In the silent black night, the sound of rolling wheels echoed clearly on the empty street.

After Lu Linyuan had sent Jiang Yanxi to the inn, he thought about how once Feng Shuo began to investigate him, he would no longer be able to hide his assets.

After ensuring Jiang Yanxi was taken to her room, he instructed the innkeeper, “When the city gates open tomorrow, let the staff from Dingjia Village take her there to hide out.”

Lu Linyuan had saved the entire village of Dingjia, and the villagers remembered his kindness.

After he acquired this inn as a base, to prevent others from placing spies there, he hired many villagers who were grateful to him.

The innkeeper nodded, “I will remember.”

Lu Linyuan didn’t even have time to take a sip of tea before heading out again. “Make sure everyone keeps their mouths shut. I was never here tonight.”

The innkeeper responded affirmatively.

Just as he was about to leave the inn, Jiang Yanxi came running down the stairs in a fresh set of clothes. “Brother Lu, about tonight… is it very troublesome?”

Lu Linyuan had caught a cold, and his head was pounding. He simply said, “I can handle it.”

He lifted his foot to leave but paused to ask, “Are you sure the person who saved you didn’t tell you anything else or give you anything, just told you to leave?”

Jiang Yanxi looked at Lu Linyuan, hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. “She said she killed the person, and it has nothing to do with me. She just told me to go.”

Lu Linyuan looked at Jiang Yanxi, sensing a lack of something in her gaze compared to before.

He forced a smile and nodded. “Tomorrow morning, you should go to the countryside to hide for a while. This inn will eventually be searched.”

Upon hearing that the inn would also be searched, Jiang Yanxi finally realized that this situation might be beyond Lu Linyuan’s control.

She fiddled with the hem of her clothes, hesitating whether to give the wolf’s fang that the “woman” had given her to Lu Linyuan.

But before she could make up her mind, Lu Linyuan had already put on his cloak and walked out of the inn, leaving behind a single sentence: “Yanxi, since you’ve changed your identity, live anonymously and well. Just treat everything from before as a big dream. Now that you’re awake, forget it all.”

Jiang Yanxi stood frozen in place, momentarily unable to discern whether Lu Linyuan’s words meant she should abandon everything from her past and live well or that she should forget all the moments they had shared together.

When Lu Linyuan reached the carriage, he told the innkeeper, who had followed him out, “Have the maid who attends to her keep a close eye. If she discovers any items from outside the borders, take them away discreetly.”

Upon hearing this, the innkeeper understood Lu Linyuan’s feelings towards Jiang Yanxi and nodded.

A chill wind blew into Lu Linyuan’s throat and eyes, making him cough a couple of times as he climbed into the carriage.

He didn’t mention the next destination, and Qing Song didn’t dare to make assumptions.

He asked, “Master, where are we going?”

Lu Linyuan wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, still feeling cold.

He closed his eyes and said, “To the yamen.”

Qing Song cracked the whip, and the carriage drove into the boundless darkness once more.

Leaning against the carriage wall, Lu Linyuan felt the cold air inside the carriage seep into his bones.

After spending the day investigating while looking for Jiang Yanxi, his cotton boots were already soaked through with snowmelt.

The coldness surged from his feet to his body in waves, chilling him to the core.

It felt as if something was blocking his heart, making it hard to breathe, and he felt a sense of panic.

He knew Jiang Yanxi had lied.

She said she liked him and had traveled a great distance to the western state for him, yet just like in the past life, she preferred to keep secrets for a stranger rather than trust him.

All the worry of searching for her day and night suddenly seemed absurd at that moment.

For the first time, Lu Linyuan began to question whether it was worth it to use everything he had painstakingly built up for her, only to receive her lies and guardedness in return.

Faced with this love that had lasted for two lifetimes, he had done everything he could to maintain it, but unfortunately, an invisible rift had already formed between them.

Perhaps in this life, he wanted to do too much, and at this moment, Lu Linyuan truly felt exhausted.

He groped for the hot water bottle in the carriage.

After being out all day, it was cold, having long lost its warmth.

Maybe that’s how people’s hearts are, too; no matter how passionate they start, there will always be a moment when they feel completely cold.

Suddenly, the carriage stopped.

The young driver pulled the reins, his voice trembling slightly. “Mister, there’s an armored army ahead.”

Lu Linyuan’s eyelids twitched; he hadn’t expected them to arrive so quickly.

---

As dawn broke, the innkeeper arranged for a carriage to take Jiang Yanxi out of the city.

Accompanying her to Dingjia Village was a young girl who helped in the inn’s kitchen. She was the daughter of a farmer from Dingjia Village and insisted on staying at the inn to work.

Everyone could see that she had a bit of a crush on Lu Linyuan.

Since there were no maidservants at the inn, she had served Jiang Yanxi the night before.

When Jiang Yanxi came downstairs, the farmer’s daughter exchanged a look with the innkeeper, indicating that she hadn’t found anything valuable among Jiang Yanxi’s discarded clothes.

Little did she know, Jiang Yanxi had been cautious and had kept all her valuable belongings hidden on her person.

Jiang Yanxi sat in a corner of the inn, having breakfast.

Many people came and went, sharing news.

While sipping her rice porridge and eating meat buns, she overheard a table of diners discussing events in the capital and couldn’t help but eavesdrop.

“They say serving a ruler is like being with a tiger. The Jiang family once had a concubine, so how could they end up in prison?”

“What does having a concubine matter? The Fan family had a royal consort, and even they were beheaded!”

“The Fan family rebelled, which is a crime punishable by annihilation. The Jiang family isn’t like the Fan family at all!”

“You don’t know? The Jiang family has a marriage alliance with the Chu family. After Fan Wei allied with the King of Xinyang, they immediately decided to take Yongzhou.

It’s said that the commander of Yongzhou, Chu Changping, deserted his post. With the main commander absent, how could they fight?

Losing Yongzhou would mean death for the entire Chu family! Who knew the Chu family would flee the capital?

Minister Jiang even tried to stop the imperial army at the city gate. The Jiang family deserves their fate! But the Chu family is the real disgrace!”

Hearing that the entire Jiang family was imprisoned, Jiang Yanxi’s heart sank.

She accidentally knocked over her bowl of porridge but didn’t care, standing up to confront the speaker. “Where did you hear this news?”

The diner, taken aback by her sudden outburst, calmed down slightly upon noticing she was an attractive young woman.

He replied, “There are no announcements in Xizhou City yet, but the southern towns have notices at the city gates. The Chu family deserves it; I hear their grandchildren have been arrested and are being sent back to the capital for punishment!”

Jiang Yanxi was not interested in the fate of the Chu family; she interrupted him, asking urgently, “Is Minister Jiang also in prison?”

The diner, feeling her intensity, lost any fondness he had for her and replied impatiently, “Of course.”

Jiang Yanxi sank back onto her seat, tears streaming down her face.

She never imagined Minister Jiang would end up in prison, and all because of the Chu family!

When the innkeeper came to urge her to board the carriage, Jiang Yanxi said firmly, “I’m not going to Dingjia Village; I want to return to the capital.”

The innkeeper was shocked; he couldn’t disobey Lu Linyuan’s orders. “Miss, please don’t make it difficult for me.”

The farmer’s daughter came in, her earlier hostility toward Jiang Yanxi now fully visible. “To protect you, Young Master was taken by the military last night. What are you still making a fuss about? Are you trying to get him in even more trouble?”

The farmer’s daughter had just heard from a servant that Lu Linyuan had been taken away by soldiers and instructed them to send Jiang Yanxi away as soon as the city gate opened.

Jiang Yanxi, already shaken by the news of Minister Jiang’s imprisonment, felt her hands and feet grow cold at the thought of Lu Linyuan being taken away.

She pushed past the farmer’s daughter and ran outside. “I’ll go to the government and confess to save Brother Lu!”

The innkeeper, not expecting things to turn this way, angrily pointed at the farmer’s daughter. “You’ve messed things up, and now you’ll pay for it!”

The farmer’s daughter looked wronged, but she felt more indignant.

Though she didn’t know the full story, she sensed that Lu Linyuan’s capture was somehow linked to Jiang Yanxi.

---

Used to the routine at the inn, Jiang Yanyi woke up a bit late.

If not for the maid reminding her while she washed up, she might have forgotten to visit the old matriarch that morning.

She hurriedly finished getting ready and headed to the matriarch’s courtyard, arriving just in time.

The three sisters, Chu Shubao, were already there, chatting with their grandmother and laughing together.

Seeing Jiang Yanyi, Chu Huibao beamed with joy, her smile sweeter than anyone else’s.

As Jiang Yanyi greeted the old matriarch, she felt a bit confused, wondering why this little girl was smiling at her like a blooming flower.

As soon as she sat down, Chu Huibao raised her eyebrows and said, “Finally, I’m not the last one to arrive this time.”

Old Madam Chu and her two sisters couldn’t help but chuckle.

Old Madam Chu tapped her forehead lightly, saying, “Yanyi, you still have time to wake up early. You’re the one who always gets up at that hour every day.”

Chu Huibao stuck out her tongue in embarrassment.

Old Madam Chu then took Jiang Yanyi’s hand and said, “You must be exhausted from working so hard at the antique shop. It’s perfectly fine to sleep a little longer before getting up.”

Jiang Yanyi felt a twinge of guilt, not daring to mention that she had become accustomed to sleeping in at the shop.

After exchanging pleasantries, the grandmother and her grandchildren had breakfast together.

The cook had prepared a sweet soup of white fungus, lily, and lotus seeds, which was well-cooked.

The white fungus was thick and gooey, and it tasted sweet in the mouth.

The lotus seeds had been cored, leaving no bitterness, and the lily and goji berries floated on top of the soup, making it look particularly appealing.

After finishing breakfast, Chu Yian returned to his own courtyard to read, while Jiang Yanyi was pulled by Chu Shubao to the courtyard to fold winter plums.

Chu Shubao wanted to use the plum petals to make rouge.

As the two were folding the flower branches, they suddenly overheard some maidservants discussing the Chu family’s relocation to Xizhou through a flowering gate.

“No wonder the old servants from the capital are so cautious around us. I heard it was the third master of this residence who abandoned his post and handed Yongzhou over to the rebels! When the rest of the Chu family fled from the capital, the Jiang family, who had ties with them, even helped block the imperial army, resulting in only the Chu family escaping the capital while all the Jiang family members were imprisoned!”

“How unreasonable! They even had the audacity to change the surnames of the two children from the Jiang family? If you ask me, those two children are ungrateful wretches!”

Chu Shubao was so angry that she broke a large branch of plum blossoms and quickly walked around the flowering gate. “Which insolent maid dares to gossip here?”

The two maidservants, who were sweeping snow, were startled and glanced at the Chu sisters appearing by the flowering gate, their eyes darting. “We greet the two young ladies.”