Half an hour earlier, in the left pavilion.

“Your Highness is returning to the Eastern Palace now?”

Liu Baiwei looked at the half-book in Zhao Yān’s hand. “This thing is very troublesome; I fear they won’t let it go easily.”

Zhao Yān smiled faintly, her eyes appearing clean and transparent under the midsummer sun. “I know. The enemy lurks in darkness while I stand in the light, which is why we need to use their plan against them, turning passive into active.”

Liu Baiwei almost immediately understood Zhao Yān’s meaning and raised his eyes in surprise.

Divine Light Priest had been silenced in front of everyone, and the little Prince had been a hairbreadth from death. Any other youth of the same age would probably be frightened like a startled bird, trembling in fear.

But she merely thought for a moment with a pale face before making a clear-headed and bold decision based on her disadvantage. In less than a year, she had grown considerably.

“According to Your Highness’s wishes, we’ll divide our forces,” said Liu Baiwei, crossing his arms in thought. “Your Highness will take the evidence and hide it first, while I exchange clothes with Your Highness and take the Eastern Palace carriage to draw them out.”

…

…

“That won’t do. Liu…”

Liu Ying paused, then corrected herself: “The young noble is taller than Your Highness. It would be more appropriate for this servant to take your place.”

Liu Baiwei deftly untied his belt and outer robe, snorting: “This is to lure the enemy, not to die! Such a task isn’t for a frail woman like you.”

“What about… letting this servant go?” a weak voice sounded.

Zhao Yān looked toward the voice and saw Li Fu cautiously raising his hand.

Li Fu was young, and having been a eunuch since childhood, his frame and height were close to Zhao Yān’s.

Zhao Yān saw his guilt and anxiety, and pondered: “Mother Empress has shown you kindness. Your passing messages to Kunning Palace is within your duties; you need not feel this way.”

“Yes, but Your Highness has also treated this servant well. If Your Highness doesn’t give this servant a chance to redeem himself, this servant will have no face to see Your Highness again. I might as well die by bashing my head against a wall…”

Li Fu, with a miserable, bun-like face, prostrated himself and begged: “Please allow this servant to do this.”

As he spoke, he knocked his head firmly on the ground, with the posture of someone who would kneel indefinitely until permission was granted.

Zhao Yān couldn’t refuse him, and indeed, neither Liu Baiwei nor Liu Ying’s appearances were suitable. After careful consideration, she ordered Gu Xing: “Find a way to get him a set of armor and place it in the carriage. After he boards, have him secretly change into it for protection.”

Li Fu instantly broke into a smile through his tears: “Thank you, Your Highness!”

Zhao Yān extended her hand to raise him, deliberately putting on a stern face: “Take good care of your life. When you return safely to the Eastern Palace, I still have accounts to settle with you.”

Li Fu stood tall, patting his chest, smiling with dimples at the corners of his mouth: “Don’t worry, Your Highness! This servant is quite clever!”

Sure enough, the carriage was ambushed halfway.

After hearing Li Fu’s trembling account of what happened, Wenren Lin said nothing, mounted his horse, and turned back with a single hand on the reins.

Zhang Cang followed closely behind, taking out a token and shouting: “Prince Su has urgent business in the garden, open the gate!”

The guards at Penglai Garden hurriedly opened the door latch. As soon as the great door opened, Prince Su galloped through, raising a cloud of dust.

There was a secret passage connecting the Tongtian Platform and the Penglai Garden.

Now the setting sun poured gold, and birds chirped.

In front of Hegui Pavilion, on the stone steps of the long corridor, a slender “little eunuch” sat hugging their knees, covered in dappled shadows from the trees.

Hearing the urgent sound of hoofbeats, Zhao Yān, dressed in the ochre-colored eunuch uniform, raised her chin and slowly stood up.

The black steed reared up, letting out a long neigh. Wenren Lin didn’t bother to calm the over-galloped animal, simply hanging his longbow on the horse’s back before striding toward Zhao Yān across a ground dappled with light and shadow.

He walked so steadily yet so quickly, the swift wind carrying a frost-snow essence not belonging to midsummer rushed toward her, stirring his sleeves to flutter, making Zhao Yān blink her eyelashes.

“I took a shortcut from Tongtian Platform, but who would have thought we’d just miss each other…”

Her words hadn’t finished when she felt her fingertips tighten.

Without a word, Wenren Lin pulled Zhao Yān’s hand, crossing the stone steps, turning through the corridor, and pushing open the main door of Hegui Pavilion.

A cool breeze swept across her face, dispersing the heat from her body.

Zhao Yān steadied herself after stumbling, noticing something unusual about Wenren Lin, and quietly asked: “Are you angry?”

“Are you injured?”

Wenren Lin turned to examine her, his tone as elegant and gentle as always, but those eyes contained a deep, cool darkness that Zhao Yān couldn’t fathom—very different from usual.

She was momentarily stunned, looking into his eyes and shaking her head: “No, no. Divine Light Priest is dead, and there are traitors among the imperial guards. I didn’t know where else to go, so I changed clothes with Li Fu and came here to find you.”

She had said before that Prince Su was always her first choice.

In her urgent situation, the only safe place she could think of was Hegui Pavilion, where Wenren Lin was.

Suddenly, a cool sensation touched her cheek—Wenren Lin had raised his finger to lightly caress from her eyebrows down to her face, as if confirming her safety.

“What did I tell Your Highness last night, hmm?” Wenren Lin lowered his eyes, his crimson thin lips slightly parting, “Do you know what taking the Divine Light Sect’s account book means?”

“I know, that’s why I used their plan against them, drawing the snake from its hole.”

Zhao Yān hadn’t yet figured out the source of Wenren Lin’s pale, sickly appearance. She hesitated, a strange sense of foreboding rising in her heart. “Grand Tutor taught me that even if I’m like fish meat, I shouldn’t surrender to despair, but learn to use my disadvantages to set a trap, using myself as bait to hook the opponent.”

Wenren Lin focused his gaze and lightly nodded: “Very good.”

“Your Highness has done very well,” he repeated with a smile.

Since the Hairpin Banquet, he had known that this externally gentle but internally tough young girl was by no means a reed that depended on others to survive. She had her backbone and tenacity, always absorbing dewdrops imperceptibly, growing vigorously.

Strangely, he was thrown into disarray by a fact he had long known.

That instant’s stabbing pain in his heart, like a tide, submerged his cold reason. The ruthless Prince Su couldn’t even bear a one-in-ten-thousand chance of failure…

When had he become so fragile? What was he afraid of?

It was laughable—how could someone who viewed cat-teasing as entertainment become flustered because the cat might be in danger?

As he relaxed, Wenren Lin heard the faint sound of chains breaking deep in his heart.

Like the collapse of the Star-Gazing Observatory, it began with an imperceptible crack, then rapidly disintegrated. His suppressed emotions instantly rebounded manifold, burning all five organs.

He raised his hand to cover his lips, and almost simultaneously, a surge of hot fluid sprayed into his palm.

Caught off guard, his pale finger gaps were instantly soaked black-red, the shocking color trickling down his pale, tendon-marked palm, a horrifying sight.

Zhao Yān’s pupils trembled, her eyes widening in disbelief, shocked and bewildered.

Zhang Cang, who had been chasing with medicine the whole way, happened to witness this scene and was terrified out of his wits. He hurriedly untied a silk pouch from his waist, took out a prepared small red-lacquered medicine box, and said: “Your Highness! Medicine!”

Wenren Lin didn’t take the medicine.

He concentrated his gaze on the stunned Zhao Yān, calmly lowered his hand, allowing the blood in his palm to flow in winding patterns along his knuckles.

“Zhang Cang,” he called.

Zhang Cang respectfully placed the medicine box on a nearby table and immediately turned: “Yes!”

“Get out.”

“Ah… ah?”

“Get far away.”

“Yes!”

Zhang Cang made a smooth turn and left fearfully, closing the door behind him.

The warm light in Wenren Lin’s eyes extinguished, leaving only an eerie, hazy dark red.

He took a cotton handkerchief from his bosom and methodically wiped the blood from his palm. As soon as he opened his lips, another large amount of dark blood gushed out, splattering on the mirror-like floor tiles.

That eerie, dark red color stabbed at Zhao Yān’s eyes.

Wenren Lin had always been a lofty controller, even deciding life and death with composure and elegance, without weakness, without vulnerability. Seeing the blood continuously flowing from his lips, she was overwhelmed by a strong sense of cognitive collapse.

“What’s wrong, Grand Tutor?”

Zhao Yān finally found her voice, bewildered, instinctively raising her sleeve to wipe his blood-stained lips. “Are you injured? Should we call the Imperial Physician?”

Her wrist was gripped, and Zhao Yān was forced by a strong presence to back against the door, having to lift her head to look at Wenren Lin.

He was cold and handsome, with dark red at the corners of his eyes. This handsomeness took on a strange and intimidating bewitchment, making even one’s bones seem to tremble.

This wasn’t how an injured person should appear; it was more like…

Zhao Yān seemed to understand something, looking at the small red-lacquered medicine box on the nearby table.

Yes, she remembered now.

Wenren Lin would often suddenly disappear, then reappear after several days. Each time she smelled the frost-snow scent on Wenren Lin, it was at the beginning of the month or close to it.

During the chaos of the Hairpin Banquet incident, she had vaguely seen such gorgeous, bewitching eyes. Afterward, Wenren Lin had told her:

“After all, Your Highness saw this Prince in such a state during your detoxification.”

“Your Highness provoked at truly the wrong time, so this Prince had to be more careful.”

At that time, Zhao Yān didn’t understand Wenren Lin’s implied meaning, but now she was enlightened: Wenren Lin had been testing her.

When Wenren Lin discovered her secret of disguising herself as a man and impersonating her brother, she had also discovered Wenren Lin’s unknown secret.

“Seeing this Prince in such a state must be quite satisfying for Your Highness.”

As Wenren Lin raised his palm to support the back of her neck, his blood-stained lips still wore an affectionate smile. “Hasn’t Your Highness always wanted to find this Prince’s weakness? Now, Your Highness has found it.”

Zhao Yān looked into Wenren Lin’s dark red, cold eyes, very clear about what she should do at this moment.

Their gazes intertwined, adhered, each seeing the surging struggle in the other’s eyes.

Perhaps it was an instant, or perhaps it was a long time.

Finally, Wenren Lin was the first to lower his eyelids, and the hand holding the back of Zhao Yān’s neck slowly loosened.

He stood before her, his figure as tall as a mountain, pale yet powerful.

He laughed very softly, suppressing the sweet bloody taste surging in his chest, the corner of his mouth raising with a faint mockery: “Let’s end it all, kill this Prince…”

The self-mocking words abruptly stopped.

Zhao Yān instinctively stepped forward, raising her arms to encircle his waist.

Feeling the soft warmth entering his embrace, Wenren Lin was momentarily stunned.

Zhao Yān knew very clearly that rationally, she should seize this handle on Wenren Lin and use it to her advantage.

But she just gently embraced him.

Just as Wenren Lin knew that killing her would be the safest approach, yet still chose to place the power of life and death in her hands…

They had simply made choices that defied rationality, on equal terms.

During her visit to Prince Su’s mansion, Wenren Lin had said: Perhaps if the dignified Prince were to receive a hug, he would get better?

“Take your medicine, Grand Tutor.”

Feeling the cold body in her arms that was almost devoid of human warmth, Zhao Yān unconsciously tightened her embrace and comforted him: “Take the medicine first, then we’ll talk, alright?”

Her soft voice trembled with fear and helplessness.

Like sunlight shining into an ice mountain, for that moment, Wenren Lin truly forgot the cold, fierce energy seeping from his bone seams.

He said nothing, only raising his hand to stroke the back of the young woman’s head in his arms, slowly burying his nose in the hollow of her neck.

Sunlight seeped through the gaps in the door panels, falling on their shoulders, gilding the dust floating in the air.