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

Helian Jing saw her staring blankly at her hands, so he knelt down in front of her and reached out to feel the temperature of her forehead: "Does it still hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore." Xi Yueli looked up at him, her gaze filled with something that had just surfaced.

"Your Highness, when I was complaining about my headache on the cliff top just now, a scene suddenly flashed through my mind—I was sitting behind the counter of a shop, with an old abacus beside me, the beads of which were made of ebony and polished to a shine."

"There were other sounds. Someone was singing a song next to me, a tune from Jiangnan, with a soft, drawn-out melody. I couldn't make out the lyrics, but the tune sounded very familiar."

"When I was at the Xi residence, I once 'had an episode' and sang the same verse while sitting on a stone bench in the garden. At the time, Qingdai was so frightened that she thought I was possessed."

Her fingers, gripping the edge of her cloak, tightened slightly. "I might have a fragment, belonging to a merchant from Jiangnan."

Helian Jing didn't press the matter of the abacus and the melody, but simply took her hands, which were resting on her knees, into his palm and squeezed them briefly. "Then let's go to Jiangnan. I'll have the Tian Shu Division investigate the matter of the silver shuttle. I'll accompany you to the south."

The carriage turned around in the night and headed south along the official road.

Liu San Niang's men remained in the northern border to investigate clues about the silver shuttle. The blue carriage was replaced with a new horse at dawn the next day, and the carriage tracks followed the official road southward, where a warm, humid atmosphere began to fill the air.

On the evening of the fourth day, the carriage stopped to rest and change water outside a town by the water. As Xi Yueli lifted the curtain to get some fresh air, her gaze swept over the direction of the tea stall at the entrance of the town.

A man sat on a bench outside the teahouse. He was dressed in a blue robe and was thin. He held a rough porcelain bowl in his hand, drinking something with his head down. He was reserved, as if he was hiding from someone or waiting for someone.

When the woman looked up to wipe her mouth, she revealed a face she had seen many times in the Xi residence.

Deng Yanzhi, her former fiancé who publicly broke off their engagement at the Xi family mansion, was now sitting in a teahouse in a small town in Jiangnan. His complexion was two shades yellower than when he was in the capital, and he had a fine stubble on his chin, making him look like a down-on-his-luck traveler.

Xi Yueli lowered the carriage curtain, sat back in the carriage, and tapped her knees lightly with her fingertips. Helian Jing leaned against the opposite carriage wall and saw her reaction clearly.

"Do you know him?" he asked.

"My ex-fiancé," Xi Yueli answered crisply, "the one from the capital city of Ying who publicly called me a madman at the Xi residence."

When the carriage resumed its journey, Xi Yueli did not lift the curtain to look back.

The image of Deng Yanzhi sitting on the long bench in the teahouse lingered in her mind for only a few moments before she suppressed it. From the day the fire broke out at the Xi family estate, her old grudges with the Xi family in the capital had been completely burned away.

Helian Jing leaned against the opposite carriage wall, his eyes half-closed beneath the black iron mask, as if he were resting, but his fingers, resting on his knees, were tapping lightly.

In the afternoon, the carriage stopped in front of a city gate surrounded by gray walls. Above the gate, a blue stone plaque was inscribed with three characters: Tingzi Mansion.

Tingzi Prefecture is a famous river and land port in the southern part of Daying, where three rivers converge, attracting merchants from all over. The street is three-tenths narrower than Shuojing, but the shops on both sides are more than twice as dense as in the north, with silk shops, tea shops, money shops, and pharmacies lined up one after another.

Xi Yueli lifted a corner of the carriage curtain to look outside. Her gaze lingered on the signboard of a tea shop called "Wanyuanhao" for a moment before moving away.

Helian Jing settled in an inconspicuous inn in the city and asked for a second-floor room facing the street. Pushing open the window, one could see the busiest South Market Street in Tingzi Prefecture. From the window, one could see merchants queuing to exchange silver in front of the money exchange and laborers carrying sacks to and fro from the direction of the dock.

Xi Yueli sat by the window for a while, then closed her eyes. She couldn't pinpoint exactly where the fragment of the Jiangnan merchant's story was in Tingzi Mansion, but she had a vague feeling about it.

The layout of the streets and alleys, the arrangement of the shops, and even the smell of tea mixed with dampness in the air are all etched in a vague corner of her memory.

Helian Jing sat down on a low stool by the window, unfolded a newly arrived secret report from the Tian Shu Division, and handed it to her: "The Tian Shu Division is investigating the whereabouts of the Silver Shuttle. The news will arrive in three days at the earliest."

Three days later, Xi Yueli had walked through most of the South Market Street, three inland river wharves, and two money shops in Tingzi Mansion.

Wherever she went, a little more of that vague memory would surface from the depths of her mind.

She recognized the angle at which the old rattan chair behind the counter of Wanyuanhao Tea Shop was placed, the worn-out threshold of the side door of Fuxiang Money Shop, and the three old scratches carved on the wooden stake of berth number three at the dock, but that fragment never fully surfaced.

On the evening of the fourth day, Xi Yueli was drinking a cup of warm tea alone in the small hall downstairs of the inn. Lian Jing went to a Tian Shu Si spy in the west of the city to retrieve new information. Before leaving, he placed a signal bamboo tube beside her. For the time being, she only had one guard at the back door of the inn.

Just as the water in the teacup was almost gone, the light at the entrance of the inn suddenly dimmed.

A figure walked in from outside the door, backlit by the twilight. The figure was thin, wearing an old blue robe with mud splattered on the hem from his journey. After walking in, the person stood inside the door for a couple of breaths, his gaze sweeping around the hall before settling on a lone figure sitting at a table in the corner.

Xi Yueli paused slightly as she held the teacup, then looked up at the newcomer.

Deng Yanzhi stood three steps in front of her. He looked at her face, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Then his knees bent, and with a "thump," he knelt down in front of her.

The commotion startled the other two tables of guests in the inn's small hall, who turned around at the same time. The innkeeper also stopped working on his abacus halfway through.

Deng Yanzhi knelt there, his back bowed low, his forehead almost touching the ground. "Li'er...it's me."

Xi Yueli looked down at him kneeling in front of her. The collar of his blue robe was frayed, and there was a dried mud mark on the back of his neck, as if he had fallen in some muddy ground.

"I knew you weren't dead." Deng Yanzhi's voice came from below, choked with sobs.

"I wasn't in the capital when the fire broke out, but I went to the estate later. The woodshed was burned down to just the frame, but I couldn't find it in the ashes..."

He looked up, and his eyes were indeed brimming with tears, the water glistening in the twilight.

"I know you escaped. I've been looking for you. I don't know where you are, but I know you must be alive. You said you wanted to see the vast peach orchards in Jiangnan, so I came here, and I really found you here."

Xi Yueli looked at him; the face that had once shouted about announcing the annulment of the engagement at the Xi residence was now looking up at her, its face streaked with tears.

"Li'er." He took a step forward on his knees, reaching out to touch the hem of her dress, but his fingertips stopped three inches away from the black fabric, as if he dared not touch it, or as if he was waiting for permission.

"Back then, when the engagement was called off, the Empress threatened my sister's life, forcing me to get closer to Xi Yuefu so that you would give up on me."

"I had no choice. If I hadn't broken off the engagement, my sister would have died suddenly in the palace the next day. But even after I broke off the engagement, she didn't leave the palace safely. The Empress locked her in the Cold Palace of the Imperial Household Department. I don't know if she's still alive."

He looked up at Xi Yueli, tears streaming down his face and soaking into the collar of his blue robe. The sorrow in his eyes was genuine.

"Li'er, I don't ask for your forgiveness. I know I was too harsh with what I said back then, but I want to make it up to you, even if it's just by doing one thing for you—"