Shen Le followed closely behind Zhang Liang into the room, watching as he ran his hand over the treasures stored on shelves, in chests, and beneath the bed, one by one.
Some were gleaming like new, some were covered in dust, and some had even grown dim, withered, and brittle. At a glance, they were no different from the pots, pans, broken clothes, and ragged garments scattered around the room—
Yet Zhang Liang's gaze did not lose even a fraction of its solemnity because of their condition. He examined them one by one, his expression impossibly complex:
There was remembrance, regret, resolve, and even the passionate fervor of his youth, still faintly burning in the deepest part of his eyes.
In the end, however, those complicated emotions settled into an indescribable calm. "Madam Xu Dagger—" He stood before a plain wooden rack, his fingertips seeming both real and unreal as they rested upon the narrow blade.
Only half a broken blade sat on the rack. Its edge was shrouded in an ominous deep black, while the fracture was crooked and twisted, as though it had been severed by immense force—or desperately destroyed.
Shen Le stood slightly ahead and to the side of Zhang Liang, watching the old man's expression gradually turn distant, as if that earth-shattering scene in Xianyang Palace had reappeared before his eyes. "After all these years, you still haven't been repaired? Good... good..."
He unfolded the Dukang Map, intending to wrap this half-broken blade within it as he had done all those years ago, recreating the moment before the map was fully unrolled and the dagger revealed.
He tried twice, but the fragile, somewhat damaged map stubbornly held firm beneath his hands, refusing to curl softly around it.
Zhang Liang sighed softly. In the end, he folded