What Yun Ruoyan hadn’t anticipated was that the demon would walk straight to the Farsighted King’s manor. She hid by a nearby wall, only to see the man easily enter the manor by displaying a token on his waist.

The Farsighted King’s manor is truly a den of corruption!

Most manors were guarded by a single guard, and even Li Mo’s manor only had two stationed at once. The Farsighted King’s manor had an extravagant six, and security was undoubtedly even heavier around the interior.

For convenience, Yun Ruoyan had left her flamesteed in an isolated clearing outside of city grounds. She found a nearby inn in which to stay, had a light meal, then conserved her strength until nightfall.

When darkness finally enveloped the city, Yun Ruoyan skulked to the Farsighted King’s manor, all dressed in black. Silently, she crept up a wall and infiltrated the depths of the manor.

The moment she landed on the other side, she saw a patrol of seven or eight guards walking past and hurriedly hid behind a nearby rock garden. After inspecting her surroundings, she found that she had landed in the manor’s court back garden, relatively close to the residential space within.

Her understanding of the Farsighted King’s manor had come mainly from Zhuo Yifeng, but Zhuo Yifeng hadn’t revealed very much to her. As such, she needed to find another reliable source of information.

When the second group of patrolling guards walked by, Yun Ruoyan snuck up behind the last guard and tapped his shoulder. The guard turned and was just about to call out when Yun Ruoyan waved a hand at him, dispersing a gust of scentless, colorless intoxicating fog against his face.

Her goal accomplished, Yun Ruoyan flashed away before anyone else could see her.

“Jin, what’s the matter with you?” One of the guards in front stopped, turning back to the guard Jin, who had fallen behind the rest of his patrol.

“I need to pee. Don’t wait for me—I’ll be right back!”

As the patrol left, Jin walked to the back of the rock garden and faced Yun Ruoyan woodenly.

“Where does His Highness live?”

“At the center of the back garden.” Jin pointed toward a building somewhat taller than those surrounding it, its windows still lit up.

“Do you know where the secret archives of the Farsighted King are located?”

“No, I don’t,” Jin replied, his face still dull. “However, there’s an area in the Farsighted King’s residence that’s forbidden to all outsiders, and it’s very likely that what you’re looking for is in there.”

“Alright.” Yun Ruoyan nodded, then continued, “In that case, do you know if there’s a Physician Ceng here in the manor? Allegedly, the Farsighted King invited him here to treat his consort’s infertility.”

“Yes, I know of him. He stays in one of the side cottages.”

After confirming that she had no further questions, Yun Ruoyan told Jin, “Return to your room and go to bed. When you wake up, you’ll have forgotten this conversation.”

Jin nodded and turned away with a sluggish gaze.

After considering her options, Yun Ruoyan decided to first kidnap Physician Ceng before trying to infiltrate the secret archives. Her rationale was that it would be rather easy to slip away even if she were detected during her infiltration, but trying to kidnap Physician Ceng would then become much harder.

Referring to the patrol routes and timetables that Jin had communicated to her, Yun Ruoyan reached Physician Ceng’s little cottage without any further encounter with the guards. It was already very late at night, and the cottage was dark all over except for two bright lanterns by the front door.

Perhaps because of how securely the exterior of the manor was guarded, the front door of the cottage was only closed rather than locked. Instead of entering directly, Yun Ruoyan knocked on the door—she had found women’s and children’s clothing being hung up to dry, and kidnapping Physician Ceng with brute force would surely cause a big disturbance with them around.

“Who is it, this late at night?”

“Physician Ceng, my mistress suddenly developed an acute stomachache, and she sent me over to have you take a look,” Yun Ruoyan explained, disguising her voice. “I apologize for the disturbance.”

“Alright, give me a moment,” the middle-aged male voice called out. Moments later, the dark interior of the cottage lit up with light. The door opened mere moments later, and a bearded, middle-aged man walked out. 

When Physician Ceng saw that the person standing in front of him was a black-clad girl, his eyes immediately widened. The next moment, however, his face had been enveloped in intoxicating fog, leaving him nothing but a puppet under Yun Ruoyan’s control.

“Husband, who’s out there?”

“Give me a little medicine so your family isn’t suspicious. In two hours, meet me in the rock garden by the southern wall, and make sure you aren’t discovered by anyone.”

Physician Ceng nodded woodenly. Then, as though nothing had happened, he called out to his wife, “It’s one of the Farsighted King’s concubines, nothing urgent. I checked up on her before, and it seems like she’s gotten a little chill due to the weather. I’m going to grab some herbs and return shortly.”

Following Yun Ruoyan’s requests to the letter, Physician Ceng entered his workshop and grabbed a few pouches of medicine, which he then handed to Yun Ruoyan. She placed them on the windowsill, then turned to leave.

After doing so, Yun Ruoyan immediately headed toward the tallest part of the Farsighted King’s rooms. The stretch of road up to his quarters was unusually tightly patrolled; it was no more than half a kilometer’s walk, and yet she encountered five or six guard patrols. 

Yun Ruoyan found this level of security very strange. Despite her poor impression of Li Sheng, he was very well liked by the people of his land, and was widely known as a virtuous king throughout the Li kingdom.

And given the people’s positive impression of him, it seemed unlikely that he would have to be wary of any sort of assassination attempt. In that case, what could explain the intensity and frequency of the guard patrols?

Could he be afraid of that demon running amok in his land? Surely that couldn’t be, if he were harboring demons of his own!

Yun Ruoyan easily dodged all the patrols and vaulted the wall into the Farsighted King’s private residence. She darted to the side of a tree and hid in the shade as she inspected the grounds. Surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be a single guard inside—all of them had been dispatched outside his residence and within the manor as a whole instead.

However, Yun Ruoyan didn’t relax. There were two potential reasons for the reason the security was dispersed in such a way: first, that his rooms hid such important secrets that he forbade anyone from coming close, even his personal guards; or second, that there was some master guarding his private rooms, so he didn’t need to worry about internal security.

As she thought more about the second point, Yun Ruoyan became even more careful.

His residence was almost entirely dark save for the lanterns lit up along the corridors; only a second-floor room remained lit up. Yun Ruoyan slowly scaled the residence and hovered near a window, listening in from the outside.

“Your Highness, these are some snacks I prepared for you today, and they’re still fresh,” Yun Ruoyan heard a male voice begin.

“Thanks for your hard work.” This was the voice of a middle-aged man, with whom she was quite familiar: the Farsighted King, Li Sheng!

“Your Highness, these three hearts are all from maidens below sixteen, and they surely have the best taste of them all.” The young man smiled wickedly.

As soon as Yun Ruoyan heard the word ‘heart’, she frowned. 

Was the culprit behind the frightening incidents in the city none other than the Farsighted King himself?

She slowly straightened up and poked a little hole through the window, through which she could observe what lay within.

[1]

Two men stood within the room, one the Farsighted King, the other the man she had seen on her way into the city.

“Be more careful. If you’re caught by a cultivator in the city, even I can’t save you,” Li Sheng warned, his gaze turning to the red box that the young man had left on the table. Within the box were the “snacks” that he had referred to earlier.

“Don’t worry, Your Highness. In order to keep my true purpose hidden, I also took the hearts from young and old alike. Security’s been tight around the city lately, so today’s delicacies were obtained beyond the city. I certainly won’t be caught, and even if I am, I wouldn’t rat you out, Your Highness. No matter my words, no one would believe me—after all, you’re the virtuous Farsighted King, beloved by one and all!”

“And so I am.” Li Sheng seemed to be quite flattered by the young man’s effusive praise, and he let out a throaty laugh.

“Your Highness, if you have no further instructions for me, I’ll bid my farewell. I hope to be able to secure more snacks for you soon.”

“You may leave.” Li Sheng waved the man away.

Yun Ruoyan planned to wait until the young man had departed before sneaking into his rooms, tying up Li Sheng, then forcing him to reveal where his archives were located. After that, she would kill him.

However, not long after the young man left, Li Sheng stood up with his box of hearts and walked to a corner of the room. There lay a rather unassuming flowerpot and a few even more unassuming flowers. Li Sheng stooped down and rotated the flowerpot a little, revealing a hidden door behind the flowers.

With a slight creaking noise, a door-sized hole was revealed in the wall—the entrance to a secret chamber!

Li Sheng stood up and walked into the hole. As his body vanished past the entrance to the secret chamber, Yun Ruoyan slid the window open, jumped into the room, and followed silently behind him...

1. Rice-paper windows, not glass windows.

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