying a lamp as he walked. That lamp was vivid as blood, like eyes flowing with endless blood, wandering silently through the darkness.

A slightly cool breeze swept by.

In the forest’s darkest depths, a point of red light suddenly appeared, drifting soundlessly.