“If you’re looking for me, it’s probably not for anything good,” Mo Sigui said, but he turned back anyway. “Go on, speak.”

“The mist on the island has thinned. Is there no way to compensate for the Dream Flowers’ weakness?” Chu Dingjiang was increasingly feeling that sparing Wei Yuzhi had been a mistake. Even if the man could change the situation in Liao, he constantly worried about An Jiu falling victim to schemes.

Mo Sigui descended the steps, picked up his fallen pipe, and walked towards the pavilion. “What, are the Dream Flowers dying?”

Chu Dingjiang followed. “They won’t die, but if someone were to attack now, the poison gas would be nearly useless.”

Lanterns hung from the four corners of the pavilion. The evergreens cast dappled shadows on the ground, swaying with the wind, creating a hazy, tranquil atmosphere.

Mo Sigui lounged in a rocking chair, meticulously cleaning his pipe with a cloth. He spoke carelessly, “It seems you’re always asking me for favors.”

“Not favors,” Chu Dingjiang sat on a stone bench, looking at him seriously. “You’ve been drawn into this conflict by Gu Jinghong. Do you think you can stay uninvolved?”

Mo Sigui cleaned his pipe, his mouth growing dry, craving the medicinal smoke. He inwardly laughed bitterly. Medicine is three parts poison, and he was now addicted to the smoke, not much different from opium addiction.

Seeing Mo Sigui’s expression change, his grip on the pipe loosening then tightening, Chu Dingjiang guessed his thoughts. He poured a cup of cold water and pushed it toward Mo Sigui.

Mo Sigui smacked his lips, picked up the cup, and raised an eyebrow at Chu Dingjiang. “You’re not trying to poison me, are you?”

“Do you think I need poison?” Chu Dingjiang retorted.

If he wanted to kill someone, a quick blade would be much faster than poison.

Mo Sigui took a sip of water. The cold stung his mouth, making him wince. “Speaking of Gu Jinghong, it all feels like a dream.”

That person came and went, flitting through the world, leaving only an afterimage – truly a stunning glance.

“It’s already a stretch for Dream Flowers to bloom year-round. I don’t have the skill to modify them. I’m a doctor, not a gardener,” Mo Sigui sipped the water, gradually adjusting to the temperature until it felt comfortable. “To strengthen defenses, we need to approach it differently. I’ve planted a ring of Blood-Eating Orchids around the Dream Flowers. They bloom in winter, but unfortunately, they grow slowly. Half are still just sprouts.”

Chu Dingjiang lowered his gaze to Mo Sigui’s pipe. “Could we use something similar to the Dream Flower smoke?”

“Mixing the medicine isn’t difficult, but you should know that ordinary smoke won’t linger around the flowers like Dream Flower smoke. It would dissipate quickly once released,” Mo Sigui explained.

“I know, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking you,” Chu Dingjiang’s tone conveyed, ‘I don’t want to approach you unless necessary.’

Mo Sigui, lazily rocking in his chair with the cup of water, tilted his head and smiled at this. “Thank you for thinking so highly of me, but don’t you think you’re being overly cautious? Your woman is doing well enough by not actively killing people to silence them.”

Chu Dingjiang said, “I suspect Wei Yuzhi is nearby. It’s best to address this defensive weakness. Whatever medicinal ingredients you need, just ask…”

“Really?” Mo Sigui’s eyes lit up, interrupting him.

“I’ll consider it case by case,” Chu Dingjiang finished his previous sentence.

If Mo Sigui didn’t take this chance to ask for the moon, he wouldn’t be himself. Even though Chu Dingjiang was worried about An Jiu, he wasn’t a fool. He could generally judge which ingredients were necessary and which weren’t, avoiding being completely taken advantage of.

“Deal,” Mo Sigui knew Chu Dingjiang was giving him some leeway, intentionally leaving him some benefits, and he gladly accepted.

Mo Sigui understood Chu Dingjiang’s mindset. If not for An Jiu, given his cunning nature and their unpleasant history, he wouldn’t be willing to take such a loss.

“You’ve got it tough too. Consider this my good deed,” Mo Sigui gloated, having gained an advantage.

Chu Dingjiang, unfazed, stood to leave.

“Are you going to wade into these muddy waters?” Mo Sigui suddenly asked.

Chu Dingjiang paused on the stone steps and looked back. “Yes.”

Without elaboration, he knew Mo Sigui was referring to the succession struggle.

“Everyone has their path,” Mo Sigui caressed his pipe, his tone somewhat melancholic. In truth, he found Lou Mingyue very unfamiliar now – cold and aloof, far from the pure, boyish Qiu Ningyu he remembered. Time was cruel, carving a completely different visage onto a person.

If there was any similarity between Lou Mingyue and Qiu Ningyu, it was their stubbornness.

Mo Sigui closed his eyes and slowly said, “When Ningyu was young, she found a pastry shop that made delicious jujube and osmanthus cakes. She stuck to that shop for over four years, never buying from elsewhere. When the shop closed, she went to great lengths to find the owner. When she couldn’t, she stopped eating jujube and osmanthus cakes altogether, believing no one could make them as well. She had never tried cakes from any other shop. I told her that if the shop’s pastries were that good, it wouldn’t have closed, but she was stubborn. Isn’t she like a stubborn donkey?”

After a moment of silence, thinking Chu Dingjiang had left, Mo Sigui was surprised to hear him reply, “Perhaps it wasn’t about the cakes at all. Maybe she was just loyal and sentimental, not eating them to avoid painful memories?”

Mo Sigui was stunned. Thinking carefully, he remembered the shop was barely half a zhang wide. The owner was an old soldier from the battlefield with a limp in his right leg. His face was dark, but his smile was kind and approachable. He lived alone behind the small shop, raising many cats and dogs. Every time Qiu Ningyu visited, she would chat with him for hours about border conflicts.

That’s right – loyal and sentimental.

Mo Sigui suddenly understood. Lou Mingyue wasn’t stubborn; she was just too devoted, unable to let go of certain things in her heart. If she was like this towards a chance-met pastry shop owner, how much more so for the tragic deaths of the Qiu couple and her birth mother? She must have been in extreme pain…

His eyes stung, and he blinked hard.

The moonlit night was bright.

At the border of Liao, Song, and Western Xia, a harsh north wind blew. A dilapidated small inn stood at the foot of Black Mountain. The decaying wooden signboard creaked in the fierce wind. The inn’s dozen or so rooms were all occupied.

A shadow flashed in the backyard, causing the horses to stir briefly before quieting down.

A figure collapsed in a hay pile in the corner of the stable, gasping for breath. The black tight-fitting clothes clung to the body, clearly soaked through. Soon, dark red liquid seeped into the hay, spreading widely and emitting a strong smell of blood.

The person pulled down their mask, revealing a beautiful face with a hint of heroic spirit.

She frowned deeply, almost roughly tearing open her clothes to expose a shoulder mangled with flesh and blood. She drew a dagger from her ankle and gritted her teeth as she dug into the bloody hole in her shoulder.

Moments later, an arrowhead and bits of flesh fell onto the hay.

She immediately sprinkled a large amount of wound medicine on it and tightly wrapped it with cloth strips.

After finishing, she was drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. Her body was covered in sword wounds of various sizes, but she had no energy left to treat them.

She lay in the hay for a while, then forced herself to roughly treat the other major wounds before resting urgently.

Half-asleep, she clutched tightly to an empty medicine bottle, as if it could keep her alive.

This medicine was from Mo Sigui. She had always had confidence in him, and besides, he was her only remaining attachment to this world. Holding this bottle was like holding Mo Sigui’s hand; with him there, she surely wouldn’t die…

Due to massive blood loss and hasty travel, her body was utterly exhausted. She had planned to stay alert and leave after just an hour’s rest but unconsciously fell into a deep sleep.

In her dreams, she didn’t see her father dying tragically by the river, nor the undulating water surface, nor her birth mother’s half-closed eyes in the great fire. Instead, she saw a young man with phoenix eyes in front of Liu’s pastry shop. The warm spring sunlight fell on him as he leaned against the wall, smiling as he watched her crouch by the door playing with cats, occasionally making a dry, sarcastic comment.

It was beautiful.

“There’s blood on the ground!” A sudden, startling cry broke into her dream.

Lou Mingyue’s eyes snapped open. She found herself still lying in the hay pile. Morning light filtered through the cracks in the window, soft and comfortable on her face. But she dared not hesitate for a moment. She flipped onto the rafters, using her spiritual sense to scan outside.