"Important business? What important business?"

Tuoba Hong replied seriously, "The medicine I gave you before can only help you conceal it for a full hundred days. After a hundred days, your face will return to its original appearance before taking the medicine. It looks like the hundred days are almost up. Have you thought about what you will do after a hundred days? Right now, there are many people looking for you on this grassland."

After saying these words while looking at her face, and seeing that she only lowered her head and seemed unmoved, Tuoba Hong withdrew his gaze.

Yes, ever since arriving on the grasslands, she has been busy day and night, running around treating patients. She uses this to numb herself, to prevent herself from thinking about the past. To the point that she almost forgot even this important matter.

Tuoba Hong's reminder brought to her a realization: time flies, and years pass quickly. Soon, the one and only "Rejuvenating Pill" he had given her, so precious and mysterious, would completely lose its efficacy.

At that time, she will revert to her original appearance, losing the face she has now, which is completely different from before.

Unbeknownst to her, she had been on this unfamiliar grassland where no one knew her for almost a hundred days.

Time truly is the best medicine in the world to heal all wounds.

It took her a lot of effort to gradually forget everything from the past, and she eventually became more at peace.

However, if she were to regain her original appearance, it would be like "the tree desires stillness, but the wind will not cease." Undoubtedly, she would no longer be able to escape the turmoil of this world and would once again return to the complicated, chaotic, suffering, and tormented days of the past.

Now, the forces secretly searching for her on the grasslands—she wasn't entirely sure who was behind it, but she was certain it wasn't from the same group.

Clearly, she was deep in thought about this.

After thinking silently for a long time, she stared blankly at the sparks flying from the crackling campfire in front of her, as if she had made up her mind. Finally, she murmured to herself, "Since I can't avoid it, I might as well face it."

But since she had decided to face it, she naturally had to confront her past.

With this thought in mind, she couldn't help but habitually rub the colorful gold and jade bracelet on her wrist again.

Upon hearing her suddenly say such a serious sentence, Tuoba Hong abruptly turned his head to look at her profile in surprise, only to find that her gaze was fixed on a small vermilion wooden box that she had been tightly clutching in her hand. Curious, he asked, "What is this?"

"This is called... the Resurrection Pill?" Yi Shangyun said calmly.

"A Resurrection Pill? What is it used for? I've never heard of it before. Where did you get it?" Tuoba Hong asked in surprise.

Yi Shangyun slowly opened the lid of the small wooden box and said, "This Rejuvenation Pill was given to me by a Taoist priest I met by chance when I was still blind after the accident in Western Qin. The Taoist priest said that if I took this pill, I would remember things I had forgotten..."

"Is it really that miraculous? Then why are you still unconvinced?" Tuoba Hong wondered.

So he stretched out two fingers, carefully took the pill out of the small wooden box held by Yi Shangyun, examined it for a while, and then smelled it.

"Whether it's miraculous or not, that's impossible to know. The reason I haven't been willing to take this medicine until now is because... that Taoist priest said that if I take this pill, I will forever forget the most precious thing in my heart," Yi Shangyun recalled softly.

"Oh? Why is that?" Tuoba Hong exclaimed in surprise.

Yi Shangyun shook her head in equal confusion, remained silent for a while, then suddenly her eyes lit up, and she said with some excitement, "I wonder what would happen if I took half a pill?"

Upon hearing this, the two immediately stared at each other, their eyes locked.

Finally, Tuoba Hong withdrew his gaze, stared at the pill in his palm for a while, then brought it close to his nose to sniff it. He then frowned as if deep in thought, looking puzzled.

"This medicine seems very peculiar; it doesn't smell like any herbs at all. What is it made of?"

Tuoba Hong paused for a moment, then looked at Yi Shangyun with great skepticism and asked, "Is the Taoist priest who gave you this pill trustworthy?"

"It was just a chance encounter." Unexpectedly, Yi Shangyun smiled, seemingly not worried or suspicious at all, and replied to him in a nonchalant manner.

“In that case, it is absolutely forbidden to eat it,” Tuoba Hong immediately and firmly objected.

As soon as she finished speaking, she added, "What if someone with malicious intent deliberately sets a trap for us, and we get poisoned or even... what then?"

As he spoke, his gaze slowly fell, staring intently at the pill in his hand: "This medicine looks extremely strange no matter how you look at it. No, it's just getting stranger and stranger the more you look at it. Fine, at worst I'll take you far away, to the ends of the earth, to find a place where no one knows us, and we can live a secluded and carefree life. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I don't want you to be in any danger."

Seeing that he suddenly became agitated and started talking nonsense, Yi Shangyun snatched the pill back from his hand, turned her back, and angrily warned him.

"What are you saying? Why are you here again? If you say something like that again, I really won't talk to you anymore."

Tuoba Hong turned and looked at her back for a moment before slowly saying, "I'm sorry, Wu Le. I was just in a hurry and said the wrong thing. I know I can never replace him in your heart, but I really want to protect you and don't want you to get hurt anymore."

He paused, seemingly somewhat unwilling, but still held back as he said, "Wu Le, don't reject my feelings, okay? Just consider me a friend of yours, even if... I'll only ever stay by your side as your brother to protect you for the rest of my life. As long as I can see you every day, be by your side, and quietly stay by your side when you need someone to listen to your innermost thoughts, I'll be content."

"How many times do I have to tell you before you understand? You really don't need to do this, it's not fair to you at all..." Yi Shangyun suddenly turned around and said to him, both angry and apologetic.

However, Tuoba Hong smiled at her and then said calmly, "There is no such thing as absolute fairness in this world. What people call fairness is just a self-measure in their own hearts. If you feel that God has treated you unfairly, reality will make you even more hopeless. But if you accept it calmly, even if it is unfair, you will feel content. I treat you the same way you treat him. If you can't do that, how can you persuade me to give up?"

What on earth is going on? I came all this way here precisely to escape the constraints of this world. But now, it seems I've fallen into another labyrinth.

She knew nothing about the handsome man in front of her, but how should she deal with his obsession with her?

For a long time, before each trip out, she would pray to God countless times, hoping that she would never run into this person again, but she never succeeded in her prayers.

She even anxiously wondered if he was staying outside her tent day and night, waiting for her to come out.

Little did she know, he was indeed waiting for her to leave at every moment. And it wasn't just working tirelessly; it was rain or shine, without fail.

He was even worried that the howling of wolves in the vicinity might disturb her sweet dreams in the middle of the night, so he personally led people to clear the area within a hundred miles several times to ensure that no wolf could bother her anymore. Yet, he was still extremely worried and kept watch for her all night long not far from her tent.

Even he himself seemed unable to believe that he, who had been so proud and noble all his life, would now do these things for a woman.

On this vast grassland, almost every woman dreams of becoming his queen, but in his heart, that position has been firmly occupied by someone else since some unknown time.

Yes, when did it begin? It should have started when they first met in the Western Qin Kingdom!

At this moment, Yi Shangyun was engulfed in boundless sorrow. She suddenly felt her heart in turmoil, as if she were suffocating and could hardly breathe.

She couldn't help but recall the moments she shared with Xuan Yuanhan, the sweet scenes that occurred during their last meeting at the Xiaolong Club, and some fragmented memories of her life before she lost her memory.

Suddenly, everything began to churn in my heart. Instantly, Mei Xiyuan's words echoed in my ears again.

"I am pregnant with Your Highness's child."

"Only I can lend him a helping hand with the strength of our motherland. But you will only become a hindrance and a burden to him."

...

In that instant, she felt a tightness in her chest, so tight she couldn't breathe. So she clutched her chest tightly.

"Your Highness, what should we do with Yun'er? Why has it come to this? In this vast world, is there really no place for me? Why does everything make things so difficult for her?"

As she was thinking, she suddenly glanced up and saw the pill that Tuoba Hong was holding. As if possessed, she snatched it away and crushed it. She quickly put the relatively intact half of the pill back into the small wooden box, took off the seven-colored gold and jade bracelet from her wrist, and, as the Taoist priest had said that night, used the bracelet to grind the remaining pill into a fine powder. She then tilted her head back and swallowed it in one gulp.

Tuoba Hong was immediately alarmed and patted her back, urging, "What are you doing? Throw it out, throw it up!"

But it was already too late.

He could only stare in terror into Yi Shangyun's eyes, not knowing what would happen next.

But then she noticed that, without her noticing, glistening tears were welling up in her eyes.

At this moment, Yi Shangyun slowly picked up the jade bracelet and put it back on her wrist. Suddenly, she stood up, but everything went black before her eyes, and she swayed and fell to the ground...