Outside the dungeon, Su Pingchuan was pacing back and forth. He heard the sound behind him and immediately turned around.

The woman’s expression was somewhat difficult to read in the night, and she walked straight past him, until he called out to stop her.

“You have blood on your face.”

Xiao Nanhui stopped, raised her hand, and wiped at her forehead. She saw a spot of blood on her palm — it must have splattered when she killed Yanzi just now.

In truth, when she had left that cell, she had already wiped the blood from her hands, but had not thought to check her face.

The sticky, viscous feeling of human blood still clung to her fingertips. When she had been on military campaigns exterminating bandits in the past, blood and grime were the things she dealt with most frequently — sometimes she would go days without closing her eyes, and with nowhere to wash clean, the blood would stay on her body. But she had never felt nauseated by it the way she did today.

Su Pingchuan noticed her silence and took the initiative to speak.

“Now that you have had your revenge, does your heart feel satisfied?”

She stood there unmoving, not turning around, her silhouette exuding an autumn air of cold desolation.

“Not as satisfying as sharing a drink with Bolao used to be.”

“There will be others.” He paused, his voice dropping. “People who can share a drink with you — there will be others.”

The stifled air in her chest exhaled into the night, becoming a puff of white mist. She did not know whether it was the foul air from the dungeon just now, or the sorrow that lingered from that night on Doucheng Ridge.

Xiao Nanhui turned around. Su Pingchuan, however, had his head lowered, looking at his waist.

She finally noticed that he had been looking down checking the burning incense in the sachet at his waist this whole time.

Many noble sons in the capital used incense sachets to tell the time, but men carrying such things looked somewhat out of place. She had thought someone as martial and thin-skinned as Su Pingchuan would absolutely not carry one.

Not wanting to embarrass him, she withdrew her gaze on her own.

“If the General of the Left has other matters to attend to, you may go on ahead. I still know the way from here to the palace gate.”

Su Pingchuan said nothing, only looked steadily at her. After a long moment, his gaze slowly moved downward.

“Is this the Jiějia sword?”

She touched her waist and nodded.

For some reason, Su Pingchuan’s question carried little of the joy or surprise she might have expected, and somehow made her feel he was searching for something to say.

He stepped closer, apparently to get a better look at the sword.

“Master actually gave this sword to you. I have been her disciple for many years, and she never even let me touch it.”

Xiao Nanhui thought for a moment, then unclipped the scabbard and held it out.

“Would you like to try it?”

This time it was Su Pingchuan’s turn to be taken aback. He seemed to have genuinely wanted to exchange a few more words with her, but had not expected her to make such a suggestion.

They had crossed paths long ago, but their true acquaintance began with that absurd contest.

Yet as she had told Li Yuan Yuan, she and Su Pingchuan had never settled their match.

The young prince finally released the sachet in his hand and hesitantly took the sword. At that very moment, however, a voice rang out nearby — it was the green-clad page boy at Xuanyuan Wang’s side.

“Young Master, the Prince is waiting for you up ahead.”

She saw Su Pingchuan’s face drain of color like withering autumn leaves, then he lowered his gaze.

“Give me one more cup of tea’s time.”

The page boy said nothing, but neither did he step away — he simply stood quietly about thirty paces off.

Su Pingchuan held the scabbard in one hand and slowly drew the long sword with the other.

Jiějia rang out a clear, bright note beneath the autumn moon. The blade was snow-bright, showing no trace of having been buried in the tomb for years.

“A fine sword.”

He sighed sincerely, then raised the sword and leapt into the air in a series of swift strikes.

On the young man’s face there still lingered the free-spirited air of a wandering youth of the rivers and lakes. His eyes were very bright — it was a kind of open, upright energy not yet stained by the courts or the grinding of power struggles. His body technique bore seven or eight parts resemblance to Li Yuan Yuan’s — sweeping and expansive, breath flowing like a river rushing on without cease — yet with two or three parts that were different.

She privately felt those two or three parts were something uniquely Su Pingchuan’s own. Half naivety, half sincerity.

In the past she had held some prejudice against him, and when they sparred she always focused on winning, so she had never properly appreciated his sword style. Now that she truly looked, his swordsmanship was actually quite good — Li Yuan Yuan was indeed a fine master.

When the sword dance was done, Su Pingchuan still stood where he was, the sword in his hand reluctant to be sheathed.

Not far away, the green-clad page was urging him quietly again.

He finally slowly slid the sword back into its scabbard, the gleaming blade swallowed bit by bit by the scabbard mouth, until the last glimmer of light disappeared from sight.

“Thank you for lending me the sword, Official Xiao.”

She took back Jiějia, trying to lighten this small moment of time.

“The General of the Left is too courteous — you are welcome to spar another day.”

He looked at her, then after a long silence gave a quiet nod.

“All right.”

From the first time he had seen her, to reuniting with her, and then the life-and-death ordeals that followed — his feelings for her had changed from vague to clear. Many emotions had been suppressed within him, yet he had never deceived her.

But just now, he knew he had told a lie.

In three months’ time, he would celebrate his twentieth birthday ceremony.

Before the coming-of-age ceremony, his father had asked him to make a choice: to remain in the military, or to enter the world of the court instead. They called it a choice, but in truth he had very little room to choose. His father knew him too well — he knew that within his lonely and rebellious heart, there was still a thread of familial attachment he could not sever. Of that attachment, the part entangled with the Prince’s Mansion was not so heavy, but the part tied to the Mei Family was deep-rooted and spreading.

The Mei Family had long since lost their footing in the court, and the imperial family’s attitude toward military generals would inevitably grow ambiguous after the pacification of Bijiang. If they did not want to end up discarded like a worn-out tool, the Mei Family needed to quickly find new protection.

And he was the best candidate for that protection. A protector who urgently needed to grow, who was not yet strong enough.

He had ultimately agreed to his father.

After meeting her today, he would rein in his feelings, cultivate ties with the great families, and quietly prepare to take over the Prince’s Mansion. Though he had spent his youth among the military ranks, he had at least been free. Meeting her had been the most wondrous dream.

But dreams must always end. Days like these were bound to come to an end.

He envied the proprietor of Wangchen Tower, envied her maid who had since passed away, envied every person she had been close to along her journey. He wished he could be any one of them.

But when all was said and done, the road they could walk together was only ever so long.

“Official Xiao, farewell.”

Su Pingchuan slowly turned away, and at last stepped onto the corridor that led into the depths of the royal palace.

She watched his silhouette disappear beneath the vast outline of the Imperial Palace, as if watching a firefly be swallowed by the darkness.

Setting aside Yanzi, tonight’s encounter with Su Pingchuan had seemed on the surface perfectly ordinary — yet she had clearly sensed something unusual within that ordinariness.

Perhaps in that unseen whirlpool, she was not the only one struggling and searching desperately.

Xiao Nanhui turned her steps in the direction opposite to Su Pingchuan and walked away.

She followed the road she had come in on out through the palace wall, and after not walking far, she saw a bright point of light emerge from the side gate of the towering palace wall — a vaguely visible tall, stout man with a tanned face and a handsome beard, dressed plainly.

Had the palace garrison commander replaced Xu You? When had such a figure appeared?

But when she drew closer, she realized the man was not carrying any blade or sword — his hands held only an oil lamp.

Xiao Nanhui stopped, not certain this was who she was looking for, and was wondering how to open the conversation when the man introduced himself.

“I am Qu Xingzi. You may simply call me Xingzi, miss.”

The surname Qu? Was he not a relative of that fellow Hao Bai?

But this person before her was truly poles apart from Hao Bai, and the Qu Family had ties going back to the previous dynasty and even to ancient times.

The more genial he was, the more cautious Xiao Nanhui became.

“Brother Xingzi, might you know where the item I am to receive is now?”

The other man smiled broadly and stepped aside.

“The item is not with me. Please follow me, miss.”

This time, she finally arrived back at Jingbo Tower.

The autumn wind rose on all sides atop the tower. She looked back over the whole of Quecheng and felt as if the spring rains and the summer cicadas had been only yesterday.

Qu Xingzi walked ahead along the covered corridor, and Xiao Nanhui suddenly spoke.

“May I ask why Attendant Dan is not here? Every time I have come and gone from this Jingbo Tower, he has been the one to show me the way.”

Qu Xingzi stopped, extending his broad fingers to point toward the three palace walls outside the balustrade.

She looked down in the direction he pointed, and saw on the Guangming Corridor before Yuanming Hall, a scattered gathering of several dozen figures, each in court dress, none carrying a lantern — it looked very strange indeed.

“Those people are—”

Qu Xingzi smiled benignly as he withdrew his hand, but the words he spoke were unnerving.

“Those are the senior court officials who have not yet been dismissed from the court session that began this morning. The Attendant Dan you just asked about is unable to get away precisely because of this.”

Dan Jiangfei was in Yuanming Hall? But was that not a place that could only be entered when the Emperor was holding court?

A hazy thought began to form in her mind, though at this moment she had other concerns.

“Why have they not each returned to their own mansions, but gathered in the palace instead? Could they have heard some news?”

This time Qu Xingzi did not answer.

The covered corridor also came to its end at that very moment. The tall, stout man extinguished the oil lamp in his hand, then opened a stone chamber.

“The person Miss Xiao is to meet is inside the stone chamber. I have brought you as far as here. Please go in.”

A bellyful of words that had risen to her lips had to be swallowed back down for now. By the time she turned her head, that Qu Xingzi had already vanished together with that oil lamp into the far end of the corridor in the night.

She stood there for a moment, then raised her foot and stepped into the stone chamber.

The moment she crossed into the stone chamber, the stone door behind her rotated shut. The air instantly became quiet.

Xiao Nanhui felt along the wall and walked toward the faint candlelight not far away.

At the end of the light was a simple small table, with a hole carved in the top where charcoal burned, over which a copper hot pot was set. Something in the pot seemed to be cooking, gurgling as it let off steam.

Before the small table sat cross-legged an old man with snow-white hair and beard and a dark, gleaming complexion. He had two short, thick eyebrows that lay flat above his eyes like a pair of broad beans — unexpectedly, this made him look rather less like a venerable elder and somewhat more childlike.

Could this be the legendary Qu Family Elder who had supposedly never left Wancheng?

Xiao Nanhui stared at those two tufts of eyebrows in a daze. The other party said nothing either, and likewise looked her up and down.

The two of them sized each other up for quite a while, until the broth spilled over the rim of the pot with a sizzling sound.

The old man came to his senses, and flustered, reached for the lid — only to burn his hand and momentarily lose his composure.

He hurriedly blew on his fingers, then glanced at the woman standing in the middle of the stone chamber.

“Have you had supper yet?”

Xiao Nanhui shook her head.

“I have not.”

The other man raised his mustache and gestured with his chin toward the rush cushion in front of the low table.

“Sit down and have a mushroom hot pot together.”

When one has seen enough strange people and strange events, one’s reactions gradually become more equable.

Xiao Nanhui only hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward and sat down at the table.

Opening the pot. Blanching the meat. Putting in the vegetables.

The meal was eaten in silence.

The other party was absorbed in eating and had no attention to spare. She had things weighing on her mind and found it somewhat hard to swallow.

She slowly set down her bamboo chopsticks.

“Elder must have called me here because there is something to be delivered to me — might I ask what it is?”

“Oh.” The other party seemed to have only just remembered that matter, and without stopping eating, his left hand rummaged noisily beneath the small table.

After a little while, among the clutter of pots, bowls, and ladles, two items appeared.

On the left were two thin jade tablets, face to face, sealed with eight jade clasps, with a pair of divine birds worked in gold foil on either side — it was impossible to tell at a glance what the object was.

On the right was an earthen jar — a plump belly, a slender tied cord, freshly re-pasted with a red paper seal. It was a jar of Yunye Xian wine.

Xiao Nanhui looked at the jade册 and the wine jar, her puzzlement written plainly on her face.

“What does this — what does this mean…”

“It is not both given to you, but for you to choose one.” The old man coughed twice and said unhurriedly, “Miss, do you know why His Majesty summoned this old man into the capital several months ago?”

She collected herself and said carefully.

“It should have been in regard to Pu Huna’s matter.”

The old man chuckled, a few deep wrinkles glistening in the steam from the hot pot.

“Those matters are for the younger generation to worry about. As for this old man, since reaching a certain age I have taken on only one type of business.” He spoke while tapping the items on the table. “It is to compose the sacrificial divination texts for the Imperial Family’s ancestral temples — and of those matters that would require me to make the trip myself, none other than the enthronement of a new sovereign, or when a candidate has been chosen for the position of Empress. His Majesty had me come in order to draft the investiture jade册 for you. But after the spring hunt, he changed his mind.”

Xiao Nanhui was stunned into speechlessness.

She had known he had arranged everything, but had not known what “everything” actually meant.

The old man finally set down his chopsticks. The smile on his face slowly faded.

“He knew this venture of his would certainly be dangerous. In summoning you here today, he is asking you to choose one of these two items. If you take this gold and jade册, then upon his return it will be time for you to take your place in the inner palace. If you take this wine jar, once you step out of this tower, find a place to drink yourself into a great stupor — and when you sober, treat everything between you and him as nothing more than a dream, and go live the free and unfettered life under the vast sky you have always longed for. The choice is yours, miss.”

What a grand gesture — calling it a dream, granting her freedom.

If another person heard this, they would surely laugh at her for having been cast off after being taken advantage of, suggesting she ought not to keep clinging on and should preserve what little dignity she had left.

But only Xiao Nanhui herself understood what the word “freedom” meant to her. He truly knew her better than she had imagined.

She remembered the first time she had ever entered the Imperial Palace — the supervising eunuch had led her through three full palace walls.

Inside those heavy, solemnly decorated walls lay a world she was not familiar with.

She had once believed she could never have the slightest connection with the people inside those walls.

Yet in the end, she had fallen for the person seated highest within them.

Even now, after he had told her almost all of his history and secrets, she still could not fully comprehend his world.

She was too simple a person. Her life had always been the kind one could see to its end at a glance.

But he was not. If she wished to accompany him, she would have to leave the world she was familiar with.

She also could not quite imagine what Mo Chunhua had once described as “losing freedom” — she only felt that the world within those high walls did not belong to her. She felt bewildered about such a future, and worried that it would cause him difficulty.

No. She did not want that.

The broth in the copper pot had simmered down to a thick consistency. Jujube-sized bubbles kept rising and bursting, crackling in the stone chamber.

Xiao Nanhui stared at the two items on the table, and finally reached out her hand.

She lifted the wine jar.

The old man’s brows relaxed, and he smiled, tapping his bamboo chopsticks approvingly.

“Miss is indeed a clear-sighted soul. In future, if you come to Wancheng, you must certainly come to pay a visit—”

He was still speaking when he saw the woman sitting across from him press her palm down on the clay seal of the wine jar, tilt her head back, and drain the entire jar in one go.

Thud — the now-empty jar was set back down on the table.

“He has never drunk with me, so he does not know my capacity. This one jar of Yunye Xian is far from enough to make me truly drunk. To make me forget all of this, I daresay even turning the entire Xiao Fu Ju upside down would not be enough.”

She said this while wiping her mouth, and then suddenly laughed.

“I understand his intentions. But since I have drunk the wine, I am a free person. Whether I go or stay, whether I advance or retreat — these legs are mine. How I walk is my own affair.”

The one thing she had never wished to see in her life was for the person she loved to be made to feel troubled because of her.

She wanted the person she loved to always have their wishes fulfilled, to do what they themselves wished to do.

Fortunately, fate had now pointed out a path for her. She could do something for the one she loved, and need not worry that in the long years to come, the beauty between them would be worn away by the gap in their positions.

He was someone who had always had whatever he wished for. She had nothing precious to offer him. If she could not accompany him, then perhaps this was the last thing she could do for him.

She had only one thing to do, and she only needed to do that one thing well.

Kill it, destroy the secret seal, and eradicate everything that could possibly threaten him.

She loved him.

She hoped they still had long years left to walk together.

But life does not always allow people to be together. She had already been far luckier than many, because she possessed precious memories worth cherishing for the rest of her life.

The old man said nothing, then finally let out a long sigh.

“That is his fate. No one can endure it for him.”

She stared at the empty wine jar on the table, not the least bit inclined to retreat.

“Without even trying, how does one know it cannot be done?”

“And how do you know you are not the fate itself?” As if afraid she would not understand, the other party asked pointedly, “Have you entered the dreams of the Zhong Li family members? You yourself should know. Or to put it differently — have you dreamed of them?”

The Zhong Li family members? Was it him, or his mother? Or… Aunt Dai?

Xiao Nanhui was taken aback, then the hand gripping the wine jar involuntarily tightened.

She remembered now — she had indeed dreamed of Aunt Dai. But the Xiao Dai in the dream had not looked like the person she knew. Her manner was strange and grim.

So had the person Aunt Dai dreamed of once been her? What role had she played in that prophecy?

The final page of the册 in Lihen Tower seemed to have already given her the answer long ago. And knowing him, clever as he was, had he not perhaps already deciphered the prophecy contained in that ribbon in the early hours of that rainy morning, and deliberately left her behind, going alone with Pu Huna?

If what this old man said was true.

If she were the very person who would push everything toward the abyss?