After returning to the Sacred Family, Shen Fei shut himself in his room for an entire night.
He was weighing his options.
Ever since his rebirth, he had been laying plans, infiltrating, and gathering intelligence. But everything he had done over these past few months had taken place in the shadows. He had told no one his true purpose, not even Nie Li.
Now, he had enough intelligence. It was time to put some of it to use.
By dawn, he had finished a letter. It contained only one sentence and three coordinates.
"In three days, the seventh section of the West Wall will face a nighttime Demon Beast attack. There are collaborators in the southwest corner."
There was no signature. But at the end of the letter, he used Soul Ink to stamp an Inscription Mark of his own design: a pierced black ring.
This was the clandestine mark he had chosen for himself. If anyone received another secret letter bearing the same mark, they would know the intelligence came from the same source.
He delivered the letter to the City Lord's Mansion in the most primitive way possible. He slipped it into the cart that delivered vegetables every day, tucked among the crates. No one would notice an extra letter on a vegetable farmer's cart.
Three days later, the Demon Beasts attacked at night.
Ye Zong had laid an ambush at the seventh section of the West Wall in advance. He wiped out every attacking Demon Beast and captured two collaborators hidden within the City Guard. For the first time in years, Glory City suffered no casualties during a nighttime attack.
On the day the news spread throughout the city, Shen Fei stood in the crowd and applauded with everyone else. His father, Shen Hong, was there too, wearing the same gratified smile as the other family heads.
No one knew that the anonymous letter had come from the Sacred Family's eldest legitimate son.
But Shen Fei noticed something. One boy in the crowd was not applauding. He stood in a corner, his calm gaze sweeping over the crowd and pausing on Shen Fei for an instant.
It was Nie Li.
Their eyes met across the crowd for less than a second before they both looked away.
Shen Fei's heart gave a sudden thump. That gaze was far too composed to belong to a teenage boy. It was more like someone who had weathered countless brushes with death instinctively checking an anticipated variable when it appeared.
He and Nie Li had both been reborn.
He remembered the day Glory City fell with perfect clarity. The walls collapsed, flames soared into the sky, and the roars of Demon Beasts mingled with human screams. He had died in that disaster, then opened his eyes to find himself several years in the past.
The timing of his rebirth was uncanny: it had happened on the very same day as Nie Li's. He did not know why, but he was certain it was no coincidence. Two reborn people had returned to the same point in time simultaneously. There had to be a reason behind it that he did not yet understand.
But now was not the time to investigate that.
That brief exchange of looks had told him something. Nie Li must have noticed something. The anonymous letter had changed a battle that should have happened, and Nie Li knew how that battle had originally ended. He had been scanning the crowd to find the person who had changed history.
But he had not found him. At least, not yet.
Shen Fei gathered his thoughts and left with the dispersing crowd. He walked slowly, blending into the departing stream of people without standing out. When he reached the street corner, he turned into an alley and circled around twice before returning to the main street.
Instead of returning to the Sacred Family, he headed toward the eastern part of the city.
He crossed two streets, passed over a stone bridge, then turned into an alley full of wisteria. The wisteria had not bloomed yet, but its vines covered the walls, their densely packed leaves swaying gently in the wind. At the end of the alley stood a small courtyard with low walls and a few peach branches peeking over the top.
This was the Winged Dragon Family's Side Courtyard.
Shen Fei stood before the courtyard gate and raised a hand to knock. The courtyard fell quiet for a moment, then a cool female voice came from within.
"Who is it?"
"Shen Fei."
Silence fell behind the gate for several more seconds. Those few seconds expressed her attitude more clearly than any words could. She did not want to see him.
But the gate opened anyway.
Xiao Ning'er stood behind it, wearing a plain-colored dress, her long hair loosely pinned up with a wooden hairpin. Her face was very pale, her lips almost bloodless, and faint bluish shadows lay beneath her eyes.
Those were signs of prolonged sleep deprivation. Her skin was dull and lusterless, as though something had hollowed out her vitality from within.
Shen Fei's gaze lingered on her face for two seconds before shifting to the courtyard behind her. A cup of tea, long since cold, sat on the stone table beside several spread-out inscription drafts. The ink in the inkstone had dried up.
"Did you need something?" Xiao Ning'er's tone was polite but distant, as cold as her expression.
Shen Fei did not beat around the bush. He looked at her and spoke directly.
"You're ill."
Xiao Ning'er's brows twitched slightly before her expression settled again. Her voice remained level.
"Thank you for your concern, Young Master Shen. I've simply been cultivating too late recently and haven't had enough sleep."
"Cultivating at night," Shen Fei repeated evenly. "Prolonged nighttime cultivation overdraws your Soul Force. The symptoms are a pale complexion, bluish shadows around the eyes, and intermittent trembling in the fingers. You have all of them."
Xiao Ning'er's fingers curled involuntarily. It was an exceedingly slight movement, but Shen Fei saw it.
She said nothing.
Shen Fei did not wait for her to speak. He remained where he was, his tone still calm, as though stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.
"You dislike me. I know."
Xiao Ning'er's gaze shifted almost imperceptibly. She neither denied nor admitted it.
"You know how this engagement came about, and so do I. You don't need to put on a brave face in front of me. There's no point. Forcing yourself to hold up won't change anything."
He paused. His tone did not soften, but every word landed firmly.
"If you need anything, just ask me. Medicinal ingredients, resources-if I can get them, you only need to say so. After all, protecting Glory City is our shared goal."
With that, he turned and left without waiting for her reply.
Xiao Ning'er stood where she was, staring at the empty courtyard entrance, her brows drawing together slightly.
This was not the Shen Fei she remembered.
She had heard plenty of rumors around Glory City about the Sacred Family's eldest legitimate son. Mediocre talent, mediocre cultivation, idling away his days without taking anything seriously. An ordinary playboy, steeped from head to toe in the awkwardness of being neither here nor there.
Yet the person who had just stood before her had been far too clear-eyed. When he said that nighttime cultivation overdraws one's Soul Force, his certainty had sounded nothing like a guess. Could this playboy have been pretending all along?
She thought for a moment, then slowly shook her head. Whichever was the real Shen Fei, it had little to do with her. She withdrew her gaze, sat back down at the stone table, and picked up her Inscription Pen to continue working on the unfinished Inscription Diagram.
Outside the courtyard gate, Shen Fei walked briskly down Wisteria Lane. He had just reached the stone bridge and had not yet stepped onto it when a figure suddenly darted out from behind the willow at the bridgehead, blocking his path.
Lu Piao.
Shen Fei recognized him. He was one of Nie Li's companions, lively and quick-tongued, often sent by Nie Li to handle matters that required dealing with people. His appearance outside the Winged Dragon Family's Side Courtyard at this particular moment could not have been a chance encounter.
"Young Master Shen." Lu Piao wore a smile, his tone as casual as if he had run into an old friend on the street. "What a coincidence."
"Quite a coincidence." Shen Fei stopped, his expression languid, exactly as it always was when he drank tea at the teahouse.
Lu Piao tilted his head and glanced at him. Without beating around the bush, he asked, "You heard about that nighttime attack a few days ago, right? Someone sent a secret letter to the City Lord's Mansion beforehand, which gave Lord Ye Zong time to lay an ambush at the seventh section of the West Wall. Do you know who sent it, Young Master Shen?"
A cold glint flashed through Shen Fei's mind.
Nie Li had acted faster than he expected. He had sent Lu Piao to intercept him here and ask about the anonymous letter. Lu Piao was not making conversation; he was sounding him out for Nie Li. Nie Li already suspected him.
But suspicion was only suspicion. Without evidence, it remained a guess.
Shen Fei shook his head, his casual tone carrying just the right hint of bewilderment. "A secret letter? What secret letter?"
"The secret letter that warned the City Lord's Mansion about the nighttime Demon Beast attack." Lu Piao watched his eyes. His smile remained unchanged, but his gaze had grown noticeably sharper. "The whole city's talking about it. They say some mysterious person tipped off Lord Ye Zong and even pinpointed the collaborators' locations. You haven't heard, Young Master Shen?"
"I've heard about it." Shen Fei spread his hands. "But how would I know who sent it? Lord Ye Zong hasn't revealed the sender's identity. Where would an idle fellow like me go to find out?"
Lu Piao leaned half a step closer and lowered his voice, as though sharing a secret. "I heard there was no signature on the letter, but there was a mark. A pierced black ring. Does that mark ring any bells, Young Master Shen?"
Shen Fei's expression did not budge. He even showed just the right touch of curiosity.
"A pierced black ring? Sounds rather distinctive. But I've never seen it. Are there many people in Glory City who use that sort of mark?"
"Not many." Lu Piao smiled. "That's why I came to ask you, Young Master Shen. The Sacred Family is well informed, after all. You might have heard something."
"Then you've come to the wrong person." Shen Fei smiled and shook his head, his tone as careless as if he were turning down a dull invitation. "The Sacred Family is well informed, but that's the old man's business. I don't handle anything at home. Classified intelligence like that isn't something I'd get to know. You'd be better off asking someone close to Lord Ye Zong. They'll certainly know more than I do."
Lu Piao stared at him for two seconds. Shen Fei met his gaze openly without the slightest evasion, wearing his eternally unchanged playboy smile, as though the entire affair had nothing to do with him.
"Fair enough." Lu Piao finally looked away and stepped back with a smile. "I won't disturb you any longer, then, Young Master Shen."
"No trouble." Shen Fei waved to him, turned, and stepped onto the stone bridge.
He walked steadily, neither fast nor slow, no differently from when he had arrived. He did not even look back, because he knew Lu Piao must still be watching him from the bridgehead. Someone with a guilty conscience would be unable to resist looking back; someone with nothing to hide would not. So he did not look back.
Only after crossing the stone bridge, rounding a street corner, and confirming that no one was following him did Shen Fei's languid expression gradually fade.
Nie Li had already singled him out as a suspect. Sending Lu Piao to ask directly about the letter was both a probe and a warning. Nie Li was telling him, I know someone is hiding in the shadows, and I've already narrowed it down to you.
But he had no evidence. If he did, Nie Li himself would have come, not Lu Piao.
As long as there was no evidence, Shen Fei would keep up the act. Revealing his identity before he had enough bargaining chips would only cost him all initiative. He needed to keep building his strength in the shadows until the day he could stand on equal footing with Nie Li.
Shen Fei gathered his thoughts, quickened his pace, and vanished into the crowd around the street corner.
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