Shrouding the Heavens: Those Years as the Female Emperor's Strictest Master

Yet there was an indescribable solemnity in her tone at this moment:

"Please do not speak of today's events to outsiders. That would be a form of protection for everyone."

With that said.

She bid them farewell, glanced at Tan Lin once more, and did not linger.

Whoosh...

Her figure turned into a streak of pitch-black light, shooting into the sky and vanishing in an instant amid the boundless snowstorm and at the end of the horizon.

She headed straight for the Central Plains, toward the gateway of the Ancient Road where Qishi Mansion was based.

She left decisively, without looking back.

Rustle... rustle...

When they had parted three years ago, the first snowfall of winter had descended upon this land.

Now, as they parted again, it was winter once more, though already near its end.

All things were quietly reviving, spring was returning to the earth, and it was no longer quite so... cold.

Xiang Li stood where he was, gazing in the direction she had vanished for a long while without speaking.

Her words gave him much to ponder, as though they confirmed certain doubts he had harbored over the past three years.

He lowered his head to look at Tan Lin beside him.

The little one tilted up his small face, wearing that half of a cold Bronze Mask.

On the exposed right half of his face, his pure eyes watched the direction the future Female Emperor had departed, his tiny brows faintly furrowed.

Perhaps recalling some scattered memories, he raised a little hand and touched the half-mask on his face. A trace of confusion and reminiscence utterly at odds with his age flashed through his eyes.

The wind and snow continued, and Red River remained desolate.

An "accidental" encounter had begun in silence and now ended