“Did the Manor Master ever have a niece? Who exactly was your former Young Miss Long’er? Why is she no longer around? Did she have a daughter?”

Feng Jiu’er’s rapid string of questions left Long Yan utterly speechless — he could not answer a single one.

Feng Jiu’er stepped two paces closer to him. “Do I really look that much like Young Miss Long’er? Why was there a wooden figure in the Old Manor Master’s room to begin with, one that looked so much like me?”

“That isn’t you…” Long Yan said, then immediately caught himself, his expression shifting dramatically. “Miss Feng, you should know that our manor holds many… many secrets. Miss Feng, please ask no further.”

“Because you don’t want to deceive me, is that it?” So he simply wouldn’t let her ask — was that how it was?

Backed into a corner, Long Yan retreated step by step. He truly did not want to deceive her, yet there were many things he could not speak of.

They had only just stepped out of the manor, and already Long Yan was nearly being pressed back inside.

Finally, just as Long Yan was about to retreat onto the steps, Feng Jiu’er stopped. She looked at him, and all of a sudden the corners of her lips curved upward as she broke into a light, easy laugh. “Alright, alright — I was only teasing you. Look at the state you’re in. What a fright I’ve given you!”

Long Yan exhaled deeply and raised a hand to wipe his brow — his entire hand came back drenched in cold sweat.

“Miss Feng…” A little further inside, the estate guards were already at the gate. He said softly, “Allow me to see you back.”

“No need. I know this road well. Farewell!” Feng Jiu’er cupped her hands in parting, turned, and vaulted onto her horse in one swift motion. In the blink of an eye, horse and rider had already vanished in a trail of dust.

Long Yan could not help but exhale heavily with relief. Just now — had Feng Jiu been genuinely joking, or had she been probing him? What exactly had she been trying to find out?

Still, the fact that Feng Jiu had not pressed further was, at the very least, a genuine relief to him.

Had she continued, he didn’t know what she might have drawn out of him.

Strange — she was clearly an outsider, so why was it that he simply could not lie to her face?

This girl… she carried such a bearing, the bearing of a true young miss. The way she pressed him for answers was enough to make a man forget how to breathe.

Long Yan wiped the sweat from his brow once more. Only after confirming that Feng Jiu had gone far did he let out a long breath and walk back into the manor.

Feng Jiu had not gone far at all. After turning at the next junction, she simply stopped.

Lately, she had been seized by a peculiar feeling — a feeling she got from the Veiled Lady, and the same feeling she got from Lanyue.

She couldn’t quite put into words what the feeling was, only that, without any clear reason, she sensed these people might have some connection — some actual connection — to certain people from the past.

“Young Master.” From a distance, someone called out to her in a low voice.

Feng Jiu’er steered her horse toward him, gave a nod, then pressed her heels to the horse’s flanks and rode swiftly in the direction of Tianji Hall.

Back in her room, Feng Jiu’er had barely set down her medicine chest when Xing Zizhou stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him.

“Jiu’er, there’s finally news!”

“How is it?” Feng Jiu’er’s eyes lit up. She walked to the window and, with a lift of her hand, shut it firmly.

“Our people found hunters who used to live near those mountains. Back then, someone witnessed with their own eyes the Long Family’s master and young master escaping down the mountainside. The bandits never managed to take their lives.”

“Are you certain they fled on their own, rather than being killed and their bodies abandoned in the wilderness?” Feng Jiu’er’s heart clenched, and her breathing instantly grew unsteady.

“Yes. Those two hunters saw it with their own eyes at the time. They later moved away to different places and did not stay together.”

Xing Zizhou settled into a chair, accepted the tea Feng Jiu’er handed him, drained it in one go, and then looked back at her.

“They happened to be going up the mountain together back then and caught sight of the Long Family being set upon by the bandits. When they were found, the two men were living in separate locations — yet their accounts were entirely consistent.”

“At the time, some of the Long Family members did indeed die at the hands of the bandits. However, the young master and the master escaped together. Afterward, the bandits searched the mountain for them throughout the entire night.”

The two hunters remembered the incident vividly, for that night, fearing discovery, they had hidden in the forest without daring to move so much as a muscle for the entire night.

“After the bandits disposed of the bodies, they continued searching for that master and young master…”

“How did they know it was the master and young master who had escaped?” Feng Jiu’er knitted her brow in thought.

Xing Zizhou said, “They witnessed the slaughter unfold. The master and young master’s family retainers were utterly devoted to them — to give the master and young master a chance to flee, the retainers threw themselves in the way of blades without fear of death.”

Feng Jiu’er understood. When the retainers had urged her grandfather and uncle to run, they must have called out their names, and so the two hunters knew it was the masters who had escaped.

Every one of the Long Family — every single one — was a true hero, and every single one was loyal to the marrow.

Without realizing it, Feng Jiu’er had clenched her palms tight. Her warm eyes held a sting of unshed grief.

“There’s more, Jiu’er. You asked me to look into matters concerning Tianxia Manor. I haven’t been able to trace their origins yet, but some things do bear a resemblance to what you suspected.”

Xing Zizhou handed her the letters brought back by the agents he had dispatched.

Jiu’er took them and read through quickly.

Everything recorded pertained to events after Tianxia Manor had appeared. A few details from before its emergence were included, but not many.

No one knew where the Old Manor Master and Master Lanyue had come from. Their identities were shrouded in mystery — but then, in this day and age, how many people walked around with mysterious identities?

There were no identity registries, no fingerprint systems. How was she supposed to confirm whether someone was truly the person she suspected?

Xing Zizhou’s network was already impressively far-reaching — he had even managed to trace the origins of Fenghuang Manor, the predecessor of Tianxia Manor. And yet, in this era, verifying a person’s background was genuinely a difficult undertaking.

“Wait — do you have a portrait of the Long Family’s master?”

She was foolish. She had been truly foolish!

The Old Manor Master never received outsiders. Had she not stumbled in by chance, she would still have had no opportunity to see him.

Master Lanyue, too, never permitted outsiders to set eyes on the Old Manor Master. She was likely the only “outsider” who had seen the Old Manor Master in all these years.

When she had stumbled out of the Mountain Camellia Courtyard, Lanyue had been ready to silence her permanently.

Why silence her permanently? Was it not precisely because she had seen the Old Manor Master?

And she — she had no idea whatsoever what the Long Family’s master actually looked like!

Yet if someone who had already seen the Long Family’s master were to wander in there and come face to face with the old man — then, given Lanyue’s current circumstances, he would certainly be compelled to eliminate that person.

She was so foolish! So terribly foolish!

“Zizhou, quickly! Find a way to have a portrait of the Long Family’s master drawn for me — quickly!”

Was she not a complete fool? When she had already harbored suspicions, why hadn’t she pursued the simplest and most direct course of inquiry?

That wooden figure that looked so much like her… the Old Manor Master who had called her Long’er… the current Manor Master Lanyue, whose age matched that of the Long Family’s young master…

Feng Jiu’er — oh, Feng Jiu’er. This time, you were truly, completely foolish.