Faced with Xuanyuan Lige’s unprompted offer to help, the two Qin-Se Elders were clearly on guard.

“No need. The disciples have everything well in hand. But thank you for the thought, Lige,” the Qin Elder said with a smile.

Xuanyuan Lige didn’t press further—that phrase, “thank you for the thought,” told him little enough on its own.

“Today is the twenty-eighth. The tide should recede sometime in the late afternoon hours, I imagine,” Xuanyuan Lige remarked further.

To tour the Sea Valley, one naturally had to wait for low tide. Though no one had ever actually seen the Sea Valley’s true form with their own eyes, this much, at least, was common knowledge to everyone present.

And yet, even with Xuanyuan Lige asking this much, the two Qin-Se Elders remained visibly guarded. The Qin Elder simply nodded, offering nothing more.

The corner of Xuanyuan Lige’s mouth curled faintly, and he said nothing further after that.

“Lige, about the matter of keeping Han Ziqing here—why don’t you go speak with her about it?” the Se Elder said, changing the subject.

“She and I aren’t particularly close, in truth,” Xuanyuan Lige said flatly. He only ever sought Ziqing out privately, in any case.

That woman, once, on the great grasslands south of Eastern Qin, had told him that friends ought to value their own lives.

He had never forgotten that, even now, though she no longer acknowledged him as “A’Li,” he still counted her as a friend regardless.

But he would absolutely never make their past connection public, nor would he ever exploit that bond of “friendship” to accomplish anything.

The only thing he truly wanted from her was to teach her the zither!

“Not close, and yet you gave her the Wuzheng back then, didn’t you?” the Qin Elder asked, surprised.

“I heard her play in a duel at the capital and simply felt she suited the Wuzheng well. Seems my judgment was sound, looking back now,” Xuanyuan Lige said teasingly.

“In that case, might it be more fitting if you approached her yourself—as a disciple of Qinse Valley, offering the zither as a gift?” the Se Elder suggested earnestly.

“The zither still belongs to Qinse Valley. It would be more appropriate for the two Elders to raise the matter themselves,” Xuanyuan Lige deflected once more.

The two Qin-Se Elders didn’t press him further. The three of them walked together for a while longer before Xuanyuan Lige excused himself and took his leave.

He hadn’t yet made it back to the east wing when a young junior disciple came hurrying after him. “Senior Brother Xuanyuan, a letter for you.”

Xuanyuan Lige accepted it, and upon seeing the bright yellow envelope, his heart couldn’t help but tighten—though his hands made no move to open it right away.

The junior disciple hesitated a moment, seeing this, then hurried to catch up again, saying quietly, “Senior Brother Xuanyuan, the messenger asked me to relay that Her Majesty the Queen is furious, and demands you reply at once.”

“Senior Brother Xuanyuan, the messenger insisted I bring back a reply,” the junior added again.

“Just tell them you couldn’t find me,” Xuanyuan Lige said flatly, and in a flash his figure vanished, leaving the young disciple standing there, at a loss.

Counting this one, it was already the fourth letter—the contents largely the same each time, demanding to know why he hadn’t struck at Han Ziqing while Jun Beiyue was away, why he hadn’t exploited the war between Western Jing and Western Chu to stir up conflict between Western Jing and Da Zhou, why he had yet to take any real action toward reclaiming their homeland at all!

There were countless ways to go about reclaiming the homeland, and it had to be admitted—this had genuinely been an opportunity.

And that time when Jun Beiyue had nearly lost his life at the Dali Temple in Da Zhou’s capital—that had been a once-in-a-lifetime chance indeed. But how could he possibly have exploited Jun Beiyue’s absence to harm Ziqing?

Back then, that woman had represented Jun Beiyue himself, had represented all of Da Zhou—those slender shoulders of hers had carried an entire court’s worth of internal and external turmoil upon them.

How could he possibly bring himself to do such a thing?

He had told Ziqing, long, long ago, that he could offer her friendship—setting aside matters of state, ignoring their respective identities entirely!

Personal grievances, national interests—those, he would discuss only with Jun Beiyue himself!

His pale face, framed by that cascade of silver hair, looked especially frail. Head lowered, he climbed the stairs, only to run straight into Jun Beiyue, hand in hand with Ziqing, coming down.

Both men, however composed, faltered slightly in their steps. But Ziqing showed no such hesitation at all, meeting his gaze openly, smiling and nodding in greeting.

Xuanyuan Lige glanced first at Jun Beiyue, then at Ziqing, offering the same faint smile and nod in return.

All three fell silent, passing each other by—the one who brushed past Jun Beiyue, not Ziqing herself.

Only after Jun Beiyue and Ziqing had walked some distance away did Xuanyuan Lige finally pause, turning to look back, a self-mocking smile touching his pale lips.

Perhaps, in this life, it wasn’t a matter of being fated yet never destined to be together, doomed only to brush past one another—perhaps he wouldn’t even get the chance to brush past her at all, in the end…

By early afternoon, well before the late-afternoon hours, everyone had already gathered around the zither platform.

The time to view the Sea Valley was limited, and such an opportunity was rare indeed—everyone cherished the chance, none daring to arrive late, and certainly none willing to miss it altogether.

Even Bai Feiyao, thoroughly disgraced the night before, had arrived early—still dressed in men’s clothing despite having been exposed as a woman, once again drawing a fresh wave of whispers through the crowd!

Such self-deception from the Bai family was almost laughable.

Even if Bai Feiyao continued inheriting the family head position as a “son,” what did that solve? Would she have to marry a woman to carry on the family line?

For a hereditary great family, continuing the bloodline was, after all, the single most important priority of all.

Even if the Bai family, ignoring the whole world’s gossip, truly continued treating Bai Feiyao as a man, what about the matter of marriage down the line?

Would they have to find some man willing to dress as a woman?

The real drama for the Bai family, it seemed, was still yet to come.

Ziqing, Jun Beiyue, and the Gu family stood together as a group. The moment Gu Meiting and Jiang Chen caught sight of the two of them, they scattered like mice spotting a cat, keeping as much distance as possible—forget arguing with Ziqing or stirring up trouble, they didn’t even dare glance her way!

Having such damning evidence in someone else’s hands didn’t necessarily mean being entirely at their mercy—but the ambiguous, unspoken way Ziqing and Jun Beiyue had left things only made them feel all the more trapped by their own guilty consciences.

At that moment, the massive zither platform began slowly rotating in midair. The entire gathering fell completely silent, the grinding sound of turning gears echoing clearly from all around.

As the platform rotated, the enormous shadow that had always concealed the space beneath it finally began to recede, until the thick platform stood fully upright, and broad daylight flooded in. The crowd couldn’t help but draw a collective sharp breath!

Beneath the zither platform lay, indeed, an entirely different world—a deep, cavernous pit.

The mouth of the pit was bathed in bright light, the once-vast shadow now reduced to a single band of darkness cutting across the opening.

Such a vast, sprawling landscape wouldn’t have impressed such a well-traveled crowd under normal circumstances—but what truly stunned everyone was that the walls of this massive pit were utterly unlike any ordinary mountain cavern. Instead of the usual damp moss and undergrowth, the walls were entirely covered in coral, glowing in a dazzling array of colors beneath the sunlight, so breathtakingly beautiful that no one could bear to look away!

Even Jun Beiyue, who had visited before, couldn’t help but marvel—he never would have imagined that such damp, dark depths could conceal such stunning beauty within.

“Truly remarkable—the soil in these walls must hold an extraordinarily high moisture content,” Ziqing murmured. Such vividly colored coral had to be genuinely living coral—for coral to survive so miraculously suspended above the water’s surface, the explanation could only lie in the soil and the surrounding air itself.

And this was merely the mouth of the pit. What would await them once they actually descended?

The valley itself surely had to be larger than this pit—if the Sea Valley lay hidden beneath this very cavity, what magnificent, sweeping landscape must lie in wait below?