Before Feng Jiu’er could make out who the newcomer was, the palm force was already upon her. She wanted to dodge, but even that was too late.

Feng Jiu’er immediately sent out a palm strike to meet it. With a thunderous boom, everything around them shuddered.

At the same moment, Ye Luosha and Emperor Ji both sprang forward and attacked Feng Jiu’er in concert.

For an instant, Feng Jiu’er could not react in time, and was sent crashing to the ground.

She pressed a hand over her chest, raised her gaze, and looked at the three people standing before her.

The slender crescent moon was fairly bright, yet its light was blocked by the figures encircling her.

Feng Jiu’er looked at the last arrival, bit her lip, and pushed herself to her feet.

“Is that you?”

The newcomer’s face was almost entirely destroyed, and yet she had never needed to conceal it — once Feng Jiu’er saw it, she could not forget it.

“Are you Ninth Imperial Uncle’s master? Or rather — are you actually Ninth Imperial Uncle’s birth mother?”

No wonder that every time she had tried to think of the woman who had saved them, she had felt an unfamiliar kind of familiarity — it turned out she possessed a pair of eyes identical to Ninth Imperial Uncle’s own.

Jingxin Shiite looked at Feng Jiu’er and gave no reply.

Ye Luosha glanced at Jingxin Shitai, then shifted her gaze to Feng Jiu’er.

“Feng Jiu’er, you cannot escape today. Would you rather we act — or will you end it yourself?”

“So she truly is Ninth Imperial Uncle’s birth mother? And yet even he has no idea his own mother is still alive?”

Feng Jiu’er’s gaze remained fixed on Jingxin Shitai, paying no heed to Ye Luosha.

She drew in a slow breath, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly. “Perhaps if you had let him know sooner that his mother still lived, his life would not have had to be as it was.”

“He lives to restore the Di dynasty.” Jingxin Shitai’s voice was detached and cold, like ice upon a mountain peak — not a trace of warmth in it.

“Your presence is what changed all of that.”

Feng Jiu’er was not without fear for her own life — and now, with Ninth Imperial Uncle’s master added to the opposition, escaping would be no easy matter.

But there were certain things she truly could not reason her way through.

“What do you mean by ‘the life he should have’? Is this truly how Ninth Imperial Uncle is meant to live?”

“He has lived all these years — is it right that beyond hatred and slaughter, he should be allowed not even a fraction of a life that belongs to him alone?”

Feng Jiu’er’s agitation carried a depth of heartache; she drew in another breath, and only then did her breathing steady.

“Tomorrow is the day of our wedding. If I vanish without warning, he will go mad. He has already gone mad once before — and you all know it, don’t you?”

The memory of Di Wuya’s eyes in their most desperate moment rose before her, and Feng Jiu’er felt something worse than death.

She had concealed her identity and lived elsewhere for half a year; she had heard he had searched for her for that entire half year. Feng Jiu’er felt both sweetness and sorrow in the same breath.

If she truly died the day before their wedding, how long would it take her Ninth Imperial Uncle to forget her?

“No!” Feng Jiu’er suddenly cried out and leapt into the air once more.

She still had so much to say to him, still wanted to give him children — she could not die, at least, not now.

“That girl is full of schemes — don’t let her get away.” Ye Luosha was the first to react, springing upward in pursuit.

Emperor Ji and Jingxin Shitai rose from the ground simultaneously.

In an instant, dead grass and dust swirled up in great rolling clouds, making it impossible to see anything within the combat circle.

All around, there was only the sound of palm force clashing against palm force, and the sound of the palm force’s trailing power shattering rock.

Feng Jiu’er was more than a match for Ye Luosha and Emperor Ji alone, but with the supremely skilled Jingxin Shitai now added to their number, she quickly found herself at a disadvantage.

Three days and two nights of exhausting circumstances had already been wearing her down — this should have been a time for proper rest, and yet the heavens had chosen to deal her this most devastating blow.

Before long, with another thunderous boom, the mountain ravine shuddered once more.

A single pair of hands, however swift, could not match three pairs. Feng Jiu’er was struck by one of Jingxin Shitai’s palms.

Her body was flung into the air like a kite with its string cut, plummeting rapidly downward — and yet she still refused to die.

Who, if they could live, would choose to die?

And besides, at home there was a man who loved her deeply, waiting for her — she did not want to die, and could not afford to.

Feng Jiu’er looked back over her shoulder, tensed herself with sudden sharp alertness, and twisted her body to return.

Just barely evading the peril of tumbling over the cliff’s edge, she fell even harder nonetheless.

Feng Jiu’er’s small frame struck the surface of the cliff with a resounding crash, raising a great billow of dust all around.

She pressed a hand over her chest, sat up, her head swimming with dizziness.

“I — cannot die!”

“I’m afraid that is no longer up to you.” Ye Luosha fixed her with a hard stare and said coldly.

Jingxin Shitai looked at Feng Jiu’er; the killing intent in her eyes was at its most intense.

“I will not allow anyone to change his life. If there is blame to be placed — blame yourself for loving the wrong person.”

The words had scarcely left her lips when she unleashed her full measure of power and drove a palm straight toward Feng Jiu’er.

Feng Jiu’er watched the oncoming palm force with wide-open eyes, a single thread of light remaining in her gaze.

Wherever the palm force reached, even massive boulders were swept up — in her current state, how could she possibly withstand it?

Seeing there was no way to evade, Feng Jiu’er swiftly sealed several acupoints on her own body.

In the end, she took Jingxin Shitai’s palm full on, and her entire being was sent airborne.

A white-robed figure plunged rapidly downward. At the cliff’s edge, only her two glistening teardrops remained, drifting with the wind.

In that moment, Feng Jiu’er’s mind was in utter turmoil. Was she truly going to die?

If she died, would everyone grieve?

Ninth Imperial Uncle — promise her: if she truly died, forget her.

The scenes she had been replaying in her mind as she lay in bed earlier came flooding back again now — from sweetness to bitterness, in the space of a heartbeat’s turn.

Was this truly where her life would end? What a pity — there was no one to answer her that question.

On the cliff above, all the dust and chaos settled.

Ye Luosha and Emperor Ji both dropped to their knees together, and spoke in one voice: “We pay our respects to the Moon Empress.”

“Rise.” Zhan Liyue gave a wave of her hand.

“Yes.” Ye Luosha rose to her feet; Emperor Ji returned to his seat in his wheelchair.

“Have all the necessary preparations been made?” Zhan Liyue asked in a low, measured voice.

“Everything has been prepared.” Ye Luosha folded her hands in salute.

“Good.” Zhan Liyue gave a small nod. “This matter is of the utmost importance — there can be no mistakes.”

“Yes.” Ye Luosha inclined her head again. “I guarantee there will be no oversights whatsoever.”

Zhan Liyue cast a glance toward the edge of the cliff, gave a flick of her sleeves, and turned to leave.

All of this — should end now.

In Feng Jiu’er’s courtyard, Qiao Mu tossed and turned in her own bed, unable to fall asleep.

Unable to sleep no matter what she tried, she got up, threw a robe over her shoulders, took up her silver spear, and walked out.

Outside Feng Jiu’er’s side chamber, two maidservants kept watch. When they saw Qiao Mu, they both folded their hands in greeting.

Qiao Mu paid them no mind, pushed open the door, walked into the main hall, and went straight to the inner chamber.

“Jiu’er, I can’t sleep either — I’m sleeping with you tonight.” Without even knocking, Qiao Mu pushed open the inner chamber door.

What she had not expected was that she could not sense a trace of another person’s presence.

Qiao Mu, who had been restless and uneasy in her heart all this while, quickened her pace and came to the bedside.

The quilt on the bed had been thrown back, the boots were gone — but the outer robe was still draped over the side of the bed.

She looked up at the open window, gave a slight furrow of her elegant brows, and quickly turned to stride away.

“Something’s wrong.”