The moon, like a white jade hook, hung high next to Qitian Tower, seemingly within reach from the high tower.
But more pure and immaculate than the bright moon was the man bathed in moonlight atop Qitian Tower.
The man, with white clothes and white hair, had his wide sleeves and silky hair gently swaying in the wind, seemingly stealing all the world’s brilliance and captivating Gu Fu’s gaze.
Gu Fu couldn’t be sure if she had clearly seen the man’s face, but the silence around her contrasted sharply with the pounding of her own heart.
Momentarily, the man on the high tower moved, raising a hand that held a silver-white bow. Though its design was strange, Gu Fu had just experienced its power firsthand and didn’t dare underestimate it.
The man drew an arrow and nocked it. As the bowstring was pulled back, the arrowhead reflected a dazzling starlight.
Whoosh— Snap!
Gu Fu dodged, causing the arrow to pierce the rooftop beneath her. Inside, someone awoke to the noise, opened their eyes, and saw the arrow embedded at their bedside, screaming in terror. They ran out half-dressed, shouting, “Assassin!”
The prince’s mansion became lively, and Gu Fu, having confirmed her suspicion, planned to escape but was blocked by the mansion’s guards.
Grabbing a sword from one of the guards, Gu Fu tried to fight her way out.
Unexpectedly, the guards were highly skilled and clearly well-trained, and some even had martial arts expertise, making it difficult for Gu Fu to escape. She had to engage in prolonged combat.
Fortunately, since the guards appeared, the man in Qitian Tower had ceased firing, sparing her from worrying about arrows while being surrounded.
The guards came in waves, seemingly endless like locusts. Just as Gu Fu was feeling frustrated, a sword thrust at her from an angle. The guards scattered, fearing to harm the swordsman.
After exchanging a few moves, Gu Fu found the swordsman highly skilled but too formal. This indicated that they had only fought in competitions and lacked real combat experience, where survival was the priority.
Gu Fu didn’t immediately defeat the swordsman, knowing that if he retreated, the surrounding guards would overwhelm her. She needed to hold him off while thinking of a way to escape.
During this moment, a cold arrow pierced through the swordsman’s shoulder, embedding into the ground with a vibrating hum.
The sudden, fierce arrow caught everyone off guard, even Gu Fu, who was close by.
Stunned, Gu Fu turned towards Qitian Tower, only to be greeted by another arrow, this time aiming straight at her chest…
Gu Fu jolted awake, breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling.
The faint fragrance in the air and the quiet room reassured her she was alone. Outside, birds chirped, and brooms swept the ground.
Gu Fu raised her right hand, covering her eyes with the back of her hand. At the moment Gu Fu was deep in thought, a cold arrow whizzed past her eyes, piercing the shoulder of the swordsman and embedding itself into the ground, the shaft still vibrating from the force, emitting a buzzing sound. The arrow was too fast, too fierce, and too sudden. Not just the guards nearby, even Gu Fu, who was right next to him, didn’t have time to react.
Gu Fu turned dazedly toward Qitian Tower, only to be met with another cold arrow coming straight at her chest…
Gu Fu woke up with a start, looking at the ceiling and calming her breathing. A faint fragrance lingered in the air. The room was silent, save for the distant chirping of birds and the sound of a broom sweeping outside.
She raised her right hand and covered her eyes with the back of her hand. Last night, she had fled when the swordsman was severely injured by the arrow. Following her instinct, she escaped without looking back, leaving the prince’s manor in chaos. Only a few guards had pursued her, but she easily shook them off.
The man in Qitian Tower had stopped shooting at her, so she returned to the Gu family without further incident. She even went to her third brother’s place to change clothes before sneaking back to Mu Qingyao’s courtyard.
Wait, she hadn’t been injured, so why did her chest feel so heavy and a bit painful?
Gu Fu lowered her hand and looked down, only to see a round, plump bird perched on her chest.
The plump bird tilted its head at Gu Fu, then lifted itself slightly and lowered its head, pecking incessantly at her collar with its small, sharp beak.
Gu Fu: “…”
No wonder she got shot in the chest with an arrow in her dream.
Gu Fu removed a small wax ball from the bird’s claws and set it aside to examine later. She didn’t want to crush it now and scatter wax fragments all over Mu Qingyao’s bed; otherwise, Mu Qingyao might ignore her for half a month.
“Awake?” Mu Qingyao asked as she entered the room, bypassing the beaded curtain. She saw Gu Fu staring wide-eyed at the plump bird perched on her chest and asked, puzzled, “What’s this about?”
Gu Fu replied, “A messenger pigeon. For some reason, it won’t leave after delivering a message.”
Gu Fu tried to shoo the bird away, but it remained steadfast, as if it intended to nest on her chest, perhaps because it was too fat to fly.
“Let’s keep it for now. It’s so cold outside; we don’t want it to freeze to death,” Mu Qingyao said. Mu Qingyao encircled the plump bird with both hands, and the bird did not flutter around but remained quite obedient.
After settling the bird, Mu Qingyao urged Gu Fu, “Get up and take a bath.”
Gu Fu had been wearing someone else’s clothes while running around outside last night. When she returned, she didn’t bathe—not out of laziness, but because she had already taken off her clothes when Mu Qingyao suddenly told her to wait until tomorrow to bathe.
Gu Fu found it strange since Mu Qingyao was very particular about cleanliness. If Gu Fu had slept in Mu Qingyao’s bed without bathing, Mu Qingyao would definitely change all the bedding afterward.
As expected, while Gu Fu was bathing behind the screen, a few maids came in and removed all the bedding from Mu Qingyao’s bed. They wiped the bed frame clean and replaced everything with fresh linens.
These maids were new in the past five years. While changing the beddings, they moved quietly and spoke very little, fearing that Gu Fu would notice they were replacing the sheets she had slept on, which would seem like they were shunning her.
Gu Fu, however, was used to it. When she was younger, she climbed trees to get bird eggs for Mu Qingyao. After receiving the eggs, Mu Qingyao found bird droppings on her hands and washed them several times, even rubbing her hands against the wall until her skin was raw. Finally, she very seriously asked Gu Fu if the flesh on her hands would regrow if she cut it off.
Mu Qingyao’s sense of ‘cleanliness’ was somewhat different from most people’s. Fortunately, as she grew up, her obsession with cleanliness wasn’t as intense as when she was a child, and her tolerance for Gu Fu was much higher than for others.
Mu Qingyao brought clean clothes for Gu Fu to change into. As Gu Fu soaked in the hot water, she asked, “Why didn’t you let me bathe yesterday? Now we have to go through the trouble of changing the bedding.”
Mu Qingyao placed the clothes on a nearby rack without saying a word.
Yesterday, when Gu Fu took off her clothes, Mu Qingyao saw that her body was covered in many scars. Some scars had only left dark marks, others had left uneven ridges, and some looked as if they had just shed their scabs, revealing a vivid pink color that looked particularly frightening.
Seeing these scars, Mu Qingyao suddenly felt it wasn’t necessary for Gu Fu to bathe, so she didn’t make her go through the trouble.
Mu Qingyao was unwilling to explain her thought process in detail, and Gu Fu didn’t press further. She scrubbed her hair with soap and water, creating fine bubbles.
As she was scrubbing, she suddenly asked, “Is Qitian Tower the Imperial Preceptor’s residence?”
Gu Fu was worried she might have remembered incorrectly or that Qitian Tower might have changed ownership in the past five years, hence her question.
Mu Qingyao asked the maids outside the screen to leave the room, and instead of answering, she asked, “Was the assassin who snuck into Prince Ying’s mansion last night you?”
Gu Fu was stunned: “How do you know there was an assassin at Prince Ying’s mansion last night…”
Then she realized: “Has it spread so quickly?”
“Prince Ying was wounded in the shoulder, and his people summoned the imperial physician from the palace overnight. Now the whole city knows that an assassin entered Prince Ying’s mansion last night. So, was that assassin you?” Mu Qingyao asked.
Gu Fu hadn’t realized that the sword-wielder was Prince Ying. She explained, “I wasn’t really an assassin. I just went to look at Qitian Tower, and I didn’t wound Prince Ying.’
Mu Qingyao nodded: “I know. It was the Imperial Preceptor who wounded him.”
Gu Fu was surprised: “How do you know that too?’”
Logically, shouldn’t everything have been blamed on her, the ‘assassin’? How did even Mu Qingyao know that Prince Ying was wounded by the Imperial Preceptor?
Mu Qingyao said, “Early this morning, Prince Ying went to the palace with his injury to ask the Emperor to uphold justice for him. Along the way, whenever anyone asked, the Prince spoke frankly. Before he even left the palace, the news that the Imperial Preceptor had wounded Prince Ying had spread throughout the city. The Emperor didn’t have time to persuade him to yield to the Imperial Preceptor.”
Gu Fu listened with great interest and asked, “Has the Imperial Preceptor’s side given any explanation?”
Mu Qingyao nodded: “The Emperor issued an edict saying that the Imperial Preceptor accidentally injured Prince Ying while trying to kill the assassin, who was fighting with the Prince at the time. Not only was the Imperial Preceptor punished, but the Prince’s guards who failed to protect him last night were also disciplined.”
This was clearly biased treatment without any attempt to conceal it.
As for the so-called accidental injury, Gu Fu would bet on that fat bird from earlier that the Imperial Preceptor’s arrow that wounded Prince Ying was absolutely intentional.
Who knows what grudge these two had? Later, when the Imperial Preceptor didn’t shoot any more arrows to pursue her, it might have been because he was in a good mood after injuring the Prince and deliberately let her go.
Gu Fu curiously asked Mu Qingyao, “How old is the Imperial Preceptor this year? When I saw him last night, I only remember his head of white hair. His appearance was young, though. I wonder if he’s mastered some kind of longevity technique.”
Mu Qingyao was speechless for a moment, then told Gu Fu, “The Imperial Preceptor is twenty-five this year.”
Gu Fu didn’t believe it: “How is that possible? He has a full head of white hair.”
Mu Qingyao explained to Gu Fu: “It’s said that the Imperial Preceptor was born with white hair.”
Gu Fu mumbled softly, “I didn’t know people could be born with white hair. You learn something new every day…”
The faintly fragrant steam lingered, making Gu Fu’s skin flush.
Mu Qingyao stared at Gu Fu in the bathtub for a while, then suddenly extended a slender jade-like finger and poked the soft flesh on Gu Fu’s left side, asking calmly, “They’re so big, how did you hide them?”
Gu Fu, without a hint of embarrassment, asked in return, “Are they big?”
In the army, there were many men bigger than her. Some had robust physiques, naturally with particularly firm and bulging muscles, while others were fleshy, with soft and pillowy chests that felt no different from a woman’s when touched with eyes closed. Because the Northern Border Army was strictly managed and didn’t have a brothel camp, they only allowed soldiers to find prostitutes in town during their rotation breaks to relieve themselves. Many hungry soldiers who couldn’t wait would go to feel up their fleshy comrades to satisfy their cravings.
Gu Fu had not only seen it but also curiously touched it, sincerely feeling that some men’s chests were much bigger than hers.
Mu Qingyao looked down at her own and said, “At least it’s bigger than mine.”
Gu Fu looked disgusted: “Being big isn’t necessarily a good thing. If not tightly bound, it hurts when running.”
Mu Qingyao gazed at her calmly: “I don’t practice martial arts.”
Gu Fu: “Should I teach you?”
Mu Qingyao: “…We’ve gone off-topic.”
While Gu Fu was leisurely taking a bath and chatting idly with Mu Qingyao, the Emperor left the palace and went to Qitian Tower.
The Emperor had been on the throne for nine years. For the first two years, he had endured restraints and swallowed his pride. From the third year, he slowly began to break free from the shackles of the old ministers from powerful families. Now he was truly a monarch whose word was law, wielding power over the realm.
Now, this Emperor dismissed his attendants and sat alone at the top of Qitian Tower, brewing tea and drinking with the Imperial Preceptor.
The top floor of Qitian Tower offered unparalleled views. To the north, one could see the entire imperial city and even glimpse the magnificent pavilions and towers of the palace beyond. To the south was the most prosperous area of the capital. The east and west sides provided unobstructed views of the sunrise and sunset.
The Imperial Preceptor was accustomed to opening all four sliding doors, with the scenery only divided by pillars, like a series of ever-changing landscape paintings.
It was beautiful indeed, but a bit cold in the dead of winter.
The Emperor, wrapped in a cloak and holding hot tea, noticed a paper weighed down on a nearby table. It had an ink sketch of a pair of vaguely familiar eyes. He asked, “Is this the assassin from last night?”
The Imperial Preceptor sat opposite the Emperor, his white hair casually tied back with a dark gold-threaded ribbon.
He responded, his voice like a cold mountain spring, chilling to the bone, “She is not an assassin.”
She went to the prince’s mansion, most likely to confirm that the person who had been chasing her with arrows was on top of Qitian Tower.
The Emperor asked him, his tone carrying a subtle hint of trying to please, like a father trying to cheer up his withdrawn son, “Then shall I send people to intensify the search and capture her for you?”
The Imperial Preceptor turned his gaze to the paper, looking at those slightly upturned eyes full of vitality and defiance, and said, “I will capture her myself.”
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