Yi Junhao knelt on the ground for a long time, heartbroken and utterly helpless.

Enraged, he stood up, turned around, and glared at Tuoba Ze with eyes full of hatred. He slowly walked towards Tuoba Ze, who clutched his chest, stumbling backward in fear at the menacing look. "What...what do you want to do?" he asked tremblingly.

As soon as Yi Junhao got close to him, he kicked Tuoba Ze hard in the ankle, and Tuoba Ze fell heavily to his knees with a thud.

Before he could even kneel properly, Yi Junhao kicked him hard, sending him sprawling to the ground with his buttocks up and his face pressed against the ground. Instantly, his mouth and nose were filled with mud, making him look extremely disheveled.

But that wasn't all. Yi Junhao suddenly stretched out two strong hands and lifted him up steadily, raising him high above his head. He looked up and glanced ahead, as if locking onto a spot, then forcefully tossed him out, and his entire body landed perfectly on the branch of a large tree not far ahead.

At this moment, Tuoba Ze seemed to have been punished and tormented to the point of near death, muttering, "Kill me or torture me, just do it quickly!"

But how could Yi Junhao let him die so easily?

That spot on the branch was the highest point in front of us and also the place most exposed to the sun.

At this moment, Tuoba Ze was like a dead pig, waiting to be baked to death by the midday sun until he was scorched and his skin turned red. After ten or fifteen days, he could be plucked, gutted, or simply baked into a delicious roasted whole pig, attracting the extremely hungry vultures in the sky to peck him up piece by piece.

To prevent him from doing anything bad, Yi Junhao lightly touched the ground with both feet and flew towards Tuoba Ze's side.

Yi Junhao squatted down in front of him, suddenly extended two fingers, and pressed the pressure point of Tuoba Ze, who was now completely powerless, making him unable to move at all.

Then, Yi Junhao reached out and ripped off all of Tuoba Ze's clothes, leaving him only in his underwear. He then used the belt he had torn off to tie Tuoba Ze's arms tightly together with tree branches.

Seemingly relieved, she leaped down from the tree, turned her back to him, and didn't say a word to him from beginning to end, not even making eye contact. Finally, with her back turned, she walked back towards the edge of the cliff.

Tuoba Ze watched his departing figure and even tried to secretly circulate his internal energy, but unexpectedly, all the vital acupoints on his body had been sealed, and his true energy was blocked. After struggling haphazardly for a while, he found that he had no internal energy left to use.

Just then, he suddenly felt someone fall behind him and quickly reached out to release the pressure points binding him.

Only then did Tuoba Ze turn around sharply and see that the person was actually his younger brother, Tuoba Hong.

However, after being helped by Tuoba Hong, he jumped down from the tree, quickly put on his clothes, and then glared at Chongchong, eager to run towards the edge of the cliff again.

"What do you want to do?" Tuoba Hong asked urgently.

Tuoba Ze gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "Hmph, 'A scholar can be killed but not humiliated.' I swear I will not be a man if I do not avenge this. Today, I will definitely send this Prince of Nan'an to the Western Paradise, so that he will know the consequences of humiliating my Prince of Beilie. I will make sure he dies without a burial place."

"Enough! Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough? You're in such a state now, you can't even stand properly. Do you really think you can defeat that Prince of Nan'an? Do you really think he's a pushover? Today, your victory over the Prince of Western Qin was dishonorable. If in the future everyone knows that it was you who did it, that you took advantage of someone's weakness to kill that Prince of Western Qin... then let's see how you'll face the world's gossip." Tuoba Hong reprimanded angrily, though he hesitated before continuing.

"Brother, you are my own brother, my own flesh and blood. How can you not help me now?" Tuoba Ze said in disbelief.

"Brother, even now, how can you still not understand? If I hadn't intended to help you, I wouldn't be here today, nor would I have fought with the King of Western Qin to restrain him. It's not that I don't want to help you, but if you had openly declared war on Western Qin, I would have done everything in my power to assist you in unifying the world. But now, everything you've done is nothing but crooked and evil tricks, which will be despised by the world! Brother, listen to me this once, don't take these underhanded paths anymore. There's plenty of time ahead, and 'the righteous path is full of hardships'!" Tuoba Hong earnestly advised.

Tuoba Ze, upon hearing Tuoba Hong's words, certainly disagreed, but the fact remained that he was seriously injured. Seeing that his stubborn younger brother was clearly unwilling to help him, he was helpless.

And so, he was quietly and disheveledly carried down the mountain by Tuoba Hong and left.

During his match with Tuoba Hong, Cheng Liang suddenly felt uneasy and was unable to fully concentrate on continuing the fight.

After stopping the gentlemanly contest he was currently engaged in with Tuoba Hong, he flew back to the edge of the cliff without looking back, the place where everything that had happened that day had begun.

From afar, when he saw Yi Junhao kneeling motionless on the edge of the cliff, while Xuan Yuanhan seemed to have already disappeared.

In a moment of panic, Cheng Liang felt a sudden blur before his eyes and his body swayed as if he were about to faint.

He immediately stopped to steady himself, closed his eyes tightly and squeezed them shut again, then shook his head vigorously before opening them again.

In the blink of an eye, feeling slightly better, she murmured a hurried "Your Highness" and rushed towards Yi Junhao's side.

Standing beside Yi Junhao, Cheng Liang silently looked around for a long time, but ultimately found no trace of Xuan Yuanhan.

After looking around, he finally looked away with a puzzled expression and gazed at Yi Junhao, who was kneeling beside him, looking dazed, heartbroken, and seemingly devastated. Only then did he notice the bloodstains in the thicket of thorns in front of Yi Junhao's knees, as if someone had just left them. Suddenly, he was terrified.

So, he looked into Yi Junhao's eyes, his voice trembling, and asked timidly, "Young Master Yi, where is His Highness? Where is Miss Yi?"

Even now, Yi Junhao seemed to still be deeply troubled by the tragic events that had just unfolded before his eyes. He was incredulous and heartbroken, and was unable to answer him.

However, Cheng Liang remained relentless, but he was becoming increasingly frightened.

In a moment of panic, he immediately knelt down beside Yi Junhao, leaned close to him, grabbed his shoulders, turned him to look him in the eye, and shouted at him in a loud voice, "Third Young Master Yi, I'm asking you a question! What's wrong with you? Speak up! Where is my prince? Where is Miss Yi? Where did they go?"

However, Yi Junhao seemed to have lost his soul. No matter how angry or how loud he roared, he only let tears stream down his face and stared at the deep valley next to him, where the smoke swirled and nothing could be seen.

Within this deep valley, the three of them, who had been slowly drifting down from the sky for an unknown amount of time, were still floating on purple clouds, their vision blurred and unable to find any foothold to lean on.

At this moment, Xuan Yuanhan seemed to be wondering why he and Yi Shangyun were embracing tightly, yet they were positioned above Tuoba Ze's guards.

Just then, he suddenly looked down at the man who was clinging tightly to his ankle. He suddenly realized that the three of them were getting closer and closer to the ground, and even the view of his feet and the surroundings was becoming clearer. The swirling smoke was slowly rising above their heads.

He suddenly saw the narrow lake beach at the foot of the cliff, and also the familiar, clear, emerald-green lake that seemed to have no bottom.

His heart skipped a beat, but the sheer cliff seemed completely bare, offering no foothold for him. Even if there were, he realized that given the distance between him and the cliff, he couldn't possibly reach it.

So he could only hold the person in his arms tightly, begging for God's mercy. He just wanted her to live, to live well.

Suddenly, the purple "clouds" they seemed to be standing on vanished, and the three of them plummeted downwards together.

The guard suddenly felt himself falling faster. He looked up and saw the scenery on the cliff changing rapidly. He then realized that his falling speed was now dozens of times faster than before. The purple clouds had disappeared without a trace.

Then, with a long, heart-wrenching scream, the three of them plummeted straight down, crashing heavily onto the open ground at the foot of the cliff.

The guard still held tightly to Xuan Yuanhan's ankle, and the two of them fell onto the lake shore together. Yi Shangyun fell not far from Xuan Yuanhan, but most of her body was submerged in the clear, green lake water.

Xuanyuan Han lay on his side on the ground, looking helplessly into Yi Shangyun's eyes. His vision gradually blurred, and finally he slowly closed his cold, stern eyes, which were filled with sorrow and unease.

Cheng Liang was stunned for a long time. When he realized Yi Junhao's reaction, he was certain that Xuan Yuanhan and Yi Shangyun had fallen off the cliff.

He immediately closed his eyes, held his breath, as if he were urgently trying to recall something.

A moment later, Cheng Liang suddenly stood up, grabbed the distraught Yi Junhao, and hurriedly ran down the mountain path.

"What are you doing? I need to stay with Ya Tou. I have to be with her. She must be so scared, so helpless, so lonely. Let me go. I want to stay here and watch over her. I will never leave her again, never abandon her..." Yi Junhao struggled in Cheng Liang's arms as he spoke with heartache.

"I want to see her alive or dead. What's the point of guarding this place? I'll take you to find her!" Cheng Liang said firmly.

Yi Junhao exclaimed in surprise, "What?"