Gu Nanyi ultimately grabbed Shaoning and broke through the encirclement, leaving Feng Zhiwei in the room to ponder in silence as she waited for his return. She couldn’t help but feel that Young Master Gu had seemed to change somewhat since the Crown Prince’s death—for instance, in the past he would practically never leave her side, yet now he actually felt at ease leaving her behind.

However, the true source of trouble was still Shaoning. As soon as Gu Nanyi hauled her away, the surrounding whistling attacks immediately followed after them. Feng Zhiwei wasn’t worried about Gu Nanyi’s safety—this was, after all, at the feet of the Emperor, extremely close to the palace. If Ning Yi failed to strike with one blow, he certainly couldn’t pursue them to the bitter end.

She hoped Princess Shaoning would learn from this lesson and never again rashly arrange meetings with her.

She groped about to light a candle. The corpse on the floor lay in silence with wide-open eyes, seemingly unable to understand how he had suddenly become a scapegoat. Feng Zhiwei bent her head to look at him and sighed, “You appeared too quickly… being a spy isn’t something to be so impatient about.”

If he wasn’t a spy, how could he have charged in so timely? If he wasn’t a spy, why did he call out for Shaoning upon entering, trying to confirm her location?

Shaoning hadn’t understood, but Feng Zhiwei had figured it out in an instant—there were few people in the world whose quick thinking could match hers.

The surroundings gradually grew quiet. The smell of blood in the secret chamber silently drifted over. The candle in her hand felt cold and slippery, like touching a snake—Feng Zhiwei suddenly felt that there was something unsettling in the surrounding darkness, pressing heavily toward her.

She remembered the flint was on the small table beside the bed platform. When she reached for it, it wasn’t there, but fortunately she had flint on her person. With a scraping sound, the candle ignited.

The firelight blazed.

In that blaze, before she could see anything clearly, it suddenly went out.

Feng Zhiwei started, reaching to touch the candle. There was no residual heat from being lit, as if the firelight just now had only been an illusion.

The candle seemed to have suddenly become shorter—had someone used extremely fast sword energy to sever the lit candle?

At this point, Feng Zhiwei didn’t dare retreat toward the door—if there was someone in the room and she turned to flee, it would be equivalent to selling her back to another person. If there was someone outside the room and she retreated backward, it would also be equivalent to delivering herself onto the point of a spear.

She pressed her lips together and lit the candle again.

The firelight blazed, then went out again.

Between the lighting and extinguishing, Feng Zhiwei suddenly threw the candle in her hand toward the southwest direction in front of her to the side, then immediately slid backward at high speed.

With a thud, she collided with something, but it wasn’t the door panel she had calculated. Behind her, it seemed hard yet soft, slightly elastic. In the next instant, her body tightened as she was firmly embraced.

That embrace wasn’t suffocatingly tight, yet she couldn’t move in the slightest. A faint masculine scent pressed close. The person held her in his arms, temples touching, his breath brushing against the back of her ear, warm and moist. She suddenly broke into a slight sweat that stuck to her disheveled hair, rustling with an itchy sensation.

Feng Zhiwei struggled but couldn’t move, so she immediately gave up. Her fingers turned, and a dagger soundlessly dropped down her sleeve, sliding into her palm.

This was inspired by seeing the knife in Ning Ji’s sleeve that day. After returning, she had designed a thin-bladed dagger on a sliding chain in her own sleeve—with a pull of her finger, it could drop down inconspicuously.

The dagger was in her palm. With a flick of her finger, it could go straight into the vital points at the other person’s waist and ribs.

But the person behind her suddenly let out a low sigh.

That sigh was long and lingering, like wind sweeping across rustling branches, shattering soundlessly at the leaf tips—so low as to be almost inaudible, yet also like thunder rumbling beside her ear. Feng Zhiwei shuddered, the dagger freezing between her fingers, her entire body becoming completely rigid.

In that moment of rigidity, the person behind her had already gently reached over, grasping her knife-wielding hand with extreme precision. Almost playfully, he held both the thin blade and her slender fingers together in his palm, his fingertips caressing the blade’s surface before lightly bending it.

With a crisp “crack,” the person chuckled softly. With a flick of his finger, the broken blade flew out, lodging precisely in that spear hole from before, blocking even the last sliver of dim light.

The blade flew out, but his hand didn’t let go. He held her fingers, caressing them over and over. His palm was also smooth and delicate, with only some thin calluses on the sides of his fingers. That bit of hardness touching her softness was like fine sandpaper lightly grinding across a tender heart, producing a slightly painful coolness amid the subtle itching.

She lowered her eyes, neither speaking nor moving, flowing backward in contemplation amid the crashing waves, in no mood to savor this exquisitely romantic moment—because while he held her, his fingertips were pressing on the major acupuncture point at her chest.

Yet that person seemed completely oblivious to his own gentle killing technique. His slightly lowered head brought him as close to her as possible, their breaths audible and intermingling, even their hair silently tangling together, draping down as one, brushing against her cheek and his neck, soft and cool, like the mood of this moment.

So he tilted his head slightly.

This tilt brought him against the side of her face.

Cool, delicate lips swept across the equally fine, jade-like cheek, like still-verdant emerald leaves sweeping across a pearl-lustrous water surface, splashing ripples—layer upon layer of subtle water patterns, soundlessly spreading outward.

Both of them trembled.

In the darkness, the person seemed to steady himself, his breathing slightly quickened, then calming again, quietly withdrawing.

Like the transparent wings of a midnight dragonfly, unable to bear the heavy coolness of the darkness.

In Feng Zhiwei’s heart, a faint desolation suddenly arose, like seeing ten thousand miles of magnificent rivers and mountains that in a split second fell apart and crumbled.

Such romance—romance to the point of severity, like deep snow falling from the long sky, a butterfly with trembling, fallen wings in the snowy field.

The secret chamber was silent, thoughts flowing, until broken by a series of hurried footsteps.

“Brother Wei! Brother Wei!” It was Yan Huaishi’s voice. “Are you still there?”

Feng Zhiwei stirred slightly, momentarily uncertain how to answer. The person behind her chuckled softly again, then suddenly pushed her with his hand. Feng Zhiwei fell forward, feeling cool, soft fabric brush across her face, carrying a light, fresh fragrance. She reached out her hand, but that fabric flowed like a spring from between her fingers, vanishing in an instant.

With a creak, the wooden door opened. Yan Huaishi stood in the sunlight.

Feng Zhiwei instinctively looked back. In the dim interior, the bed platform, tables, and chairs were submerged in pale gray luminous mist. Scattered all around were cups and vessels and the silent corpse. Everything that had just happened seemed like a dream.