Having just listened to the two of them talk, Xie Wei thought they were reminiscing about old times and hadn’t paid much attention. But hearing this, his brows instantly furrowed, almost immediately realizing that there was indeed a small flaw in Zhou Yinzhi’s words.

He looked toward Lu Xian.

Lu Xian had also heard Jiang Xuening’s words clearly. Secretly alarmed, his expression became somewhat grave. Meeting Xie Wei’s gaze, he said, “I’ll immediately have someone investigate and verify this clearly.”

Xie Wei added, “Have someone secretly follow his movements. Until the matter is investigated clearly, don’t let this person leave Xinzhou.”

Lu Xian said, “Yes.”

Zhou Yinzhi’s position in the Brocade Guard was now second to none. For more than half a month’s time to be unaccounted for, especially at such a particular moment—the implications would not be small. He didn’t dare delay, directly turning to go down from the city tower to find people to arrange various matters.

Jiang Xuening also felt her heart pounding with alarm. The more she thought about it, the more she felt something was wrong about this matter, yet she didn’t know what Zhou Yinzhi’s purpose was.

But in any case, it was better to leave this place of trouble sooner.

She couldn’t be bothered to say anything more and turned to leave as well.

Unexpectedly, Xie Wei was quick-eyed and quick-handed, actually pulling her back. His gaze fell on her face as he said, “You know the trivial matters of the palace quite clearly.”

Jiang Xuening’s form immediately froze.

Throughout the four seasons of the year in the palace, large and small festivals all received tributes from various provinces and prefectures, flowing like water without cease. Not to mention someone like Xie Wei who mainly served in the outer court—even the eunuchs managing the storehouses in the Internal Affairs Bureau might not know such details and would need to flip through the registers to confirm. Yet she, merely hearing Zhou Yinzhi’s casual remark, immediately realized the flaw within—wasn’t this a bit too perceptive? If she hadn’t committed it to memory, how could she be so meticulous?

She heard the flaw in Zhou Yinzhi’s words.

And Xie Wei heard the flaw in hers.

Jiang Xuening’s wrist was gripped by him. Standing without moving, she turned to look at him, yet wasn’t flustered. She only said, “Master Xie has forgotten—over these two years, this student has been secretly managing salt fields, but has also been involved in tea, rice, silk, and cloth. When new spring and autumn teas from various regions are harvested, how much is routinely paid as tribute, what grades remain for the common people—naturally I would know these things. Yunnan is in southwestern Sichuan, not far away. It’s Zhou Yinzhi’s bad luck that what he mentioned happens to be something I know.”

Xie Wei remained noncommittal, unclear whether he believed her or not, yet said, “When in the capital, Zhou Yinzhi was originally under your father’s command, later serving you—he could be counted as your ‘former subordinate.’ But I observed just now when you were reminiscing with him, though it seemed familiar, you actually don’t trust him and are even very guarded.”

It was nothing more than “once bitten by a snake, ten years afraid of well ropes.”

Jiang Xuening could not forget the calamity of her past life.

If not for having no one else to use at the time, she absolutely would not have any dealings with this person, would certainly keep far away and avoid him, just as she kept Xie Wei at a respectful distance.

She said, “Precisely because I knew Zhou Yinzhi from humble beginnings in former days, I deeply understand this person’s nature. If a person’s nature could be easily changed, it wouldn’t be worthy of being called ‘nature.’ Those with vicious hearts and violent temperaments, though gentle for a time, will inevitably show their fangs another day. Such people—one can associate with them temporarily, deal with them briefly, but shouldn’t do so constantly or long-term, hence the precaution.”

Though the words clearly spoke of Zhou Yinzhi, Xie Wei actually felt her words had hidden implications.

His expression gradually cooled.

His gaze locked on her as he questioned, “So in your eyes, I’m just like Zhou Yinzhi, making you fear me like a snake or scorpion?”

Fear like a snake or scorpion?

No matter how formidable Zhou Yinzhi was, he was merely someone who insincerely ingratiated himself, deceiving superiors and flattering inferiors—a two-faced villain. But Xie Wei possessed unwavering will, carried deep vengeance and hatred, could withstand great rises and falls, endure humiliation and bear heavy burdens, and once he bloodily cleansed the palace, stood above countless thousands!

Such a formidable figure—how could Zhou Yinzhi be worthy of comparison with him?

If Zhou Yinzhi was merely a snake or scorpion, Xie Wei was the blazing sun in the sky.

Admirable from afar, but up close it would scorch one’s heart and lungs.

A fiercely burning sun, once it fell from mid-air, would no longer be the light illuminating the mortal world, but a terror that destroyed heaven and earth!

When she was confined in the palace in her past life, suffering humiliation, she had also held a thread of tender hope toward this person.

She thought, she had saved him.

Even though they’d had little interaction over several years, and she had teased and made things difficult for him, after all it was all trivial matters of no great consequence. If she begged him, perhaps for the sake of that old favor of feeding him blood and medicine, he might rescue her from dire straits.

Yet there was nothing.

It wasn’t until later that she heard You Fangying’s speculation from her past life: so that son of the Xiao and Yan clans from the previous dynasty was still alive in this world. Perhaps he was none other than the Imperial Teacher Xie Wei who held power.

Xie Ju’an was actually Yan Lin’s elder brother.

Then how could he not turn a blind eye to all the humiliation she suffered, standing by without intervention?

Being in adversity doesn’t necessarily make one despair; but if even that last faint hope is extinguished, in desperate straits, what can one rely on to continue?

Though Jiang Xuening knew this was a new life and naturally shouldn’t equate the people of both lives, how could the same person’s temperament be different?

Xie Wei was that same Xie Wei.

She absolutely didn’t dare harbor even a trace more hope toward this person. Since he insisted on asking, she would speak aloud all those words she hadn’t said yesterday: “The teacher has lofty aspirations, is a cloud in the sky; this student is shallow and shortsighted, mere mud on the ground. The sparrow doesn’t understand the swan, summer insects cannot comprehend ice. The teacher and I—one in heaven, one on earth—fundamentally unsuited. Common folk exhaust their entire lives merely seeking those two words ‘peaceful survival.’ Please, teacher, show mercy and let me go.”

Show mercy and let me go.

Hearing her say these words, Xie Wei felt as if cold water had been poured over his head, even the blood originally boiling and flowing through his vessels turned cold.

So sweetness lasted not a moment, while pain pierced the heart and bones.

Hearing no response from him, Jiang Xuening even pulled at the corner of her lips in a mocking smile: “If the teacher won’t let go, why don’t I sleep with you for two years, and when you’re tired of me, bored with me, then let me go?”

If her earlier words merely stabbed him with a knife, these current words were nearly gouging out his heart.

She was deliberately provoking him with words like this.

His desire and feelings both arose from his heart—would she cheapen them so?

The violent energy deeply buried in his eyes finally surfaced. Yet he gripped her hand even tighter, Xie Wei saying word by word: “So what I seek, my feelings and nature, frighten you, disgust you, make you want to escape? You’re so cowardly, so timid, not even daring to try once before becoming a deserter, just like you did with Zhang Zhe?”

He brought up Zhang Zhe again.

This was not the first time.

Jiang Xuening had been quite displeased last time, and this time she was finally deeply enraged by him, perhaps because he had crossed boundaries and offended her, perhaps because the meaning in his words wounded her.

She instantly bristled with sharp barbs all over, fiercely rebutting: “If there’s a bottomless abyss ahead, knowing that jumping down will shatter me to pieces, should I still throw myself down with a leap?”

Xie Wei said, “How will you know without jumping?”

Jiang Xuening shouted, “You’d have to be insane to jump!”

Xie Wei sneered coldly, “You still haven’t understood, have you?”

Jiang Xuening only felt the line of reason stretched tighter and tighter, almost pulling her into the same crazed realm as him. Fear made her struggle desperately to retreat: “Let go! What should I understand? What don’t I understand?!”

The corner of Xie Wei’s eye began to twitch slightly.

At this moment, thinking of what she’d said about “porcelain having cracks,” he felt his insides overturning like a raging sea, unable to settle down no matter what. Anger surged. Not only did his hand not loosen in the slightest, but rather than letting her go, he dragged her all the way toward the other end of the city tower.

Whether Jiang Xuening was willing to go or not was beyond her control. She took him for completely irrational: “What are you doing?”

But Xie Wei paid no attention at all, continuing forward as before.

Outside the city wall were wilderness and military camps; inside the city wall were marketplace smoke and fire, peddlers and common folk.

She was dragged forward by Xie Wei, the two arguing incessantly. The soldiers they passed all turned deaf ears, every one lowering their heads, and not one person dared to follow and check on them.

Finally reaching the eastern end of the city tower.

Below was a shop forging iron implements.

Under the erected tile shed stood several furnaces, large and small, burning charcoal inside. In the great cold of winter, the blacksmiths within wore only short coarse cloth, some even bare-chested, swinging hammers with force to strike the red-hot iron blanks. Those flying sparks, the crimson iron blocks, even the molten iron at the very top—all emitted astonishing heat.

Xie Wei pointed downward: “Thinking yourself a piece of porcelain that once broken cannot be mended. Jiang Xuening, who do you think you are? Do you even qualify to be that piece of porcelain? You and I are both nothing more than molten iron rolling in this furnace!”

Jiang Xuening was made to look by him gripping her chin.

Xie Wei’s cold and severe voice was sharp and cruel, pouring into her ears like thunder: “Your background, I know; my experiences, you understand. From birth, heaven gave neither you nor me the chance to be weak and useless. You must endure a thousand torments, ten thousand hammerings, before you can become something! A plum vase with cracks cannot be mended, but if you were born only fit to be a piece of iron, you should know—you don’t have that kind of fragility. Even if someone breaks your bones, you must re-enter the furnace, bleeding and enduring humiliation, to be recast into a new form!”

Jiang Xuening’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears.

Yet Xie Wei gripped her tightly, still pressing word by word: “Who loves you, who values you, and who needs you? About living in this world, you don’t understand as well as I do. If you want joy, how can there be joy without pain? Everywhere just wanting to obtain the joy and avoid the pain—how are you any different from those snakes, insects, rats, and ants in the gutter ditches?!”

Jiang Xuening felt as if suffering the punishment of dismemberment, her skin flayed open by his words, exposing bloody sinews and bones. Her whole body trembled: “How many people like you Xie Wei can there be in the world? I am not you!”

He remained cruel: “So cowards like you could never be with Zhang Zhe. Either he saw through you, or he’s as hopelessly stupid as you!”

Her eyes reddened: “Shut up!”

Xie Wei said, “Does it hurt?”

Jiang Xuening retreated backward: “You just won’t let me go!”

Xie Wei was pierced with a thousand wounds by her resistance and fear, yet the more so, the more he refused to show weakness, the more it provoked that deeply buried violent energy: “You’re welcome to flee, to the ends of the earth.”

She almost shrieked: “Are you insane, wanting to drag others down with you as burial companions?!”

But Xie Wei was furious to the extreme: “So what if you’re a burial companion?”

Jiang Xuening suddenly felt he was beyond hope: “Xie Ju’an, things in this world don’t bear fruit just because you demand them—it’s nothing but mutual torment.”

But Xie Wei stubbornly refused to understand: “Bitter fruit is still fruit!”

Bitter fruit is still fruit.

What fine words—”bitter fruit is still fruit”!

Since that time when they were trapped in the mountains by snow, she had become aware of the darkness and violence beneath Xie Wei’s sage exterior. Yet she hadn’t imagined that his obsession, his madness, his terror, had already reached such a degree.

The string of reason in her mind finally snapped.

The myriad emotions piled up in Jiang Xuening’s heart—along with this life’s respect and fear, the past life’s resentment and hatred—all came flooding out, impossible to suppress!

It didn’t even pass through her mind.

At this moment, her eyes reddened as she shouted at him in accusation: “What if you’ve killed me before?!”

On the city tower, the fierce cold wind blew, the high flags billowing in the wind.

Xie Wei and she stood facing each other.

Jiang Xuening had thought she could bury many things deeply, yet the instant the words left her mouth, she actually felt a base pleasure close to revenge, and didn’t even feel a trace of regret, as if she should have done this long ago.

Xie Wei looked at her, with a moment of bewilderment, not speaking.

He thought he should first ask why.

Yet looking at her reddening eyes and that intense resentment and hatred, he didn’t ask.

That madness not only didn’t dissipate from the depths of his eyes, but instead burned even more intensely.

Xie Wei pressed his lips tightly together, bowing his head to unfasten from his wrist the short blade he carried with him, actually placing it in her hand!

Only saying to her: “Come, kill me.”

Jiang Xuening’s fingers touched the knife handle, the inch of warmth remaining on it unable to dispel the cold throughout her body.

All emotions in her eyes suddenly faded away.

In that moment, she gripped the knife he handed her and actually thrust it toward him.

The sharp blade penetrated the flesh and blood body so close at hand.

Fresh blood immediately gushed from his abdomen.

A patch spread across Xie Wei’s snow-white robe.

Jiang Xuening released her hand.

He nearly curled up in pain, yet covering the wound with the knife still in it, he still looked at her, reaching out like a drowning person wanting to grasp at a straw to keep her: “Ning’er…”

With one blink, Jiang Xuening’s tears rolled down: “Xie Ju’an, you’re truly pitiful.”

Xie Wei ultimately couldn’t reach her.

As if waking from a great dream, not even remembering to wipe her tears, she simply turned and walked down from the city tower.