At dawn, at a mass grave outside Yingzhou City.

One of the "corpses" suddenly moved. Qi Huaiyu pushed away the rotting corpse pressing down on him and spat out a mouthful of black blood. The arrow wound in his throat was gruesome, but miraculously it had avoided a fatal blow.

"Xin...Jiu...Wei..."

He murmured the name hoarsely and pulled out a blood-stained brocade pouch from his bosom—inside was half a map of the Lingyin Temple underground palace!

Thick smoke coiled around the burning roof beams like a giant python, and the scorching air distorted the view.

Xiao Xun swung his sword backhand, cleaving the falling rafters in two, sparks raining down on his black iron armor. Through the churning flames, he saw Xin Jiuwei huddled by the crumbling window frame, her plain white undergarment soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly to her curvaceous body.

Something was very wrong with her—her lips were bleeding from being bitten so hard, yet her right hand was still tightly gripping half a gold hairpin against her carotid artery. Her unfocused pupils contracted slightly when she saw him, and the tip of the hairpin immediately pierced her skin, drawing out a thin line of blood.

"Don't come any closer..." Her voice was hoarse and incoherent, each word trembling, "I...I can't control myself from hurting you..."

Xiao Xun's pupils suddenly contracted.

He recognized this state—a potent drug specially made by the Second Prince's residence, which would cause the poisoned person to lose their mind, either dying from a bursting of blood vessels, or... His gaze swept over the torn gauze curtains at her feet and the deep bloodstains on her wrists—she had managed to stay conscious through the pain.

"It's me." He slowly removed his blood-stained helmet, letting the firelight illuminate his soot-covered face. "Look closely."

Xin Jiuwei trembled violently. Her hairpin clattered to the ground, and she threw herself into his arms like a drowning person grasping at a piece of driftwood, her scalding tears instantly soaking through the armor on his shoulders: "Kill me...please..."

The hot spring villa behind Lingyin Temple is hidden deep in the bamboo forest. Moonlight shines through the carved window lattices, casting dappled shadows in the misty interior. Xiao Xun had just placed the person on the bamboo couch when he was pulled down by a brute force.

Xin Jiuwei sat on his waist, her long, disheveled hair falling onto his blood-stained armor. Tears welled in her misty eyes, but her fingers precisely found the hidden clasp at his waist: "You always...hide secrets..."

Xiao Xun's breath hitched. He grabbed her flailing wrist, only to see her wince in pain—her wrist bones were already bruised and purple from their escape from the fire. This discovery softened his movements, and he instead wrapped her writhing body in the quilt: "The antidote is..."

Before she could finish speaking, Xin Jiuwei suddenly tilted her head back and bit his chin. Amidst the sharp pain, hot tears slid down her cheeks and into his collar: "Why you... why you of all people..."

Xiao Xun froze. He understood the accusation—why a prince who schemed against people's hearts, why the kind of person she was most wary of? This realization made his heart clench, and he lowered his head to kiss away the tears at the corner of her eyes: "Because..." His lips brushed against her burning earlobe, "only I can smell the bitter almond scent from your sleeve."

The celadon medicine bowl clinked crisply on the table. Xiao Xun lifted Xin Jiuwei by the back of her neck and brought the antidote to her lips: "Drink it."

Xin Jiuwei turned her face away, the medicine sliding down her delicate chin and disappearing into her disheveled collar. Xiao Xun's eyes darkened, and he suddenly tilted his head back, took the remaining medicine into his mouth, and pinched her chin to pass it over to her.

"Ugh...!"

The bitter taste of the medicine lingered on her lips and teeth. Xin Jiuwei struggled to pull away, but he held the back of her head and deepened the kiss. Only after confirming that she had swallowed the antidote did Xiao Xun pull back slightly, his thumb tracing the corner of her moist lips: "Good girl."

The intimate word sent a shiver down Xin Jiuwei's spine. The lingering heat from the medication and a strange sense of grievance welled up inside her, and she suddenly bit his shoulder hard: "Liar..."

Xiao Xun groaned, yet he indulged her biting. As blood seeped through his white robes, he stroked her sweat-drenched back: "Yes, I'm a liar." His lips lingered on the wounds on her wrists, "The prince who schemes against people..." He kissed the bruises on her collarbone, "The villain who uses you..." Finally, he whispered into her earlobe, "Someone more dangerous than Qi Huaiyu..."

As the first rays of sunlight pierced through the window screen, Xin Jiuwei was awakened by a sharp pain between her legs. She instinctively reached for the dagger beside her pillow, but instead touched a warm patch of skin. Fragments of memories from the previous night rushed back—how she had clung to Xiao Xun, how he had coaxed her into taking the medicine, and those unbearable, intimate moments.

The man beside her was still asleep, his handsome face appearing exceptionally young in the morning light. She stared blankly at the bloody teeth marks on his shoulder, the marks she had left in her moment of loss of control. Even more shocking were the crisscrossing old wounds on his back—the most recent arrow wound still tinged with a bluish-purple, clearly poisoned.

"Have you seen enough?"

Xiao Xun suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze devoid of sleep. Xin Jiuwei then realized that her hand was unconsciously tracing the scar on his chest. She hurriedly tried to pull it back, but he grasped it: "The antidote needs to be taken for three consecutive days." His palm, calloused from years of wielding a sword, caressed her slender wrist. "I'll have the monks..."

"No need."

Xin Jiuwei interrupted him, forcing herself to get up and dress. As she bent down to pick up the copper key, she noticed a corner of parchment peeking out from a hidden compartment in the corner of the bed—it was a structural diagram of the Lingyin Temple underground palace, with a lotus flower marked in cinnabar at one spot.

"We're even." She threw the medicine on the bed and pushed open the door without looking back.

It was noon when Xiao Xun returned to the villa.

On the couch lay a neatly folded, blood-stained handkerchief, the cloud pattern at the corner of which had been cracked with charcoal ash. He stroked the copper key that Xin Jiuwei had dropped, and suddenly felt a tiny bump on the handle—upon looking at it in the sunlight, he saw the two small characters "Yaotai".

"I see..."

The bamboo forest outside the window rustled, like the embers of the great fire twenty years ago. He remembered Xin Jiuwei's unconscious cry of "Mother" last night in the heat of passion, her strikingly different features from Xin Xiyao's, and the late Crown Princess's beloved...

"Report—!" The martial monk rushed in, "Qi Huaiyu's body is missing!"

Xiao Xun gripped the key tightly, the gilded sachet at his waist making a soft tinkling sound. He knew that this game had only just begun.

When Xin Jiuwei returned to her boudoir, her fingertips were still trembling slightly.

She locked the door and took out a sandalwood box that had been sealed away for many years from the bottom of her dressing case. The box was carved with intricate lotus scroll patterns, and a thin layer of dust had accumulated around the keyhole—this was an item her mother had never allowed her to touch.

The moment the copper key was inserted into the lock, the mechanism made a soft "click." Inside the box lay a yellowed letter and half a broken jade pendant. The pendant was engraved with half a flying dragon, with a speck of cinnabar embedded in the dragon's eye, which was as dazzling as blood in the candlelight.

The letter was written in my mother's beautiful handwriting:

"Wei'er, if you see this, it means the past of Yaotai can no longer be concealed. You and Xiyao are not related by blood; she is the last surviving daughter of the former Crown Prince. The great fire of that year..."

The latter half of the letter was burned black, with only the two characters "Yaotai" at the end of the signature still faintly discernible.

Xin Jiuwei clutched the jade pendant tightly, memories of her past life flooding back—on the day the Xin family was destroyed, the soldiers took only her eldest sister with them, and Qi Huaiyu had once said meaningfully, "Do you really think Xin Xiyao is your sister?"