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

"Take care of her for me." Fu Yuan raised his hand, the blood-stained hand pausing for a moment in mid-air before landing on Xi Yueli's long, loose hair.

"She is me, and I am her. This body can't hold on much longer. The poison the Empress gave me requires me to take an antidote every month to prolong my life. I've already stopped taking it for half a month. Take her away and leave me alone."

Helian Jing looked down at Xi Yueli, who was unconscious in his arms, and then at Fu Yuan, who was barely supporting himself. The two faces flickered alternately in the dim candlelight.

Footsteps sounded outside, the rhythmic thud of boots on the stone corridor indicating the arrival of well-trained armored soldiers. The Queen's men had arrived.

Helian Jing's back tensed for a moment. He laid Xi Yueli flat on the stone ground and quickly unfastened the curved sword from his waist and placed it aside.

He untied the blood-stained black robe from Fu Yuan's body and draped it over Xi Yue Li, turning up the hood to cover half of her face.

He helped the unconscious Xi Yueli sit up against the corner of the wall, adjusted her posture, her back was slightly bent, her head was lowered, and her hood was pulled down to cover her face. From the angle outside the door, her figure and outline were seven or eight parts similar to Fu Yuan.

Fu Yuan leaned against the wall on the other side, watching his movements, his unfocused eyes slowly focusing for a moment.

"Young Master," Fu Yuan's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, but she straightened up a bit as she leaned against the wall, "Take her away first."

"There's a squad of guards waiting outside the temple." Helian Jing's voice was calm. As he spoke, he bent down and helped Fu Yuan up from the ground, putting his arm under her armpits and half-carrying her to his side.

"There are only the Empress's people inside the temple, and Tuoba Lie's people outside. The Empress's people won't harm you; they want to keep you alive to do what the Empress wants you to do. I must protect you and get you out. It's safer for her to stay here pretending to be you."

Helian Jing stood up, put Fu Yuan's arm on his shoulder, pushed open the iron gate and walked out.

Fu Yuan leaned almost against him, each step difficult, but she gritted her teeth and remained silent.

As they stepped out of the underground chamber, the moonlight in the courtyard fell upon them once more. Helian Jing glanced at Fu Yuan, a feeling he couldn't quite describe. The person he had been searching for for four years had finally been found.

Helian Jing helped her through the courtyard, which had been restored to its original state after the formation was broken. When they pushed open the side gate of Ci'en Temple, they saw a figure moving in the bushes in the shadows.

The Empress's men had already reached the main gate, and the sound of armor rubbing together was particularly clear in the night. The path outside the side gate was deserted; it was a passage that he had cleared out for his guards beforehand.

As he helped Fu Yuan turn into the alley, a series of crisp boot sounds and a deep command came from the direction of the main gate of Ci'en Temple behind them: "Search the people inside!"

Helian Jing didn't turn around. He lifted Fu Yuan up half an inch further and strode quickly toward the direction where the guards would meet them.

Xi Yueli, who remained in the underground chamber of Ci'en Temple, huddled in the corner, her thin shoulders wrapped in a black robe, and her hood hanging down to cover most of her face.

Four years ago, heavy snow blocked the mountain passes on the northern border.

That year, the snow came earlier than ever before. Fu Yuan set off from the royal court to inspect the grain supply route on the border, and on the evening of the third day, he was caught in the overwhelming blizzard.

The horse struggled to move through the knee-deep snow, so she abandoned it and walked, dragging her pack through the wind and snow to find her way. Finally, before nightfall, she found an abandoned temple at the foot of a mountain.

The temple gate was half collapsed, with the door panel hanging crookedly on the door frame. When Fu Yuan pushed the door open, the first thing he smelled was a strong smell of rust, mixed with the original damp and rotten wood smell of the temple.

She stood at the door for three breaths. Inside the temple, only a clay Buddha statue remained, half of its face stripped of gold paint, revealing the grayish-white clay beneath. In front of the altar lay a pile of burnt-out charcoal ash, still faintly warm, as if someone had just left.

Fu Yuan's gaze passed over the charcoal ash and landed in the shadows on the right side of the altar, where a person lay.

He was dressed in dark blue tight-fitting clothes, the original color of which was no longer visible, and blood seeped from his chest and abdomen, soaking half of his clothes.

He lay on his back, one hand still gripping the hilt of the knife at his waist, his knuckles white from the grip. His face was pale and purplish, and his lips were dry, cracked, and purplish, clearly indicating that he had been lying there for some time.

Fu Yuan placed his baggage next to the charcoal ash and squatted down. Her first reaction was to check his neck. His pulse was still there, but it was very faint and weak.

She unbuttoned his shirt. The knife wound ran diagonally from his right chest to his left abdomen, the skin and flesh rolled back, the edges already white from the cold. Such a wound would not have allowed him to survive an hour on the battlefield. He had exhausted all his strength to have made it to this temple.

Fu Yuan turned around and rummaged through his bag, taking out needles and thread, strong liquor, and clean strips of cloth.

The body on the ground shuddered violently when the cold liquor touched the rolled-up flesh.

His head tilted to the side, and a very soft, short groan escaped from his lips, as if he had been pulled up from the depths of unconsciousness by pain for a moment and then sank back down.

Fu Yuan's hands did not stop. She threaded the needle, bent down, and when the first needle pierced his flesh, his eyelids twitched violently in his unconscious state.

Fu Yuan paused for a moment. For the first time, she looked down at him carefully. His brow bones were high, like two horizontal ridges carved by a knife. The corners of his eyes were slightly upturned. Even with his eyes half-closed in unconsciousness, the curve still showed a natural sharpness.

Fu Yuan turned her gaze back to the wound. When she inserted the needle for the second time, she used a slight lighter touch than the first time. The needle tip penetrated the flesh a fraction less deeply. The force was still there, but the precision had an added layer of deliberation that she hadn't shown before.

She counted the stitches as she sewed him up. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties at most. At that age, he had such resilience and such striking features. If it weren't for this snow trapping him here, he should be somewhere else serving as a general, leading his troops.

As Fu Yuan stitched up to the point near his sternum, the skin and flesh had mostly closed up, but when her needle went in, his body trembled again in his unconscious state, the tremor being more pronounced than before.

This time, he suddenly raised his left hand and grasped her wrist. His fingertips were icy cold, pressed against the pulse on her wrist.

Fu Yuan looked down at his hand gripping her wrist. His fingernails were embedded with dried blood and dirt, and his knuckles had calluses from years of holding knives, which rubbed roughly against the thinnest skin on the inside of her wrist.

On the forty-fourth stitch, she glanced at his face out of the corner of her eye and realized that he had opened his eyes at some point.

His eyes were half-open, his pupils still clouded with the gray of his severe injuries, but beneath that cloud was a light, brighter than before.

He looked at her, his gaze unfocused yet intense.

Fu Yuan's voice came through, "Three needles left."

His lips moved slightly, his gaze still fixed on her face. From his upward angle, he could only see half of her face illuminated by the snow light filtering through the window cracks.

She wore a face covering, revealing only her eyes, clear as black jade and calm as a deep current, as she bent down to sew up the last patch of flesh that had rolled back.

As he finished stitching the last thread, he suddenly whispered, "Are you a human or a ghost...?"

Fu Yuan paused for a moment as she reeled in the line. She looked down at his half-closed pupils, where the grayness was slowly creeping back in. That last glance was the last bit of strength he had left in his final moments. After uttering those four words, he sank back down.

Fu Yuan tied a knot in the thread and wrapped his wound with a clean strip of cloth. After she finished doing all this, she sat down next to the charcoal ash and started a fire again with the dry branches scattered in the temple.

When the firelight came on, she loosened a corner of her face covering to let in some fresh air. Then she turned her head to look at the person sleeping soundly on the ground. Her breathing was deeper than before, and her body relaxed.