The morning light of the northern border fell upon the bluestone path in the eastern courtyard of the administrative residence, reflecting the cool, fragmented gleam left behind after the snow had cleared.
The eastern courtyard was not large, but it was kept neat and spotless.
The cinnabar plum tree in the corner had already lost most of its blossoms. A few withered flowers still hung from its branches, their edges slightly curled, like little scraps of paper weathered by the wind.
The plain-hearted wintersweet beside it, however, was still blooming. Though the flowers were in full bloom, many were only half-open, their petals still curled inward.
The blossoms were a creamy yellow, and whenever the wind passed, they released a rich fragrance that made people pause to breathe it in.
Chi Banyue had just hurried back from outside the city, covered in dust from the journey.
For the past few days, in order to investigate Sheng Chengxiu’s whereabouts and trace the movements of the missing man surnamed Han, she had been working almost without pause, so exhausted that a faint bluish shadow had appeared beneath her eyes.
After finally redeploying the hidden sentries under her command and the informants of Listening Snow Pavilion, she had managed to find some free time and intended to come to the eastern courtyard to discuss the next stage of intelligence gathering with Xia Lanshi.
“Little fellow, you’re even more favored than I am.”
Just as she stepped through the moon gate into the eastern courtyard, Chi Banyue heard a very soft teasing voice.
She saw Xia Lanshi dressed in a frost-colored scholar’s robe, carrying the bamboo basket containing the little snow owl as he walked toward the study.
He walked extremely slowly, his snow-white hair spilling over his shoulders. His crimson eyes, which normally always held a smiling warmth and seemed capable of seeing straight through people’s hearts, were slightly lowered at this moment. His white lashes concealed the emotions beneath them, and his entire person carried an exceedingly rare air of desolation and distraction.
That depressed aura flashed past so quickly that if it had been anyone else, they certainly would not have noticed.
But Chi Banyue was an exceptionally perceptive person. She had worked with Xia Lanshi for many years and understood better than anyone when this seemingly gentle yet deeply guarded “snow fox” was putting on an act, and when he was genuinely affected.
“Xia Lanshi.” Chi Banyue folded her arms across her chest and leaned against a corridor pillar, raising a brow as she called out.
Xia Lanshi’s footsteps paused slightly before he raised his head.
The instant he saw that it was Chi Banyue, the fleeting trace of dejection on his face had already been replaced by a perfectly gentle smile.
“Miss Banyue. Did things outside the city go smoothly?”
“More or less. The informants underneath me have already been deployed.”
As she spoke, Chi Banyue walked toward him.
Her sharp eyes swept over Xia Lanshi from head to toe without the slightest restraint.
Something was wrong.
Although Xia Lanshi was smiling, the smile did not reach his eyes at all.
Even his clothing, which he normally cared about most, though neat at present, carried a faint, almost imperceptible sense of haste.
Just as Chi Banyue approached to within two steps of him, an unusual patch of color suddenly caught her eye.
The collar of Xia Lanshi’s frost-colored scholar’s robe was pulled unusually high today, as though he were deliberately concealing something.
However, when he had turned his head slightly while speaking, a faintly crimson mark had appeared on the long, slender section of his neck that was mostly hidden beneath the collar.
It was not obvious, but she saw it perfectly clearly.
That mark…
Chi Banyue’s eyes sharpened. Without giving Xia Lanshi any time to react, her figure swept forward like the wind. Before Xia Lanshi could retreat, her right hand shot out as fast as lightning, and with a flick of her fingers, she directly yanked down his high collar.
“!”
Xia Lanshi had not expected her to suddenly make a move. By the time he tried to dodge, his collar had already been pulled open.
On his snow-white, delicate neck was a fresh bite mark, still carrying the faintest trace of blood, completely exposed beneath the daylight.
Then Chi Banyue’s sharp gaze swept toward Xia Lanshi’s wrists. The bluish-purple finger marks left there previously had not yet faded, and now another layer of fresh redness had been added over both wrists.
Those marks stood out starkly against Xia Lanshi’s snow-white skin.
Chi Banyue sucked in a breath. Then the corners of her lips curled into an extremely suggestive, teasing smile.
“Tsk, tsk. That rough? It was your wrists before, and today he went straight for your neck?”
She thought to herself: That Xiao looks refined on the surface, but apparently he’s nothing like that underneath. If he keeps playing with Xia Lanshi’s delicate body like this, can he really take it?
Xia Lanshi’s expression stiffened for an instant. On that face of his, which normally remained unmoved even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, a rare flush of embarrassment and irritation appeared.
He flicked his sleeve and hurriedly snatched back his collar, firmly concealing that ambiguous bite mark beneath his robes.
“Miss Banyue.”
Xia Lanshi took a deep breath, his voice carrying a restrained warning.
“Do not forget that I am, after all, a man. Men and women should maintain proper boundaries. When will you finally break yourself of this habit of putting your hands on people?”
“Men and women should maintain proper boundaries?”
Chi Banyue raised a brow as though she had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
She had known Xia Lanshi for so long that she did not even bother knocking when entering his room.
She crossed her arms indifferently and leaned closer, lowering her voice as she teased, “Come on, don’t give me that. If we’re really talking about ‘proper boundaries,’ the person on that bed was much less restrained than I was.”
Curiosity filled her as she asked,
“How is it that the Chief Steward of Prince Su’s residence, who normally plays with power and people’s hearts in the palm of his hand, has actually suffered such a huge loss at the hands of a patient?”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
Her eyes were astonishingly bright, but after teasing him, the concern and scrutiny in them gradually deepened.
“Now tell me. What’s with this absent-minded look of yours? Did Xiao get into a fight with you?”
Knowing he could not hide it from this woman, Xia Lanshi sighed helplessly.
Carrying the bamboo basket, he slowly walked to a stone bench nearby and sat down. His fingertips gently rubbed the edge of the basket as he looked at the little snow owl sleeping soundly inside.
“That wasn’t it. It’s just…”
Xia Lanshi lowered his eyes and gave a self-mocking tug at the corners of his lips.
“He’s even harder to get close to than I imagined.”
“He’s extremely guarded against me. No matter how much goodwill I show him, his only apparent thought is to leave here, to get away from me. He’d rather drag that injured body of his back into the barren mountains and snow than stay here for another moment.”
Xia Lanshi sighed softly as he looked at the little snow owl.
“Snowy Night” looked so carefree at this moment that he could not help feeling somewhat envious.
That man would rather smile at a fledgling than spare even the slightest bit of that smile for him.
Hearing this, Chi Banyue could not help feeling incredulous.
She looked at Xia Lanshi.
In the past, whenever Xia Lanshi wanted to win someone over or manipulate them, that person would willingly die for him without even realizing it.
In this entire world, there had never been anyone who could escape Xia Lanshi’s gentle yet airtight schemes.
Yet now, that man named “Xiao” had so straightforwardly rejected every bit of Xia Lanshi’s goodwill—even the concessions that had almost amounted to lowering himself—and forcefully pushed them all back at him?
“You mean… he rejected you?”
Chi Banyue raised a brow and sat down on the stone bench beside him.
“If it were merely rejection, that would be one thing. That wasn’t rejection. He was resisting with every ounce of strength in his body.”
Xia Lanshi looked at “Snowy Night,” his gaze somewhat deep, his voice so soft that it seemed it might be scattered by the wind at any moment.
“I don’t want to lock him up. But if I let go, he’ll really leave. And he won’t ever come back.”
He had waited ten whole years for Xiao.
And what he had finally received was the other man’s words that he was “afraid” of him.
Chi Banyue looked at him and remained silent for a moment.
As an outsider, she could actually see things much more clearly than the two people trapped in the situation.
She felt sorry for Xia Lanshi, yet at the same time, she found it somewhat amusing.
Xia Lanshi was normally extraordinarily intelligent, capable of calculating the hearts of everyone under heaven and seeing through everything.
Yet the moment Xiao was involved, all his abilities seemed to be automatically cut in half.
He actually could not see through Xiao’s true feelings.
“Xia Lanshi, where did all your usual cleverness go?”
Chi Banyue shook her head helplessly, her tone softening.
“You say he wants to stay away from you and only wants to guard against you. But if he truly had no feelings for you whatsoever, if he regarded you solely as an enemy or a politician he needed to guard against… then why did he bite you?”
Xia Lanshi’s fingertips trembled slightly.
He had thought that he had simply teased the other man too much and been bitten in retaliation.
“A man like Xiao—if he truly felt nothing but wariness toward you, then the moment he made a move, he wouldn’t have merely bitten you. He would have torn your throat apart.”
Chi Banyue sighed softly, a trace of someone who had seen through the ways of the world in her eyes.
“He didn’t intend to kill you. He only bit you. That means he lost control. And the only person capable of making a cold-blooded ‘Gatekeeper’ lose control… is you, Xia Lanshi.”
Although she had only met Xiao a few times, from his eyes and actions alone, she could tell that he was the kind of ruthless man who would not even blink while killing someone.
But judging from everything that man had done in the past, what he felt toward Xia Lanshi was far beyond mere interest.
She did not know why he was resisting, but she could be certain that the reason was still connected to Xia Lanshi.
“The reason he’s resisting so fiercely right now must also have something to do with you. But it definitely isn’t because he hates you. It’s more like… he cares too much.”
Chi Banyue put away her teasing smile and spoke seriously.
“Think about it. If you truly hated someone, why would you exchange letters with them, choose things for them, have their name engraved, or leave your own mark behind? I think… it looks more like loving someone to the extreme. Loving them so deeply that you’d rather suffer and be lonely yourself, and only want to protect them. But… at the same time, you still want that person to remember you.”
Chi Banyue suddenly felt that this kind of love was simply too deep and contradictory.
Just how much self-restraint did it take to stop yourself from approaching the person you loved?
She felt envious.
If someone could truly love her to such an extent, then she would surely be the happiest woman in the world.
Xia Lanshi listened carefully to Chi Banyue’s analysis and felt that there was some truth to it.
When he heard the words “love to the extreme,” his heart clenched involuntarily.
So that word “afraid” did not mean that he was afraid of Xia Lanshi.
He was afraid of something else.
It was not that he was afraid of being hurt himself. He was afraid of something else.
Chi Banyue continued,
“He’s carrying a great deal of pressure and loneliness. At a time like this, if you push him too hard, you’ll only achieve the opposite of what you want.”
“Right now, he’s like a badly wounded beast hiding alone in a cave, licking its wounds. If you approach him at this moment with exquisite food and goodwill, his first reaction won’t be gratitude. He’ll bare his fangs and wonder whether you’re going to cage him completely, or whether you intend to do something to him.”
She looked at Xia Lanshi and reached out to gently tap the soft head of the little snow owl.
“Listen to me. Don’t push him too hard. What he needs right now isn’t your relentless schemes, nor your probing questions with hidden barbs. He needs time to sort through all those tangled matters. More importantly, he needs you to give him some space and freedom, so that he can believe you won’t become the chain that binds him.”
Listening to Chi Banyue’s words, Xia Lanshi stared at the little snow owl breathing evenly inside the bamboo basket for a long time.
“Have I been pushing him too hard…?”
He murmured the words.
His mind flashed back to when Xiao had pinned him down on the bed moments earlier—the painful, violent crimson in his eyes.
The way he had bitten fiercely into his neck, only to lick the wound afterward as though cherishing it.
And later, the somewhat self-destructive yet faintly gentle words, “Snowy Night.”
Then, finally, the silence.
He raised a hand and touched the mark on his neck that still throbbed faintly with pain. It was like a warning, telling him not to approach any closer.
And yet, there had been restraint.
There had been attachment.
So that beast really was simply afraid.
“I understand.”
Xia Lanshi’s previously tense shoulders relaxed.
He raised his head to look at Chi Banyue. The clarity and warmth of his usual expression had returned to his eyes, along with even a trace of gratitude.
“Thank you for your guidance, Miss Banyue.”
“Tsk. It’s rare to hear you thank someone, and this is what it’s for.”
Chi Banyue stood up and briskly dusted the snow from her skirt, teasing him.
“All right. Go take good care of your wounded ‘great snow owl.’ I should go keep an eye on things for His Highness, too.”
With that, Chi Banyue waved her hand casually. Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly added,
“If you really manage to win him over someday, don’t forget to invite me to your wedding feast.”
Then her clothes fluttered in the wind, and in the blink of an eye, she disappeared around the end of the eastern courtyard’s corridor.
Xia Lanshi remained seated on the stone bench and once again reached beneath his collar to touch the bite mark, which still carried a trace of heat and pain.
A relaxed and gentle smile slowly spread across his lips.
The soft daylight after the snow had cleared fell over the courtyard of the eastern院, bringing with it a faint warmth.
◆◇◆◇◆
Fire.
A violent blaze that filled the heavens and covered the earth.
It dyed the snowy night with an ominous light.
Within a bizarre and chaotic dream,
what echoed beside his ears were deafening screams and cries of agony.
Countless figures dressed in elaborate ancient clothing fled through the sea of fire, falling one after another.
The shadows of hunters chased after them, pouncing upon and slaughtering them.
As far as the eye could see, a vast expanse of incomplete corpses lay scattered in disarray.
An ancient and magnificent building, its flying eaves and upturned corners being devoured by the raging flames, gave off the sound of breaking before crashing heavily to the ground and sending sparks flying into the sky.
The scene was absurd, like something from one of the historical dramas he had once watched.
Yet the scorching heat and thick smell of blood were so real that they made him want to vomit.
He lowered his head and saw his own hands.
They were a pair of hands with distinct knuckles and thin calluses.
They did not belong to him.
They belonged to another stranger.
Before he could make sense of what was happening, the chaos around him was suddenly torn apart by a dazzling, cold-white light—
The “door” had opened.
A tremendous force came from behind, and someone pushed him into the doorway without giving him any chance to resist.
At the instant he fell into the light, he hurriedly turned his head. When he saw that person’s face, his entire body froze.
It was the face of a man dressed in ancient clothing.
What shocked him was not the man’s attire.
It was the fact that although the man did not look exactly like Su Mucheng, his clear eyes and the way his gaze moved were strangely similar to Su Mucheng’s.
There was a tear mole beneath the man’s left eye, giving his face a hint of weakness and sorrow.
The man looked mournful, yet on his handsome face he stubbornly forced out a sorrowful smile of farewell. Separated by the curtain of light, he said to him,
“…Go.”
“Come with me!”
He heard himself screaming hysterically as he reached out toward the other man.
That voice was hoarse and desperate, completely unlike his usual tone or voice.
The man merely shook his head gently, tears falling together with the ashes.
“…They won’t stop… until they see my corpse. I can’t… abandon… my clansmen…”
The man’s voice became fragmented, and he could no longer hear him clearly.
Before he could finish speaking, the man’s expression suddenly became utterly despairing.
Word by word, as though weeping blood, he said,
“…Then… I will be the one to close the door.”
“No—!”
His eyes widened in desperation as he frantically stretched both hands forward, trying to reach through the light and grab the other man.
However, the ancient, heavy doors gradually closed with an irreversible momentum, and the cold-white light slowly faded along with them.
“If one day… the two… merge…”
The man’s voice gradually faded away, as though separated by the door, until it could no longer be heard clearly.
Just as the final sliver of light was about to disappear,
he clearly saw the man slowly raise a dagger, close his eyes, and draw it across his own neck.
Bright red blood suddenly sprayed outward, staining the snow a glaring red.
That thin body fell, landing in a pool of blood, never to move again.
The door closed.
“…Ugh!”
He suddenly opened his eyes and shot upright in bed, breathing heavily.
Cold sweat soaked through his back, while a piercing pain spread through his chest.
The pain was so unfamiliar yet so vivid that it nearly suffocated him.
The despair and helplessness of watching that person die before his eyes in the dream pressed heavily against his heart like a brand.
It had been so real.
He took several deep breaths before finally forcing himself to calm down and examine his surroundings.
He was lying on a rough wooden bed, and the furnishings in the room were extremely simple.
The table, chairs, water ladle, and even the window frames were mostly made entirely of wood.
The air was filled with a strong, slightly bitter herbal scent, while numerous bundles of herbs hung densely from the roof beams, drying in the air.
There was no concrete, no reinforced steel, and no trace of modern technology.
His eyes darkened slightly as he quickly reached a conclusion in his mind:
This was definitely not the modern world he knew.
He might truly have passed through that “door” and arrived in another unknown realm.
When he realized this, what filled his heart was not panic, but joy.
Creak—
The sudden sound of the door opening rang out.
A young man of around twenty stepped into the room.
He was slender and lean, dressed in a simple ancient-style long robe that had clearly been washed and starched to a spotless cleanliness.
He instinctively looked up. The instant his eyes met the young man’s, he froze.
The eyes of the man before him strangely overlapped with those of the ancient-clothed man who had slit his own throat in his dream just moments ago—and with Su Mucheng’s.
They did not look alike.
Their eyes simply looked alike.
Pure. Clear.
As though they were the most flawless and untainted things in the world.
When the man saw that he was awake, a gentle smile blossomed across his clean-cut face as he walked over.
“You’re awake? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”
His voice was soft and warm, his speech unhurried, giving off a calming sense of reassurance.
Prompted by his words, he finally noticed several dull aches throughout his body. His head hurt especially badly; even the slightest movement caused a sharp stabbing pain, and his body was so weak that he could not summon even the slightest bit of strength.
He raised a hand and gently touched his head, his voice hoarse.
“My head hurts a little.”
The man first examined his eyes, then reached out and felt the wound at his temple.
Then he asked,
“Other than your headache?”
“Everything else is fine.”
“Do you feel like vomiting?”
“No.”
“Does your vision go black?”
“No.”
After carefully examining him, the man said,
“Your external injuries aren’t serious. We just need to continue observing you. After you eat something later, I’ll brew some herbal medicine for you.”
As he spoke, the man turned around, poured a bowl of warm water, and handed it to him.
“You’ve been unconscious for more than a day and a night. Drink some water first. Slowly.”
He took the bowl and sipped several times, his dry, cracked throat finally soothed.
Looking at the completely unguarded ancient-clothed man before him, he realized that the other man had saved him. He gave a slight nod in thanks, then restrained his emotions and asked gently,
“May I ask where this place is?”
He had to grasp the current situation as quickly as possible.
The man took the bowl back and set it aside before answering honestly,
“This village has no name. Our people have lived here for generations and rarely interact with the outside world. But I can tell you for certain that we’re in a deep mountain in the northern border region.”
The northern border?
A deep mountain?
Those two descriptions were far too broad. There was no way for him to determine what era or what country this was.
His gaze sharpened slightly, and he immediately asked,
“What year is it? What country is this? Who is the current ruler… who governs the court?”
Faced with this barrage of questions, which were even somewhat abrupt, the young man did not become angry. He merely smiled somewhat helplessly.
He folded his arms across his chest, tilted his head slightly, and looked at him leisurely.
“Before that, shouldn’t you tell me who you are?”
The man pointed at the strange clothing covered in mud and blood that he was wearing.
“I’ve practiced medicine for several years. I’ve accompanied my grandfather outside the village before and have seen people from other places, but I’ve never seen clothing of this style.”
The man’s gaze shifted toward his clean, neatly cropped short hair, and a trace of curiosity flashed through his eyes.
“Nor have I ever seen an adult man wearing his hair this short. And your accent doesn’t sound local either. Even your choice of words is different.”
Having reached his conclusion, the man looked at him with certainty.
“You… aren’t from this country, are you?”
His heart trembled slightly, and he was somewhat surprised as he reassessed the young man before him.
The man looked simple and gentle, but his mind was extremely meticulous and perceptive. He was clearly no fool who could be easily deceived.
His thoughts turned rapidly, and without almost any hesitation, a trace of confusion appeared in his eyes—so convincing that even he almost believed it himself.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t remember who I am. I can’t even remember my name. That’s why I wanted to learn these things from you, to see whether they might help me remember something.”
After hearing this, the man remained silent for a moment, seemingly weighing the truth of his words.
After a while, the wariness in his eyes faded, replaced once more by a gentle smile.
“All right. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Han Dongji. I’m the physician of this village.”
“Dongji?”
He instinctively repeated the name, thinking it was composed of the two common characters meaning “winter season.”
Han Dongji shook his head and walked over to the table.
He picked up a thin piece of charcoal and, stroke by stroke, wrote a complicated character—“霽”—on a flattened piece of thin wood. Then he turned the wooden board around and held it out for him to see.
He studied it for a while before recognizing the character and nodding slightly.
“So it’s this ji—the ji meaning clear skies after rain or snow.”
Seeing this, a look of understanding flashed through Han Dongji’s eyes as he set down the charcoal.
“You really can read. I noticed it while bandaging you. Your hands are clean and completely free of calluses, the fabric you’re wearing isn’t coarse cloth, and you recognize this character. You don’t look like an ordinary commoner. You look more like… a nobleman fallen on hard times.”
He did not want to reveal too much. Maintaining his perfect smile, he simply brushed it aside.
“I don’t remember.”
Seeing that he did not wish to say more, Han Dongji considerately did not press him further.
He looked at the other man in silence for a moment, as though looking at a traveler who had no home, a trace of compassion appearing in his eyes.
“When you arrived, you were dressed in white. I found you in the back mountains after the snow stopped at the hour of Chen.”
Han Dongji looked at the sky outside the window, which was gradually clearing, his voice bright and clean.
“The snow has cleared, the sky has brightened, and all things emerge beneath the clear skies. Since you can’t remember your former name…”
He turned his head and smiled gently.
“Then we’ll call you Bai Chenji.”
Looking at Han Dongji’s smile, gentle as spring rain nourishing the earth, he froze slightly.
The figure before him once again overlapped with that tragic figure from his dream.
Especially when he smiled.
A faint, inexplicable ache appeared in his chest.
It was different from the intense pain he had felt upon waking from the dream, yet it was equally unfamiliar.
He did not understand where this strange, almost fated feeling came from.
But he vaguely sensed that something about himself had changed. He simply could not put it into words.
It was as though something that had been asleep for a very long time had quietly awakened after that dream.
Like a process of breaking out of a shell, transforming from a pupa into a butterfly.
He could not say what it was.
He forcibly suppressed those useless emotions and sensations.
Meeting Han Dongji’s gaze, he slowly curled his lips into a smile.
The same gentle, elegant smile as always.
“All right. I’ll use this name.”
What he needed was not some meaningful name, but one that would not sound too out of place to the people here.
From today onward, he would temporarily abandon his former name.
As “Bai Chenji,” he would explore this unknown world and make preparations for the future.
Han Dongji was crouching beside the stove, pushing several pieces of dry firewood into the firebox.
The firelight illuminated the side of his face, making the eyes that resembled Su Mucheng’s appear and disappear between light and shadow.
He did not raise his head, nor did his hands stop moving. As though waiting until he had confirmed that the fire was steady, he finally spoke.
His tone was casual.
It was the kind of question he had answered before for the children in the village who had never left the mountains.
“This is Dayong. The current reign era is Yongsheng.”
He paused, as though recalling something.
“Yongsheng… thirty-fourth year, or perhaps thirty-fifth? Today is the sixth day of the first lunar month. We’re rather remote here, so by the time news from the capital reaches us, quite a lot of time has usually passed.”
He paused again and glanced back, as though confirming that this person truly remembered nothing.
There was no change in Bai Chenji’s expression, as though he were listening attentively.
Then Han Dongji turned back and continued tending the fire.
“I went to a nearby market a month ago to buy supplies. I heard that someone had come to take over that ghost city in the northern border region. It’s been renamed Linbei City now. I think it’s currently… under the control of Prince Su. If you want to inquire about things, you’d probably have an easier time finding answers there.”
Han Dongji stood up and dusted the ashes from his hands.
“You lie down for now. The porridge still needs a little more time to cook.”
Bai Chenji nodded and lay back down on the bed.
At least he had confirmed several pieces of information.
Dayong—a dynasty that did not exist in his original world.
The thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth year of Yongsheng—meaning the emperor had been on the throne for a very long time and was no longer young.
But someone capable of remaining in power for so many years would have considerable ability. He was not someone who could be manipulated easily.
The sixth day of the first lunar month—his own world was currently in August, meaning the seasons on the two sides were actually different. This indicated that this was not simply a matter of crossing spatial dimensions. The laws governing the two worlds were more complicated.
This world shared not only the same language and writing system, but also similar institutions.
Then there was Linbei City and Prince Su.
A prince who could be dispatched to take control of such a border city had either been heavily trusted or deeply suspected.
As for which one, he needed more information.
But the fact that someone could turn a ghost city into a place where people could actually live was clearly extraordinary.
It would be best not to approach him lightly.
For now, he could not easily make contact with those in power. Someone of unknown origin like him would, if he approached them recklessly, only be regarded as mentally disturbed or someone spreading heretical nonsense.
Fortunately, this village was sufficiently secluded. He still had some time to adapt to and learn about this world and make preparations.
He looked at Han Dongji’s completely unguarded eyes.
This man’s eyes were too clean.
It was not the foolish innocence of someone ignorant of the world, but the kindness of someone who knew certain things and was still willing to be compassionate and accepting.
That suited him perfectly.
This time, he would conceal his true nature and ambitions and become a “good” person.
He suddenly remembered something and spoke in an uncertain voice.
“I just remembered that I still remember two characters—‘Jingyuan.’”
Han Dongji turned his head and thought for a moment.
“Sounds like a person’s name. Someone you know?”
Bai Chenji shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Han Dongji looked at him for a while before saying,
“I’ve never heard that name.”
He turned his head back toward the porridge, then suddenly seemed to remember something.
“But I’ve heard of Prince Su. He’s apparently quite famous around the northern border. His name is Xiao Yuan, and coincidentally, his name also contains the character ‘Yuan.’”
“Xiao Yuan.”
Bai Chenji repeated the name softly.
Although they shared the same character, Yuan was a common character, so there was no way to determine whether there was any connection.
What mattered more now was figuring out everything about this place.
And then… he needed to find the door.
He also had to find a way back.
Since he had been able to come to this world, it was very possible that Su Mucheng could come here too, as well as that Su Jinye.
Amid that dim red and cold-white light, he had seen Su Jinye come through together with him.
If Su Jinye had not died, he might already be searching for him now—
in order to silence him.
So before he found a way back, he first had to find a way to “survive” in this world.