In the last courtyard at the end of Bajiao Alley, the peach blossoms still bloomed vibrantly. The branch hanging by the gate remained unbroken despite the shocking upheaval within the courtyard.

The smooth, clean bluestone pavement showed not a single blade of grass. Sunlight fell on the pale blue stone surface, appearing from afar like shimmering waves.

From a distant tall building came the sound of someone playing the flute—the melody drifting far and winding mysteriously, like pale green waves cascading from the horizon.

An atmosphere of tranquil peace and serenity prevailed.

Just as these eternal mountains and rivers never changed their appearance regardless of who ruled them, the vast sky and thick earth remained forever young.

Yet in this quiet alley, someone flew swiftly past.

The flying figure moved like a blue cloud, a streak of ethereal flowing light, a handful of celestial spring water falling from the heavens.

Chu Feihuan.

The long alley had a turn before the last courtyard, like an intricate corner placed before visitors’ eyes.

Chu Feihuan’s fluid form suddenly stopped before this turn.

His gaze swept with extreme precision across an inconspicuous corner at the turning point, then he crouched down and gently picked up a small object.

It was an earring of finest jade, carved into an elegant crabapple shape. The material was precious and the workmanship exquisite—ordinary shops could never produce such a piece.

Only Heng Ji’s workshop could create this.

Chu Feihuan’s gaze moved upward and saw marks on the corner wall where heavy and hard objects had scraped against it. The blue bricks were damaged from top to bottom.

Suddenly raising his head and clutching the earring in his palm, Chu Feihuan shot forward even faster than before.

He didn’t pause before the black wooden door, sweeping in like the wind. The drooping peach branch was disturbed by the wind from his rapid passage, and petals scattered like red rain.

At the courtyard entrance, Chu Feihuan stopped.

Suddenly he felt unable to advance, unable to breathe.

That sense of powerlessness and despair from his long period of injury returned, painfully grinding through his memories… He had clearly given everything, only to stand by her side and protect her properly. Why, when it came to the crucial moment, did he still find himself completely powerless?

In the courtyard, the Huang Meng guards that Chang Ge had brought lay scattered in all directions.

Where the main house should have been, only chaos remained. The building had collapsed, wall plaster had fallen, and damaged furniture and objects lay strewn everywhere in messy heaps. Though the courtyard appeared completely silent from the outside, inside it was utterly devastated.

Chu Feihuan swept onto the ruins, searching the ground inch by inch. His fingers, heedless of dirt, felt through the chaotic debris one by one. On a bronze pipa broken into several pieces, he discovered the blood traces he feared to find.

He lightly touched the bloodstain with his fingertip—the blood was dark purple. Who had suffered internal injuries? Who? Who?

At the thought of a certain terrible possibility, Chu Feihuan felt his internal organs tightening. The still-warm fresh blood suddenly turned ice cold, though he couldn’t tell if the blood was cold or if his fingertips had grown cold.

Glancing down, he saw the tip of an iron implement partially exposed. Chu Feihuan reached out to pry it but couldn’t budge it. Something that couldn’t be moved even with his true power must be deeply buried underground.

Chu Feihuan carefully examined the shattered bronze pipa. The break was in the middle, with irregular edges—it had been crushed and split by heavy force from both ends.

Heavy force…

Chu Feihuan’s fingers trembled, and the pipa’s remains crumbled further in his hands.

Taking a deep breath, Chu Feihuan lingered no longer. He flew swiftly from the courtyard, heading first to Huang Meng headquarters, then to the imperial palace.

Before long, thunderous rumbling echoed outside Bajiao Alley as countless galloping horses charged forward with fierce and swift momentum like thunder. The entire ground trembled slightly, and through the clouds of dust could be heard the footsteps of well-trained troops dispersing to surround and drive away onlooking civilians according to various orders. One rider rushed ahead of the others, swift as lightning through clouds, charging forward with a fierce shout before even arriving: “Shan Du Battalion, excavate this entire ground for me!”

Three thousand men digging together was quite a spectacle.

Baozi rolled down from his horse and rushed toward the pile of ruins, crying out, “Oh my heavens, did you fight with Ultraman? How did you even flip over the house?”

Xiao Jue’s face was dark as he lifted him aside. Seeing his father’s expression, Xiao Baozi knew he’d better shut up. He circled the ground three times, then got down on all fours and sniffed frantically with his nose.

Xiao Jue originally didn’t want to pay attention to him, only wanting to search for any traces Chang Ge might have left behind. But when he turned and saw his son’s behavior, his resentment flared up again. He barked, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Baozi climbed up, looking dejected. “I really wish I were a police dog.”

He thought for a moment, then got back down on the ground with his bottom stuck high in the air, grabbing a toy-like small golden hoe and digging energetically. After digging for a long time, he had only excavated a shallow little pit in the ground.

Even with all his anxiety, Xiao Jue couldn’t ignore his son. He strode over quickly, reached out to grab the little ball, and angrily said, “This is floating soil connected to iron plates. What are you digging for? Are you here to dig holes or cause trouble?”

Baozi glared back defiantly while suspended in mid-air: “I came to save my mother like Mulian, to move mountains like the Foolish Old Man!”

He looked down at the ground half a meter below, remembering the tragic experience of being smashed underground by Yu Zixi. He immediately threatened his father, whose mood didn’t seem too stable: “Don’t throw me, don’t throw me, or I’ll get angry with you—”

“Huff—”

The very undignified Crown Prince Xiao was unceremoniously thrown out by Xiao Jue—thrown right into the arms of Chu Feihuan, who had just arrived again.

Chu Feihuan caught Baozi and immediately passed him to the horse’s back, then handed over the earring in his palm, saying, “I’ve already ordered all Huang Meng members to mobilize and gather information. Your Majesty, please look at this.”

“I’ve already ordered the nine gates closed. From now on, only entry is allowed, no exit. All those leaving the city must have personal travel passes written by the Nine Gates Commander. Not even a bird is permitted to fly over Yingdu’s city walls!” Xiao Jue’s expression was heavy as he took the earring and asked, “Whose is this? Chang Ge doesn’t wear earrings.”

“Wan Cui’s.” Meeting Xiao Jue’s questioning gaze, Chu Feihuan explained quietly, “I already asked. Just when we went to Nanmin, Qi Heng brought back the singing girl Wan Cui from Four Seasons Spring along with her father, and purchased this residence. Many brothers in the alliance went to drink at the wedding celebration. This woman reportedly sang at Qi Heng’s Four Seasons Spring three years ago. Qi Heng had taken a liking to her early on, but she remained unmoved until recently when she finally accepted him.”

Xiao Jue looked at Chu Feihuan with some disbelief—from when the incident occurred until now, Chu Feihuan had gone to the small courtyard, to the imperial palace, to Huang Meng to issue orders and gather intelligence, then almost immediately rushed back here. All this running around had taken only half an hour. How had he managed it?

His expression somewhat darkened, he said, “In other words, the other party had been lurking in Xiliang for a very long time, even before Chang Ge’s rebirth. So the original purpose might not have been to target Chang Ge, which is why they refused to get close to Qi Heng. Recently, when their target suddenly shifted to Chang Ge, they finally married Qi Heng.”

“Your Majesty speaks correctly,” Chu Feihuan nodded. “I suspect these are spies from another country who have been lurking in Yingdu for long-term intelligence missions. Ordinarily they gather information in various humble disguises and transmit it back to their country. When needed, they execute certain secret operations, such as capturing Chang Ge.”

“It seems they’ve wanted to deal with Chang Ge for quite some time,” Xiao Jue turned to look at the soldiers’ excavation results. Human power was immense—in just over an hour, the entire courtyard’s ground had been completely turned over. The area around the main house had been dug more than ten feet deep, revealing an ingeniously designed giant mechanism beneath the entire house, occupying as much space as the building itself.

The mechanism looked like an enormous gear wheel connected to countless intricate chains. The center of the gear had some complex designs. Each part was precisely and orderly arranged, like a profound giant eye gazing grimly at the sky.

It was truly difficult to imagine that such an exquisite and powerful massive device would exist beneath this ordinary small courtyard. The sight was awe-inspiring—heaven knew what kind of master had designed this mechanism.

The soldiers all expressed their amazement with their eyes, then silently retreated.

Xiao Jue and Chu Feihuan stepped forward, examined the thing, looked at each other, and said in unison, “Zhongchuan.”

Xiao Jue smiled grimly, his tone chillingly cold: “After Shan Shao conquered Nanmin, I had him bring his army back via Zhongchuan to settle that problem. The great army has already pressed against Zhongchuan’s borders. Beitang Xiao is desperate now, wanting to hold Chang Ge hostage to force me to withdraw troops. He deserves credit for being well-informed, actually vaguely guessing Chang Ge’s importance.”

“The annexation of various countries began after Chang Ge became Grand Tutor, and Your Majesty has always valued the Grand Tutor highly,” Chu Feihuan’s tone revealed no other meaning as he said flatly, “Zhongchuan is small and weak, not daring to face our Xiliang’s mighty lions in battle. They can only resort to such underhanded tricks.”

Xiao Jue’s expression stiffened as he said, “Are you blaming me for putting Chang Ge in the eye of the storm?”

“Your Majesty, since things have come to this point, arguing about who’s right or wrong is meaningless. Our urgent priority now is to find Chang Ge,” Chu Feihuan’s gaze was sharp and clear as he turned to meet Xiao Jue’s eyes directly.

“It’s my fault. I failed to protect her properly—it was so in the previous life, and it’s the same in this life,” Xiao Jue’s expression was pained, his teeth sinking deeply into his lower lip. “But she kept refusing. When I wanted to assign palace guards to take shifts protecting her, when I wanted to arrange imperial martial experts to accompany her, she wouldn’t agree, saying she had Huang Meng guards… Master Chu, sometimes I even feel that Chang Ge seems to intentionally use herself as bait, wanting to draw out certain people and events that have been lurking in the shadows. She never gave up investigating the truth, but why can’t she trust me? Why won’t she let me work hard for her? Why must she take such risks herself? How much luck can keep favoring one person? If, if there’s another Changle incident—”

He suddenly stopped speaking, abruptly turning around to face away from everyone, gritting his teeth as he stared silently ahead. From Chu Feihuan’s angle, he could only see the suddenly clenched fists beneath the wide sleeves of the black dragon robe.

The golden light of the setting sun gilded that figure. The body that had always stood straight as a pine now trembled slightly.

Chu Feihuan sighed, the sound dissipating in the evening’s glowing clouds.

“We are not Chang Ge. We cannot truly know Chang Ge’s thoughts,” he said after a long moment. “But as for me, regardless of what she thinks, regardless of what she does, regardless of the consequences—none of that is for me to manage. I only care about accompanying her in whatever she does. If she makes mistakes, I’ll fix them. If things go wrong, I’ll stay with her. If she gets lost, I’ll find her.”

He calmly raised his head to gaze toward the depths of the sky where the woman he loved, in both past and present lives, remained as distant as the clouds beyond the heavens. She came treading on clouds and departed riding the wind, never truly belonging to him for even a moment. Yet never for a moment had he considered abandoning her.

She was his silent vow, written in his life, in his blood, in countless sleepless nights of dreams. It needed no words, yet awaited the test of time and tribulation at every moment.

His tone was calm, but each word carried the weight of a thousand pounds: “I’ll search for her, even if it takes my entire lifetime.”