This time Qingbai truly had nowhere left to retreat. In a flash like lightning and flint striking, he only felt his mind explode with a thunderous roar. For a moment even his ears began to burn faintly, scorching him until he nearly lost the ability to think.

Qing Zhuo paid him no mind, his gaze passing over him to look directly at Qing Luo and Han Yan behind him, who were equally dumbstruck. He curved his lips in a smile that wasn’t quite a smile. “You two are something else—much more formidable than I imagined.”

His face wore the appearance of a smile, but his eyes held not a trace of mirth. The forest-like coldness made people shiver. In the dead of winter, Qing Luo and Han Yan couldn’t help but tremble, their faces immediately turning deathly pale.

No matter how foolish they were, at this moment they understood. What rescue—no one had intended to rescue them at all! Qingbai didn’t even know they were still in the capital, that they had been captured by Song Jue. They had clearly been duped by someone else, used to point the way. And this someone else—there was no one else. Besides Song Chuyi, there was no other choice.

Thinking of this, both their faces couldn’t help turning iron blue. Yes, how had they forgotten? Song Chuyi’s scheming was habitually countless and endless. They should have thought of it earlier. Their story had many holes. They should have thought that with Song Chuyi’s abilities, she would surely quickly investigate whether Yuan Jin truly harbored dual loyalties.

Qing Luo’s rigid gaze suddenly moved. Her lips squirmed for a moment, then she opened her mouth and uttered a sentence. “We weren’t wrong in the first place.” She looked at Qing Zhuo’s increasingly ugly expression and smiled again. “Where did we go wrong? Don’t you know why we’ve followed the Grand Prince since childhood?”

Of course Longhu Mountain couldn’t serve as the Grand Prince’s protection for nothing. They of Longhu Mountain had taken such great risk of offending Consort Fan Liangdi to look after and protect the Grand Prince for Imperial Consort Lu. Of course they couldn’t do it for nothing.

This was what their parents had said since they were young.

Han Feng, who had been silent all along, hidden behind Qing Zhuo, looked at her expressionlessly. “What you shouldn’t remember, you remember clearly. What you should remember, you haven’t remembered a single word. Didn’t you also fail to listen to what the Celestial Master said later? Yet you remember those old words as if they were carved into your bones?”

Han Feng was always taciturn, but this didn’t mean he couldn’t speak. Often when he opened his mouth, as long as what he said was unpleasant, it was enough to make people feel so ashamed they wanted to bang their heads against a wall.

Qing Luo’s face turned deathly pale. Before she could speak, she heard Han Feng laugh coldly again. “Does this count as you deceiving your masters and betraying your ancestors?”

With one sentence, all three of them finally retreated several steps backward.

Cuiting didn’t speak. He had always gotten along better with Mingtai. Among those who came from the Celestial Master’s mansion, not all were of one heart—he knew this perfectly well. But he hadn’t expected that not being of one heart was one thing; there were actually those who wanted to pull the thread out and tie it to the outside. His heart felt somewhat complicated.

Qingbai no longer wanted to hear Qing Zhuo and Han Feng exchange barbs. He even less wanted to see those two fools Qing Luo and Han Yan standing in front. If these two fools hadn’t come looking for him, if these two fools hadn’t been foolish enough to fall into Song Chuyi’s trap, he would still be well hidden even now.

He couldn’t fall into Song Chuyi’s hands… This was probably the only thing he could be certain of now. If he fell into Song Chuyi’s hands, he was finished. She wouldn’t spare him.

Though he thought all this through, it actually happened in just a flash. He reached out and pushed heavily at the backs of those two fools, then swiftly leaped out through the window.

Qing Zhuo pushed aside Qing Luo and Han Yan who had been shoved forward, and he and Han Feng, each faster than the other, immediately followed through the window in pursuit.

Only at this moment did the proprietor, panting heavily, catch up from downstairs. Pushing open the door, he only saw Cuiting and Yuan Jin tying up Qing Luo and Han Yan, and was stunned speechless.

Hadn’t these two young mistresses long since disappeared?!

What… what exactly was going on… He felt he needed to send someone to inform His Highness, and turned to leave.

Zhou Weizhao was playing chess with Zhang Tianshi. Zhang Tianshi had just come out from the palace and hadn’t yet changed out of his Daoist robes. With an air of immortal elegance, sitting in the tea pavilion on Lingyun Peak, he raised his eyebrows. “You’re just too soft-hearted.”

Seeing that Zhou Weizhao didn’t speak, he smiled and said, “Actually, you saw long ago that Qingbai had problems, didn’t you?”

Zhou Weizhao didn’t answer immediately. Looking at his master, he sighed softly. “Master, I’ve always known that you and my junior master uncle weren’t very harmonious.”

His junior master uncle was Qingbai’s father, the one who had once competed with Zhang Tianshi for the position of sect leader.

When Song Chuyi first said there might be a spy at his side, and among this very batch, he had thought of Qingbai. “Though I knew, when it truly happened, I still couldn’t help sighing. You’re right—it’s my fault for being too soft-hearted.”

Zhang Tianshi looked at the pines and cypresses still lush green all over the mountain in this dead winter, smiling as he stroked his long beard. “It’s not quite like that. People all have emotions and desires. After all, they grew up with you since childhood.”

He continued, “When you went down the mountain before, I told you that you had everything else, but lacked a bit of ruthlessness. Now it seems you’ve been tempered through experience. Though I’ve verbally admonished you many times before to be ruthless, to master the proper measure in treating everyone around you, not to judge others’ thoughts by your own preferences, now after going through this matter, you needn’t have me say more—you can remember it clearly yourself. This is a good thing. This wife of yours—you married very well.”

She was a ruthless character who could stay steady and be merciless when needed.

Zhang Tianshi had just finished speaking when a young Daoist acolyte came running up the steps in a flash. “Someone came from the capital, looking for Your Highness…”

“Go ahead.” Zhang Tianshi didn’t move, frowning at the chess board before him. He waved his hand at Zhou Weizhao. “I won’t keep you. Tomorrow bring your wife to have tea with your master’s wife.”

Zhou Weizhao acknowledged this, stood up, descended the mountain, and headed straight into the capital.

Song Chuyi was already waiting for him at Princess Rongcheng’s mansion. This time going out, she had borrowed Princess Rongcheng’s name to avoid alerting the enemy.

Song Jue and Ye Jingkuan had also entered together, their expressions somehow not very good.

“Didn’t catch him?” Zhou Weizhao’s first reaction was that perhaps they had lost the person. “Qingbai’s martial skills aren’t a match for Han Feng.”

Moreover, with Han Feng present and Song Jue’s people as well, logically Qingbai couldn’t escape even with wings.

Song Jue shook his head. Seeing Song Chuyi also look over, his expression was heavy. “We did catch him red-handed. Qing Luo and Han Yan went straight to him, lingering near Chongyin Workshop for several days, waiting for him. Unfortunately, this person’s hands and feet were quite quick. Wangyue’s hands and feet were already fast enough, but he still managed to slit his own throat.”