Who said the eldest daughter is crazy? She's clearly a woman of high rank and influence in the

Helian Jing leaned against the window and watched her for a long time. The cuffs of his dark blue casual clothes fluttered slightly in the night wind. His black iron mask was not on, lying on the windowsill. His angular face was half-lit and half-shadowed by the candlelight.

Her posture at the desk hadn't changed since the beginning; her shoulders were taut, a slender white arc of the back of her neck was exposed, and the pen tip never stopped. With each flicker of the candlelight in the brass lamp, her wrist moved.

He walked over very quietly, but she still heard him. Her pen paused for a moment, but she didn't look up.

Helian Jing wrapped his arms around her from behind, his arms crossed over her waist and abdomen, his chin resting on her shoulder, the fabric of his moon-white robe brushing against the stray hairs hanging down her shoulders.

His palm was pressed against the fabric of her waist, and he could feel her shoulder blades slightly tense beneath the fabric.

"Are you tired?" His voice came close to her neck, carrying the coolness of the night breeze.

Without turning her head, she wrote another line of annotation on the paper: "Tired, but I can't stop now."

The Empress has pulled out most of her seventeen nails in the south, but there are still spies moving in the direction of the capital.

The last clue provided by Yin Shuo points to a more hidden passage between the Empress and the Northern Border. By following He Qingshuang's accounting logic, we can find the point where the Empress planned to make her move on the way back to the capital.

She wanted to mark all those nodes before they were resealed.

Helian Jing did not urge her to rest. His hand slid from her waist to her shoulder, and his fingertips pressed on the hard lump where her shoulder and neck met, slowly kneading it with just the right amount of pressure.

The stiffness that had accumulated from holding a pen all night was gently pressed away by his knuckles. His breath brushed against the stray hairs behind her ear, carrying a layer of deep certainty.

"You just focus on the layout; I'll handle the dirty and hard work."

Xi Yueli finally stopped writing. She turned her head, her cheek almost brushing against his chin, her gaze meeting his eyes at such close range: "Your Highness Prince Chen, will you become my subordinate?"

Helian Jing's lips curved slightly. He lowered his head and leaned close to her ear, his voice three octaves lower than she had expected: "More than that, I'll be anything for you."

Her fingers tightened around the pen, and her ears turned red from the tips outwards. She slammed the pen down, pried his fingers off her waist, stood up, and took a half-step back. "I'm going to see the secret report from the Dark Pavilion."

She turned and walked quickly, the hem of her light blue dress fluttering in the candlelight. She pushed open the door and went out, but when she reached the door, the skin on the back of her neck was still faintly red.

Helian Jing stood there, watching the seemingly calm figure disappear into the night outside the door.

He glanced down at his hand, the one she had just pried open, his knuckles still warm from the fabric of her clothes. A smile spread from his lips to his eyes.

In the shadow of the pillars outside the window, Han Zheng had been frozen in that position, turning his head to the side, for almost ten breaths.

He had just come to deliver an urgent message and walked to the window when he saw his master embracing Xi Yueli from behind. He stopped in his tracks, as if he had been nailed to a pillar.

He silently turned his head away and looked at the old locust tree in the yard that had lost all its leaves. He stared at a withered branch for a long time until he heard the door open and the footsteps fade away, then he slowly turned his head back.

Ding Si crouched in the shadows behind him and asked in a low voice, "Commander, should we still deliver the letter?"

Han Zheng glanced down at the rolled-up urgent report in his hand; the wax seal was still intact. He was silent for a moment, then replied in a low voice, "...Let her come back and read it first. If we go in now and run into her, who's to blame?"

After he finished speaking, he stuffed the urgent report back into his arms, crossed his arms, and shrank back half an inch into the shadow of the pillars, his gaze fixed on the ground, no longer looking into the window.

He Qingshuang pushed open the door and came in carrying a bowl of freshly brewed ginseng soup; the rim of the bowl was still hot.

Shen Du followed behind her, holding a medicine box in his hand. He Qingshuang placed the ginseng soup on the corner of the table, sat down first, and tapped her fingertips twice on the edge of the table.

"The investigation into the Silver Shuttle matter is complete. The list of items transported from Mufeng Cliff each time is very long, containing all sorts of things, as if they are preparing gifts to please someone."

When she finished speaking, her gaze fell on Xi Yueli's face, waiting for a response.

Xi Yueli leaned back on the couch, holding the bowl of ginseng soup in her hand without drinking it. "I'm not going to investigate anymore."

He Qingshuang's eyebrows twitched slightly. "Reason?"

Xi Yueli raised her eyes. Sunlight streamed in from behind the window paper, illuminating her face and making her almond-shaped eyes clear. She was silent for a moment, then stretched out her right hand, palm open, looking at her fingertips.

"I can sense some fragments of Ye Lan's memories, but I don't remember anything before the Nine Heavens Hairpin." Her voice was soft, as if she were confirming something herself.

"There were some emotions, intermittently. When she was being chased to the brink of death at Mufeng Cliff, Shi Xuanji stood in front of her and took those three blows for her. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was the blood on his back."

She looked up at He Qingshuang and said, "A person who is willing to use their own back to shield her from a knife is not an enemy."

He Qingshuang remained silent for a long time after hearing this. She sat in the morning light, her fingertips tapping slowly twice on her knees, then she leaned back in her chair, a smile curving her lips.

"You believe her."

"She believes him."

"That's enough." He Qingshuang stood up, walked to the window, and opened it to let in some fresh air. The cold winter wind blew in and blew on her face.

"My accounts aren't settled yet. Shen Du said I need to recuperate for another three months. I've compiled a list of the resources you'll need in the capital. The He family's bank has two branches in the capital. If the Dark Pavilion needs manpower, we can transfer it directly from there."

She turned her head to the side, and the sunlight fell on her profile, clearly illuminating the curve of her lips: "If you don't want to investigate, then don't. Anyway, the Dark Pavilion is in your hands. If Shi Xuanji ever comes to his senses, he will send the person over himself."

Xi Yueli looked at He Qingshuang's profile as she leaned against the window frame. She lowered her head and finished drinking the ginseng soup, making a soft sound as she placed the bowl back on the corner of the table.

"How many leads in Beijing are there that you haven't had time to close?"

"Three." He Qingshuang turned around and counted on her fingers. "The old accountant of the bank was the Empress's man, and I have already changed his seal."

"I had a new brick placed under the hidden compartment on the second floor of the teahouse near the palace gate. There's also an old path that the Empress used to send private messages out of the palace. The route map provided by Yinshuo shows that the path leads to the ruins of Ci'en Temple."

As Xi Yueli listened, she absorbed these pieces of information one by one into the depths of her consciousness, piecing them together with Fu Yuan's memories, the dossier of the Dark Pavilion, and He Qingshuang's accounts, like piecing together a map that she had begun to see in its entirety.

She stood up and walked to the window, standing side by side with He Qingshuang. Across half the courtyard, the sunlight was slowly brightening, turning the thin frost on the eaves into a scattering of gold.

"I'm setting off back to the capital tomorrow." Xi Yueli turned her head. "Keep an eye on the He family's silver shop branch for me. If the Empress moves those three lines ahead of schedule, have the people in the secret service seal off the old road to Ci'en Temple. Don't touch the hidden compartments at the palace gate tea shop yet—keep them for her use."

He Qingshuang had no objection. She simply turned her head to look at Xi Yueli, her gaze lingering on her face for a moment, before reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Xi Yueli's ear, her gesture resembling that of someone adjusting the collar of their own younger sister.

"I'll wait until you've finished collecting all the threads you need to collect before I listen to your stories about the capital."