So many days had already passed—by all rights, Yanzi should have received Xuanyuan Zhaoxi’s reply by today at the very latest!

Yet there was no word at all.

“Surely nothing’s gone wrong, has it?” Yanzi asked anxiously.

“That’s your concern, not mine,” the black-clad man said coldly.

“You—!” Yanzi choked with frustration, yet she had long since grown accustomed to this man’s indifference. After all, the matter of cultivating the human Gu had always been entirely her own responsibility to manage.

With this man, she was both his partner and, in some sense, his subordinate.

“I’ll admit I mismanaged this. I’ll send someone to follow up right away,” Yanzi said flatly.

Whether the black-clad man was even listening to her at all was unclear—he was gazing intently into the distance at that city ahead, shimmering like a pearl set within the desert sands: Albak City, the capital of Xijing.

Mingsha Mountain lay some seven or eight li to the northwest of Albak City.

Across the continent of Longyuan, Da Zhou held the most fertile lands in the southeast, Eastern Qin and Western Chu occupied the northern grasslands, while Xijing’s territory lay almost entirely within the desert.

Da Zhou’s capital was structured with the imperial palace at its core, surrounded by an inner city, which was in turn surrounded by an outer city.

The imperial palace housed the royal family and nobility, the inner city housed court officials, and the outer city housed the common people of the capital.

Xijing’s capital was structured entirely differently.

Albak City, in a sense, was itself Xijing’s imperial palace—there were no common people living within the city at all.

This was for a very specific reason: this city held immense significance.

Nowhere else in Xijing’s deserts could a place quite like this be found—an oasis appearing at the very foot of a sand mountain, one that, remarkably, had never once shifted or moved despite decades of desert winds, never once threatening the oasis it sheltered.

And more remarkably still, this unmoving sand mountain would, at certain times of year, produce a singing sound—whenever the season came, the sound of singing sand could be heard clearly throughout the city at its base!

This mountain came to be revered as a sacred mountain: Mingsha Mountain, the Singing Sand Mountain.

And this city came to be established as Xijing’s very capital.

The gods dwelled upon the mountain; the emperor, representative of the divine on earth, dwelled below it. Every year in mid-February came the season of the strongest western winds—the very season for the sand-worship ceremony—when the singing of the sand could be heard.

This sound was revered as the voice of the gods themselves, their divine guidance made manifest.

The black-clad man stood atop this rocky outcrop in the Gobi—the only spot nearby firm enough to stand upon without sinking, and the only vantage point from which one could see far into the distance.

He gazed out across the terrain surrounding Albak City, his eyes tracing past it toward Mingsha Mountain in the northwest—unfortunately, the sky was overcast today, the sandstorm too fierce, and even the mountain’s silhouette remained obscured.

On a clear day, standing here, one could see Mingsha Mountain clearly from a great distance—this mountain was, after all, the tallest sand mountain in all of Xijing’s desert.

Perhaps precisely because it never moved, sand blown in from elsewhere had steadily accumulated here over the years, gradually building the mountain ever higher.

“What are you looking at? Aren’t we moving on?” Yanzi asked. Every time they came here, this man would linger for ages, and she never quite understood what exactly he was looking at, or thinking.

“Why doesn’t Mingsha Mountain move? Does it have something to do with the terrain itself?” the black-clad man said flatly, as though asking himself the question rather than her.

Yanzi laughed softly. “Whoever can answer that question would be worthy of becoming a god of Xijing themselves!”

Precisely because this mountain never moved, and produced this divine sound, it had come to be revered as a sacred mountain in the first place.

“The Lone Island’s relic—is it the entirety of Mingsha Mountain, or some specific location within it?” the black-clad man asked again.

Yet Yanzi remained just as dismissive as ever. “If only I knew. Generation after generation, my family has guarded the foot of this mountain without ever knowing exactly what we were guarding.”

She knew the secret of cultivating a human Gu, knew the secret of the yin and yang emblems of the two individuals immune to all poisons from the Lone Island—yet she had no idea why they had to guard Mingsha Mountain of all places!

What exactly did Mingsha Mountain hold, left behind from the Lone Island?

Nanzhao’s ancient music cavern held a musical score; the Qinse Sea Valley held its notes—but what did her own relic actually hold? She truly had no idea.

It was simply a mountain of sand. She had once walked the entire mountain herself, and found nothing at all besides sand and her own footprints left behind.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered whether something might be buried beneath the sand—but the cost of excavating would be far too great, and the royal house of Xijing would never permit such a thing regardless.

The fierce winds here couldn’t blow the sand away, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t dig into it herself. This was, after all, a mountain of sand, not stone—should excavation ever begin, the entire mountain would surely collapse, and given the sheer volume of sand in Mingsha Mountain, such a collapse would spell immediate disaster for Albak City at its base.

The one thing she could say with certainty was this: whatever she guarded held no musical notation at all—someone who knew nothing whatsoever of Lishang could hardly be guarding a score.

Her lack of understanding regarding Mingsha Mountain, however, hadn’t hindered her progress in the search for the Lone Island at all.

Hadn’t Han Ziqing already been secured? Everything was proceeding smoothly indeed!

“If the Lone Island’s relic truly lies here, this is certainly no ordinary place at all,” the black-clad man murmured to himself, ignoring Yanzi entirely. As he spoke, he slowly lifted the mask covering his face, revealing features of striking depth and sharp, defined angles.

This face remained utterly expressionless, showing not the slightest emotion at all—despite existing within this world, he seemed somehow entirely apart from it, as though standing wholly outside it, impossible to approach, impossible to truly understand.

And yet it was precisely this mysterious quality that gave him an effortless, magnetic allure—the kind that made anyone who saw him feel an inexplicable urge to speak with him, to understand him better.

He was none other than the Crown Prince of Xijing himself: Yelu Chenyi!

Yanzi turned to look at him, long since accustomed to this man’s coldness. Without seeing his face, hearing only his voice, one might never guess just how cold and detached he truly was—but the moment one saw his face, one understood at once: it was best not to speak with him too casually, for there was no telling when he might answer, and when he might ignore you entirely.

Sure enough, whatever he’d just said hadn’t been directed at her at all. Having spoken, he didn’t so much as glance at her again, immediately mounting his horse and charging down the slope!

As the Crown Prince of Xijing, heir apparent to the throne, he had to return in advance for an occasion as significant as the sand-worship ceremony—though most of the actual arrangements weren’t his personal responsibility, his presence was nonetheless required.

Moreover, this particular sand-worship ceremony was unlike any before it. In the past, the ceremony had always been a purely internal affair of the royal house.

This time, however, because his imperial sister was to be married off to Western Liang, and the delegation from Western Liang arriving to escort the bride would arrive that very day, his royal father, wishing to demonstrate sincerity toward this marriage alliance, had specifically invited the Western Liang envoys to attend the sand-worship ceremony as well—only after the ceremony concluded would his sister formally be given away in marriage.

And previously, during the peace negotiations with Western Chu at Da Zhou’s Western Three Cities, his royal father and Jun Beiyue had gotten along remarkably well, leading his father to invite Jun Beiyue to attend as well.

And so, this particular sand-worship ceremony was set to be far more grand and momentous than any that had come before it.

Yelu Chenyi paid Jun Beiyue’s arrival no mind whatsoever—he was far too preoccupied searching for Han Ziqing to possibly attend himself.

What truly demanded his attention now was the arrival ceremony for the Western Liang delegation.

His beloved sister’s marriage into a distant land concerned not only her own lifelong happiness, but the very peace between Xijing and Western Liang as well—a matter that could not possibly be handled carelessly.

Yet the moment Yelu Chenyi returned to Albak City, he was immediately met with terrible news!