Faced with Xuanyuan Lige slamming his hand on the table and rising to his feet, Jun Beiyue showed no weakness whatsoever. Though he hadn’t moved, his handsome, universally envied face had already turned cold as ice.

“Concealment and avoidance alone will never eliminate the danger — it will only ever remain.”

This was the position he held firmly. If, before now, it had been Ziqing driven to find her family, to uncover the true secret hidden within her body, then now, it was he who wanted to uncover the full truth — because without locating the true source of the danger, there would never be any chance of eliminating it.

Forever hiding in worry, forever skulking and evading — that was not Jun Beiyue’s way.

“Have you even considered the cost!” What weighed on Xuanyuan Lige’s mind was Ziqing’s safety. Everything he’d done before had been, in its own way, an attempt to stop them from this path.

“Everything has a cost. This prince can bear it!” Jun Beiyue said, resolute, without a shred of hesitation.

Xuanyuan Lige only laughed bitterly. “She’s the one immune to all poisons — not you! What right do you have to say you can bear it! Explain to me what happened with Yanzi!”

“I’ll thank you not to bring up Yanzi’s matter — don’t use one accident to deny everything else!” Jun Beiyue’s voice rose in fury, unmistakably provoked to his limit. He slowly rose to his feet.

There was no doubt that Xuanyuan Lige, bringing up the incident with Yanzi again and again, was deliberately reopening an old wound — no different from plunging a knife straight into his heart.

No one in this world wished that incident had never happened more than he did.

“One accident is enough to deny everything, one accident is enough to cost a life!” Xuanyuan Lige refused to yield an inch.

At last, Jun Beiyue’s voice dropped low. “This is this prince’s family matter. It requires no commentary from you.”

At these words, Xuanyuan Lige finally fell silent, and the whole room went eerily quiet. Ziqing sat watching them calmly, a trace of sorrow hidden in her eyes.

Yelu Qianqian, who had been crying in confusion, had also stopped at some point without anyone noticing, watching the two men timidly.

Two men arguing like this was truly frightening — she felt as if the very roof might blow off from the sheer force of their anger.

In the silence, Jun Beiyue suddenly pointed toward the door. “We won’t see you out.”

Not seeing them out — that meant it was time for them to leave.

Without another word, Jun Beiyue took Ziqing’s hand and turned to go. Seeing this, Yelu Qianqian hurriedly hopped down and followed timidly behind.

Just as they reached the door, Ziqing turned back and said flatly, “Lige, I’m not searching for a hidden island, and I’m not taking reckless risks. I’m trying — trying to give my people, my future children, the right to exist, the chance to live.”

The royal house of Nanzhao held no power over the isolated island’s people — no right to decide whether they lived or died, no power to strip away their right to survive.

Even if the truth turned out to be a curse, a calamity, a disaster threatening the whole world — whether they lived or perished was a decision only the isolated island’s own people could make.

Ziqing believed that people capable of composing a piece as beautiful as “Parting Sorrow” — a melody so beautiful it broke hearts, so beautiful it brought tears — must carry within them a great and deep goodness. Anyone capable of such sorrow must possess genuine kindness, genuine good intentions.

Until she knew the truth, she had no right to give up.

With that, Ziqing pulled firmly on Jun Beiyue’s hand instead, and strode out the door.

She would remember Xuanyuan Lige’s good intentions.

Xuanyuan Lige made no attempt to hold them back, offered no further persuasion. Neither Ziqing nor Jun Beiyue looked back.

But Yelu Qianqian, her eyes still blurred with tears, kept glancing back again and again. She saw Xuanyuan Lige standing in the doorway, watching them go from a distance. She couldn’t quite make out the expression on his face, but she felt, somehow, that he looked so terribly lonely — as if, in this vast expanse of ice and snow, he were the only person left in the world, someone left behind, someone abandoned.

They walked on in silence, and it wasn’t until they’d left the small northern town entirely that Ziqing finally stopped and turned to look back.

Dusk had settled by now. Beneath the overcast sky, feathery snowflakes had begun to drift down, and the whole small town lay utterly peaceful — warm, amber light spilling from every window, wisps of cooking smoke rising from low chimneys. Seen from a distance, it looked like a tranquil painting, a glimpse of paradise found amid the ordinary warmth of human life.

Ziqing gazed at it from afar, unsure whether she was looking at the courtyard below the mountain, or at the whole snow-covered town itself.

But in the glow of her bright eyes, there was, unmistakably, a trace of longing.

“You like it here?” Jun Beiyue said flatly, his tone so calm it left Yelu Qianqian, trailing timidly behind, utterly bewildered. Had she just been dreaming? This man had been so fierce just moments ago — how could he shift so quickly?

“It’s nice,” Ziqing said with a light smile.

“What’s nice about it? Small place, too many people, annoying…” Jun Beiyue said curtly, his tone impatient.

Yelu Qianqian thought, so the calm really was only on the surface.

Ziqing raised an eyebrow at him and teased, “You’re only suited to living in that Prince Yao’s estate of yours, where you can’t see another soul within a hundred paces — with shadow guards on call, of course.”

“You!” Jun Beiyue’s face actually went slightly green.

Ziqing just laughed heartily, not even noticing that this was apparently the first time she’d ever bantered with Jun Beiyue quite like this — and it felt entirely natural.

This man — he only seemed like an ordinary person when they argued. In Ziqing’s heart, she couldn’t help but think of him as some all-powerful deity — even when he was above her in the most intimate moments, she sometimes still felt he was sacred, untouchable.

Bantering with him made her think of someone else, too.

That insufferable, mouthy scholar who’d nearly launched into a verbal sparring match with her the moment they met. She wondered if he was still on Yaoshun Island.

Seeing Ziqing laugh, Jun Beiyue didn’t press the matter further, simply taking her hand to leave. But in his heart, he’d already noted it — this woman liked it here.

Jun Beiyue and the others departed, while Yingzi remained behind to keep watch on the situation in the northern steppe and Nangong City’s movements.

Ziqing, meanwhile, gave orders for her mercenary corps to arm themselves and head straight for Akbachu.

Once Yelu Qianqian was safely delivered to Akbachu, the husband and wife would once again part ways, east and west — but this was also finally the moment they could go all in, without holding back.

This war over Longyuan — whether on the eastern front or the western front — had to come to a perfect close.

While Ziqing and the others were still on the road, the Emperor of Xijing, having received confirmed news, was already overjoyed. The grief of losing Yelu Chenyi could only be soothed by Qianqian — even though this very girl was hardly uninvolved in that loss, she was, in the end, the only one his empress had left him, the sole remaining piece of her.

The good news sent Xijing’s army morale soaring, victory reports pouring in one after another, and even breathed a hint of life into the otherwise empty halls of Akbachu’s imperial palace.

At that moment, Baili Weisheng lay flat on his stomach atop the roof of Changle Palace, a long object wrapped tightly in black cloth strapped to his back.

No one knew what it was — only that Baili Weisheng had been coveting it for a very long time.

Hearing the footsteps below fade into the distance, he finally rose lazily, the knife wound on his shoulder blade still bandaged, easily aggravated by sudden movement.

“You wretched old hag! Just you wait until you fall into my hands one day!”

He was without question the type to hold a grudge — still cursing, still resentful, even now.

Seeing the patrolling guards on both sides move off into the distance, he leapt down from the roof and slipped away behind the palace, heading toward Mingsha Mountain.

Before long, it would be the Spring Festival, and not long after that, Xijing’s grand sand-worship ceremony at Mingsha Mountain would take place. The northwest wind was growing stronger by the day.

On a ridge some distance from Akbachu, the Gu Nanny stood facing into the northwest wind, gently sniffing at the air, as if trying to catch some scent carried on the breeze.

Could this ceaseless northwest wind — one that couldn’t even blow a single grain of sand from Mingsha Mountain — be hiding some secret within it?