Ming Li reached out to cup his face, her fingers gently pressing against his brow bone, “Really, nothing wrong?”

Zhou Zixi looked at her without speaking.

After a moment, he said, “Senior Sister, are you not eating because they’re burnt?”

“No, no,” Ming Li stopped bothering him and turned to pick up the plate, leaving the kitchen.

Zhou Zixi wandered around the boat, walking to the stern where he saw Cui Yuanxi with only his head sticking out of the box, and Jiang Ying lying unconscious on the ground, chained with iron.

Ming Li poked her head out of the window and called, “Zixi?”

She started calling out when she couldn’t see him for just a moment.

Zhou Zixi heard her call and turned back, walking over to ask, “Why did you bring these wastes on board?”

Ming Li, with a slightly burnt fish cake in her mouth, spoke somewhat unclearly, “Need to switch back Qing Ying’s star meridians.”

Zhou Zixi: “Why not just kill that man?”

Ming Li shook her head and said, “Death is easy, but he shouldn’t die too easily.”

That was true.

Zhou Zixi leaned against the side of the boat, his gaze passing over Ming Li to Qing Ying sitting behind her. He slightly lifted his chin and asked, “Senior Sister, how do you plan to persuade Xiang An’ge to help save Qing Ying?”

Ming Li bit into the fish cake and tilted her head, “Just say, help me save my junior sister.”

And then Xiang An’ge would agree.

Zhou Zixi narrowed his eyes.

He hadn’t paid much attention to Xiang An’ge before because Xiang An’ge and Ming Li only had exchanges about artifact techniques, discussing star meridian spiritual skills, all very serious, without ulterior motives.

Unlike Song Tianjiu from Dong Yang, who would inquire about Ming Li’s well-being from a great distance and frequently visit Bei Dou in person just to make his presence known.

At one point, people were buzzing about whether there would be happy news between Dong Yang and Bei Dou, which infuriated him so much that he didn’t leave his room for several months, unwilling to hear such gossip.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zixi suddenly said, “I asked Cheng Jingbai, and he said that after you died, Song Tianjiu from Dong Yang immediately went to Bei Jing Gui Yuan and also died.”

Ming Li nodded, “It seems that way.”

Zhou Zixi: “Seems that way?”

He asked directly, “Song Tianjiu didn’t go and die there for you?”

Ming Li directly denied it, “Impossible. He’s not that kind of person.”

Zhou Zixi laughed when he heard this, “Not that kind of person? Senior Sister, you’re so certain?”

“He didn’t like me that way,” Ming Li explained patiently. “If he had rushed to Bei Jing Gui Yuan to die for something like that, Dong Yang would have hated Bei Dou long ago, and Song Tianyi’s attitude toward Bei Dou wouldn’t be as it is now.”

Those who cultivate the Heart Meridian are clever, insightful, and very sensitive to subtle emotions. Song Tianjiu had made seemingly ambiguous gestures, but Ming Li knew that wasn’t his intention.

All Heart Meridian experts understood what schemes they could and couldn’t attempt with a Pilgrim. Song Tianjiu was the type who, even if his ulterior motives were exposed, behaved just appropriately enough not to offend.

He had mastered the perfect balance, neither too much nor too little.

Such a meticulously calculating person would never go crazy for “love,” but would always remain rational.

On the contrary, she was the one among the seven Pilgrims most likely to “go crazy for love.”

Regarding why Song Tianjiu went to Bei Jing Gui Yuan, Ming Li already had several guesses in mind, some good and some bad, but since they were just guesses, she didn’t share them. After finishing the fried fish cake, she took a sip of the fresh, warm fish soup, once again reminiscing about her daily life back at Bei Dou.

Zhou Zixi seemed to have taken her explanation to heart, or perhaps he simply lost interest in the topic and stopped asking about it. At Ming Li’s prompting, he selected from the hairpins and hair ties she had bought to braid her hair.

Ming Li held the soup bowl, occasionally lowering her head for a sip. “You want the Supreme Divine Warriors from all four sects?”

Zhou Zixi: “No.”

“That’s what Cheng Jingbai said. He said next they’re going to steal the Star-Shattering Slip from Tai Yi,” Ming Li said, about to turn her head to look at him, but Zhou Zixi pressed her forehead and pushed her back. She blinked and said, “I didn’t know you wanted the Boundless Mirror. If you had told me earlier, I wouldn’t have shattered it.”

Zhou Zixi remained nonchalant: “Who would have thought my Senior Sister would be so formidable even at Single Meridian Full Boundary. It’s broken, so it’s broken.”

After speaking, he seemed to recall something and looked down at her, asking, “But Senior Sister, your star meridians are different from before. Since you could summon the Divine Wood Bow, you must have notified Bei Dou that you were still alive from the beginning.”

Ming Li thought for a moment and said, “When I died, a great fire broke out in the Ghost Plains, and everything was burnt… Those Pilgrim Flames that could burn everything in the world—I don’t know whether to say they failed to burn away my original star meridians, or if they burned new star meridians into me.”

Her explanation was somewhat convoluted and included several guesses, but Zhou Zixi understood.

Senior Sister had come back to life, but she was a few years younger, seemingly at the age when she had just become a Pilgrim, one or two years in.

Time had reversed solely for her, perhaps reversing her star meridians to that time as well, while stripping away her level.

“It can devour star power attacks, but regardless of friend or foe, it also consumes a lot of star power when I use spiritual techniques. Occasionally, I can bypass it and connect with my original star meridian power, but after the Nan Que incident, I suddenly felt… It’s not something that’s giving me trouble.”

Ming Li pondered thoughtfully, “It might be protecting my original star meridians from being destroyed.”

Looking at it from a different perspective, the Pilgrim Flames weren’t suppressing her, but protecting her.

Zhou Zixi focused on braiding her hair without asking further questions.

Ming Li ate and drank her fill, then practiced some Yin Meridian spiritual techniques. Time passed quickly, and Zhou Zixi didn’t leave, standing by the boat and talking with her, though more often he was quietly watching the water surface below the boat.

At their sailing speed, they would reach the Boundless Nation’s territory by sunset the next day.

Ming Li wanted to ask Zhou Zixi what he was planning to do, but he simply wouldn’t tell her. When annoyed by her questions, he would frown, and Ming Li would change the subject before he could say something harsh.

“Senior Brother has disappeared,” she leaned out the window, hanging her head with a dispirited expression. “An impostor stayed at Bei Dou for so many years, so where is Senior Brother?”

Zhou Zixi: “Do you think he was switched before the conflict at Bei Jing Gui Yuan, or during it?”

Ming Li thought about it. Before the Beijing Gui Yuan conflict, the first to leave Beijing was her Senior Brother Chen Zhou.

But he had left to train and break through the final stage of the Heart Meridian.

Then came Qing Ying.

Lastly were Zhou Zixi and Dong Yexun. Starting from the day these two left, she began receiving news of anomalies at Bei Jing Gui Yuan. Small conflicts grew into large ones, and the outer tribes’ attack was more fierce than anyone had imagined, impossible to withstand, completely wiping out the Da Qin army stationed at the border.

The attack came with such force and suddenness that it diverted all of Ming Li’s attention to the conflict at Bei Jing Gui Yuan, even causing her to leave Bei Dou.

The thirty-three outer tribes’ attack on the inner city of the north was not a sudden occurrence, but something planned over a long period.

Before that, why hadn’t she noticed anything unusual?

As Ming Li was lost in thought, Zhou Zixi said, “Senior Sister, Senior Brother also had a Seven Star Token when he left. Guess whether he used it or not.”

Ming Li: “He might have been in a situation like Qing Ying where he couldn’t use the Seven Star Token.”

But Zhou Zixi looked at Qing Ying behind her: “Didn’t she see Senior Brother? If she knew Senior Brother had met with misfortune, she would have certainly smashed the Seven Star Token immediately. Why didn’t she use it then?”

Why didn’t she use it?

There was probably only one reason: the Seven Star Token couldn’t transmit messages.

Places that could restrict Seven Star Token communications would also be places that restricted the use of star power.

How many such places existed in the world?

Ming Li could think of dozens, but searching through them one by one would be less efficient than simply asking Qing Ying. Unfortunately, Qing Ying couldn’t speak now.

That night passed in contemplation. Ming Li didn’t even notice when Zhou Zixi left. After calling for him for a while on the boat and not seeing him, she finally confirmed that her junior brother had truly disappeared.

*

The next day, Ming Li got up after hearing a thud from the back of the boat. She went to the stern and saw that the box containing Cui Yuanxi had fallen over, and he was struggling to speak.

Ming Li crouched down to look at him. “What do you want to say?”

Before Cui Yuanxi could speak, Jiang Ying, curled up to the side, raised her head and spoke incoherently, “I… I’m pregnant… the child…”

Ming Li looked past Cui Yuanxi at her and calmly said, “So what? I won’t kill your child, nor will I kill you. I’m just taking back my junior sister’s star meridian power.”

Jiang Ying couldn’t believe it, raising her head almost hysterically, “How could you kill even an unborn child?”

Ming Li gave a slight laugh, fearless in the face of her accusations and curses. She looked down at Cui Yuanxi, who was opening his mouth, and heard him stammer, “Chen… Zhou… I… know…”

Understanding his meaning, Ming Li flicked a medicinal pill into his mouth, supplementing his star power to repair his body so he could speak.

Cui Yuanxi swallowed the pill in his throat, gathered himself, and said, “Qing Ying…”

Ming Li: “Think carefully before you speak.”

Cui Yuanxi struggled to say, “Let me see Qing Ying… and I’ll tell you… where Chen Zhou… is.”

Ming Li stood up, looking down at him, “You want to use Senior Brother to threaten me, to make me compromise and give you Qing Ying for information about Senior Brother.”

“Quite bold.”

Cui Yuanxi’s gaze followed her, and despite having no limbs to move with, he still desperately tried to crawl on the ground, “I want Qing Ying…”

Ming Li pulled the iron chain around his neck, dragging him back into the box. “If you want to see Qing Ying again in the latter half of your life, try your best.”

From now on, you’ll live in hell, but Qing Ying won’t even glance back at you.

Cui Yuanxi soon experienced the feeling of his internal organs being squeezed, crying out in pain.

The water surface became increasingly vast, the mountains on both sides gradually disappeared, and the river extended as far as the eye could see. The boat advanced toward the setting sun, and the people following Ming Li watched as the wooden boat vanished on the water’s surface. They all became alert, looking around.

When they tried to approach the area, they were driven back by a powerful star force.

The sunset hung at the edge of the sky, half-submerged in the water.

Ming Li stood at the bow, looking ahead at the seemingly boundless water that appeared very open. A column of water rose, and the young ruler of the Boundless Nation stood on the water’s surface, raising his head to meet the gaze of the person standing at the bow.

“I heard you were still alive, which was quite surprising,” Xiang An’ge said. “I’m very happy that you came to see me first after returning alive, but isn’t it a bit much to bring Cui Yaocen’s brother as a gift?”

Ming Li: “He’s not a gift for you.”

Xiang An’ge asked, “Then what is my gift?”

Good question.

Ming Li fell into a brief silence.

The shadow reflected on the water was tall and slender. Xiang An’ge’s fair face and serious expression made him look even younger than his actual age.

“Your gift is an opportunity, a rare chance to perform the Blood Nourishment technique a second time,” Ming Li fabricated with a straight face. “And not just that, but to perform it on a puppet. In the entire Tonggu Continent, you’re the only one who can do this.”

Xiang An’ge raised an eyebrow and smiled, “I like this gift. Come in.”

The river water suddenly dispersed, and the water area turned into land. As the lord of the Boundless Nation turned, numerous tall buildings rose. Countless substitution spirits with simple line-drawing faces wandered through the streets and buildings. Substitution spirits dressed as guards and palace maids waited by the boat, extending arms made of dried branches to welcome the guests ashore.

Ming Li led Qing Ying off the boat, hearing Xiang An’ge say, “Can you leave the young master of Nan Que on the boat?”

Ming Li said, “No.”

Xiang An’ge sighed, “I don’t want Cui Yaocen chasing me here for her brother.”

It wasn’t that he was afraid of losing a fight, but rather that he didn’t want to damage the flowers and plants of his Boundless Nation.

Ming Li said, “Don’t worry, before you heal my junior sister, Cui Yaocen, won’t be able to get out.”