In that moment, Yelu Chenyi admitted defeat.

Watching the fuse burn steadily toward its end, watching Han Ziqing—held tight in his grip—remain utterly composed, Yelu Chenyi admitted to himself, down to his very bones, that he had lost.

He released his hold. “Han Ziqing, you win. I’ll go with you to find Yanzi.”

Ziqing, who had remained silent all this while, suddenly leapt into the air and hurled the about-to-explode bomb hard toward the Mingsha Mountains.

She landed, facing Yelu Chenyi directly. Behind her, an explosion instantly tore a chunk off the corner of Mingsha Mountain. At last, real anger showed on her face. She placed a small hand against her own hideous face—a face she herself was reluctant to touch—and said to Yelu Chenyi, word by word, “I. Am here. For revenge.”

With that, she immediately turned and headed off with Yingzi.

Yelu Chenyi stood there, stunned into silence, staring first at Mingsha Mountain in the distance, then toward the altar, where countless members of the royal family, nobles, and ministers were all looking this way as well.

Mingsha Mountain was Xijing’s most sacred mountain! Let alone blowing it up—even setting foot on it was forbidden!

He knew then that his reputation was utterly ruined.

“Your Highness, should we still pursue…” a guard asked timidly, in a low voice.

Yelu Chenyi said nothing, staring at the small yet resolute figure walking steadily ahead of him, and unconsciously followed after her…

Soon, they arrived near the Mingsha Cave, a spot facing away from the altar.

The moment Yelu Chenyi saw the Mingsha Cave, he immediately knew that Yanzi must have made the first move.

That Yanzi—how dare she defy his orders and betray the task he’d entrusted to her!

He’d told her to watch over Yelu Qianqian, yet she’d gone after Jun Beiyue instead!

Yelu Chenyi immediately entered the cave, but found nothing at all.

Outside, at the very spot where Jun Beiyue and Yanzi had been swallowed by the wave of sand, Ziqing gently ran her hand over the sand, examining something.

“There’s no trap here, no need to look,” Yelu Chenyi spoke up on his own.

He, too, wanted to find Yanzi—and tear her to pieces.

Ziqing ignored him, saying coldly, “Bury the explosives.”

“Wait, I’m not lying to you. There’s no trap here! Across the entire Mingsha Mountain, only the Mingsha Cave itself has any rock—everywhere else is pure sand, with nowhere at all to hide anyone. Jun Beiyue and Yanzi must have simply left,” Yelu Chenyi continued.

But Ziqing still paid him no mind, personally calculating where to place the gunpowder.

Yelu Chenyi wasn’t lying. He and Yanzi had spent years searching for more secrets of the Mingsha Mountain ruins, exploring extensively, yet finding nothing at all.

Yanzi’s ancestors, generation after generation, had lived in the Mingsha Cave—their duty was to guard Mingsha Mountain.

Yet Yingzi had clearly seen his lord and that vile woman get buried under the sand and never resurface.

Could they… have been buried in the sand?

Ziqing seemed to have realized the same thing, and with a start, immediately abandoned the plan to blow up the sand, turning furiously to Yelu Chenyi instead. “Dig!”

That tone was unmistakably one of command.

He was the crown prince of an entire nation—even his own father rarely gave him orders in such a tone—yet this woman dared to command him so sharply.

Yet, strangely, a flicker of joy he himself barely noticed crossed Yelu Chenyi’s heart, a happiness he had never felt before in his life. He immediately gave the order, “Bring the sand wolves!”

Sand wolves, as the name suggested, were wolves that lived in the desert!

They were also known by another name—the Xijing wild wolves!

These wolves were not especially large, but exceptionally fierce, and capable of burrowing through sand.

Soon, a pack of wolves came racing over. Yingzi immediately tensed, and several mercenaries silently moved to shield Ziqing, but Ziqing herself was consumed with anxiety.

Jun Beiyue—that man she’d always believed would never give her cause to worry, at least in her mind he could handle anything, nothing was ever beyond him!

On her way to Akbachu, she had run into Yingzi, who told her that he and Yanzi had been swept under by a wave of sand. Without a second thought, she had assumed there was a trap beneath the sand set by Yanzi.

And since the Shadow Guards left behind to keep watch still hadn’t seen anyone emerge, she was all the more certain there was a trap.

She hadn’t considered another possibility—that there was no trap in the sand at all, and the sand wave had simply buried both of them.

Ziqing no longer had the composure to wonder whether Yelu Chenyi’s surrender was genuine or hid some other scheme. She watched the wolves burrowing into the sand one after another, anxious enough to wish she herself had the ability to burrow through sand and dig for them personally.

But soon, the wolves emerged from the sand one by one. The lead wolf ran up to Yelu Chenyi, whimpering as though trying to tell him something.

Only Yelu Chenyi, who had communed with wild wolves since childhood, could understand what it meant.

Yet, seeing how unhurried the wolves seemed, anyone with sharp eyes could more or less guess what that meant.

“There’s no trap down there. It’s all just sand, and no one’s there.” Yelu Chenyi paused, then added, “And no bodies, either.”

“Why should I believe you!” Ziqing suddenly turned cold, her emotions clearly slipping out of control.

Yelu Chenyi took a deep breath. “You don’t have to.”

With that, he simply sat down beside them.

The sand, disturbed by the wolves, now showed numerous shallow and deep holes here and there. Ziqing eyed it coldly—she knew the nature of wolves; if they had caught the scent of a person, they wouldn’t have remained so calm.

Between Yelu Chenyi and the Shadow Guards who had stood watch, she trusted the latter far more. Since no one had been seen emerging from here, there had to be something hidden beneath.

“Blow it open!”

She gave the order without the slightest hesitation.

Yet, at that very moment, Jun Beiyue and Yanzi were indeed beneath the sand—buried so deep that even the wolves couldn’t reach them.

Not only did Yelu Chenyi have no idea there was a hidden passage beneath the sand, even Yanzi herself didn’t know. She had stirred up the wave of sand strong enough to bury two people, but even buried, their strength should have been more than enough to instantly break free and burst out.

She had stirred up the sand wave intending to create a chance to escape—but instead, somehow, she’d ended up falling here.

Here, in a hidden passage, a few rare luminous night pearls embedded in the walls cast a dim light down the long corridor, just enough to keep it from being pitch black.

Behind Yanzi was a wall of mixed sand and earth, presumably the end of the passage. Ahead, she hadn’t yet ventured forward, with no idea what lay beyond.

In all her years, she truly had never known there was a hidden passage beneath Mingsha Mountain—there was no record of it among her ancestors either, so presumably none of them had known either.

Could it be that Mingsha Mountain held some secret even its own guardians never knew?

What exactly was this place? What secret did it hide?

If this had happened before, Yanzi would surely have already searched every inch of this short corridor three times over, would already be searching for Jun Beiyue—but now, she couldn’t spare a thought for any of that, not even for whether she could get out at all.

She sat slumped against the wall, her trembling hands—hands that every morning carefully groomed her long hair, every night carefully washed and cared for it—now clawing through that same hair until it stood on end like wild grass.

Her hands trembled ceaselessly, muttering over and over, “What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Am I hideous? Can it be fixed? What do I do?”