Outside the pagoda, the anxiously waiting abbot and his companions did not see the arrival of the Capital Prefect, but instead witnessed the vermilion wooden doors open, and Cui Xun, having obtained the Buddha’s cranial relic, limping out.

Cui Xun’s hair was disheveled, several strands of ink-black hair sticking messily to his face. He looked as if he had been dragged out of a pool of blood, covered in gore, a horrifying sight. His dark crimson robes had lost their original color. On his once jade-like forehead was a bowl-sized wound, fresh blood constantly seeping from it, flowing over his brow and down the bridge of his nose. His knees were also covered in blood, making each step extraordinarily difficult. Had he not been leaning on his sword, he likely would have collapsed long ago.

Everyone drew in a sharp breath. At this moment, Cui Xun looked as terrifying as a Rakshasa that had crawled out from hell. They involuntarily stepped back. Cui Xun no longer had the strength to look at them; he merely supported himself with his sword and walked unsteadily towards the temple exit.

The crowd exchanged glances. The abbot wanted to question Cui Xun but didn’t have the courage, so he could only silently follow behind. It wasn’t until Cui Xun struggled out of Famen Temple and climbed onto the white horse tethered outside that the abbot finally could not contain himself. He grabbed the horse’s reins and said, “Vice Director Cui, the Buddha’s cranial relic is a sacred treasure of the Great Zhou. You cannot take it away!”

Cui Xun merely gave him a dazed glance, then raised his whip and, using all his strength, struck the abbot across the face. The abbot cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Cui Xun paid him no more attention, but raised his whip, lashed his horse, and galloped toward Chang’an city.

Only then did the monks react, hurriedly helping the abbot to his feet. The abbot’s body trembled. In the darkness, a long whip mark stretched across half his face. The abbot muttered, “So… so arrogant! There is no law anymore, no law!”

At the Cui residence, Li Ying’s spiritual meridians were growing increasingly weak. Yu Fuwei took her pulse and was shocked—at this rate, she wouldn’t last three days. Li Ying would scatter her soul that very night.

She had killed more than a dozen people, so it seemed the backlash from Buddhist law was far more severe than when she had appeared to force Wang Ranxi to confess.

Yu Fuwei paced anxiously. Could Cui Xun obtain the Buddha’s cranial relic? If not, Li Ying would truly lose her life.

Just as Yu Fuwei could wait no longer and was preparing to go to Famen Temple himself to seek the relic, the door suddenly burst open with a bang.

Cui Xun, covered in blood from head to toe, staggered in. Yu Fuwei turned, dumbfounded: “Vice Director Cui? What happened to you?”

Cui Xun pushed aside Yu Fuwei, who had come to support him. He stumbled to the camphorwood couch, then carefully took out the Buddha’s cranial relic from his bosom and placed it in Li Ying’s hand. The Buddha’s cranial relic, formed from the Buddha’s skull, symbolized the Buddha’s wisdom and compassion. The relic was round and lustrous like a pearl, crystal clear. As soon as it was placed in Li Ying’s hand, it emitted a soft, luminous glow that was warm and gentle, covering Li Ying’s entire body. Yu Fuwei hurriedly scrambled over to check Li Ying’s pulse. Although her spiritual meridians were still weak, they no longer showed signs of imminent severance. Instead, they gradually resumed their rhythm. Yu Fuwei was overjoyed: “The Buddha’s cranial relic works! The Princess can be saved!”

Cui Xun knelt powerlessly on the ground, looking at Li Ying on the couch. A relieved smile finally appeared at the corners of his mouth. Hot tears slid from his eyes, mixing with the blood on his face, looking like an interweaving of blood and tears. He laughed and cried: “Bright Moon Pearl… Bright Moon Pearl…”

Yu Fuwei excitedly said, “Although the Princess’s injuries are severe, with the Buddha’s cranial relic, she will certainly wake up!”

But Cui Xun gradually grew calm. He wanted to caress Li Ying’s face with deep affection, but when he saw the blood on his hands, he hesitated. He took a nearby silk cloth and carefully wiped his hands before touching Li Ying with clean hands. Li Ying’s body was ice-cold. Cui Xun’s palm gently caressed her face, his eyes filled with countless reluctances to part. After a long while, he withdrew his hand and looked at Yu Fuwei, who was still rejoicing. Lowering his eyes, he suddenly propped himself up and respectfully knelt before Yu Fuwei.

Yu Fuwei was startled: “Vice Director Cui, what are you doing?”

He tried to help Cui Xun up, but Cui Xun refused to rise. Yu Fuwei had no choice but to kneel opposite him, saying, “You’re a fourth-rank high official. I’m just a commoner. I cannot accept your kneeling.”

Cui Xun shook his head: “I kneel to Master Yu because I hope Master Yu will agree to one request.”

“What request?”

Cui Xun closed his eyes, hiding the endless pain in them. He slowly opened his eyes and said word by word: “I beg you, take Bright Moon Pearl to the City of Wrongful Deaths.”

Yu Fuwei was stunned: “What did you say?”

“I said, I beg you, take Bright Moon Pearl to the City of Wrongful Deaths.”

After a moment of silence, Yu Fuwei exploded in anger. No longer concerned with the distinction between official and commoner, he grabbed Cui Xun’s collar and shouted, “Have you gone mad or just stupid? You want to send the Princess to the City of Wrongful Deaths? Don’t you know she can’t leave once she goes there!”

“She can’t leave for ten years, but she can leave after twenty years. When those who killed her are dead, she will be able to leave.”

Yu Fuwei raged, “I don’t care about ten or twenty years! The City of Wrongful Deaths is such a place—I wouldn’t let her stay there for even a day! You claim to love the Princess, but is this how you love her? The Princess must have been blind to fall for a bastard like you!”

Yu Fuwei was so angry he wanted to punch Cui Xun in the face, but seeing how Cui Xun was covered in blood, he feared one punch might take half of Cui Xun’s life. Then, when Li Ying woke up, she would surely blame him. Yu Fuwei could only use his last bit of rationality to suppress his anger. He said, “Listen, as long as I’m here, I will never let you send the Princess to the City of Wrongful Deaths!”

“She must go to the City of Wrongful Deaths!”

Cui Xun suddenly raised his voice and shouted.

Yu Fuwei was stunned.

Cui Xun’s lips curved into a bitter smile: “I forcibly stole the Buddha’s cranial relic from Famen Temple. The officials coming to arrest me should already be on their way. I will soon be imprisoned. I can no longer protect Bright Moon Pearl. So, take Bright Moon Pearl and the Buddha’s cranial relic and leave quickly!”

Yu Fuwei was utterly astonished: “What did you say? You stole the Buddha’s cranial relic from Famen Temple? Do you have a death wish? You dared to steal the Buddha’s cranial relic?”

“Bright Moon Pearl couldn’t wait any longer.” Cui Xun looked at the unconscious Li Ying on the camphorwood couch and murmured, “This was the fastest way.”

“You… you…” Yu Fuwei didn’t know what to say. He released his grip on Cui Xun’s collar, his mind in turmoil. After a moment of shock, he suddenly said, “There’s still time! I’ll help you both leave Chang’an. At worst, you can go to the Western Regions. The world is vast; there must be a place for you to go.”

Cui Xun shook his head: “I will not leave Chang’an, nor will I go to the Western Regions.”

Yu Fuwei was stunned: “If you won’t leave Chang’an or go to the Western Regions, are you just waiting here to die?”

Cui Xun stubbornly insisted: “I will not leave Chang’an.”

Yu Fuwei almost jumped up: “Why won’t you leave Chang’an? Can’t you bear to part with your official position?”

Cui Xun calmly said, “I have never cared about this official position, but I still have unfinished business. I cannot leave Chang’an.”

“What business?” Yu Fuwei couldn’t help but laugh bitterly: “Tell me, what business?”

“The truth about the destruction of the Heavenly Guard!” Cui Xun said word by word: “I will not leave Chang’an until I bring the culprit to justice!”

“Culprit?” Yu Fuwei was bewildered: “Weren’t the culprits Lu Yumin and the others? Haven’t they already been executed? What other culprits are there?”

Cui Xun merely shook his head: “There’s one more.”

He pressed his lips together, affectionately holding the hand of Li Ying, who lay on the couch, intertwining their fingers just as they had when they first met: “For stealing the Buddha’s cranial relic, I will surely be imprisoned. But if by chance I survive, I must make that culprit pay with their life. That culprit… is not someone I can fight against… nor someone Bright Moon Pearl can fight against…”

He gently squeezed Li Ying’s cold hand, tears falling onto the back of her hand. The unconscious Li Ying seemed to sense something; her long eyelashes trembled slightly. Cui Xun said in a low voice: “If Bright Moon Pearl stays here, she will be heartbroken, torn between two paths… But after that heartbreak and dilemma, she will surely help me regardless of her safety. I don’t know what will happen then, and I dare not imagine. Master Yu, please take her away. Only if she goes to the City of Wrongful Deaths will she be unable to return to find me…”

Yu Fuwei was completely dumbfounded. He didn’t know who the culprit Cui Xun spoke of was, but his intuition told him it must be someone with immense power who was also closely related to Li Ying. And in the Great Zhou, who else could be closely related to Li Ying and possess greater power than Lu Yumin and Pei Guanyue?

Yu Fuwei was terrified and dared not delve deeper.

He murmured, “If you know you can’t win, why fight against that person?”

Hearing this, Cui Xun merely curved his lips in a self-mocking smile: “I know that the Heavenly Guard case has already reached the most satisfactory conclusion. The main culprits have been executed, the soldiers have been exonerated, and their families have been properly settled. If I continue to pursue this, it’s truly inappropriate and bothersome. But whenever I close my eyes, I see Cao Wu and the others lying in pools of blood. I cannot get past this… Unless I die, I will fight to the end.”

Though the path was difficult and long, his heart remained as firm as rock, with no regrets even unto death.

Yu Fuwei’s expression became solemn. As he looked at Cui Xun, at this Vice Director of the Investigation Department with his infamous reputation, for the first time, he began to feel respect for this man. After a moment of silence, he stopped trying to persuade him and said: “But you have no right to decide for the Princess. What gives you the right to send her to the City of Wrongful Deaths without her permission?”

Cui Xun just held Li Ying’s hand. Looking at her, he laughed bitterly and said, “Who told Cui Xun to be such an unforgivable bastard?”

A bastard who does bastardly things.

She should never have fallen in love with such a bastard as him.

He said, “Yu Fuwei, the Capital Prefect’s men will be here soon. Will you take her or not? If you won’t, I’ll find another ghost merchant to do it.”

Yu Fuwei gritted his teeth. The path Cui Xun was about to walk was one of certain death. If Li Ying stayed, she would accompany him to his death. Weighing the two options, it was better to send Li Ying to the City of Wrongful Deaths than to have her become a vengeful ghost as she was now, nearly having her soul scattered.

Yu Fuwei nodded: “Fine, I’ll take her!”

Cui Xun was relieved. He knelt and kowtowed to Yu Fuwei: “Thank you.”

But the unconscious Li Ying suddenly had tears flowing from the corners of her eyes. Cui Xun felt immense pain in his heart. He finally pressed the Buddha’s cranial relic firmly into her palm. The lustrous white light from her palm flowed like a gentle stream into her body. When he tried to let go, she seemed to regain consciousness, clutching his fingertips and not letting go. The tears at the corners of her eyes flowed more and more. Cui Xun’s heart felt as if it were being cut by a knife. He steeled himself and pried open Li Ying’s fingers one by one, then withdrew his hand and said to Yu Fuwei: “Take her away!”

Yu Fuwei pressed his lips together. With a gloomy expression, he picked up Li Ying from the couch and left without looking back.

The camphorwood couch retained only lingering warmth. In the room, the candles flickered, leaving Cui Xun alone. He sat cross-legged on the ground, his clothes stained with blood. Wearily, he slowly closed his eyes, calmly waiting for the Capital Prefect to break down the door.