Shu region was a dream that Zhang Yuehui had set out for several times, yet never reached.

Actually, he had never left at all—he had been hiding in Li Du Mansion all along. In the end, he was meddling in affairs he shouldn’t meddle in, unable to let go of this chaotic situation and seek his own freedom.

But he still found himself a reasonable excuse—he stayed for Nanyi.

Xie Queshan only knew how to charge into battle; he didn’t understand how to cherish and protect the fairer sex, and liked to lead people into fire pits. He was an irresponsible dog of a man. But he was different—he was reliable, the omnipotent Boss Zhang who would clean up any mess for people.

Sigh, no matter how he looked at that man, nothing about him was pleasing to the eye. He couldn’t compare to himself in any way.

Yet when the city was filled with wind and rain, he still felt Xie Queshan was wronged.

He had spent many years accepting the rules of this world—where was there any fairness in the way of heaven? There were only petty demons running rampant, the law of the jungle.

So he first martyred his principles, turning himself into a lawless vengeful ghost.

He pretended not to know what those kind but foolish people were persisting in.

How many dynastic changes had he witnessed? What did propping up a crumbling dynasty have to do with him? The mountains and rivers weren’t his, his homeland wasn’t his either. He didn’t eat the ruler’s salary—why should he be loyal to the ruler?

But how could there be such a person in this world? When people wanted to kill him in the most vicious way, he still calmly accepted it.

What kind of saint was he pretending to be?

In his view, Xie Queshan simply couldn’t bear those accusations and wanted to die to end it all, turning a mess into tears mourning him. This man was cunning even to the very end.

He thought: serves him right. Once Xie Queshan died, he would snatch Nanyi back.

But though Zhang Yuehui speculated so maliciously in his words, he still pretended to rush back from Shu region and had someone deliver a letter to Xie Queshan, asking if he wanted to escape. He wasn’t joking—he had truly considered that if Xie Queshan was willing, he could magnanimously help out. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d saved his life.

But that despicable Xie Queshan used his rejection to once again demonstrate his nobility. Zhang Yuehui was so angry his teeth itched.

So all the saint’s deeds were left for him to do, making all the rest of the world’s people seem base in comparison.

His hatred made him restless.

He desperately wanted to do something to destroy this sacred but self-righteous sacrifice—break him out of prison? Kidnap him?

But in the end, all of it was just to let the reinforcements enter the city. If he did this, Li Du Mansion would be finished. Thinking of this, he couldn’t bear the scene of mountains and rivers shattering before his eyes.

Xie Queshan had dragged him into that kind of dilemma as well. He couldn’t ignore everything and indulge his selfish desires.

However, on the night before the execution, Song Muchuan found him.

“Boss Zhang, please help save him. No matter how much money it costs, I’ll pay you back.”

Zhang Yuehui had always looked down on this rigid scholar. He wanted to hear how the scholar planned to save him.

“The body inspection can’t be fooled, so we can only switch him out after the inspection but before the execution. I can tamper with the horses, making them lose control before the execution. When changing horses, there will be many people and chaos. If we can create some more confusion to attract the people’s attention, and simultaneously use a corpse to replace Xie Queshan and take him away—at this point the inspection is over, and the execution is just a moment’s work. No one will pay attention to whether it’s still the same person. But the people I can mobilize are just those from Bingzhu Bureau and Yucheng Army. However, this matter can’t involve too many people or let too many know, otherwise there will still be chaos.”

He had thought the scholar couldn’t do such a treasonous thing, but unexpectedly, once he opened his mouth, the plan was already so complete. Everything he described involved deceiving superiors and concealing from subordinates—all capital offenses.

Zhang Yuehui was silent for a long while, then looked up at him: “This is the crime of deceiving the emperor.”

“I’ll bear it.”

Song Muchuan’s entire life had been one of self-restraint and propriety, upright and clean. He would even struggle with telling lies. But all the rules he’d received, those precepts that prevented him from overstepping bounds, those teachings that a gentleman should not stand beneath a dangerous wall, even the disgrace and ruin he might face—none of it was more important than his close friend’s life.

Zhang Yuehui felt inexplicably teary-eyed. This scholar had rarely earned his respect. He deliberately turned his back, saying unfriendly: “I have conditions.”

“I’ll agree to all of them.” Song Muchuan eagerly expressed his stance.

“After it’s done, I’m taking Xie Queshan away. You just consider him dead. Don’t tell anyone, not even Nanyi.”

Song Muchuan was stunned for a moment.

He wanted to ask why, but he had just promised everything. Afraid that showing even a hint of second thoughts would make Zhang Yuehui refuse him, he choked up.

“You can ask me for help, but I’m not a generous merchant. I’d never do business at a loss, let alone help Xie Queshan for nothing. He’s too troublesome when awake. I need to keep him unconscious for a year or so first, then find a pill that can make him forget the past and feed it to him, so he can never see Nanyi again.”

Song Muchuan listened with tears in his eyes.

Zhang Yuehui tapped the table to bring Song Muchuan back to his senses, then put on a carefree manner again: “If you don’t think it’ll work, that’s fine too. Then I won’t get involved.”

“I agree!”

Right now, Zhang Yuehui was the only one he could turn to for help, and only this person had the ability to coordinate with him from inside and outside to spirit someone away from the execution ground without anyone knowing.

Song Muchuan made the decision for Xie Chao’en on his own authority. At a time like this, talking about those ethereal romantic sentiments seemed superfluous. Living was the most important thing. As long as he could live, it didn’t matter how base a person he became.

“Lord Song, you must keep your word, or I can change my mind at any time, kill him, and charge you with deceiving the emperor.” Zhang Yuehui threw down his harsh words and prepared to leave.

“Boss Zhang—” Song Muchuan called out to stop him.

He turned back without guard, thinking Song Muchuan wanted to bargain with him further, but saw him suddenly kneel down tragically and kowtow three times with loud thuds.

“Boss Zhang’s righteousness, this great kindness and virtue—Song will never forget it even in death!”

Zhang Yuehui stepped back several paces in shock, even becoming somewhat incoherent.

“You, you don’t need to do this with me—one thing at a time. You and I each get what we need. It’s just business.”

Zhang Yuehui fled in panic as if escaping.

He really couldn’t stand this pedantic scholar even a little bit.

But he trusted the scholar’s character. Even if he might be cursing him in his heart as a bad person who broke up lovers, as long as he agreed, he would definitely keep it secret.

And Zhang Yuehui also felt this was simplest—he didn’t need to explain to others what good intentions he had.

It couldn’t even be called good intentions. When he did things, he always followed his selfish desires.

In this tottering dynasty, nothing could be perfectly resolved. He was fed up. He just wanted to see some beautiful dreams of flowers blooming in desperate straits, dead trees meeting spring.

Though he was unwilling to admit it, the fact was that Xie Queshan seemed to possess a power that could shake people’s hearts. He had made himself into a divine statue, and those who saw him would become his believers.

If the last divine statue in the world collapsed and the ancient chaos returned, then the wisdom, diligence, and courage that people had accumulated over thousands of years, the spirit that people had protected and passed down with their flesh and blood, would all be overturned and become worthless.

People needed to live, but not just to live.

Zhang Yuehui found himself ridiculous, but he couldn’t ignore the most simple wish in his heart’s depths, the same as millions of others.

This world needed to have some fairness. Good people should live long lives—otherwise, what was the point of the lonely souls in the eighteen levels of hell fighting to reincarnate as humans?

But each of them had different positions. Song Muchuan had already compromised to some extent—he just needed Xie Queshan to be alive, and that was all he could do. But for Zhang Yuehui, Xie Queshan’s innocence was very important.

He wasn’t helping Xie Queshan—he was saving himself from six years ago, that youth who was just a bit rebellious but fundamentally harmless, who was still dreaming of fine clothes and spirited horses, being the most elegant in the capital for a day, before being crushed into the dirt by injustice with nowhere to cry out his grievances.

He was too confused. What had his family done wrong? If they hadn’t done anything wrong, why was that the outcome? He couldn’t understand and couldn’t find answers. He could only make that youth who was filled with resentment disappear before he could live on indifferently. He had killed himself.

Actually, he had never hated Xie Queshan, but rather the injustice that he could only swallow with gritted teeth. At this moment, he finally discovered and admitted it.

He found the root of his terminal illness, and he wanted to save that youth too.

But Zhang Yuehui knew very clearly that to fight against the times was like an ant trying to shake a mountain—one had to pay a thousand or ten thousand times the effort, especially when fighting for something as ethereal as innocence.

Perhaps just being stained with a bit of mud on one’s robes, people would say: unless the Yellow River runs clear, it’s not enough to prove one’s innocence.

Xie Queshan had to “die” to trigger those earth-shaking cries.

He also knew there was someone like him who, even if shouting until hoarse, would beat the drums of opposition among the curses of thousands.

He steeled his heart and let her go, even giving Xie Queshan medicine to keep him unconscious. Once he woke up, he wouldn’t allow Nanyi to rush about so recklessly for his posthumous reputation—everyone would only fall silent and compromise under his will.

Good people always suffered losses precisely because of this—they were all willing to sacrifice themselves for others.

Then let him be this bad person.

Later, when Nanyi was determined to go to Kaifeng, Song Muchuan finally couldn’t help but ask him why he still couldn’t tell Nanyi the truth.

Because it wasn’t enough yet.

Even though everyone thought she was just a reed, that she couldn’t do it.

But she had to walk this path. Otherwise, how would they live afterward?

Swallowing the world’s injustice alone, bearing infamy, yet unable to do anything, living like sewer rats in some corner?

He understood better than anyone what it felt like to live that way. There were already so many pitiful people in this world—they didn’t need one more.

He wanted them to be saved, wanted this world’s black to be black and white to be white, wanted Nanyi’s remaining life to see bitterness turn to sweetness and wishes fulfilled.

Only then could he be saved.

He gambled with fate once more, joining her in an adventure with no retreat.

No, perhaps it wasn’t a gamble at all, but a devout sacrifice and prayer to fate. He staked everything, even his own life, without calculating profit or seeking return.

If they failed, then this world wasn’t worth living in anyway.

But he felt very sorry for her. Every time he madly pushed in all his chips, he would bring her suffering for no reason. She didn’t know that in all her efforts for Xie Queshan, there was also his obsession.

But she was too brave. Such a difficult path, yet she still broke through. He had once mistakenly thought she was just a tiny moth, but later discovered she was the flame itself.

He was illuminated in the boundless sea of suffering. He finally bowed his proud head in those tortuous worldly affairs. He put down the double-edged weapon in his hands and gave up hurting others as well as himself. He loved her deeply, because she was good enough—so good that he could entrust all his awkward hidden emotions to her.

He secretly loved this world under the guise of loving her—she was his only outlet in this world.

He didn’t need to possess her. She had already given him a helping hand, and he already had a direction to return to.

He had actually gotten what he wished for.

But he still wanted to be that little immortal in Wangchuan Valley. He was that ray of slanted sunlight’s miracle. On this land he had never set foot on, he played a prank with them.

They should remember him fondly. He was the cunning one.

Hey, this human world—it wasn’t a wasted trip.