After the clan elders dispersed, she bid farewell to her parents, brother, uncle, and grandmother, then mounted Fusha and slowly rode along the mountain path toward the city.

Li Shubai rode beside her, turning his head to look at her in the oncoming wind.

“Zixia…” he called her name softly.

This seemed to be the first time he had called her this way.

Huang Zixia turned her head, looking toward his face.

He hadn’t said anything more when Diye had already leaped to Fusha’s side, suddenly bringing the distance between them to less than half a foot.

Their breaths mingled.

Huang Zixia turned her face away in embarrassment, but he spoke softly by her ear: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

Huang Zixia’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Those worries and concerns that had come and gone like floating clouds suddenly dissipated completely because of these eight words from him.

She lowered her head, remembering when she first came to his side as a little eunuch, she had also worried whether anyone would suspect her identity, and he had said, I will help you resolve it.

Indeed, except for Wang Yun, her identity had truly never been questioned.

She didn’t know what methods he had used. But she believed that what he said, he would accomplish. Because he was the Prince of Kui of the Great Tang, Li Shubai.

Zhou Ziqin, following behind them, caught up leisurely riding Xiaoxia, asking: “Chonggu, what are you smiling at the Prince for?”

Huang Zixia turned her face away, ignoring him.

“Aiya… anyway I’m just not used to the fact that you’re a woman, I still can’t help but think of you as Chonggu,” Zhou Ziqin said while circling her horse, front and back, saying, “Look, now you’re not even wearing that hairpin from before, you’ve changed to others, it takes some getting used to.”

Huang Zixia silently touched her temple, then turned to look at Li Shubai, slowly taking out a hairpin from her chest.

On the lustrous jade hairpin, the head was carved with a scroll grass pattern, below was a silver pin body. Pressing the scroll grass pattern would allow the jade pin inside to be pulled out without disheveling the hair.

She said softly: “I was afraid it would get lost if I left it in the governor’s mansion, so I’ve been carrying it with me.”

Li Shubai smiled slightly. Zhou Ziqin really couldn’t understand why they were smiling, and could only say in the end: “Alright, Chonggu… if you are Huang Zixia, then I just remembered something, something very serious!”

Huang Zixia looked at him questioningly.

Zhou Ziqin’s face was full of worry: “You’re Wang Yun’s fiancée, but all this time you’ve been the Prince’s little eunuch, this… when we return to the capital and people ask me where Yang Chonggu went, if I say Yang Chonggu married Wang Yun, what will people think about the Langya Wang family’s eldest grandson marrying a little eunuch?”

Both Li Shubai and Huang Zixia were shocked by his unusual train of thought, momentarily unable to respond.

“Right? So we need to think through problems thoroughly, I think the solution to this problem is very important, first, we should hold a grand reveal conference in Chang’an about Yang Chonggu’s identity…”

“Ziqin,” Li Shubai couldn’t help asking him, “Did you know your father recently had someone arrange another marriage proposal for you?”

“Oh? Really? Which family’s daughter?” Zhou Ziqin immediately threw the identity reveal conference to the winds, “Does she look like Huang Zi… oh, never mind that. Is she pretty? Is she clever? What about her personality?”

“Don’t know. Only heard that it was rejected again.”

“Haha… I’m used to it,” Zhou Ziqin waved his hand casually, “Don’t know why, but in the few days since I’ve come to Chengdu, everyone already knows I like handling corpses! There are even rumors that I sleep in piles of corpses every day—I think that would be fine, convenient for examining bodies, right? But actually, the morgue in Chengdu Prefecture is very cold, definitely couldn’t sleep there, right? Strange that everyone believed it, so when my father tries to trick someone’s daughter, he definitely won’t succeed…”

Although Zhou Ziqin’s rambling was endless, at least it didn’t involve them anymore, so Huang Zixia and Li Shubai just let it be.

Entering the city, following the stone-paved road straight ahead, Zhou Ziqin immediately spotted Second Miss, her mutton stall conspicuously set up in the middle of the road again.

“This is the last straw! Second Miss, how many times have I told you, to push your wheelbarrow to the side!” Zhou Ziqin jumped down from Xiaoxia, standing in the street with hands on his hips, shouting at her.

Second Miss was wielding her knife chopping meat, only glancing at him once, completely composed: “Oh, if it isn’t the foolish constable, haven’t you been rarely patrolling the streets lately, why are you here again?”

Hearing her words, for some reason, Zhou Ziqin’s face showed traces of nervousness and joy: “Recently… recently solved a huge case, haven’t you heard?”

“Of course, I heard! The Yang Eunuch from Prince Kui’s side rushed from the capital to Chengdu Prefecture, investigated for many days, and then solved three major cases in one night. These three cases were interconnected yet separate, truly a case within cases, mystery within mysteries, intricately linked with shocking inside stories—our Chengdu constable was helpless, totally relied on others.”

Second Miss spoke while pushing her wheelbarrow to the side, then went back to chopping ribs.

Zhou Ziqin dejectedly mounted his horse, and to save face, shouted once more: “Good, looks like you haven’t forgotten the line I drew for you last time! From now on keep your meat stall over there, don’t dare come out even an inch!”

Second Miss gave him a meaningful glance: “Got it, foolish constable!”

Zhou Ziqin’s face showed that mixture of nervousness and joy again, urging his horse to hurry forward. Seeing his expression, Huang Zixia couldn’t help asking: “What’s wrong?”

Zhou Ziqin’s face was slightly red as he stammered: “She… she called me ‘good constable’ in public, this title, it makes me a bit embarrassed…”

Huang Zixia couldn’t help but hold her forehead, laughing: “Ha constable!”

“What… wasn’t it ‘good constable’?” He finally understood, suddenly stunned. Seeing Huang Zixia still laughing, he could only grab her reins, asking, “What does ‘ha constable’ mean?”

Huang Zixia looked at him laughing, before she could speak, a passing old woman nearby said: “In our Sichuan dialect, ‘ha’ means foolish.”

Hearing this, even Li Shubai couldn’t help but laugh. Zhou Ziqin immediately became angry, throwing down a “You go ahead!” before turning his horse and charging back toward Second Miss.

Huang Zixia and Li Shubai watched as Zhou Ziqin, after dismounting, was reduced to crouching in a corner after just a few words from Second Miss, and couldn’t help exchanging amused glances.

Huang Zixia laughed: “Looks like this formidable Second Miss isn’t afraid of corpses.”

Li Shubai nodded once.

“What? Coming to argue with me? A grown man, already walked so far away, coming back just to argue about one word?” Second Miss’s voice carried from afar.

Zhou Ziqin shouted: “No! I came… I came back to buy fish!”

To prove his words, he pointed at the fish stall nearby, saying indignantly: “Boss, I’ll take everything, have it delivered to the magistrate’s office!”

Watching the fish vendor joyfully scooping up various small fish, Huang Zixia’s expression gradually became serious.

Li Shubai asked: “Thinking of Qi Teng’s little red fish?”

“Yes…” Huang Zixia pondered silently, “According to various signs when Master Shanshan first incited Yu Xuan to kill my family, that fish was still there. But after Yu Xuan attempted suicide at my parents’ grave and forgot everything, the fish disappeared.”

“I think something must have happened, otherwise when Qi Teng mentioned that fish, Yu Xuan’s expression wouldn’t have become so awful. Even if he couldn’t remember, that fish was extraordinarily significant in his unconscious mind.”

“And where did Qi Teng get the poison from? Also, what about Master Shanshan? Shouldn’t we go find him to ask as soon as possible?” Huang Zixia asked.

“He has achieved nirvana,” Li Shubai said.

She widened her eyes in surprise.

“At dawn today, when he was returning to Guangdu Temple, the Western Sichuan army escorted him to the temple gate. His meditation room was up the mountain, so he was climbing the steps. It was dark and slippery, and he was already elderly, he fell from the steps and passed away,” Li Shubai frowned, “I only learned of this when I sent someone to find him this morning.”

Huang Zixia said softly: “I wonder if Qi Teng’s little red fish has any connection with the one in your hands. And whether there’s any relationship with Wang Zongshi.”

“All the mysteries remain unsolved, yet these emerging clues have quickly been cut off. It makes one can’t help but wonder whether behind all these events, there is a huge hand that we cannot see pushing everything forward. We cannot see it, yet we can feel its existence.”

He looked back at her, ultimately still didn’t tell her that the talisman in his secret box had quietly changed color again.

They reined in their horses standing on the streets of Chengdu Prefecture, looking at the bustling city under the vast sky.

The hibiscus flowers throughout the city bloomed like brocade, spreading in large clusters between the thousands of households. Scenes of worldly life flowed before their eyes one after another, vibrant life, mysterious past, divergent destinies, they had nowhere to escape, and could only face everything directly.

The little fish quietly lurking in the glazed cup leaped out of the water, stirring up endless ripples.