Zhan Qingcheng’s brow darkened slightly, true energy instantly gathering beneath his palm.

Mu Mu drove Qing Ye and Qing Zhi back with a single strike, then leapt up on the rooftop, holding nothing back as he hurled his full force straight at Long Feiyan.

Suddenly, with a resounding boom, someone appeared before Long Feiyan, blocking Mu Mu’s blow with every ounce of strength they had.

Zhan Qingcheng’s gathered energy, however, withdrew the instant he saw who it was.

“Xue Gu?” Mu Mu steadied his footing, staring at Xue Gu standing protectively below the woman in white, his palm clenching. “Why?”

Zhan Qingcheng said nothing, but his cold gaze, too, fixed itself on Xue Gu.

She was someone Jiu’er trusted, someone who had stayed at Jiu’er’s side for so long, always watching over her.

And yet now, she was raising her hands against them for the sake of the very person who had hurt Feng Jiu’er.

In this moment, neither of them could be sure whether Xue Gu staying by Feng Jiu’er’s side all this time had truly been for some other purpose entirely.

“She would never hurt Jiu’er — never. Please, believe me.” Xue Gu glanced back at Long Feiyan, sweat beading across her forehead in her urgency.

Long Feiyan was on the verge of losing herself to deviant energy. If anyone fought her now, it would surely trigger the darkest, most demonic force buried deep within her.

“Don’t push her any further! If she loses control completely, neither of you will be a match for her! All three of you will perish together!”

Xue Gu knew it would be difficult to persuade Zhan Qingcheng, but she could still persuade Mu Mu.

“Mu Mu, go back and watch over Jiu’er. I will give you both an answer — I promise I will!”

Mu Mu said nothing, his thin, cool lips pressed tightly together.

How much did Jiu’er truly trust Xue Gu? Was the woman before him genuinely worthy of that trust — or was she, in truth, nothing but a traitor?

“Feng Yinan — did you injure her?” he asked coldly, his voice like ice.

“I swear before the heavens — if I were the one who hurt Yinan, may I be struck down by five thunderbolts and die a wretched death!”

Xue Gu’s gaze moved past Mu Mu to settle on Zhan Qingcheng. “The two of you coming here to confront her — this is certainly not what Jiu’er would wish. Give me three days. Within three days, I will give you both my answer, without fail.”

“Your Highness, I absolutely cannot allow any of the three of you to come to harm tonight. If something happened to you and Mu Mu both, with all her martial skill stripped away as she is now, how could she possibly protect herself?”

Danger lurked at every turn within the imperial city; eyes and informants from every faction were watching the Heavenly Mechanism Hall. With Feng Jiu’er in her current state, if even the two of them came to harm, who else would be left to protect her?

Surely the two of them could see the situation clearly enough for themselves?

Facing Xue Gu’s earnest gaze, Zhan Qingcheng’s expression remained cold as frost, his eyes settling instead on the woman in white.

There truly was, within her, an energy that even the two of them found difficult to withstand — and whether that energy turned righteous or demonic seemed to hinge on nothing more than a single thought of hers.

The woman in white had at last calmed somewhat, but if pushed too far, that energy could slip entirely beyond her control — and once she lost herself to it completely, she might well drag everyone down with her in mutual destruction.

And if the two of them met disaster as well, who would be left to protect that girl?

Zhan Qingcheng let out a cold huff, and at last turned and vanished into the night.

Mu Mu’s large hand fell to his side; he cast one more glance at Xue Gu, his eyes carrying both suspicion and wariness, before pushing off and disappearing in an instant as well.

Qing Ye and Qing Zhi both let out a heavy sigh of relief. With the two brothers fighting together, the situation had truly been impossible to handle — even their own mistress had been unable to withstand them both.

Could it be that the only way to defeat those two would be to drive their mistress fully into losing control?

That price would have been far too steep!

In the darkness of night, both Zhan Qingcheng and Mu Mu’s figures had long since disappeared.

Long Feiyan landed lightly back on the rooftop, her cold eyes fixed on Xue Gu.

Xue Gu turned, and suddenly dropped to her knees with a thud, her voice hoarse with overwhelming emotion. “This servant… this servant pays respects to her mistress!”

Long Feiyan said nothing. A cool evening breeze swept past, gently stirring her dark hair, and the violent killing intent in her eyes at last began to fade away.

Xue Gu remained kneeling before her, her fingertips trembling. “Mistress has lived within this deep palace for so many years, and this servant never even knew. This servant deserves death!”

Worst of all was this: her mistress had been alive the entire time, and yet after years of searching in vain, Xue Gu had grown disheartened and retreated to Snow Lotus Mountain.

All these many years since, she had never once searched for her again.

She should have kept searching, should have continued the search — surely, one day, she would have found her.

But back then, she had simply believed, as everyone else did, that her mistress was truly gone.

It was her fault. All of it was her fault!

Jiu’er had said she was entering the palace to treat the masked Lady’s leg. Though Xue Gu had never seen the injury with her own eyes, most of the medicinal herbs the masked Lady required had been prepared by Xue Gu herself.

The masked Lady’s leg had been paralyzed for many years — which meant her mistress had suffered this injury for that long, and yet Xue Gu had not spent even a single day attending to her mistress’s side!

She deserved death! She truly deserved death!

“Mistress, please forgive this servant — please forgive me!”

Xue Gu prostrated herself at Long Feiyan’s feet, but Long Feiyan only continued to gaze coldly down at her, saying not a word.

Qing Ye walked over and looked at Xue Gu. “Our mistress is injured. Let’s discuss this further once we’re inside.”

“Mistress…” Xue Gu lifted her head to look up at her. Though Long Feiyan’s face was veiled, her pallor was still faintly visible.

Had she not insisted on coming tonight to see who had injured Jiu’er, she might never have known, for the rest of her life, that the masked Lady Jiu’er had been treating all along was none other than her own mistress.

And had she not arrived just in time to see her mistress clash with the Ninth Prince, she might never have realized the masked woman was Long Feiyan at all.

Who could possibly know Long Feiyan better than she did? After so many years at Long Feiyan’s side, she could recognize every single one of her moves at a single glance, even after more than a decade apart.

Just as, when she had once seen Tuoba Keyan fight, she had instantly recognized that his techniques had been taught by Long Feiyan herself.

Everything seemed to lie beyond the reach of fate, and yet, all of it had truly been fate’s own design.

Long Feiyan had indeed been injured. The moment they stepped through the door, the sheer veil over her face was already stained a deep red with fresh blood.

The combined strength of the Ninth Prince and Mu Mu truly was beyond what an ordinary person could withstand — even someone as formidable as her mistress had ended up wounded by the two brothers.

After checking Long Feiyan’s pulse and channeling her own energy to help steady her breathing, Xue Gu knelt once more beside the bed, her heart filled with remorse.

“All these years — have you always stayed close to Jiu’er?” Long Feiyan leaned back against the headboard, closing her eyes to calm her breathing.

“No. Ten years ago, I went to the Feng family once to look in on her, and found that the young mistress had become a foolish, addled girl. I thought to myself — if she had truly lost her mind, perhaps that wasn’t entirely a bad thing for her. So this servant retreated to Snow Lotus Mountain, and remained in seclusion for ten years.”

“If she had truly lost her mind… perhaps that really would have been a good thing.”

Long Feiyan drew a deep breath, forcing her disordered breathing to slowly calm.

“Mistress, this is this servant’s fault. All these years, I did not stay by the young mistress’s side, and let her suffer endlessly because of it. I deserve death!”

Had she not returned to the Feng family ten years later and seen with her own eyes the position Feng Jiu’er held within that household, she would never have known that the Feng family had treated Jiu’er so poorly.

She had once thought that, being addled in mind, the Feng family would at least be a safe harbor for the girl — never imagining it would instead be nothing but a blazing abyss.