Under everyone’s watchful gaze, the pressure on Baili Weisheng doubled. Of course he remembered exactly what the totem on his own face had looked like — but what clue, what secret it concealed, he genuinely had no idea!

“Don’t look at me like that — the totem on my face is long gone!” Baili Weisheng hastened to clarify.

“But you remember what it looked like, don’t you?” Situ Haonan couldn’t help but ask.

“I remember, but that’s useless — I have no idea what note lies behind it,” Baili Weisheng said seriously.

“Better than not knowing at all — draw it out first and let’s take a look,” Jun Beiyue said as well. Once they identified the two missing notes in Lishang and placed them among the twelve seemingly random notes in the Qinse Sea Valley score, that would form the complete code — and cracking that code would reveal the secret the composer of Lishang had left behind for future generations, all those years ago.

What the Nanzhao royal house had always been trying to conceal was the secret of the Poison Beast World, this vast breeding ground for human gu — but they had no idea that Lishang concealed a secret that had nothing to do with the Poison Beast World at all, but something else entirely.

Faced with Jun Beiyue’s request, Baili Weisheng looked genuinely troubled. Right now only his mouth and eyes could move — and that oddly shaped totem was hardly something that could be described clearly through words alone!

He looked at everyone present and raised an eyebrow helplessly.

“Have the invitations for the peace summit all gone out?” Jun Beiyue said coldly. In his letter to the Xiongnu king, he’d specifically stipulated that the Gu Nanny be handed over as a hostage.

The peace summit was where the victorious nation dictated terms, where the defeated nations paid their price. Jun Beiyue hadn’t demanded territory — only a hostage. It hardly seemed an unreasonable request!

“Sent by fastest courier — it should arrive by tomorrow at the very latest,” Situ Haonan answered honestly.

Jun Beiyue nodded. For the next few days, all they could do was wait — preparing for the trip to the Meng Clan, and giving Ziqing time to properly study Lishang.

But Ziqing simply couldn’t bring herself to wait. She’d already sent someone to fetch the Wuzheng. She remembered the Lishang score, including the exact positions of every missing note, with perfect clarity — without even needing to look at the sheet music, she filled in the missing notes purely from memory and began to play, the strings ringing out clear and resonant.

The moment the music started, everyone fell silent without meaning to. Ziqing’s small face was fully focused, listening even as she played, starting directly from the section with the missing note at the climax.

Music was such a strange and wondrous thing — the difference of a single note could send an entire piece’s tone and mood spiraling in an utterly different direction. Both being sorrowful pieces, this time Ziqing drew out a depth of grief unlike anything heard before.

It was, plainly, just a piece of music — and yet it stirred up deeply buried memories in everyone who heard it, things regretted, things left unfulfilled, partings in life and death, the cruel twists of fate, utterly helpless against it all.

Situ Haonan and Yelu Qianqian had already sunk deep into the sorrow, unable to pull themselves free, while Jun Beiyue found himself unwittingly recalling the suppressed, solitary days of his childhood within the palace walls, a faint shadow gradually settling over his handsome features.

Only Ziqing and Baili Weisheng kept their brows furrowed, completely failing to sink into the atmosphere the music had created — both of them seemed to sense something was off.

“Clang!”

The music cut off abruptly. As for the gap where the positive-polarity totem’s note should go — it was only then that Jun Beiyue and the others snapped back to their senses. Ziqing turned to look and happened to catch Jun Beiyue’s silent expression, pausing slightly — what had this man just been thinking about?

But Jun Beiyue quickly recovered his cold, composed expression, looking somewhat awkward as he avoided Ziqing’s gaze. “It really is different from before.”

“Different, yes — but still, something’s off.” Ziqing kept her brow furrowed, deep in thought.

“What do you mean off? I nearly cried listening to it, it felt just like… just like…” Yelu Qianqian’s eyes had gone a little red, her voice choked with emotion. “Just like when I parted with my mother.”

But Baili Weisheng only smiled. “The score’s correct, the fingering’s flawless — it just feels wrong somehow.”

“Because… of Xuanyuan Lige,” Ziqing said, the thought striking her at once as she recalled the man. When the Wuzheng had been forged, Xuanyuan Lige had said the Wuzheng alone was too thin, too weak on its own — that it needed to be played together with another instrument!

Could this mean that Lishang needed to be played as a duet — the Wuzheng together with the blood-zither?

Jun Beiyue’s brow furrowed as understanding dawned on him too.

“Lishang must be played as a duet between the Wuzheng and the blood-zither — a yin instrument and a yang instrument, in harmony together. Otherwise, no one could ever play the true Lishang,” Baili Weisheng confirmed.

“The note represented by the negative-polarity totem has already been found. All we need now is to find the note represented by the positive-polarity totem, and combine it with the twelve notes to complete the code. Lishang merely hides the totem’s secret within it — why would it need to be played out in full?”

Jun Beiyue raised an eyebrow, posing the question deliberately. Ziqing, playing a duet with another man, in perfect zither-and-se harmony? How could he possibly be pleased about that?

That phrase — “zither and se in harmony” — wasn’t something to throw around carelessly, after all!

Baili Weisheng couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Fishing Xuanyuan Lige out of the ocean bottom back then hadn’t been some act of pure charity on his part — did he look like the type to go around rescuing people for no reason at all?

Ziqing, not noticing Jun Beiyue’s jealousy at all, said seriously, “Since this was created by a musician of the lone island, it can’t possibly be that simple. Lishang is a monumental work — it couldn’t have been composed just to hide two notes. There must be some other significance to it!”

Jun Beiyue understood this logic perfectly well, of course. He glanced at the Wuzheng but said nothing more — yet Baili Weisheng, of all people, just had to run his mouth, chuckling, “This particular task really can’t be done without Xuanyuan Lige. Aside from him, no one else can play a duet with Ziqing.”

Jun Beiyue shot him a cold glare, as if scolding him. “No one asked for your opinion — don’t assume you’re mute.”

Baili Weisheng narrowed his eyes and grinned, adopting the air of someone who knew perfectly well there was nothing Jun Beiyue could do to him right now.

The two men glared at each other with open dislike, while Ziqing, completely oblivious to it all, remained fully absorbed in her own thoughts, spreading the entire Lishang score out across the long low table. Picking up her brush, she carefully filled in the note at the position of the negative-polarity totem.

Across the long scroll of the score, only the hundred-odd sections at the climax remained incomplete. Ziqing filled in one note after another at intervals, replacing the negative-polarity totem’s position with the note she’d just discovered, while the positive-polarity totem’s position could, for now, only remain marked by the totem symbol itself.

Not only had the positive-polarity totem’s secret not been decoded yet, but two more sections of the climax score remained unresolved as well — the positions of both the yin and yang missing notes still hadn’t been found.

And now, every lead they could possibly investigate or track down had already been exhausted.

The secrets of the Qinse Sea Valley, the Ancient Fusang Tree, the Ancient Music Cavern, Yaoshun Island, Mingsha Mountain — every one of these ruins had already yielded up its secrets. Could there possibly be some place left that they still didn’t know about?

Setting aside the mystery of the positive-polarity totem for now, the missing note in that final section of Lishang’s climax, by the same logic as before, had to correspond to some natural sound as well.

Where on earth could it possibly be?

This was a place even the Nanzhao royal house itself had no knowledge of.

Ziqing pondered this for a long, long while, then suddenly looked up at Jun Beiyue, exclaiming, “Could it be the Meng Clan!”

Xiong Bao’s bloodline, the Poison Beast World’s seal — these had already tied the Meng Clan directly to the lone island. Could it be that the final clue to the lone island’s secret lay with the Meng Clan after all?

The moment Ziqing said this, everyone else was struck with sudden realization. Baili Weisheng muttered under his breath, “If it really is the Meng Clan, then this is going to get complicated.”

Just as Jun Beiyue was about to speak, an urgent report came from a servant outside the door. “Prince Yao, East Qin has returned the invitation to the peace summit!”