Xia Zhong slowly walked to the inscriptionless monument, and the dead leaves made a crackling sound under his feet.

This abandoned Fengyi Palace was once the most magnificent palace in the Great Zhou Dynasty, but now only broken walls and ruins remain.

In a trance, he seemed to hear Concubine Yi's clear laughter again and see the little prince's silly look as he fell onto the brocade carpet while learning to walk.

"It's been almost fifteen years..." he muttered to himself.

The look of the late emperor's eyes wide open before his death is still before my eyes, and the hands that clenched the dragon robe tightly. Until his death, he was unable to find the real culprit who killed the imperial concubine and her son.

The late emperor died with his eyes open!

A cold wind blew past, carrying ashes, and Xia Zhong subconsciously wrapped his clothes tightly.

He recalled the year he first entered the palace, when he was just a lowly eunuch sweeping the stairs in the snow.

That day he was so hungry that he could not see black. It was Concubine Yi who passed by and ordered someone to bring him some hot plum blossom soup noodles and also gave him a copper hand warmer.

Such a good master was ultimately buried in this cannibalistic palace.

"The Empress should have been in the south..." Xia Zhong looked at the flowing clouds reflected on the stele, and the Jiangnan region that Concubine Yi had mentioned appeared before his eyes.

A few apricot blossoms lean out between the green tiles and white walls, and the laughter of the lotus-picking girls can startle a flock of gulls and herons.

If the late emperor had never made his southern tour, if that apricot-yellow sedan chair had never stopped at the imperial concubine's door...

The memory suddenly turned to a more vivid picture: in the autumn of the 30th year of the late emperor's reign, a crab feast was in full swing in the imperial garden.

The three-year-old prince, wearing an apricot-yellow robe with a dragon pattern, stood on tiptoe to reach the eight gilded crabs.

The late emperor smiled as he took apart a crab leg and dipped it again and again in the ginger vinegar dish.

"This is the tribute crab from Hongze Lake—"

Xia Zhong still remembers the moment the little prince took a bite, a red rash instantly appeared on his neck. The entire Imperial Hospital examined him all night before concluding that "Your Highness is naturally averse to eating ginger."

From then on, all the menus sent by the imperial kitchen to Fengyi Palace were marked with the words "Avoid ginger" in red ink.

"Xue Ji Yan..." Xia Zhong stroked the cracks on the tombstone and suddenly chuckled.

Northwest Camp? The Ding family? The Xue family? What a trick to change the situation.

The little prince who was taken out of the fire that year has now returned as the third place in the imperial examination.

…

The post station beside the official road was shrouded in dusk, with rolling mountains in the distance and the setting sun as red as blood.

Hong Yingrong helped Xue Shanqiu get off the carriage. The little girl looked pale after days of traveling, but she was in much better spirits than when she was in Beijing.

She wrapped her plain cloak tightly around her, looked up at the winding mountain road in the distance, and suddenly her body stiffened.

"Mother..." She gently tugged at Hong Yingrong's sleeve, her voice lowered to a whisper, "Look over there."

Hong Yingrong followed her gaze and saw a burly figure standing on the distant hillside, reining in his horse. His outline against the setting sun was as sharp as a knife.

The man wore a wolf-skin hat unique to the Xirong people, and a scimitar hung at his waist. The silver ornaments on the scabbard shone coldly in the twilight.

Hong Yingrong's heart skipped a beat and she subconsciously moved her daughter behind her to protect her.

Xue Shanqiu whispered, "Don't be afraid, mother... He seems to have been following us all the way."

Hong Yingrong was stunned, and then she remembered that their convoy had been surprisingly smooth since leaving Beijing.

On the official roads in the north, there were often Hu people who robbed merchants and travelers, but they didn't encounter even a single bandit.

The clerks at the post stations along the way were also extremely attentive, and even prepared the best horses in advance.

She originally thought that Xue Yuanchu had taken good care of it, but now it seems...

Nurhadu seemed to have noticed their gazes. He suddenly raised his hand and placed it on his chest, performing a Western Rong gesture of respect. Then he turned his horse around and disappeared into the twilight.

That night, inside the post station.

Hong Yingrong picked up her pen to write a letter to Beijing. The tip of the pen hovered over the paper for a long time, and in the end she only wrote the four words "Everything is fine".

The wind was howling outside the window, and there seemed to be the sound of horse hooves coming from afar, then gradually dissipating into the night.