And he is the best protector, a protector who is in urgent need of growth and is not yet strong enough.
He finally agreed to his father.
After meeting her today, he would need to gather his thoughts, make friends with the noble families, and prepare to take over the palace. Although he had spent his youth in the army, he had been free, and meeting her was the most wonderful dream.
But dreams always end. Days like these will eventually come to an end.
He envied the shopkeeper of Wangchen Tower, her deceased maid, and everyone she had been close to along the way. He wished he could be any of them.
But in the end, there's only so much distance they can walk together.
"Master Xiao, goodbye."
Su Pingchuan turned around slowly and finally stepped onto the corridor leading to the depths of the palace.
She watched his back disappear under the huge outline of the palace, as if watching a firefly being swallowed by the darkness.
Apart from Yan Zi, her meeting with Su Pingchuan tonight seemed to be very ordinary, but she clearly sensed something unusual in this ordinariness.
Perhaps she is not the only one struggling and searching in that invisible vortex.
Xiao Nanhui turned around and walked in the opposite direction of Su Pingchuan.
She followed the same path she had taken to get out of the palace wall. Not long after, she saw a speck of light coming out of the towering side door of the palace wall. It vaguely resembled a tall man in plain clothes with a brown face and a beautiful beard.
Did the palace guards order Xu Shu to be replaced? When did such a person appear?
But when she got closer, she found that the other party was not carrying a sword, but only holding an oil lamp in his hand.
Xiao Nanhui stopped and was not sure if the other person was the one he was looking for. He was thinking about how to start the conversation when the man introduced himself.
"My name is Qu Xingzi, you can just call me Xingzi, young lady."
His last name is Qu? Does that mean he's related to Hao Bai?
But the person in front of him... is really different from Hao Bai, and the Qu family is ultimately connected to the previous dynasty and even ancient times.
The more friendly the other party was, the more reserved Xiao Nanhui became.
"Xingzi...Brother, where is the thing I want to take now?"
The other party smiled heartily and made way.
"The things are not here with me, please follow me, girl."
This time, she finally returned to Jingbo Tower.
The autumn wind was blowing upstairs. She looked back at the entire Quecheng and felt that the continuous spring rain and the chirping of summer cicadas seemed to be just yesterday.
Qu Xingzi was walking in the corridor when Xiao Nanhui suddenly asked.
"May I ask why Attendant Shan is not here? He used to lead the way in and out of Jingbo Tower."
Qu Xingzi stopped and stretched out his broad finger to point at the three-layer palace wall outside the railing.
She looked down in the direction the other person pointed, and saw dozens of people standing sparsely on the bright corridor in front of Yuanming Hall. They were all wearing court robes and no one was holding a lamp. It looked very strange.
"Those are..."
Qu Xingzi withdrew his hand with a smile, but the words he said were worrying.
"Those are the elders of the court who have not left since the beginning of the day. The Shan Changshi you just asked about is unable to escape because of this."
Shan Jiangfei was in Yuanming Palace? But isn't that a place only accessible to the emperor when he was in court?
A vague idea formed in her mind, but she had other concerns at the moment.
"Why didn't they go back to their own houses, but instead gathered in the palace? Did they hear some news?"
This time Qu Xingzi did not answer.
The corridor also came to an end at this moment. The tall man blew out the oil lamp in his hand, and then opened a stone chamber.
"The person Miss Xiao wants to see is in the stone chamber. I will escort him here. Please."
All the words on the tip of his tongue had to be swallowed for the time being. When he turned around again, Qu Xingzi had disappeared at the end of the corridor in the night along with the oil lamp.
She stood for a while, then walked into the stone chamber.
As soon as I stepped into the stone chamber, the stone door behind me swung shut. The air instantly became quiet.
Xiao Nanhui touched the wall and walked towards the faint candlelight not far away.
At the end of the light was a simple little table with a hole dug on it. A charcoal fire was lit in the hole, and a copper pot was placed on the charcoal fire. Something seemed to be cooking in the pot, and steam was bubbling out of it.
An old man with white hair and beard and a dark face was sitting cross-legged in front of a small table. His eyebrows were short and thick, lying on his eye sockets like broad beans. He looked rather childish instead of an old man's demeanor.
This... maybe this is the youngest elder of the Qu family who is said to have never left Wancheng?
Xiao Nanhui stared at the two eyebrows in a daze. The other party did not say anything and also looked her up and down.
The two of them stared at each other for a long time, until the soup overflowed from the pot, making a sizzling sound.
The old man came to his senses and hurriedly tried to lift the lid, but he was scalded again and lost his composure in an instant.
He blew quickly on his fingers, then glanced at the woman standing in the center of the stone chamber.
"Have you had dinner yet?"
Xiao Nanhui shook his head.
“No.”
The other man raised his beard and pointed with his chin at the mat in front of the low table.
"Let's sit down and have a mushroom hotpot together."
After seeing many strange people and things, people's reactions will gradually become calmer.
Xiao Nanhui paused for a moment before walking forward and sitting down at the table.
Open the pot, cook the meat, and add the vegetables.
The meal was eaten in silence.
The other person was so absorbed in eating that he had no time to care about anything else, while she was worried about something and had difficulty swallowing her food.
She slowly put down the bamboo chopsticks in her hand.
"The old man asked me to come here, so he must have something to pass on to me. I wonder what it is..."
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