“Brother?” Caught in pain due to the tension along her arm, Di Ling Yan calls out to the boy who was stuck in deep thought.

  Coming back to reality and letting his hand go: “Oh, I’m sorry Ling Yan, did I hurt you? It’s my fault, let me blow it so the pain goes away.” Still aching in heartache along those eyes after the childish maneuver, “Does it hurt still?”


  Shaking her little head over the question: “Brother blew on it so it doesn’t hurt anymore.”


  “I’m sorry, I’ll pay attention next time.”


  Turning back to the woman who has now confessed, a flicker of cold frost dressed the boy’s eye: “What’s your name?”


  Trembling along the shoulder: “I am called Red Leaf.”


  “Red Leaf? Alright Red Leaf, where is Mu Xue now? How did she get away from the soldiers at the beginning?”


  “I am sorry Your Highness, I don’t have an exact answer to your questions. I only know Mu Xue escaped from the city and is currently in hiding not far from the settlement.”


  Going silent over the lack of crucial information, Bai Xiachen lets the atmosphere in the restaurant grow eerily uncomfortable due to the negative emotions exuding out of his body. He’s very unhappy and it showed in his aura.

  If Mu Xue did not go far then that proves she didn’t team up with the Celestial Palace just yet. I can’t let the news of Ling Yan existing reach the ears of those bad people……

  Biting his lips, “Where is Mu Xue now, take me to her.”


  Bowing her head: “I can’t find her, she only gave me a transmission talisman to message her through it, and…… she told me I am to wait for her at a specified location with the princess. She will then come find me afterwards.”


  That roused a frown along the steambun’s face because he wanted to use this chance to lure the traitor out, but it seems that wench was more vigilant than he gave her credit for.

  “Then signal her that you’ve caught Ling Yan. We will wait for her at the specified spot.” That said, a sinister grin drew itself into the boy’s face, showing he’s got a plan in mind.

  This Mu Xue needs to be removed, otherwise she will become a scourge down the road.

  “Yes, Your Highness.” While nervous and scared inside, Red Leaf also understood this was her only chance at saving her younger brother.

  She’s been exposed, caught, and forced into an arrangement she has no say in it. Whatever happens was going to happen and she knows it……

  Outside the city.

  Not far away lied a stretch of greenery that made up a valley, this was also where Mu Xue stood, at the peak overlooking the settlement where she’s currently wanted on crimes of treason.

  Before the king clearly wanted to take me as a consort, damn it! If that queen didn’t return and used her running away to take the king away then I would’ve gotten everything that I wanted! Damn her! Damn her and her children!

  Inhaling deeply to quench some of that anger surging from within, ready to boil over if she doesn’t, Mu Xue recalls back to the scene from that day outside the palace.

  She had just finished an errand for herself when the wretched girl returned to the main gates, that’s where she saw her own mother’s body hanging off of a rope at the entrance. Mu Xue was terrified of course, finding the only family she considered close dead, but more of that worry was about herself and what it meant. Then came the gossiping discussions of the crowds, they were pointing and talking about the picture of the wanted criminal posted along the notice boards – its her!

  They had portraits of her own face plastered along every corner, every board, and every street of the city that she’s a traitor, a treasonous demon wanted dead or alive……

  Exactly then, while she was lost in her own thoughts about the predicament she has gotten herself in, Mu Xue suddenly felt a burning sting coming from the palm of her hand. This was the result of the transmission talisman that’s currently heating up due to Red Leaf sending a message like planned.