The next day dawned bright and clear.

Prince Ling went to the Fang residence, picked up Fang Furan and the members of the Fang household, and set off together toward Lingjue Temple.

Lingjue Temple was a small temple, built in the northern outskirts of Jinling, isolated with no village before it and no inn behind it—rarely visited on ordinary days.

But this suited their purposes well enough. The members of the Fang household were, after all, wanted criminals whose charges had yet to be cleared. Having returned to Jinling ahead of schedule, they were in no position to show their faces openly.

Fang Furan had originally planned to bring her family to the temple early to cleanse themselves of impurity, but her two half-brothers had been delayed along the way and had only just arrived in Jinling recently. Today would be the first time in years she had seen them.

Once they reached Lingjue Temple, everyone fasted and bathed, then listened to two hours of Buddhist teachings, completing the rites.

After the Fang household’s downfall, few of its former members had survived the intervening years. Besides Fang Furan’s two half-brothers and a woman surnamed Qin, there was also Fang Liu, the former steward who had served under Fang Yuanshan, along with a handful of servants and distant relatives.

Fang Furan’s birth mother had hanged herself the very day after Fang Yuanshan’s execution. Fortunately, this Madam Qin had always treated Fang Furan as her own daughter, and the two shared a deep bond of affection.

After everyone finished their vegetarian meal, Prince Ling’s guards led them to a quiet chamber to talk and catch up.

Perhaps because Prince Ling was present, everyone sat stiffly upright, and even in conversation, only dared to speak of trivial, inconsequential matters. Seeing this, Prince Ling gave Fang Furan a nod and left on his own.

He had rare leisure today, and found another side room to rest in, closing his eyes to recover his composure.

But it wasn’t truly rest he sought—he hadn’t attended the palace’s family banquet the day before, and still needed to hear the news from it, piece by piece, from others.

Once Prince Ling had left, Madam Qin finally said to Fang Furan, “If you wanted to bring us to the temple to cleanse away the dust of the road, you could have simply told your Steward Liu to arrange the carriage. Why trouble Prince Ling with it?”

Fang Furan smiled but didn’t answer this, turning instead to ask Fang Shi and Fang You, “What happened on your journey, that you arrived in Jinling a full half-month later than Madam Qin?”

Fang Shi and Fang You exchanged a glance, both hesitating without answering.

After a long moment, Fang Shi finally said, “It was nothing much. Third Brother fell ill on the way, which delayed us.”

“Yes, yes, I fell ill,” Fang You added quickly.

Ill?

Fang Furan paused. Given the years they’d spent in exile, poor health would have been understandable—Madam Qin and Steward Fang were indeed sallow and gaunt. But looking at Fang Shi and Fang You, their bodies looked healthy, their complexions ruddy—they hardly looked like men prone to illness.

But Fang Furan said nothing more. Seeing the young monks of the temple bring out lotus leaf cakes, and recalling that Fang You had loved these as a child, she rose to offer him her own plate.

Seeing Fang Furan rise and walk toward him, Fang You gave a start and hurriedly stood up as well, cupping his hands to receive it.

Fang Furan paused again. Though the three siblings hadn’t seen each other in years, how had things grown so distant and awkward between them?

Madam Qin said, “These years, though we were sent away, at least the authorities didn’t separate us. Our whole family stayed together, supporting one another through it, and things weren’t too hard. But you…”

She paused, a shadow of worry crossing her brow. “After the master passed, you remained alone in Jinling, without a single truly close person by your side. You truly suffered.”

Fang Furan said, “It wasn’t bitter. Either way, it won’t be long before we can clear Father’s name. As long as the Fang household’s injustice can be redressed, these years will have been worth it.”

Hearing the word “redressed,” everyone seated there wore a strange expression on their face.

No one in the quiet chamber said anything for a while. Eventually it was Steward Fang Liu who spoke up, hesitant. “In this old servant’s view, there’s no need to rush this matter. Now that the family has finally reunited, we should first find our footing here in Jinling.”

“Yes, yes, Steward Liu speaks sense,” Fang You said.

“Sister,” Fang Shi asked, “where are you living in Jinling now?”

Before Fang Furan could answer, he stammered on, “I… A’You and I aren’t used to living at the new Fang residence. Could… could we possibly move in with you instead?”

Hearing this, Fang Furan hesitated.

Prince Ling’s side estate wasn’t truly her own residence, after all. And when the Fang household had been raided all those years ago, she’d been left with not a single copper to her name, with no means to arrange new housing for Fang Shi and Fang You.

Fang Furan thought this over carefully and was about to answer, when three knocks suddenly sounded at the door of the quiet chamber.

Prince Ling pushed the door open and entered. “Furan, urgent business calls me away for half a day.”

His expression was outwardly calm and ordinary, yet somehow Fang Furan sensed something amiss. She rose and walked him to the temple gate, calling out, “Your Highness.”

Sensing the worry in Fang Furan’s eyes, Prince Ling smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

He then mounted his horse and rode off.

As it happened, Prince Ling’s sudden departure was, in fact, related to the Fang household matter.

Less than half an hour earlier, Cao Yuan had come to report that Wei Jie’s men had actually located the wives and children of Fang Shi and Fang You.

On the surface, this seemed like nothing much—Prince Ling had never intended to spare their lives anyway, so if Wei Jie captured their wives and children and dealt with them however he pleased, so be it.

The problem was that Fang Shi and Fang You were wanted criminals, their exile sentence personally issued by Emperor Zhaoyuan himself. With their charges still unresolved, Prince Ling had gone and secretly brought them to Jinling without authorization. Even if Emperor Zhaoyuan chose not to make an issue of it, there was still the risk that someone at court might use this against him.

And Prince Ling knew perfectly well whose man Wei Jie really was.

Cao Yuan said, “Lord Wei is the Commander of the Imperial City Bureau, taking his orders directly from His Majesty. Since he came in person, this subordinate and the others didn’t dare obstruct him. To prevent this matter from escalating, we could only ask Your Highness to go there yourself.”

Given how delicate the current situation was, Prince Ling couldn’t afford the slightest misstep, and had no choice but to agree.

After seeing Prince Ling off, Fang Furan returned to the quiet chamber and found Madam Qin about to speak, then hesitating.

Fang Furan guessed what she meant to say, and thought it might be better to bring it out into the open today. She dismissed the guards standing watch outside the door and closed the windows of the chamber.

Madam Qin then said, “Furan, there’s something this old woman has always wanted to ask you. After we left back then, didn’t we hear you’d gotten married?”

“It seems… it seems it was General Xuanwei of the Marquis of Zhongyong’s household. He even used his military merit to have your charges pardoned. So why… why…”

Why was it Prince Ling, of all people, seeing to every detail of the Fang household’s affairs, inside and out?

Back then, Fang Furan had been renowned throughout Jinling for her beauty, and Fang Yuanshan had long wanted to marry her off to either the late Crown Prince or Prince Yun, but Fang Furan had firmly refused to marry either.

Father and daughter had argued fiercely over it within the household, and Madam Qin, overhearing through the walls, had sensed that her heart already belonged to someone else.

But she never could have guessed that the object of Fang Furan’s affections was none other than Prince Ling—the least favored of Emperor Zhaoyuan’s sons at the time.

But hadn’t Prince Ling later married a sickly consort as his princess? Could it be that Furan had become his side consort instead? Yet that didn’t quite seem to fit either.

Fang Furan was silent for a long moment before saying, “Madam Qin, I no longer have any connection to the Marquis of Zhongyong’s household.”

“What do you mean, no connection?” Madam Qin asked, startled. “Don’t tell me General Xuanwei divorced you? All these years, inside and out, you managed the household’s affairs, looked after his younger sister—how could you have ever wronged him? Could it be because… because you and Prince Ling…”

“Even if he wanted to divorce me, I would have no complaints at all,” Fang Furan cut in before Madam Qin could finish.

She owed the Marquis of Zhongyong’s household a debt she could never repay in this lifetime. She knew that much herself.

Fang Furan continued, “Madam Qin, please don’t ask about this again in the future. I don’t wish to speak of it.”

Having said this much, Madam Qin hesitated, then nodded and said no more.

The family chatted about other matters for a while longer. Seeing dusk approaching, and recalling Prince Ling’s instructions to send the Fang household members back to their residence before nightfall, Fang Furan called for the guards to prepare the carriages.

She called twice, but no one came—it was then she remembered that she had already dismissed the guards earlier, to speak privately with Madam Qin.

She rose and went to the front of the temple herself to instruct the guards, but on her way back to the quiet chamber, she suddenly heard the people inside speaking, their tone urgent and anxious.

Fang Furan hadn’t thought much of it at first and was about to push the door open, when she suddenly remembered the strange behavior Fang Shi and Fang You had shown earlier today.

Her hand, resting on the door, slowly withdrew. She leaned in to listen. The voices inside seemed deliberately lowered, and she could only make out a few broken fragments.

“…back in Jinling, our wives and children are being held by him. Everyone says he’s ruthless and merciless—Madam Qin, you must think of a way for us!”

Madam Qin seemed to respond with something, her words mentioning, “not people of the Marquis of Zhongyong’s household,” “can’t go to General Xuanwei for help.”

“Then what do we do?!” Fang Shi’s voice suddenly rose. “Just sit here and wait to die?! Might as well just tell Sister directly!”

“No, we can’t tell Sister, we can’t tell Sister,” Fang You said hurriedly. “You know how Sister is—outwardly gentle, that’s all it is. If we tell her, she’ll be even less likely to save us. She might even want us dead, along with our whole family…”

Hearing this, Fang Furan froze in place.

Wives and children? Sit here and wait to die? Who wanted them dead?

Hadn’t Fang Shi and Fang You been in exile all these years?

Exiled criminals were meant to serve their sentences continuously—how could they possibly have married and had children?

Were they, and Prince Ling too, hiding something from her?

The moment this thought occurred to her, a vague, formless suspicion rose in her heart—but this suspicion was like biting frost; the moment it brushed against her, it chilled her to the bone.

Having weathered great storms over the years, Fang Furan wasn’t one to panic easily over something still uncertain.

She quickly composed her disturbed thoughts, pushed the door open, and said to Madam Qin and the others with a smile, “The carriages are ready. Let’s go.”

There were four carriages in total. Fang Furan rode in the first, heading back to the prince’s side estate, while the remaining three would carry the Fang household members back to the Fang residence.

Fang Furan settled into her carriage, and as the crisp crack of the whip sounded, the gentle smile on her face quickly faded, replaced by a dark, roiling shadow rising and falling in her peach-blossom eyes.

She lifted the side curtain and said to the guard riding alongside the carriage, “Take me to Yufang Pavilion in the eastern part of the city.”

The guard was startled and clasped his hands. “Young Madam, His Highness instructed that the Fang household members be sent back to their residence as soon as possible.”

“I know,” Fang Furan said with a soft smile. “Didn’t His Highness just go to handle the Fang household’s affairs? Before he left, he told me he’d be hosting my two half-brothers for dinner at Yufang Pavilion tonight.”

Hearing this, the guard thought to himself that Fang Furan even knew Prince Ling had gone to handle the Fang household’s troubles—surely what she said must be true.

He assented at once and turned his horse, instructing the drivers of the carriages behind to change course at the upcoming fork.

Seeing the guard’s reaction, Fang Furan knew her guess had been correct.

Prince Ling had never once kept anything from her—the fact that he’d been so tight-lipped upon leaving earlier confirmed it must indeed be related to the Fang household.

Heading to Yufang Pavilion in the east of the city wasn’t really about anything in particular—she simply wanted to buy herself some time, to get the truth out of Fang Shi and Fang You directly.

The slanting sun sank toward evening as dusk fell. The carriage traveled through a stretch of lush green forest, the calls of birds returning to roost echoing without pause.

But gradually, the birdsong grew fainter, and even the carriage’s pace slowed.

The carriage suddenly came to a stop. The guard spoke in a low voice beside the carriage. “Young Madam.”

His tone was urgent, carrying a sense of imminent danger.

Fang Furan composed herself, lifted the carriage curtain, and stepped down. Behind her, Madam Qin, Fang Shi, and Fang You had already climbed down as well.

They looked around and saw, scattered throughout the surrounding woods, several hundred mansion guards dressed in black, all armed with sharp blades, their expressions cold and grim as they watched them.

Not far off stood another carriage, its canopy grand and its frame broad, extraordinarily luxurious.

The guard standing before that carriage, seeing that both the Fang household party and Prince Ling’s guards were now thoroughly surrounded, clasped his hands and bowed toward the person inside, reporting something.

The next moment, the carriage curtain was lifted.

The person who stepped down wore moon-white brocade robes. The jade at his waist was beautiful, yet not nearly as striking as the clear, luminous depths of his eyes.

Yet on closer inspection, those water-clear eyes were utterly unfathomable, harboring within them a faint, chilling air of menace.

A wave of coldness rose in Fang Furan’s heart.

She couldn’t help but step back, staring in shock. “Third Young Master?”

The dusk was at its height, the setting sun melting into gold, its glow falling in cascading layers, weaving a dazzling radiance around Cheng Chang.

He looked every bit a celestial being, yet Fang Furan could see clearly the malevolence lurking beneath that radiant glow.

Cheng Chang stepped toward Fang Furan, and suddenly, the corner of his mouth curved upward in a faint smile. “It’s been a long time, Young Madam.”