The veiled woman — could she be the veiled consort from the palace?

If it truly was that veiled consort, then it was hardly surprising that she had managed to wound the Ninth Imperial Uncle. The crucial point was that the Ninth Imperial Uncle had already sustained injuries on Ice Blue Mountain beforehand.

Still, Feng Jiu’er was genuinely worried.

Although the Ninth Imperial Uncle had been injured, the veiled consort had not exactly come away at an advantage either. After all, her legs had only just healed, and with her vital energy still depleted, she would need some time to recuperate.

Once the veiled consort had fully recovered and the Ninth Imperial Uncle’s wounds had healed, should the two of them truly come to blows, even Feng Jiu’er had no way of predicting who would prove the more formidable.

“Do you not know her identity? Why did she come at you?”

Zhan Qingcheng continued to eat, appearing entirely uninterested in the subject.

Feng Jiu’er’s expression darkened, her displeasure evident. “Ninth Imperial Uncle, I am speaking to you.”

“Unknown.” Perhaps Feng Jiu’er knew more about that woman’s identity than he did — after all, the two of them had had considerably more contact.

As for him, such matters fell well outside the range of things he found worth his attention.

Though the woman’s martial skill was formidable, she had harbored no intent to kill him.

In the way Zhan Qingcheng’s mind worked, anyone who did not wish him dead was, for the time being, not an enemy. Only when that person actually sought his life would they become a true adversary.

The only reason he had bothered expending so much effort to have people trail those individuals was for Feng Jiu’er’s sake.

“What topics do you actually find interesting?” Carrying on a conversation with the Ninth Imperial Uncle was enough to kill any exchange dead — you could never find a thread to pull, leaving the two of you simply staring at each other in silence. Besides warfare and martial training, was there anything in this world the Ninth Imperial Uncle cared about?

This man was truly no different from a block of wood.

Zhan Qingcheng set down his chopsticks and fixed his gaze upon her. “You.”

“Ahem — I’ll have someone tidy things away.” She had not even noticed that, in the blink of an eye, he had finished off nearly half the dishes on the table. The way he had devoured everything, it was as though he had not eaten in ages.

The moment she thought of all the trouble the Ninth Imperial Uncle had gone through for that Blood Lingzhi, she found herself at a loss for what to feel. He must not show her kindness — the slightest tenderness from him and she would crumble. She would fall completely.

After the servants had cleared the table, Feng Jiu’er looked at the man sitting nearby, calmly sipping his tea with an air of perfect ease. She hesitated for quite a while before finally speaking. “You should go back.”

Though sending him away now felt a touch too cruel — especially after glimpsing that profound, unfathomable depth in his eyes — she could not shake the feeling that asking him to leave was terribly unreasonable of her.

A Ninth Imperial Uncle as extraordinary as him: who in the world would bear to wound him even slightly?

But he truly needed to go. She had said it plainly from the beginning — she did not want him entangled in her affairs in any way.

Zhan Qingcheng paid her no heed whatsoever. Whenever Feng Jiu’er asked him to leave, he would develop a convenient, selective deafness. He simply could not hear it.

“Ninth Imperial Uncle, you have your grand ambitions to pursue. I hope what happened will not occur again. My affairs are mine to handle — there is no need for…”

“Has this Prince ever said he was going to help you?” As for her entering the palace — when had he ever tried to stop her?

He was now referring to himself as “this Prince” — was he angry?

Then again, anger was fine. He could sulk all the way home for all she cared — she was hardly in a position to host someone as esteemed as the Ninth Prince here.

The Overlooking Moon master of the World’s Finest Manor was her own maternal uncle. That same uncle, over a month ago, had slipped into the imperial palace to attempt an assassination of Emperor Qiwen — and yet here stood Zhan Qingcheng, still the Ninth Prince of the imperial Zhan clan.

Given how tangled these relationships were, the safest course of action was clear: until the matter of the World’s Finest Manor had been resolved, she needed to keep her distance from the Ninth Prince.

What if the Ninth Imperial Uncle discovered the World’s Finest Manor’s secret? Jiu’er genuinely did not know what he would do. Whatever choice he made would put him in an impossible position.

If it was going to place him in an impossible position, why put him there at all?

“You were the one who brought back the Blood Lingzhi, weren’t you?” she asked.

Zhan Qingcheng raised an eyebrow and glanced at her, his tone indifferent. “And if I was?”

“I told you — I do not need your help. I have my own ways of dealing with things.” For the past two consecutive full moon nights, she had been administering medicine to both herself and Tuoba Keyan.

The effects were admittedly slow, but the poison was at least being purged, bit by bit. Given enough time, it would be eliminated entirely.

“This Prince did not bring back the Blood Lingzhi for you. I simply no longer wanted it by the time I arrived here, so I discarded it on the spot.”

“…” What could one say to such brazen, shameless reasoning? You knew perfectly well there was no logic to it — and yet he delivered every word with the most solemn sincerity, leaving you with nothing to refute. There was truly only one word for it: respect.

Feng Jiu’er drew a long breath. “Very well, then. I only ask that the Prince refrain from casually discarding his unwanted rubbish in my quarters in future. I — Ninth Imperial Uncle, what are you doing?”

She considered herself quite capable, but in front of the Ninth Imperial Uncle, she was entirely outmatched. He moved so fast she had not even time to react before she found herself tossed onto the bed.

“You are injured — don’t do anything reckless!”

“You think the Blood Lingzhi this Prince went through such hardship to bring back is rubbish?” His eyes darkened to a deep, stormy shade, his expression iron-cold and forbidding.

Though Feng Jiu’er’s outward composure held, the truth was she had been frightened by the cold fury radiating from him. He was a blazing fire — and yet when he burned, he burned with a chill that reached this depth. Such a contradiction: as cold as ice, as scorching as flame. It was genuinely terrifying.

“But… didn’t you yourself… say so?” Feng Jiu’er swallowed nervously, pressing both hands against his chest, instinctively trying to push him away, yet afraid of aggravating his wounds.

There were several gashes across his chest from where some beast had clawed him. Though they were surface wounds, they were no minor injuries.

Jiu’er was afraid that if she pushed too hard, she would cause him pain.

Zhan Qingcheng gave a low sound of displeasure. “This Prince said he could. You said he could not.”

“You are too overbearing.”

“This Prince is overbearing — what are you going to do about it?”

“…” Fine. When you were that handsome, you had the final say. He was being this unreasonable — what else could she do?

“In any case, from now on you should not…”

“I will. What are you going to do about it?”

“…” She found herself with nothing left to say. The Ninth Imperial Uncle could be quite agreeable sometimes, but at others, he was truly impossible to manage.

“Could we at least discuss this reasonably?” She was barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes.

But the Ninth Imperial Uncle paid her no attention at all. He lowered his head and buried his face in the curve of her neck, and said nothing more.

“Ninth Imperial Uncle?”

Before long, the sound of quiet, even breathing rose — soft, but unmistakably deep in slumber.

If he had not exhausted himself completely on the journey back, how could he have fallen into such profound sleep within moments of lying down?

In that moment, her hand rested against his long hair, gently passing through it. Jiu’er felt something in her chest slowly, quietly settle.

Her Ninth Imperial Uncle was, in truth, quite easy to manage. But he had his bottom lines.

And those bottom lines were simply this: she must not distance herself from him; she must not reject him; she must not refuse him.

These were the Ninth Imperial Uncle’s bottom lines with her. As long as she did not cross these three lines, the Ninth Imperial Uncle would give her virtually anything she asked for.

And yet it was precisely these three sweet, simple lines that were the most impossible to keep.