Xue Yu casually pulled the spirit talisman from between the book pages, the long tassel winding once around her fingertip. The scattered spiritual light flickered fast and slow, and below her, Song Heng stood straight and rigid.

“I saved you, supported you, cultivated you, later left Yedu to accompany you in establishing the Heavenly Court – these things I did willingly, with no one forcing me. I never expected you to repay me anything.” Xue Yu looked down at him from above, her words clear: “Your betrayal is real, your innate cold-bloodedness is real. In our previous life’s thousand years, the mortal realm’s situation was turned upside down because of you; Yedu suffered heavy casualties because of you. I don’t kill you, leaving you alive, because mysteries remain unsolved and the future uncertain.”

She hoped there could be more people in this world with hearts as kind as water, capable of truly changing circumstances for others, whether human or demon. This was her original intention when she saved Song Heng.

When first interacting, most people found Xue Yu difficult to approach and hard to talk to. Actually, she truly wasn’t good with words. Plus, being young herself, to suppress her various ministers, she had to maintain this appearance of speaking little but handling everything properly. In reality, she was tender-hearted. Coming from a prestigious family, she couldn’t speak truly harsh or demeaning words.

These few sentences were already the most severe degree for her.

“This doesn’t mean I won’t take action against you.”

Xue Yu flexed her knuckles as he looked as if in an ice cellar, saying, “I’ll give you two choices.”

“First, you leave Yedu with Chao Nian now. I’ll preserve the last bit of face for you and the Fusang Tree.”

“Second, you and I fight. Though Yedu’s private prison is overcrowded, it’s not impossible to reserve a cage space for you.”

Having reached this point between them, their relationship had become difficult to salvage. Song Heng stood in place for a full quarter hour before finally clenching his fists almost to bleeding and convincing himself to turn and walk out of the study door.

The study extracted itself from the tense, undercurrent-filled atmosphere and returned to tranquility.

Xue Yu placed the spirit talisman in her hand beside the desk, her fingertip tapping twice. When the candle burst into a cluster of sparks with a “poof,” she tilted her neck slightly and spoke: “I think that Tea Immortal has problems.”

She didn’t have mind-reading abilities and couldn’t know what someone was truly like inside. But as a superior who had interrogated countless prisoners and dominated court politics, through their thousand-year association, she could always detect anomalies through flaws and inconsistencies.

In the later period of their previous life, she had indeed sensed something amiss. From then on, she and Song Heng frequently argued until they found each other detestable and had nothing to say.

“When I saved him, he wasn’t like he is today.” These were memories from a thousand years ago. Xue Yu sat on the carved, wide stool, silently thinking for a long time, frowning: “He may have had selfish motives, but he wasn’t completely biased toward the human race.”

“I still remember his eyes from back then.”

Eyes couldn’t lie.

The eighteen or nineteen-year-old youth was spirited and ambitious. When he smiled, he was as pure and moving as a mountain spring. On high towers, when the two looked at the mortal night scene together, with casual glances, she would also see the brilliant lights in his eyes – clusters of bright, sparkling points of light.

That was what initially attracted her.

The period of greatest and most extreme change, calculated precisely, was those decades to over a century after he became Heavenly Emperor and became entangled with The Tea Immortal.

At this moment, sitting down to analyze carefully, she momentarily couldn’t distinguish whether his nature was completely twisted after gaining power and witnessing mortal suffering, or whether he gradually fell due to The Tea Immortal’s strangeness, or perhaps both factors combined.

“What do you think should be done with The Tea Immortal?” Xue Yu looked toward the spirit talisman, asking as if he were right before her eyes.

Around Su You’s desk and at his feet lay a layer of teacup fragments, the glazed surface wet with water, gleaming under the lamp like a shattered mirror strewn across the floor.

Even knowing what motives were hidden beneath that thousand-year-old romance known to all, at this moment, hearing her recall how she and Song Heng first met, Su You still pressed his lips together, silently pausing for a long while before forcibly dragging out those dark, unclear emotions from his heart one by one.

His eyelashes slightly lowered, his clear, gentle voice imperceptibly dropping half a tone: “Hundred Masses Mountain has always been the Palace Guard Division’s responsibility, never delegated to others. Few people know Qin Qingchuan and others’ identities. The Tea Immortal entered Yedu twice, both times suffering prison disasters. She never entered Hundred Masses Mountain nor had contact with Chao Hua and others. Therefore, those words that convinced Song Heng to act against Yedu’s Hundred Masses Mountain are problematic.”

Xue Yu nodded.

“Chao Hua used soul-searching techniques on her with no abnormalities.” She added, following his words: “Speaking of which, whether bewitching Song Heng to hate the demon race or instigating him to seal Yedu’s Hundred Masses Mountain would benefit her nothing.”

She normally wouldn’t investigate Song Heng’s whereabouts, allowing them to have a period of stolen sweet time. But once news of Song Heng’s action against Yedu spread, nothing from those dozen years could remain hidden.

“If she wanted to avenge me because of a man, Song Heng should have been instigated to seal Yedu’s main city, not Hundred Masses Mountain.”

“She might have wanted to, but lacked such capability.” Su You pressed his fingertip against his wrist bone and slowly ground it, saying: “Song Heng isn’t stupid. He could foresee the consequences of rashly attacking Sacred Lands. Suppressing Hundred Masses Mountain’s demons could be justified as being for the world’s situation, and mortal righteous, like-minded people would support him. But attacking the main city would be deliberately causing trouble, repaying kindness with enmity. No one would do something that gives others ammunition against them.”

Taking ten thousand steps back, no one would naively believe that temporarily suppressing one region could thoroughly shake Sacred Lands’ foundation built over tens of thousands of years.

“Since she entered Yedu, she should be punished as deserved. After serving her sentence, release her, but assign people to watch her closely. If there’s any unusual movement, report immediately.”

Xue Yu smoothed her sleeve: “This is what I was thinking a few days ago, but after seeing Song Heng—”

Su You picked up her words: “I know. My lady suspects she’s related to the Mei.”

Saving a round of explanation and analysis, Xue Yu’s furrowed brow gradually relaxed: “Then we’ll do as you say – watch her first. Even if our speculation proves true, a Mei that needs decades to bewitch them into action and stir up situations, regardless of ability, at least it proves she lacks sufficient accomplices.”

After finishing official business, Xue Yu stood and walked to the half-open window, her slender waist leaning forward in a beautiful arc. That thin-as-cicada-wing spirit talisman hung from her fingertip by a tassel, its lower half swaying in the wind. She looked at Yedu’s main city, bright with lights outside, the corners of her eyes slightly upturned, her voice softening to praise him: “Very clever.”

Very clever.

Tens of thousands of miles away in the imperial capital, also under a bright moon and a long night, Su You held that thin spirit talisman, first laughing briefly, then slowly responding: “Not now, not clever enough.”

Xue Yu: “Hmm?”

Her low sound carried a relaxed nasal tone. Though her intonation remained the same as always, somehow it truly resembled lovers’ flirtatious murmurs.

“A bit angry.”

His voice was like a clean white feather, restraining all aggressiveness, yet when brushing across cheeks and ears, that strange throbbing still caught people off guard: “Ah Yu, Song Heng’s eyes were clean and clear back then – what about mine?”

Xue Yu couldn’t help pausing.

“Ah Yu, what about me?” He repeated the question in an even gentler, more harmless tone.

“…Like a flower.” Her eyelashes silently fluttered twice, her voice falling into the wind, becoming somewhat unclear: “Elegant, beautiful.”

Handsome, heartbreakingly handsome.

Su You’s well-proportioned index finger pressed against his cheek, sliding from brow to chin, slowly, self-admiringly murmuring: “If truly this handsome, could you look at me more in the future?”

Only look at me.

Like the prelude to flirtation, yet also like some kind of smiling request.

Xue Yu’s fingertip moved slightly, as if suddenly understanding where his anger stemmed from, saying softly: “I was just now discussing official business.”

She was straightforward yet slow in matters of emotion, like blank paper never written upon, expressing herself purely by instinct, in actions, words, and psychologically.

But this didn’t mean Su You could calmly accept Song Heng pleading before him to reconcile with her, then having her mention how pure, kind, and world-minded he once was without changing expression.

“I know.” He said.

“Then why did you—”

Official and private matters couldn’t be mixed – he knew this. That Song Heng could never enter her eyes again in this life – he knew this too. But sometimes, reason and emotion seemed to split into two completely different parts, governing themselves separately, yet at certain moments flowing together like water.

“Ah Yu, I like you.” Through the thin layer of paper, Xue Yu seemed able to see his slightly furrowed brow on the other side, perhaps speaking these face-flushing words in a relaxed and composed posture: “I like you very much.”

A moment’s impulse – of all the many things he wanted to say, only these two sentences seemed able to emerge, lingering and passionate, attempting to change the subject with inadequate concealment.

He wanted to tell her—

“I’m just an ordinary person, can’t escape worldliness. In this regard, my heart isn’t as big as others imagine.”

“When you praise him, I worry, I can’t stay calm.”

No one could know that those few analytical comments about The Tea Immortal – he had restrained himself again and again to abandon those chaotic matters and analyze rationally, based on emotion.

He didn’t know how many times he told himself, “separate public from private.”

But they were separated by two places. He couldn’t see her expression, didn’t know if she was resistant or disgusted. That restrained “angry” seemed to be all the steps forward he could take.

Forget it.

Su You’s gaze returned from the full moon, thinking she was already so tired.

Sensing Xue Yu had returned from the window to the desk, the brief rest time over, he simultaneously opened the many secret methods seized from the Xu family, examining them carefully one by one, his voice clear and handsome: “The statistics from Feiyun Peak have been calculated and compiled. The register is in the hidden compartment of the left desk drawer. After applying the great seal, it can be submitted to the ruler.”

“Good.” Xue Yu thought, still worried about the Human Emperor’s situation: “Yin Ling and Shan Shu are both in the imperial capital. When necessary, Cang Ju can also be trusted somewhat. Watch the Human Emperor closely, don’t let him have opportunities to use schemes in the chaos.”

On the day the Human Emperor vomited blood and fainted, Su You simultaneously obtained hundreds of secret techniques from the Xu family.

The Xu family once belonged to Yedu. The previous family head was the most steadfast supporter of Prince Su. After Xue Rong’s death, Xue Yu used Xue Rong’s name to lure out the then-Xu family head, through coercion, intimidation, and threats, forcing him to surrender half the family assets, spiritual mines, and artifacts that had been separated from Yedu years ago, while swearing never to participate in anything related to Yedu again.

Calculating this way, the Xu family and Yedu had quite deep relationships and considerable history.

Facts proved this stack of secret texts was worth examining.

On the third day at dawn, Su You’s gaze fell on a page of an ancient secret technique. He paused for two reasons: first, because this technique’s content was unusual; second, because someone had drawn a red line on this technique – a casual stroke like a child’s random doodle.

About life-substitution techniques.

After Su You finished reading, he slapped down the yellowed book page. His gorgeous peach blossom eyes were completely lowered, showing an inhuman coldness and indifference. He said to a young man who had taken Chao Nian’s former position in Yedu: “Go invite Shan Shu and Holy Maiden Yin Ling.”

After speaking, he paused, as if thinking of something, hesitating momentarily, his brow furrowing into a stern arc: “Include those two from the Sui family as well.”

The youth quickly responded and pushed the door to leave.

Soon, several people gathered in Yipin Residence’s small, elegant room. After the graceful female attendants served hot tea and tactfully filed out, among the four remaining, Shan Shu and Yin Ling looked grave while Sui Jinyu and Sui Yu were ruddy-faced and spirited – you could say they were like drought meeting sweet rain.

They had been left cooling their heels by Su You turning a blind eye for three to five days.

But there was no choice – they knew he had official business before coming, plus they were truly guilty and wanted to make amends. These days passed with hearts scratching and clawing, yet they had to continue waiting.

“This technique is sinister, can only be used by the old taking from the young, must be between blood relatives.” After reading, Yin Ling grabbed the yellowed paper and held it under the lamp to carefully study that red line, thinking more and more something was wrong: “Even if Qiu Tong truly wanted to use this method, making a big show of drawing us all to the imperial capital before dying and specifically marking this secret technique – isn’t this somewhat unreasonable?”

“Normal people wouldn’t do this, unless he’s deliberately luring us into a trap.”

She shook her head: “I think there’s deception involved.”

“True mixed with false, false mixed with true.” Shan Shu also took a troubled breath: “The Human Emperor is skilled at scheming and has given us many difficult problems. If he truly wants to calculate against us, we must be careful.”

When a person’s mind is full of schemes, then every move appears to have hidden meaning in others’ eyes, making them cautious about taking action.

The Human Emperor had taken this to perfection, beyond surpassing.

Yin Ling raised her chin toward Su You, asking: “What does Your Highness say? Any news?”

Su You shook his head.

Shan Shu continued: “In a few days is Xue Yu’s investiture ceremony. She’s certainly busy now. When entering various ancestral grounds for worship, spiritual weapons and treasures aren’t allowed, fearing that insincerity might offend ancestors. It should be a while before news comes.”

Sui Jinyu didn’t understand the complexities involved. He glanced at the tall palace complex, seeing Su You’s expression growing worse, also couldn’t help frowning: “The Human Emperor’s sleeping quarters are less than three steps from us. A group of court officials has no cultivation. Even if human experts are stationed there, we could casually send a few people to drag them out while others go in to investigate. Whether it’s life-substitution technique or not, we’d know at a glance.”

Yin Ling rolled her eyes skyward, too lazy to talk to him.

Shan Shu was patient, and Shen Jingshi also had a genial, helpful nature. He explained to Sui Jinyu: “You can’t say it like that. It’s precisely because there’s no protection that the Human Emperor’s palace makes people retreat and avoid advancing rashly.”

“When the Fusang Tree established the three parties, it spoke of three-way balance and equality. The demon capital and Sacred Lands check each other – everyone knows each other’s strength. But only the Human Emperor is weak, with a lifespan of merely a hundred years or even decades. If we truly did as Young Master suggested, whenever someone found the Human Emperor’s supremacy in the mortal realm displeasing and wanted to make him a puppet under their control, wouldn’t the court change hands in an instant?”

Over ten thousand years, among the countless mortals, there have been many with wild imaginations and audacious courage. But without exception, Human Emperors have lived well, dying either from natural disasters and human calamities or from aging and illness. Never once has such an incident occurred, which alone proves the mystique of the imperial palace.”

Shan Shu elegantly set down her teacup and continued: “Another point is that we belong to Sacred Lands, you belong to the demon capital. Without the Fusang Tree’s search warrant, even with overwhelming strength advantage, we cannot forcibly search the imperial palace. This is the balance repeatedly emphasized in the Heavenly Mystery Book.”

“There’s one exception. If the Human Emperor or Sacred Lands lose people’s hearts, lose benevolence and virtue, endangering all living beings, the other two territories can unite to act first and report later, though afterward they must bear corresponding consequences.” Yin Ling was studying that secret technique again: “This has happened in history – bloody cases caused by two parties wrongly accusing one party and acting rashly.”

Sui Jinyu asked: “How so?”

“Severe consequences.” Yin Ling shrugged.

“The two great sacred objects manage killing very strictly. I didn’t understand why such arrangements were made until I entered the Secret Realm Abyss and spent ten years in hell, finally understanding the deep meaning.”

As time moved from mid-morning to a gradually setting sun, Su You finally couldn’t bear it and stood up. He looked at Cang Ju, who had barely spoken and watched coldly like a transparent person: “How many days can the Human Emperor live?”

Cang Ju looked at the sky overhead, as if carefully distinguishing something. After a long time, he withdrew his gaze: “Based on the dark qi above the imperial palace, at most one day.”

At this declaration, everyone’s expressions subtly changed.

One day.

If this method were truly used, then now was the most critical moment. If successful, it would bring endless future troubles.

They were bewildered, thinking left and right, analyzing that secret formula over and over.

But Su You clearly remembered that when Xue Yu spoke of their previous life’s situation, she had mentioned more than once – in their previous life’s thousand years, each generation’s Human Emperor was more ruthless than the last, the entire court was like an iron bucket, and successive emperors acted as if they were one person.

The mortal realm’s warfare erupted because of such unscrupulous methods, finally unavoidably sweeping through all cities like prairie fire.

In this world, where were such coincidences?

Where were such coincidences?

Time slowly flowed through fingers. At a certain moment, Su You suddenly stopped his steps: “We can’t wait any longer.”

Shan Shu looked at him, asking softly: “What to do? Have people surround the palace?”

In the current situation, whether this was another of the Human Emperor’s layered schemes was unknowable. Surrounding the palace now – if they bet correctly, fine, but if wrong, it would implicate both Sacred Lands and the demon capital.

Su You quickly decided: “No need. I’ll go.”

Yin Ling and Shan Shu both looked over in surprise.

Su You looked at no one, his eyelids coolly lowered, his profile showing startling, rich beauty, appearing gentle with light words, yet carrying no emotion, like some exquisitely crafted doll.

“Hey, hey.” Shen Jingshi ran after him like a wisp of smoke: “Wait, I know the imperial palace well, I’ll go with you.”

Sui Jinyu and Sui Yu said nothing and also walked outside, only to face two merciless sword marks. In the hurricane stirred by sword shadows, a cold voice remained: “All stay in place, no one moves.”

Sui Yu was quick-eyed and fast-handed, pulling Sui Jinyu back half a step to avoid that unforgiving sword qi, then stood in place, squinting and shaking his head, his tone indescribable between gratification and admiration: “Worthy of being Sui family – this personality has some meaning.”

After initial shock at Su You being the lost cub the Sui family had dug three feet deep to find, Yin Ling and Shan Shu both accepted it quite calmly. At this moment, Shan Shu frowned and gave the Sui family a reassuring pill: “Su You always acts with propriety. If he says no need to follow, then no need. If something truly happens, we won’t stand by and watch.”

These Sacred Land successors all seemed very familiar with their younger brother. Sui Jinyu casually pulled over a chair to sit, asking: “Is he always like this?”

Yin Ling pursed her lips and said slowly: “It depends on the situation. One type is during normal leisure time – he appears quite gentle, calm, and composed when encountering matters, warm and courteous, a refined young master like jade. Another type is like just now, handling official business that Xue Yu assigned. This young master’s aura is not weak at all, quite inhuman.”

Speaking of which, Yin Ling became interested, looking at the Sui family uncle and nephew who were listening intently and could only imagine the scene through her description, smiling as she drawled: “There’s another type – wronged and harmless, eyes blooming like flowers.”

Shan Shu couldn’t help reaching out to pat her elbow, saying helplessly, “Be serious.”

Sui Jinyu repeated hesitantly: “Eyes… blooming like flowers?”

“Don’t think about it, definitely not toward you.”

“I have to say, Su You is indeed handsome.” Yin Ling clicked her tongue and shook her head full of small braids: “When the time comes, you’ll naturally see. That scene is truly – anyway, Xue Yu is blessed.”

In the Human Emperor’s palace, three white-haired old men stared with turbid eyes at the female attendants and physicians moving about the hall. The lamps in the hall were completely extinguished, and doors and windows were tightly closed without leaving the slightest gap. Vision-blocking pearl curtains and drapes fell layer by layer, completely concealing the situation deep in the inner palace.

A silent tension and suffocation spread throughout the hall.

In this atmosphere of deathly silence, even Bai Su couldn’t help gripping the whisk in his hand tightly, his toes involuntarily shifting outward.

Under layers of drapes, the dragon bed was deathly quiet. If not for that section of skeletal, bamboo-like arm extending from the carved canopy bed, no one would think an adult man lay inside.

That section of wrist, white with the pallor of dying wood, was cut open by a sharp dagger, revealing a crimson wound. The blood flowing out was blackish-purple, emitting a sharp, unbearably sweet fishy smell that rushed to the nostrils.

A carefully selected nursemaid silently carried away the bowl containing the emperor’s blood. Soon, she brought out another bowl of bright red blood from the side hall. An old man with an immortal bearing stood quietly beside the bed, threading this bowl of clean, pure blood into the flesh of the person lying on the dragon bed in a needle-and-thread manner.

Following this slow process, that section of the arm changed before their eyes. The sagging flesh gradually filled out, the meridians beneath pulsing vigorously with vitality.

Everything was developing in the right direction.

The old man solemnly took the final bowl of fresh blood from the nursemaid’s hands, took a deep breath, showed a relieved smile, his voice hoarse and unable to conceal excitement: “The last step.”

Bai Su’s heart, which had been anxious all night, finally settled. He came over and whispered to another old man: “After this prescription takes effect, His Majesty’s original body can still support him for half a day. When the time comes, I’ll spread His Majesty’s oral decree, secretly having Yedu’s Su You and those Sacred Land successors who came over look. His Majesty will expire before their eyes – no one will suspect anything more.”

“After tomorrow passes, the imperial capital will be a brand new imperial capital.”

Everyone in this great hall widened their eyes, timing and waiting for a miracle.

“Soon, just missing the final—” Bai Su’s smile froze abruptly when the person in the tent suddenly knelt up and vomited large amounts of filth.

“Your Majesty!” Seeing this unexpected change, several old men quickly rushed over to support that frail body that lacked even the strength to support itself. One immediately extended his finger to press on Qiu Tong’s wrist. The moment he sensed the pulse beneath his hand, his expression changed drastically, his limbs turning cold.

“What happened?” Bai Su grabbed one person and demanded sternly.

“Failed…” The grabbed person’s pupils contracted, his lips trembling terribly, like someone whose faith had collapsed, utterly lost: “At the most critical and final step, it failed. His Majesty can’t be saved, Prince Zhao is ruined, and the young prince’s side also—”

Also finished.

Bai Su’s mind buzzed, his vision darkening. He didn’t even have time to ask for specifics, only one final thought remaining in his mind.

—The Qiu imperial clan was finished.

Finished.