Mu Xueshi stood there in defeat, unease filling his heart.
The moment Su Ruhan left, the air around him seemed to grow colder. The strange events from the back mountain that morning replayed endlessly in his mind, sending a shiver down his spine.
Only a single kerosene lamp lit the room. Mu Xueshi wished he could split it into dozens of lamps and illuminate every corner.
Otherwise the room remained dim and full of shifting shadows.
The shadows themselves were not strange—but Mu Xueshi’s imagination certainly was.
The more frightened he became, the more every indistinct object turned into something terrifying in his mind.
A clay jar became a skull.
A paper window decoration looked like a human face.
Even the phoenix painted on the screen seemed like a wandering ghost clinging to it.
Finally, unable to bear the fear, Mu Xueshi began rummaging through the room. He searched for cloth and paper to cover the walls and windows.
If no light passed through, there would be no shadows.
He spent half the night tying pieces of cloth together and hanging them across the windows to block the faint moonlight outside.
Just as Mu Xueshi finally felt a bit relieved, believing his task complete—
Another hand suddenly appeared beside him.
It helped tie the last corner of cloth onto the window lattice.
Mu Xueshi could not say thank you.
His entire body had frozen.
He had heard no footsteps, yet those hands were undeniably real. He had seen them help him tie the cloth—but he dared not turn his head to look.
Because he feared there might be no one there.
Just like the severed arms that had grabbed his ankle earlier that day.
“AHHH!!!”
Mu Xueshi screamed—and promptly fainted from the rush of blood to his head.
After he collapsed, the makeshift curtains were immediately torn down by a figure dressed in black.
From the silhouette, it was clearly a woman.
A silver sword hung at her waist. A veil of black gauze covered part of her face, yet it could not hide her striking beauty. Her eyes shimmered with the same brilliant light as Mu Xueshi’s—though hers were longer, more enchanting.
Watching Mu Xueshi’s peaceful sleeping face, the woman gently touched his delicate cheek with slender fingers, smiling softly.
Even the faint outline of her form beneath the moonlight could bewilder the heart.
As if responding to a silent summons, Mu Xueshi slowly opened his hazy eyes.
At first, fear filled them. But when he saw those eyes, calm gradually replaced it.
She felt strangely familiar.
Although they had never met—and this might even be another illusion—Mu Xueshi instinctively felt a deep sense of warmth toward her.
The woman smiled faintly.
The slight curve of her lips stirred the veil before her face.
Mu Xueshi stared blankly.
“So beautiful… like a fairy…”
The woman raised her hand and gently brushed his eyelids.
Almost immediately, Mu Xueshi fell back into sleep.
By the time the Third Prince slipped silently into the room, the woman had already disappeared.
A flicker of tension passed through his heart.
Who was she?
Her presence felt real—not like the malicious illusions created by Gu insects. Yet women in the imperial court were few, and a beauty of such caliber even rarer.
A thought stirred within him.
The Third Prince immediately chased after her.
But the woman moved with eerie speed. By the time he reached the outer grounds of Linhan Palace, she had already vanished without a trace.
Even more shocking—
The Seven Linhan Formations he had set up had been destroyed by nearly ninety percent. The oppressive yin aura had largely dissipated, and the territories where hundreds of thousand-year Gu insects once thrived were now eerily silent.
The Third Prince bent down and picked up a dark gray fragment.
It was the shell left behind by a Golden Silkworm Gu after revealing its true form.
The ground was littered with them.
Hundreds of deadly Gu insects had been effortlessly slain—killed with nothing more than the woman’s gentle fingers.
Futile Devices Scans 
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