[The Ripples of Suspicion]
The morning mist was heavy in the guest courtyard. Gu Xingyu and Sang Qi walked side by side under the bamboo shadows. As they passed a small pavilion, Xingyu overheard two maids whispering about the recent scandal.
"...they say the rumors backfired on the Princess. The whole scheme was a trap set by someone else—the printing shops were all part of a counter-play..."
Xingyu froze. Counter-play? She hadn't paid much mind to the rumors, believing her conscience was clear, but the speed at which the storm had vanished was indeed suspicious.
"Sang Qi," she murmured, "did someone... intervene in the matter of those booklets?"
Sang Qi raised an eyebrow. "Are you suspecting him?"
Xingyu didn't say the name, but her mind drifted back to the dark night and the desperate man who had vowed: "If anyone dares to ruin your name, I will make them realize their mistake."
A faint warmth, like a breeze over water, stirred in her heart. If it really was him... I will remember this.
[The Brother's Revelation]
In the East Pavilion, Crown Prince Si Moyan stared at a secret report. The words were a shock to his system: The rumors were silenced by the covert actions of Si Moheng. No traces left.
Si Moheng. The brother who had been discarded in the Death Row Camp and turned into a heartless shadow of the Emperor.
Moyan leaned back, his eyes darkening. He hadn't stopped Yirou because he wanted to see if the Saintess could withstand the fire. But he never expected that the one to extinguish the flames would be the brother who was supposedly "stripped of all humanity."
"Si Moheng... what are you thinking?" Moyan whispered. "You're a man without a heart. Why would you risk everything for a woman?"
He felt a sudden, urgent desire to meet this brother whom he hadn't seen in years.
[The Blade's Defense]
Inside the cold, silent Hall of Ten Thousand Scales, Si Moheng knelt before the Emperor.
"It was you," Emperor Si Chengjing growled, his voice like thunder. "You destroyed the booklets. You ruined your sister's plan."
"Yes," Moheng replied, his gaze calm.
"You knew she was the Princess, the daughter of the Empress. Why protect an outsider?"
Moheng raised his head, his dark red eyes reflecting the candlelight. "I didn't do it to protect her. I did it to protect the Yao-world."
The Emperor's eyes narrowed.
"If the people stop believing in the Saintess's purity, they stop believing in the Mandate of Heaven," Moheng said, his voice as sharp as a blade. "If the world discovers that the Royal Family itself orchestrated the slander against the Heaven-chosen Saintess, then the Imperial bloodline loses its legitimacy. You would lose the hearts of the people, Father."
The silence in the hall was suffocating.
"You've changed," the Emperor said quietly.
"The world is changing," Moheng replied. "If I don't change faster, I will be consumed by it."
As he withdrew from the hall, Moheng felt his father's icy gaze on his back. He didn't need to explain further. He wasn't acting out of loyalty or betrayal. He simply refused to watch a certain person be trampled into the mud by this world ever again.