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

Helian Jing stood up, patted his robe, took out an iron plaque from his sleeve, and twirled it between his fingers. The back of the plaque had the hidden pattern of the Tian Shu Division.

"Last night, my men saw Liu San Niang seeing someone off in this alley. I thought to myself, since we're already here, why not wait for her in person?"

He took a step closer to her, reducing the distance between them from three steps to two. He looked down at her, his eyes shining brightly in the shadows.

"Xi Yueli," he called her by her full name, emphasizing each word, "I have some questions for you."

Xi Yueli met his gaze, her heart pounding wildly, but she dared not show it on her face.

The fact that he was in this blacksmith shop meant that he already knew enough, but she also knew that the only thing she could do was to keep pretending until she couldn't pretend anymore.

"What does Your Highness wish to ask?" She took a half step back, turned to the side and pointed to the old square table inside the blacksmith's shop. "Please sit down. There is no tea here, so Your Highness will have to make do."

Helian Jing walked to the table and sat down, tapping his fingertips lightly on the surface twice. "I told you that four years ago on the border of Beishuo, a person saved my life. He was dressed in black robes, only revealing his eyes. Your eyes are exactly the same as that person's."

Xi Yueli lowered her eyes. "Your Highness has mistaken me for someone else. I was only thirteen years old four years ago and had never been to Beishuo before."

Helian Jing leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice by an inch, "And your elbow strike technique when facing the assassin in the Tranquil Pavilion that day, your habit of holding the blade upright, and the direction of your spin to use leverage are exactly the same as the Dark Pavilion Master's fighting record back then."

"I have reviewed the files of the Dark Pavilion kept by the Heavenly Pivot Division. I had twelve secret guards compare the Pavilion Master's fighting habits before his disappearance, and all twelve of them came to the same conclusion: it was the same person."

Xi Yueli's fingertips lightly touched the edge of the table. She raised her eyes, the candlelight flickering in her pupils: "What exactly does Your Highness want to say?"

Helian Jing looked at her, his gaze as deep and still as a still pond: "You are the master of the Dark Pavilion."

The blacksmith shop fell silent for a moment. Xi Yueli could hear her own heartbeat, pounding against her eardrums, but she tilted her head slightly, revealing a perfectly appropriate expression of confusion.

"The master of the Dark Pavilion? Your Highness, what is the Dark Pavilion? I am Xi Yueli, the eldest daughter of the Xi family. I have been ill for many years, and I don't remember anything from yesterday."

She chuckled. "Your Highness, are you making fun of me? How could a sickly woman like me, who can't even leave the house, possibly be the head of the Dark Pavilion?"

Helian Jing looked at her. Her expression was impeccable, a mixture of bewilderment and helplessness, and a hint of grievance that felt offended, as if someone had inexplicably slapped a big hat on her.

But he had seen her act, and she always knew exactly how to handle things perfectly. She was such a good actress.

"You don't remember," he said. "You don't remember the Dark Pavilion, you don't remember the Pavilion Master's identity, you don't remember when you received the token."

Helian Jing's voice was low and clear, "But your body remembers the action of being stabbed in the shoulder by broken porcelain when you were awakened by the assassin; you can't fake that."

He leaned forward, closing the distance between them to just a foot. The candlelight flickered on the table between them, illuminating their faces clearly.

"Xi Yueli, your dissociative identity disorder is not an illness. It's because someone has separated your soul. During the times you can't remember, people with other identities were helping you."

Xi Yueli looked at him, and her usually clear eyes suddenly became misty.

Because in the tin book she had just opened at the Wan Shi Lou, there was a similar record: there was a sorcerer who was skilled in the "soul splitting technique," which was said to be able to split a person's soul into several pieces and put them into different containers using a secret method of splitting one into many and returning many to one.

"The soul splits into various bodies, and each body becomes the eyes and ears of the other."

She opened her mouth, but her throat suddenly tightened. She had always thought that the time she couldn't remember was someone else living for her. But what if "soul splitting" meant that her soul was broken up and divided into different bodies?

Those memories don't reside in her body; rather, they are fragments of her own soul living elsewhere, seeing the world through the eyes of others.

The Dark Pavilion Master was one of those fragments, but that fragment possessed the complete memories and identity of the Pavilion Master, while the main soul remaining in the body of the Xi family could not remember anything.

"Your Highness..." she said softly, "I'm not feeling well..."

She wasn't pretending; her temples were throbbing, and the surging fragments in her mind, as if Helian Jing's words had broken some kind of seal, were rushing out one after another.

The hand holding the knife, the abacus beads, the night wind on the wall, the creaking door of the dilapidated temple in the heavy snow, a pair of tearful eyes, a body lying on the couch covered with a white cloth—she couldn't tell what was real or fake, and only felt dizzy.

She swayed to the side, sliding off the chair and nearly hitting her forehead on the corner of the table, but Helian Jing quickly reached out and caught her.

His arm went under her armpits and lifted her up from the ground. Her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, her eyelids were heavily closed, her eyelashes were clearly visible on her lower eyelids, and her face was so white that it was almost transparent.

Helian Jing looked down at her. The person in his arms was very light. He had said so much just now, hoping that she would give a response to every word, even just a look.

But when she collapsed, she really couldn't hold on any longer. Cold sweat seeped from her forehead and clung to the fabric of his neck, leaving it damp and cold.

The candlelight flickered on the table, casting a warm glow on his pale face. He suddenly felt a tightness in his chest, a sour and throbbing sensation, as if something had been weighing on his heart all night.

"...Let's go," he said softly, "I'll escort you back."

He wrapped the dark gray coat draped over the back of the chair around her, adjusted the collar, and then carried her out through the drab little door.

The moonlight had already filled the alley. He lifted the person in his arms up a little, and her face was buried in the crook of his shoulder. Her breathing was steady and long, as if she were really asleep.

Helian Jing carried Xi Yueli through the alley to the back gate of the Xi residence, where the gatekeeper saw a figure approaching from afar.

Just as he was about to shout "Who goes there?", upon seeing the dark blue brocade robe and plain silver hairpin, his knees buckled and he knelt down, scrambling and crawling into the mansion: "His Highness Prince Chen... has arrived—"

When Xi Mingyuan rushed out of the study, he hadn't even had time to straighten the hem of his robe, and he tripped on the threshold and almost fell over.

He stood at the end of the corridor and saw Helian Jing carrying Xi Yueli in. He froze on the spot, his lips moved slightly, but he couldn't even finish saying "Your Highness".

When Helian Jing walked past him, he didn't even glance at him. He walked straight past with an extremely leisurely pace, as if he were walking in his own backyard, carrying nothing more than a scroll of calligraphy and painting.

Xi Mingyuan followed behind for three steps but dared not chase any further. He stood at the entrance of the moon gate, clutching his sleeves, his palms covered in cold sweat.

When Qingdai saw it at the entrance of Jinxian Courtyard, the copper basin in her hand fell to the ground with a "clatter," spilling water all over the ground. She stared blankly for three breaths, then suddenly realized what was happening, hurriedly lifted the curtain to make way, and pulled back a corner of the bedding on the bed.

Helian Jing bent down and gently placed Xi Yueli on the bed. When her head rested on the pillow, he supported her neck before slowly withdrawing his hand.

Qingdai stood there, at a loss, unsure whether to go forward to serve or to retreat.

Helian Jing glanced at her, and that glance was so frightening that she immediately shrank back and retreated outside the curtain.