Yan Sanhe looked deeply at Lu Shi.

“What about you then?”

“Me?”

“Did you just let her spend her life with nothing but a solitary lamp and Buddhist sutras?”

“Her choice was my choice.”

“Not because of disdain?”

Lu Shi smiled gently, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes gathering.

“We spent seven years together day and night. What always appears in my mind now is that one night when she tripped and fell, climbed up indignantly, lifted her head, and revealed a face full of grievance.”

That day, hiding behind the stable, he watched such a beautiful girl—for a moment he thought the moon had become a spirit.

Yan Sanhe’s tears fell without warning in this instant. When she noticed them herself, a brocade handkerchief was pressed into her hand.

Looking up, she met a pair of deep black eyes.

“Wipe them.”

Xie Zhifei tucked the handkerchief into Yan Sanhe’s hand, then smiled apologetically at Lu Shi.

“Great Elder, this girl is good in every way—just too soft-hearted.”

“You’re the soft-hearted one!”

Yan Sanhe wiped her tears while glaring at Xie Zhifei.

“I just think they’ve had it too hard all these years.”

“Great Elder, look at her…” Xie Zhifei looked helpless after being glared at.

“Child, don’t cry.”

Lu Shi’s gaze swept across both their faces, a slight smile appearing.

“It wasn’t just about the issues between her and me. Later, there was actually an even more important reason.”

Yan Sanhe sniffled. “I know—the Former Crown Prince fell.”

“He fell so suddenly, without any warning.”

Lu Shi’s expression slowly grew heavy. “I wasn’t in the capital at the time. By the time I learned of it, the whole world had already changed.”

“You weren’t implicated?”

“A hidden chess piece is a hidden chess piece. Until the moment of death, no one knows who placed you on the board.”

Lu Shi: “I also have him to thank for burying me so thoroughly.”

“And then?”

“I continued as my censor, she continued as her nun.”

Lu Shi paused, laughing bitterly: “Only from then on, in life or death, we could never meet again.”

These words made Yan Sanhe’s heart ache once more.

The person who took the throne was formidable to this extent, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard penetrated everywhere. How could they not find out the final whereabouts of a former Crown Prince’s Grand Tutor’s daughter?

They spared her life only because she was an orphaned girl who had entered the Buddhist gate and could no longer stir up any trouble.

And if Lu Shi wanted to overturn the Tang family’s case, he had to become a censor whose name would go down in history—he had to become solitary.

She suddenly remembered Hui Ru’s words: “A temple gate separates the mortal world from the Buddhist realm.”

No.

A temple gate separated two people who couldn’t control their own fates.

Inside the gate was a heartbroken person.

Outside the gate was also a heartbroken person.

Xie Zhifei glanced at Yan Sanhe’s profile and interjected: “Great Elder, did His Majesty… trust you?”

“Trust?”

Lu Shi’s face showed a profound expression.

“Those in that position trust no one. I merely helped him bring down two people.”

Xie Zhifei: “One was Prince Yu, the other Minister of Revenue Cai Jintong.”

“Prince Yu privately called him a usurper. He’d long wanted to kill him but feared public opinion. The national treasury was empty, Cai Jintong was a fat pig—he needed a blade to slaughter the pig for him.”

Lu Shi raised his tea cup and slowly took a sip.

“The world says I, Lu Shi, am incorruptibly upright. Who knows that I harbor both original intentions and private heart? In the sea of officialdom, to walk higher and farther, you must make yourself into a blade in others’ hands—the sharpest blade.”

At this point, he suddenly looked at Pei Xiao.

“Young Master Pei, why did your uncle Ji Lingchuan have to fall?”

Pei Xiao’s heart trembled at the question. “Wasn’t it because of corruption?”

Lu Shi shook his head.

“When a farmer carries a pole with baskets, if one end is heavy, the other rises; if that end is heavy, this end rises. To carry it easily and effortlessly, both sides must weigh the same.”

“You mean…”

Pei Xiao bit his lip. “Our side became too heavy?”

Lu Shi: “Too heavy.”

Pei Xiao: “How was it too heavy?”

Lu Shi: “Too heavy in others’ hearts. In the farmer’s heart, it had to lighten.”

Pei Xiao was speechless.

“My position today isn’t from living as a solitary person, isn’t from being incorruptibly upright with perfect righteousness—it’s from pondering every day what that person is thinking, wondering who he hopes will fall next.”

Lu Shi spoke in an extremely disdainful tone:

“Why did my teacher die? He taught and educated people his whole life, always telling us to be refined gentlemen, like jade carved and polished. In the end, his life taught me that such people cannot survive long in this world.

Why did the Former Crown Prince fall? Because he thought too well of human nature, wasn’t ruthless enough toward himself, and even less ruthless toward others.

When I was young, Fourth Young Master Lu got me hung from a beam for three days and nights—I nearly died. Several years later, I destroyed his prospects, so he could only be a useless scholar for the rest of his life.”

Lu Shi’s eyes showed a fierce glint, like a wolf cub ready to devour people. The old man who’d just told Yan Sanhe “Child, don’t cry” seemed like nothing but an illusion.

Pei Xiao almost wanted to kneel before Lu Shi.

He stuck out his head to look at Xie Zhifei.

Brother, is it still in time to win him over for the Grand Prince? We absolutely cannot leave such a ruthless person to the Prince of Han!

Xie Zhifei didn’t catch the message in Pei Xiao’s eyes.

He’d thought of a key question, but Yan Sanhe was a step ahead in asking it.

“How did Great Elder learn of Jingchen’s death?”

Lu Shi seemed confused. “Why do you ask this question?”

“All your actions occurred after Jingchen’s death, which shows you knew about her death clearly.”

Yan Sanhe: “Did you plant someone at Shuiyue Temple? A hidden chess piece like yourself?”

Lu Shi shook his head. “Child, when people grow old, they have premonitions.”

That night, he went to sleep as usual but couldn’t fall asleep no matter what.

Many past memories floated into his mind bit by bit, as if both dreaming and reliving his entire life.

Half-dreaming, half-waking, suddenly his entire being plummeted violently downward, then his heart began to panic.

He got up and poured himself a cup of tea. The perfectly fine tea cup cracked with a “crack.”

In that instant, he knew—she had gone.

He felt no sorrow, only happiness for her, happy that she’d finally found liberation in this life.

The next day, Ah Da came in as usual to fumigate moxa for him, and he as usual went to the courtyard to practice martial arts for a while.

After breakfast, he said to Ah Da: “Ah Da, we’re going to begin.”

Ah Da was stunned for a long time, then nodded: “If master says to begin, then we begin.”

“I wouldn’t place a hidden chess piece at Shuiyue Temple.”

Lu Shi looked at Yan Sanhe and smiled.

“If I’d placed a hidden piece, her every move, every joy and anger would make me anxious and vulnerable. I wouldn’t allow myself to become such a person.”

Yan Sanhe stared back at him unblinkingly, realizing she’d been wrong.

He was a heartbroken person, but also one who wielded the blade.

The blade in his hand killed for others while plotting his own plots. Eighteen years of dormant waiting, all for the moment of drawing the blade.