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

Empress Xiao of Daying donated funds to build a temple called "Cien Temple" thirty miles outside Qixia Pass on the northern border of Daying. The temple was ostensibly built to pray for the people of both countries and to ward off disasters. It has only been half a month since its completion.

The construction period was extremely short, taking only one month from groundbreaking to completion. The craftsmen were brought by the Empress from Daying and did not go through any official procedures in Beishuo.

The secret report also included a more detailed entry: Three days before the Empress donated funds to build this temple, a team of twelve guards was transferred from the palace, ostensibly to "escort the imperial scriptures." After leaving the palace, the twelve guards disappeared from the records of the Imperial Household Department and their whereabouts became unknown.

Helian Jing placed the two secret reports side by side and traced a line under one of the lines with his finger: "Every six months, the Empress repairs and donates to temples under the guise of praying for blessings, and enshrines her own longevity tablet. This is common knowledge throughout the court."

He looked up at Xi Yueli, "This is the first one that can be built on the border."

"Fu Yuan is imprisoned in that temple." Xi Yueli felt absurd even when she said this.

A Taoist temple that had been under construction for half a month was found to have been forcibly dragged from the royal palace and stuffed into the temple. However, after cross-verification of secret reports from the Dark Pavilion and the Heavenly Pivot Bureau, the conclusion became increasingly clear.

Helian Jing folded the secret report and tucked it into his sleeve. As he stood up, he pressed the short blade at his waist. "We'll leave tonight and reach Qixia Pass by tomorrow morning. The Tian Shu Division is waiting to meet us outside the pass."

Xi Yueli stood up and followed him outside. Outside the side door, a jet-black horse was already waiting.

Helian Jing mounted his horse, bent down, and extended his hand to her. Xi Yueli looked up at him, the moonlight falling on the thin layer of light in his eyes, and then she placed her hand in his palm.

As he took her hand and helped her onto the horse, his thumb brushed against the back of her hand imperceptibly, the sensation as fleeting as a night breeze slipping through her fingers.

She turned her face away from the wind, her nose brushing against the faint scent of fir on the fabric of his shirt on the back of his shoulder, and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Giddy up!" Helian Jing flicked the reins, and the black horse galloped south towards Qixia Pass, the walls of the Northern Shuo Royal Court receding further and further behind them.

Xi Yueli sat behind him, her face buried in the fabric of his shirt on his back shoulder. She closed her eyes, and the uncertainty in her heart became clearer and clearer.

The night outside Qixia Pass was even darker than in the heart of Beishuo. Ci'en Temple sat alone on a hillside thirty miles outside the pass.

The temple has gray walls and blue tiles and is not large in scale, but the courtyard wall is more than twice as high as that of an ordinary Taoist temple. The copper bells hanging from the eaves are not moving in the wind, as if their sound is suppressed by something.

Helian Jing reined in his horse and stopped behind a low bush about three hundred paces down the slope. He dismounted, turned to the side, and used one hand to support Xi Yueli's waist as he helped her off the horse. His palm pressed against her waist through her clothes, and he paused for a moment before letting go.

When Xi Yueli landed, she stumbled half a step on a loose pebble. He reached out and supported her elbow, his touch not strong, but lasting a few breaths longer than necessary.

Xi Yueli didn't look at him, only whispered "It's nothing", then crouched down and walked a few steps up the slope, her gaze falling on the tightly closed gate of Ci'en Temple.

Fine metallic powder was embedded in the gaps in the stone steps on both sides of the gate, reflecting a very faint silvery-white light under the moonlight.

Helian Jing squatted down, dipped his fingertip in the mixture, rubbed it between his fingers, and then squinted his eyes.

"It's a formation. Someone buried a talisman array on the stone steps, corners of the walls, and eaves in front of the gate, covering the entire courtyard."

Xi Yueli squatted down beside him, their shoulders almost touching. She leaned closer to look at the silver powder on his fingertips and asked in a low voice, "What kind of formation is this?"

"An illusion array." Helian Jing stood up, his gaze sweeping along the outline of the courtyard wall. "Once activated, it will trap people in illusions. The deeper you go, the more realistic the illusions become, until you can no longer distinguish between reality and illusion, and you're just circling around in place until you're exhausted."

He glanced at her sideways, the moonlight highlighting a sharp line along his brow bone. "Are you afraid?"

Xi Yueli straightened up. She looked at the tightly closed gray wall door, weighed the words in her mind, and said, "I'm afraid, but Fu Yuan is waiting for me inside."

Helian Jing looked at her for a moment, said nothing, but drew the short blade from his waist, extended his hand to her with his palm facing up, as if inviting her to come along.

Xi Yueli looked down at his palm, then placed her own hand on it.

When his fingers closed and held hers, she could feel the thin calluses on the back of his thumb brushing against the side of her fingers, warm and rough, yet incredibly reassuring.

"Let's go," he said.

The moment the gate of Ci'en Temple was pushed open, a muffled whisper emerged from the depths of the courtyard. The sound was empty, like the echoes of the wind passing through an empty house, layered upon each other.

The courtyard was shrouded in a very thin mist. The moonlight lost its sharpness in the mist, and the edges of everything were blurred as if they were soaked in water.

As Helian Jing led her across the threshold, the moment their feet touched the blue bricks of the courtyard, Xi Yueli's breath hitched. The whispers suddenly became clear, and she heard her own name rushing in from all directions.

"Xi Yueli", "Miss Xi", "Sister Li"...

The voices were shrill, hoarse, laughing, and crying; some were Fang Shi's, some were Xi Yuefu's, some were the old lady's, and some were the voices of the noble ladies in the capital who said she was crazy through their fans.

Her hand suddenly clenched Helian Jing's palm.

"Don't listen." Helian Jing's voice came from beside him, steady and clear. "Those sounds are the tentacles of the formation. They're looking for a gap in your consciousness."

As he spoke, he had already led her three steps forward. With each step, the whispers changed direction, surging in from all directions and receding, washing over her like a tide.

But Helian Jing's palm remained firmly in hers, with even pressure, neither too loose nor too tight, as if he were holding her up with an anchor rope in the tide.

In the open space in the center of the courtyard, the fog suddenly thickened. Xi Yueli felt her ankle being tripped by something. When she looked down, the blue bricks on the ground were twisting and deforming.

The cracks between the bricks turned into black ravines, with dark red liquid churning inside, like something alive wriggling beneath.

In the surging, dark red light, she saw her own hand, gripping a narrow-bladed longsword, its blade entirely black, with drops of blood rolling down its spine.

"This is an illusion." Helian Jing's voice came a fraction closer. He had somehow moved to her side, slightly in front of her, and used half of his shoulder to shield her from the thickest layer of fog.

His back was pressed against her shoulder, and the two of them were so close that she could even feel the outline of his shoulder blades under his clothes.

Xi Yueli bit her tongue, the pain causing the dark red image to shatter for a moment, but it reformed the next second, with another layer added to the fragments.

She stood atop the mountain of corpses, her feet stained with blood, a narrow-bladed longsword gripped in her right hand. This time, she could see the hilt of the sword clearly; it was wrapped with dark hemp rope, and two shallow indentations were worn into the space between her index and middle fingers—the curves left by years of wielding a sword.

She recognized the sword; she had seen it before, in her dreams.

"Help me up." Her voice suddenly became hoarse and soft. Helian Jing didn't ask why, but turned to the side, put one arm around her waist, and almost half-embraced her.

Her forehead rested against his shoulder, her eyes closed. The images were still surging within her, but now that she had a reliable support, the surging force no longer dragged her down.

"Keep moving forward," she said.