Jun Beiyue was angry.

The consequences were sure to be severe!

Ziqing, ever self-aware, walked over slowly, step by step, without a word.

Father and son both saw her approaching, yet neither moved, both watching her with grave, serious expressions.

When Xiong Xiaobao turned serious, his face resembled Jun Beiyue’s all the more — practically a miniature copy of him!

Ziqing stopped in her tracks, just about to speak, when Baili Weisheng came rushing over, still carrying Meng Duo’er!

Ziqing’s heart leapt with relief, knowing her savior had arrived — but who could have known, Jun Beiyue immediately reached out and scooped her into his arms instead, his large hand wrapping firmly around her waist!

“Han Ziqing, take this girl — she came here looking for you two!” Baili Weisheng said furiously, thoroughly displeased by all this. Why was everyone so intent on shoving a young girl into his arms?

A wet-behind-the-ears, naive, clumsy, foolish little thing like this — he genuinely had no interest whatsoever! Wouldn’t even bother touching her!

“She’s the one who saved you and your mother’s lives…” Ziqing stated the fact calmly, though inwardly, a storm was already raging.

Jun Beiyue’s hand around her waist tightened considerably, filled entirely with anger over her having slipped away without a word.

“I’ll find a way to repay my life-saver in due time. For now, just hold onto her, alright?” Baili Weisheng asked.

Ziqing simply refused to move. “Your mother’s right behind you!”

“You—!” Baili Weisheng choked with frustration, desperate to avoid the situation entirely.

As the two of them kept pushing the responsibility back and forth, Jun Beiyue, with far less patience for this, said coldly, “Enough. Let’s head back first. Jue Mingzi has a musician’s ancient map — you’ll both find it interesting.”

With that, he pulled Ziqing along toward the mountain. Baili Weisheng, left with no choice, glanced back once at Madam Jinjiao, then reluctantly scooped Meng Duo’er up in his arms, carrying her sideways.

Once back at the mountaintop, Jue Mingzi checked Meng Duo’er’s pulse and confirmed there was nothing seriously wrong, at which point Madam Jinjiao finally relaxed.

In a sealed room, with no outsiders present.

Jue Mingzi spread the musician’s ancient map out on the table, and Ziqing and Baili Weisheng leaned in curiously to look.

It appeared to be a map of the Longyuan continent, with all locations and terrain marked out in detail — nothing particularly unusual about it at first glance.

But then Jue Mingzi poured a bowl of black liquid over it, and very quickly, something remarkable happened!

All the shapes and markings on the map suddenly vanished entirely, as though washed away by the water.

In the end, only a handful of locations remained!

From south to north: the ancient music cave of Nanzhao, Liuxian Island, Yaoshun Island, and two locations in the west!

Ziqing was struck speechless with shock — every single location on this map, whether it was the ancient music cave of Nanzhao, the Innocent Ravine, Liuxian Island, or Yaoshun Island, was tied directly to the secret of the Song of Parting Sorrow!

Mingsha Mountain wasn’t on this map at all!

And indeed, Mingsha Mountain held no secret of the Song of Parting Sorrow after all!

This map was, in fact, a guide for restoring the incomplete Song of Parting Sorrow!

“Even though I’ve studied this map for over ten years, I never once understood what connection it had to the Song of Parting Sorrow,” Jue Mingzi said with a sigh. If Jun Beiyue hadn’t told him the full secret of the Song of Parting Sorrow, he might still, to this very day, have had no idea what this map was even for!

He never could have guessed, no matter how hard he racked his brain, that the score of the Song of Parting Sorrow contained hidden missing notes, and that those missing notes formed a code!

As Ziqing studied the map, she took out the score for the Song of Parting Sorrow.

At the same time, Baili Weisheng spread out a blank sheet of paper and began sketching out the twelve ancient musical symbols from the bottom of Qinse Sea Valley, along with the two yin-yang totems.

The secret hidden within the Song of Parting Sorrow lay within those twelve ancient musical symbols — twelve symbols that, on their own, held no particular meaning. But if the two symbols representing the yin-yang totems were added, forming fourteen symbols in total, they would become a code — each symbol representing a meaning, with the fourteen codes together forming a single sentence!

The secret of the Song of Parting Sorrow lay within that very sentence!

That sentence was the most direct piece of information the Nanzhao musician had left behind, all those years ago, concerning the Lonely Isle!

But what exactly did that sentence say?

To decode the musical symbols, the most crucial step was to gather all the symbols together first.

Now, with all the information laid out on the table, all that remained was the location of the final missing note, and the meaning of that yang-type totem on Baili Weisheng’s face.

Ziqing traced her finger across the musician’s ancient map, matching each location one by one, marking every single spot on the map, noting down the secret discovered at each site.

Soon, once all the markings were complete, the entire map became far clearer and more direct — only two locations remained unmarked.

These two locations were places none of them had ever considered, places none of them had ever been.

“These two places must be where the final missing note and the secret of the yang-type totem are hidden.”

Jun Beiyue said this calmly, none of the fury from the beach lingering in his voice now — and yet, throughout this entire time, his arm had remained wrapped around Ziqing’s waist, the pressure of his grip not lessening in the slightest.

Just how “calm” this man truly was right now, only his own wife could ever really know.

“I could never quite figure out how this map was meant to be used — I never imagined it would turn out like this,” Jue Mingzi said with deep emotion. He’d always known these locations on the map must hold some secret, but he never could have guessed the secret would turn out to be musical symbols! Never could he have imagined that the Song of Parting Sorrow itself was, in fact, incomplete!

“It has to be. It’s just…” Ziqing hesitated, trailing off.

“Just what?” Jue Mingzi asked quickly.

“It’s just, I’ve never quite understood — what’s the actual purpose of finding the missing notes to complete the Song of Parting Sorrow? Once we know which musical symbols the two totems represent, we could form the code together with the twelve symbols regardless.”

Ziqing furrowed her brow. After all, there were only two totems, while there were quite a few missing notes — and they’d spent so much time and effort over the years searching for those very notes!

Could it be that it was all simply for the sake of hearing one truly authentic, complete rendition of the Song of Parting Sorrow?

At this thought, Ziqing immediately turned to look at Baili Weisheng, saying flatly, “And another thing — why does the Song of Parting Sorrow need to be played on both the Wuzheng and Xuezheng zithers together?”

Baili Weisheng immediately waved his hands. “I only know that it does, not why… you should ask your father about that.”

Father…

Ziqing froze slightly. She had never once spoken those words aloud — to be precise, she still hadn’t formally acknowledged him as her father.

She’d been avoiding the matter entirely, because thinking of her mother still brought her pain.

Ziqing said nothing, but Jue Mingzi spoke up urgently instead. “The Song of Parting Sorrow does indeed require both the Wuzheng and Xuezheng zithers played together — as for these twelve symbols from Qinse Sea Valley you speak of, I honestly don’t know much about them. All I know is that the secret of the Lonely Isle lies within the Song of Parting Sorrow itself!”

Jun Beiyue nodded thoughtfully. “So even finding that coded sentence isn’t the most critical thing after all. Perhaps that sentence will simply guide us to find the true secret hidden within the Song of Parting Sorrow itself!”

Everyone nodded in agreement — regardless, the priority now was to quickly find that last missing note and uncover the secret of the yang-type totem!

Ziqing’s gaze returned to the map, studying those two remaining locations, and suddenly she smiled. “So, which of these two places should we go to first?”

“Let’s head to the Flame Valley in Western Liang first. As for the other one…” Jun Beiyue’s expression darkened as he said this. That other place… truly, none of them could have ever imagined it!