Xie Huizhou had the Shadow Guards disguise themselves and go find out what exactly was happening.
It turned out that bandits plagued the cities around Guanjun Mountain in the Borderlands, roaming everywhere. With the Northern Border repeatedly advancing south as well, the displaced people could no longer survive and had begged their way here.
Outside the window, music from a zither whose source was unknown shifted from leisurely and melodious to increasingly aggressive, and Xie Huizhou's mood changed, growing anxious.
Xie Huizhou realized that the plot was advancing faster and faster, at a pace that alarmed him. "It hasn't even been three months. Why has the plot moved forward again?"
The deal between the Fifth Prince and the Northern Border had happened ahead of schedule. A chain of butterfly effects had greatly altered everyone's paths of destiny, but in the end, those different paths were slowly converging on the same outcome.
Would he and Zhang Lanhe still be doomed in the end?
Could he... save the people he wanted to save?
The more he thought about it, the more worried he became. Like the increasingly discordant zither music, like raindrops falling without rhythm onto his heart, his thoughts were in turmoil.
"Imperial Preceptor, you mustn't die."
When Zhang Lanhe returned to the National Preceptor's Residence, he found Xie Huizhou fretting, scribbling haphazardly on rice paper with a brush and muttering to himself.
The pale, sickly beauty wore thin clothing. His melancholy made him seem even more like a ghost, trembling faintly in the wind, as though he might shatter and leave the mortal world.
Zhang Lanhe's pupils widened instantly. He hurried over and pulled him into his arms, only daring to be certain that he had not left after feeling the warmth in his embrace.
"Zhouzhou, what are you afraid