An Jiu didn’t know what to say next. She herself was groping forward in confusion. Not long ago, she had felt there was nothing worth living for, and only recently had she come to see survival as a kind of luck.
But Gu Jinghong didn’t want to die—he had been forced into a corner.
An Jiu was puzzled. If he wasn’t the emperor’s furnace, then whose was he? And who were the "they" he had mentioned?
"It’s my biological father’s family," Gu Jinghong answered her unspoken question. "I took my mother’s surname. But I never met her. From what I later discovered, she was killed when I was born. A pitiful, foolish woman—deceived by love, bearing a child for someone, only to end up with neither status nor even her life."
An Jiu pressed her lips together. This woman sounded somewhat like her own mother. The thought unsettled her. "Regardless, she gave you life, allowed you to see the world. You shouldn’t condemn her like that. The path you’ve taken to this day wasn’t inevitable—it was your own doing!"
"My own doing?" Gu Jinghong asked calmly.
An Jiu said, "You didn’t just learn of your circumstances today, did you? Since you knew, yet chose to seek survival instead of death, chose to kill others to secure your own path—those were your own weak and selfish choices. Why blame the mother who carried you for ten months?"
Gu Jinghong was silent for a moment, then smiled faintly. "You’re right. I have Mind Reading, yet I’ve never truly seen my own heart. I thought having insight into everything would reveal my path, but I still couldn’t find my way."
Talking to Gu Jinghong required little effort. A few words were enough for him to grasp the meaning, leaving An Jiu—who was never good at conversation—with even fewer topics to bring up.
They sat side by side on the rooftop all night. Only as dawn approached did the wind and snow gradually ease.
The world was a vast expanse of white, and the two of them had become snowmen.
"How nice it would be to watch the seasons change like this," Gu Jinghong murmured. As he moved, snow cascaded down. He turned to the snowdrift beside him and exhaled a misty breath. "Thank you for sitting with me all night. Let’s go back."
An Jiu stood, the accumulated snow cracking and falling from the eaves, leaving a shallow dent in the pristine white below.
She glanced at Gu Jinghong but said nothing, setting down the wine jar before leaping off the roof and sinking deep into the snow.
Climbing out, she looked back to see Gu Jinghong watching her with a smile. Gone was the heaviness of the night before—his expression was light and pure, like that of a youth untouched by the world. It was hard to imagine he was one of the Crane Control Army’s top assassins.
"May everything go well for you," An Jiu murmured.
Gu Jinghong didn’t hear the words, but he saw her lips move and silently replied, "Thank you."
An Jiu didn’t know qinggong, so she trudged laboriously through the thigh-deep snow.
Standing on the rooftop, Gu Jinghong watched her figure recede into the distance. The softness on his face faded, replaced by a resolve that would last until death. He pulled out a black cloth to cover his face, then donned the Ghost Mask before leaping from the eaves, leaving no footprints as he vanished into the snow.
An Jiu’s steps crunched through the snow as she returned to her perpetually dark dwelling.
This time, however, a faint light flickered inside.
A figure wrapped entirely in a black mantle stood like a monument in the corridor. The dim glow cast a warm halo around his cold, solitary form.
Without a word, a large hand emerged from beneath the mantle and tossed something to her.An Jiu reached out to catch it. A warm temperature spread from her palm.
"There's hot water. Go soak when you get back. Mo Sigui will be reforging your body in the next few days." Perhaps because he hadn't spoken for several hours, Chu Dingjiang's voice sounded like a deep bell.
An Jiu held the hand warmer without moving. Sensing Chu Dingjiang's anger, she asked, "What happened?"
Given her way of thinking, she would never have guessed the real reason for Chu Dingjiang's displeasure.
Chu Dingjiang sighed inwardly, thinking this child was truly different from normal people—why was he even bothering to take it seriously?
"That sigh of yours is particularly world-weary," An Jiu leaned forward slightly. "It reveals your true age."
Chu Dingjiang laughed, "An Xiaojiu, do you believe I'll drag you and Mo Sigui together for a beating?"
An Jiu thought to herself: I'm being serious!
For a fleeting moment, An Jiu genuinely felt that beneath the mantle was a man in his twilight years. But seeing his gloom dissipate, she kept the thought to herself.
"A Jiu, I'll be leaving for a while," Chu Dingjiang said.
An Jiu walked under the eaves and brushed the snow off herself. "How many days?"
"At least three to five months, possibly one or two years." Chu Dingjiang reached out and pulled her into his embrace.
The sudden warmth enveloped her, and An Jiu shivered slightly. She had assumed Chu Dingjiang's errand would take no more than ten days to half a month—she hadn't expected it to be this long.
One or two years...
"What are you going to do?" An Jiu asked, unusually curious about someone else's affairs.
"I'm going to the Liao Kingdom," Chu Dingjiang said lightly, then changed the subject. "There's also good news—I've been reinstated to my official position."
This was one advantage Crane Control Army officers had over regular court officials. Ordinary officials might spend ten or twenty years climbing to a high position, only to be toppled by a single mistake, with everyone kicking them while they're down—making it even harder to rise again. But in the Crane Control Army, as long as you didn't recklessly fail your missions, you could return quickly. This was a place where combat ability and loyalty spoke louder than anything.
"The rest of you will enter the Crane Control Army in three days. I've already arranged for you to join the Divine Martial Army," Chu Dingjiang said.
An Jiu listened quietly, then returned to the previous topic. "What are you going to do?"
Chu Dingjiang helplessly ruffled the back of her head, leaning down to whisper by her ear, "Someone secretly accused Prime Minister Hua of treason. The Emperor has ordered me to lead an investigation."
It wasn't an explicit assignment—Chu Dingjiang had volunteered.
Treason was a crime punishable by extermination of nine generations! Though Chu Dingjiang had abandoned his identity with the Hua Clan and resolved to sever ties, his deeply ingrained clan mentality remained unchanged. Faced with this crisis, while sighing about "karma," he couldn't stand by and watch the clan—with which he had ties spanning two lifetimes—be destroyed overnight. Thus, he had to handle this matter himself.
An Jiu didn't understand Chu Dingjiang's thoughts, but since he had made this decision, there must be a compelling reason.
"When are you leaving?" An Jiu asked.
"Now," Chu Dingjiang replied.
He had come to bid her farewell.
An Jiu suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist, stood on her toes, and kissed both his cheeks. "Come back safely."
In An Jiu's memory, this was a common farewell gesture—though it was her first time doing it. But to Chu Dingjiang, such intimacy felt like a wife seeing her husband off to war, lifting his spirits instantly. "I will."
The two embraced beneath the eaves.Mo Sigui leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, "Tsk tsk tsk."
After clicking his tongue a few times, he couldn't help feeling envious. Without worrying about disturbing them, he called out loudly, "Mingyue, since you're joining the Crane Control Army tomorrow, let's have a hug!"
He made it sound as if he wasn't going too. (To be continued...)
PS: The second update might be slightly late, you can check it tomorrow.
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