The morning sunlight was a blinding, almost mocking brilliance.
‘No!’
Yao Xing bolted upright from her pillow, her heart pounding so fast it felt like it would shatter her ribs.
She instinctively looked down at her hands, palms damp with sweat.
‘I actually… fell asleep?’
Her gaze immediately swept under the bed.
It was empty—no sign of the boy always carrying the scent of soil and crumbs, nor the pair of faintly glowing red vertical pupils in the darkness.
‘Last night, while waiting for Anuo to show up, she had rehearsed countless opening lines in her mind: how to ask about that monster whose favorability had skyrocketed, how to convince Anuo to help take the two sisters away… But as a result, it was as if the extreme pressure had triggered some kind of self-protection mechanism in her body, and she had simply leaned against the headboard, falling into a terrifyingly deep sleep.’
The room was so quiet she could hear dust floating in the sunlight.
‘Why is it so quiet?’
This silence made her uneasy.
In a dangerous place like the Lin Qi Royal Palace, stillness is often the prelude to a storm.
She rubbed her sore neck and walked to the washstand.
Looking out the window, the dust on the distant training ground had settled.
‘Have those two princesses already finished sparring…’
Although she had overslept and missed it, she vaguely remembered the crisp clash of metal in her drowsiness—that was the Xingcai sisters’ weekly routine sparring session.
Before that so-called father turned them into “weapons,” this might have been their only way of communicating, and it was also Yao Xing’s best chance to observe and gauge the two sisters’ changing mindsets.
She should have used this to learn their respective views on leaving Lin Qi.
Unfortunately, she missed it.
‘Huan said “two days”… Tomorrow is the deadline.’
Yao Xing looked at herself in the mirror.
Her face was still pale, but her eyes now held a numb resolve born from being pushed to the edge.
‘Last night, Anuo never showed up.’
Anuo not coming was not a good sign.
Was it because the King of Lin Qi had tightened his lockdown?
Or had something happened to Anuo?
Like that red-eyed creature underground?
Gurgle…
Her stomach’s growling interrupted her heavy thoughts, but she ignored it.
She left the room.
The corridor was empty—no shouts from guards, no hurried maids, and even the ministers who usually wore fake smiles and bustled about were nowhere to be seen.
This “letting things be” stillness felt instead like a net slowly tightening.
‘Something’s wrong…’
Yao Xing walked slowly along the corridor; the red carpet absorbed all sound.
‘Since no one’s around, I might as well—’
Bang …
She suddenly flipped over the bed to open the hidden compartment underneath, but there was nothing there.
‘No hidden compartment?’
Seeing this, after a brief preparation, she decided to wander near the palace or try to enter the tunnel again.
Since waiting yielded nothing, she had to find a bargaining chip that would ensure the success of her escape before Huan gave that “satisfactory answer.”
In the air, the faint scent of the yet-unbloomed frostsee grass still lingered.
She took a deep breath and pushed open the door leading to the terrace.
‘I have to strike first and find Anuo before he does!’
The cool air outside the terrace sobered Yao Xing slightly.
She pulled down the brim of her hat, using her fragmented memories of the terrain from previous cycles, avoided several patrol points, and plunged into the intricate back alleys and drainage ditches of the royal city.
‘Is Anuo perhaps here?’
At this moment, Yao Xing was like a stray cat searching for hope in the ruins.
She pushed aside barrels piled with junk and pried open moss-covered stone slabs.
The first secret passage was located in a dry well behind the White Tower Eatery.
Yao Xing slid down the slippery well wall, fully expecting to see that familiar thin figure.
However, when she landed at the bottom, she was greeted only by ankle-deep cold water and a wall completely blocked by rubble.
‘Dead end…’
She reluctantly reached out to feel the rubble, but the sensation under her fingertips made her heart jump.
It was man-made, with dark red fabric fibers wedged between the stones.
‘That’s the color of Anuo’s clothes!’
Ignoring the mud on her hands, she quickly turned to the second remembered location—the confessional of the abandoned chapel in the slums.
Although she had never been there, it seemed to be a place where heroes of past generations confessed, so it was worth a look.
When Yao Xing, out of breath, pushed open the creaking wooden door, the residents cast wary and suspicious glances.
A ragged girl seemed out of place and suspicious to these people struggling on the poverty line of Lin Qi.
“What are you looking at!” an old woman spat at her.
“Another madwoman from the palace?”
Yao Xing ignored the curses, slipped into the confessional, and forcefully lifted the floorboard.
Still a dead end.
The tunnel below was filled with solidified black mud, exuding a nauseating stench of decay, as if something had struggled violently here and was ultimately swallowed by the darkness.
‘Third, fourth… all blocked.’
Yao Xing traveled through streets and alleys, her feet blistered.
Every hopeful opening yielded cold stone walls or traces of destruction.
But this only made her more certain of one thing: something had happened to Anuo.
‘This doesn’t make sense. I haven’t made any changes; the timeline is the same. So why has Anuo disappeared? Is it possible that Anuo can move freely without needing to dig tunnels? No, that can’t be…’
Yao Xing leaned against the corner of a dark alley, panting heavily.
‘Could it be that the King of Lin Qi found out about my plan to escape and sent people to seal all the tunnels? No, that can’t be. Huan isn’t that kind of person…’
Amid these constant mental deductions, her vision began to blur.
The continuous running and weakness from not eating made her dizzy.
‘Anuo… where are you?’
Her foot slipped, and she bumped into a man in a black robe.
“Sorry!”
The black robe unexpectedly fell off…
“!!!”
Under the robe, there were striking blood-red pupils.
The man said nothing, simply covered his face with the black robe and walked away quickly.
‘Is it him… It is him, isn’t it… The one I saw in my first life… It’s definitely him!’
Seeming to sense Yao Xing’s attention, the man’s pace quickened.
Yao Xing didn’t want to miss this chance and quickly followed.
The man walked through countless crowds, but still couldn’t shake off the persistent Yao Xing.
Finally, with a quick reaction, the man turned into an alley.
Then disappeared around the corner.
“Escaped?”
Yao Xing’s heart leaped into her throat.
The narrow alley was empty, nothing but piled clutter—where was that black shadow?
‘Couldn’t catch up…’
Physical exhaustion and mental tension made her dizzy.
She smiled bitterly, lowering her head to look at her mud-stained shoes, a deep sense of powerlessness welling up inside her.
Whether it was Anuo, the two sisters, or this world, everything seemed to be pushing her desperately toward a dead end.
She sighed, turned around in despair, and prepared to find a place to hide from the increasingly dense patrols.
Bang….
Because she turned too quickly, she collided solidly with a “wall.”
No, that wasn’t a wall.
It was a broad, hard, cold chest that emitted an extremely faint aura of the abyss.
“Ah—!”
Yao Xing let out a startled cry, stumbled backward a few steps off balance, and barely managed to steady herself.
She looked up sharply and found that the black-robed man had silently returned at some point, now standing before her like an iron tower.
The man was very tall; Yao Xing even had to crane her neck to see his full form.
The loose black cloak didn’t completely cover his face.
In the dim alley, those blood-red vertical pupils looked down at her from above.
They were not human eyes—cold, deep, with a predatory gaze.
He said nothing, and the air around him seemed to freeze completely.
Yao Xing suppressed the lingering fear in her heart, which was screaming at her that the man before her was extremely dangerous.
But there was no greedy killing intent in his gaze like the King of Lin Qi’s—it was more like an appraisal, as if examining an ant that dared to chase a giant beast.
“Who are you?”
Yao Xing asked in a low voice, a tremor in her tone she didn’t even notice.
“Where is Anuo? Did you seal those tunnels?”
The man still didn’t speak, only slightly narrowed his red eyes.
He extended a hand that was too pale, with long fingers and faint dark red scale patterns visible on the webbing between thumb and index finger.
He didn’t attack, but slowly probed, as if trying to confirm the faint aura emanating from Yao Xing.
“Please answer me!”
Yao Xing took a step back, her palms sweating.
Clank—Clank—Clank…
Just then, the sound of orderly iron boots striking the ground came from outside the alley.
“Search! The hero is in this area! Don’t leave any corner unchecked!”
It was the Imperial Guard.
‘Do they think I’ve run away?!’
The man’s eyes flashed with a look of extreme scorn upon hearing the search party.
He finally moved, but not to flee.
Instead, he suddenly reached out and, before Yao Xing could react, placed a finger over her mouth, signaling her to be quiet.
“Shh.”
He finally spoke.
His voice was low and magnetic, yet like cold fingernails scraping silk, making Yao Xing’s body hair stand on end.
Before Yao Xing could cry out, she felt the wall behind her ripple like water.
Hum…
A strange sound echoed.
“Waaah—”
A hole suddenly appeared in the wall behind Yao Xing, causing her to stumble and fall into it.
The man followed closely behind.
“What’s going on…”
[Anuo’s Favorability +1]
‘Anuo?!’
Yao Xing hurriedly looked up.
She was now in an unfamiliar space, and the opening connecting this space to the alley had magically restored itself.
The man sat arrogantly on an undisturbed crate.
Anuo, on the other hand, looked at Yao Xing with a smile.
“Don’t be surprised.”
“That hole was my magic.”