After the third explosion faded, everything settled back into stillness.

On the ground, a hollow had formed in the sand. Everyone nearby—even Yelu Chenyi, watching from a distance—couldn’t help staring.

It was, without question, an extraordinary sight: the explosion had blasted a clean hole, as though blowing apart solid rock, without causing the surrounding sand to collapse at all.

And this, in a place made entirely of sand!

Even the mildest tremor should have triggered a sandslide here, let alone a blast of that magnitude, which had been anything but mild.

Clearly, the problem lay with the sand itself.

The sand here, the terrain here, had to be fundamentally different from an ordinary desert!

Ziqing had noticed the anomaly as far back as the first explosion. She couldn’t help glancing toward Mingsha Mountain—the bomb she’d deliberately lit and thrown toward the mountain earlier had, unfortunately, landed too far away to see how the mountain had reacted.

If she threw a few more that way, would Mingsha Mountain react the same way—the thick sand refusing to collapse, instead simply blasting open a hole?

But at the moment, Ziqing had no time to dwell on such thoughts. She watched intently, waiting for the last of the smoke to clear.

Soon, an entrance to a hidden chamber gradually emerged within the sandy hollow!

“My lady, something’s off!” Yingzi called out in alarm.

Ziqing had no time to worry about what was off. Without a second thought, she leapt down—a hidden passage meant Jun Beiyue was still alive.

At that same moment, Yanzi was fleeing toward the exit for her life, while Jun Beiyue too was racing forward at full speed.

Three directions, three people—both Ziqing and Jun Beiyue moved with tremendous speed, but the fastest of all was Yanzi, running for her life.

Her fear of the white-robed man behind her, born of total ignorance about who he was, ran deep. Even if it meant death, she absolutely would not die at his hands—he was simply too terrifying.

But then, suddenly!

Yanzi came to an abrupt halt!

A moment later, she veered off toward the front right. Ziqing, too, came to a sudden stop, and almost simultaneously, to her left, Jun Beiyue halted as well.

At once, the already-silent passage fell into an even deeper stillness, as though the very air had frozen solid.

The instant Ziqing saw Jun Beiyue, her instinct was to cover her face.

She could stand fearless before anyone else in the world—but before this one man, and only this man, she couldn’t help remembering her own appearance.

Yet, she didn’t.

The atmosphere, though seemingly calm on the surface, roiled with hidden tension underneath. Yingzi and the others who had followed didn’t dare make a sound.

All three—including Yanzi—surely had things they wanted to say.

Yet none of them spoke a word. Each stood on guard, each waiting for the right moment to strike.

In a contest fought in the open, among masters, victory and defeat, life and death, often came down to a single opportunity.

Jun Beiyue and Ziqing exchanged a glance, an understanding passing between them without words, while Yanzi’s gaze flicked back and forth between the two of them, every pore in her body on high alert.

She knew she couldn’t defeat Jun Beiyue, but she had no way out—she had no choice but to fight.

Suddenly, Yanzi broke the silence first. “Jun Beiyue, I’ll kill you!”

Yet even as she shouted this, she swung her sword straight at Ziqing instead. In terms of pure martial skill, Ziqing was admittedly no match for her—but in terms of combat experience, Ziqing utterly outclassed her.

She should have retreated through the air to avoid the strike, but instead, she advanced to meet it head-on.

What was she planning?

Yanzi quickly understood, but in that instant of hesitation and confusion, Jun Beiyue had already appeared behind her.

She had only two choices: guard against Han Ziqing, or guard against Jun Beiyue.

If the gap between their skill levels had been smaller, perhaps she could have split her attention between the two.

But behind her stood Jun Beiyue, far above her in skill, while ahead of her stood Han Ziqing, a woman who had never once feared injury in battle.

Yanzi didn’t even need to think it over—she chose to abandon Han Ziqing and focus on countering Jun Beiyue instead.

But she had vastly underestimated Jun Beiyue’s capability!

She didn’t even have time to dodge before Jun Beiyue’s blade plunged mercilessly into the right side of her neck, the movement precise beyond belief.

The blade missed her carotid artery by the barest fraction.

If Yanzi so much as dared to move again, it would be suicide.

Ziqing slowly came to a stop, the tip of her sword pressed right up against her, her clear eyes—bright as an autumn moon, set in that hideous face—gazing at her coldly and calmly. “You’re Yanzi?”

“Ugly monster, if you’ve got the guts, fight me one-on-one instead of hiding behind a man!” Yanzi roared furiously. She hated Han Ziqing to the bone—if only she’d managed to turn her into a human gu earlier, none of this would have happened.

If she hadn’t gotten to Jun Beiyue first, it might well have been her, Yanzi, standing shoulder to shoulder with him today, instead of this woman.

Ugly monster!

This was the first time Ziqing had heard those three words since waking up.

She stared at Yanzi in silence, saying nothing—yet her gaze was so chillingly cold that no one could guess what she might do next.

Yanzi, too, felt a shiver run through her under that gaze, wishing she could summon the strength to drive her sword straight through the woman despite the blade at her own throat—but with a blade already lodged in her neck, that unbearable pain was a constant warning: one move, and it would cost her life.

She averted her eyes from Ziqing’s piercing gaze and turned instead toward Jun Beiyue—this man was ruthless indeed!

“Jun Beiyue, take a good look. Does a woman this ugly even deserve to be the Consort of Prince Yao?”

Yanzi said coldly. Unable to touch Han Ziqing physically, she meant to enrage her, to torment her to death, striking hard and precisely at her deepest wound.

Jun Beiyue’s eyes narrowed instantly into thin slits, and he couldn’t help opening his mouth to speak—but at that moment, Ziqing chose not to dodge Yanzi’s blade edge, instead stepping even closer to her.

“So what if I’m ugly?” she asked coldly.

Yanzi sneered. “Go find yourself a mirror and take a good look. Then you’ll understand. This ugly, and you still go outside without even a veil? You really are… shameless!”

The instant those words left her mouth, dead silence fell over the entire scene—even Yelu Chenyi, who had just caught up, froze in his tracks.

Every eye immediately turned to Ziqing. Even Jun Beiyue grew worried, standing close by her side protectively. Letting Ziqing settle this score herself didn’t mean he’d allow this kind of wound to be inflicted on her.

He was just about to step forward and pull her into his arms, when, unexpectedly, Ziqing smiled instead. “Someone, bring me a mirror. This consort really would like a good look at herself.”

Yanzi felt an inexplicable dread—she couldn’t read this woman at all, couldn’t guess her thoughts, and had the strange feeling that no matter what she said, it simply couldn’t wound her deeply.

What was she planning?

No one knew. Seeing Jun Beiyue’s dark expression, no one dared move—until, at that moment, Yelu Chenyi personally stepped forward and handed over a mirror.

Only then did Yanzi notice Yelu Chenyi was there, and she started violently. “You!”

Yelu Chenyi didn’t so much as glance at her, handing over the mirror and stepping back.

Ziqing looked at her own face in the mirror, smiled lightly, then slowly turned the mirror to face Yanzi instead, asking with perfect seriousness, “Ugly—so what?”