He immediately cupped his fists. "Your Highness is wise. Your humble servant has been enlightened, as though wisdom were poured over his head."
Li Xizhou smiled faintly. "You understood too quickly. It makes you seem too clever. I, Gong, haven't finished yet."
She continued, "That palace was strictly sealed off back then. Its guards certainly weren't Guo You and Ziliang-they were precisely the people being guarded against. If you assume they were here guarding the late empress, only to be defeated when the killer forced their way inside, you'd be wrong. So naturally, there are no old traces of battle to be found in Bright Moon Palace."
"Then may I ask Your Highness, where should your humble servant look?"
Li Xizhou nodded in satisfaction. "What Ziliang and Guo You faced back then wasn't some unknown figure coming to assassinate Her Majesty. Rather, Her Majesty had already been sealed inside that palace, with no news getting out and her fate unknown. That was why they had no choice but to risk their lives activating the extremely dangerous [Mercury Blossoms Floating Raft]... So the route they took up here was actually the same as ours."
"May I ask Your Highness, which route was that?"
"From the Directorate of Works to the rear wall of Bright Moon Palace. If there was a battle, it must have happened along that route."
Pei Ye frowned. "Your humble servant didn't see a path on the way up."
Li Xizhou turned her head expressionlessly. "I told you not to seem so clever in front of me, not to become an idiot."
"Yes."
Pei Ye lifted his sword and leaped beyond the courtyard wall. Looking up, he saw the towering Snow-Forest Cold Pines; looking down, he found that the long-untrodden stone path had indeed been buried long ago.