My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

Canaan frowned deeply, his brow furrowing as the increasingly strong smell from the latrine grew stronger. A deep frown line appeared between his brows.

The smell was beyond simply being described as "stinky".

The cold air seeped in through every crack in the stone wall of the outhouse, which should have suppressed and frozen all the smells, but this smell did not.

It was as if it had been forced by the cold air and had nowhere to escape, so it became even denser and stronger, all trapped in this small space.

The eunuch's release, combined with the stirring of the contents of the chamber pot by his excrement, seemed to activate the odor, causing it to surge up from the pot.

It also contained a cloyingly strong smell of inferior spices, which fermented in the small, damp space into a complex toxic gas that made people want to cut off their noses.

The poisonous gas was still alive and tangible, like a thick fog that enveloped people's faces, entered their nostrils and lingered, eventually reaching the top of their heads, making their eyes sting.

Canaan covered his mouth and nose even tighter, and an impatient voice came muffled from his sleeves: "Stop talking nonsense! Take off your clothes."

The young eunuch knelt on the ground, his knees digging into the cold stone bricks, his hands still raised above his head in a gesture of surrender.

Upon hearing this, a strange blush suddenly appeared on his originally pale face, spreading from his cheekbones all the way to his ears.

He spoke haltingly, his voice soft and thin, as if he were whispering something shameful, and he subconsciously shrank his neck.

"Good man...you, I...then please be gentle..."

A sentence was squeezed out of the little eunuch's mouth in a sticky, affected way, with the last syllable inexplicably rising in pitch.

Canaan's fists hardened, his hand gripping the dagger tightened abruptly, his knuckles cracking slightly, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged out one by one.

For a fleeting moment, an extremely tempting image flashed through his mind: stab him in the back, and this idiot would never have to say those disgusting things again.

He suppressed his murderous intent and subconsciously took a deep breath through his sleeve, almost inhaling his own blood. He had no choice but to stop inhaling halfway and quickly exhale.

—I can't get blood on the clothes that were finally delivered to my door.

Canaan took a deep breath, his chest heaving as he managed to calm the nausea rising within him. Then, gritting his teeth, he spoke:

"If you disgust me again, you're dead! Take your clothes off!"

The young eunuch breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that it wasn't about sexual assault or murder; that was good, that was good.

He quickly took off his clothes, stripped himself naked in a few moments, and threw the clothes at his feet.

The robe, trousers, belt, and hat were piled up in a heap. Then, while Canaan was bent down picking up his clothes, he quickly lifted the curtain and rushed out.

The moment the curtain was lifted, a crisp, cold wind rushed in, carrying with it the lingering chill of late winter and the earthy scent of early spring.

In an instant, the foul air in the outhouse seemed to have been torn open, but then it closed again.

A figure flashed by, and outside, the sound of bare feet running on the stone slabs could be heard, growing fainter and fainter until it disappeared completely into the distant noise.

Canaan paused, then thought, "Fine, let's just run away. The most important thing right now is to get out of the palace as quickly as possible."

But these pants...

He had just put on his shirt and was holding the pants up to the wall lamp to check if there was anything that shouldn't be there when someone else suddenly came in.

The flame of the wall lamp was dimmed by the wind brought in by the lifted curtain, almost going out. The flame shrank to the size of a bean before it stretched out again after a moment.

The person who came in this time was He Jin.

Ashina frowned as he listened.

He rested one hand on the armrest of the throne, his fingers tapping impatiently on it several times.

—Tap, tap, tap—

Each tap was harder than the last.

Tsk...who wants to listen to a eunuch poop?!

He wanted to hear clues about He Jin's identity, not some filthy nonsense from the latrine!

He spoke up unhappily, his voice clearly irritated.

"Get to the point! Did you figure out who 'He Jin' was? Or was there anything suspicious about him?"

Canaan couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Didn't you tell me to go into every detail, 'not omitting a single thing'? Now you're complaining that I'm being too detailed..."

However, he certainly wouldn't dare say those words out loud. If he dared to utter them, he would definitely be kicked out of this hall today.

He quickly nodded to show he understood, opened his mouth slightly, then paused, carefully observing Ashina's expression before speaking:

"That king, I... I don't really know his identity. He told me he was a Great Flame Man."

After saying this, Canaan immediately observed Ashina's expression and saw that the man on the throne clearly had the thought, "Isn't that obvious?" He quickly added the next sentence.

"As for the suspicious parts, after I left the palace, I followed him for a while and found that he was heading north, and then..."

Ashina focused his mind, and that was the end of the conversation. He waved for him to leave, and then he didn't know what happened afterward.

His voice was a little more urgent than before, with a rising tone at the end, carrying a sense of urgency.

"And then what? Go on!"

Canaan swallowed hard. "Then, I saw him go into a dilapidated temple..."

About five kilometers north of the capital, there is a mountain.

The mountain wasn't high, but it was covered with dense thickets of thorns, which were still dry at this time of year, their branches leaning and drawing stiff lines against the dark night sky.

There is a dilapidated temple halfway up the mountain, with yellow walls and gray tiles.

Most of the yellow paint on the wall had peeled off, revealing the rammed earth underneath. Last year's withered leaves were piled up between the tiles, rotten from rain and snow, and blackened and stuck in the gaps between the tiles.

Because this place is not far from the town, many passersby will walk a longer distance to the nearest town, so few people will stop here to rest.

The copper rings on the temple gate had rusted into a green lump, and the door was crooked, half-closed, making a creaking sound when the wind blew.

Canaan followed them covertly, having grown tired of the journey and initially intending to head west back to the Western Regions.

—What if they are actually the Great Flame People living north of the capital? Following them would be pointless.

Seeing him go up the mountain and into the temple, he suddenly perked up. Could it be that there really is some secret?

Canaan's heart skipped a beat. He carefully hid himself behind the thorn bushes and watched the man's figure disappear into the temple before following him.

The dry thorns of the thorns caught on his sleeve. He carefully removed them, not daring to use force for fear of making a noise.

This operation has failed, so forget about the reward...

Canaan felt as if he could see a pile of golden ingots shattering into powder in front of him, and he was so heartbroken that he could hardly breathe.

But putting aside the rewards, the more important question is whether there will be any punishment...

He needs to see if he can make up for it in other ways; this news about He Jin might just be a life-saving gift.

Canaan clenched his fist and then relaxed it. A thin layer of sweat seeped from his palms, and when the cold wind blew, it felt cool and stuck to his skin.

Unfortunately, when he returned with the information he had gathered, Ashina didn't want to hear it at all. Fortunately, he wasn't punished and even received a minor official position.

However, Canaan was unaware of this at the moment. He carefully climbed onto the roof of the dilapidated temple and lifted a few tiles to peek inside.