When the appointed day finally came, neither Mo Jian nor Bai Ning went to work. The Incense Forest could manage without them for a few hours, and even if something did go wrong, this matter was far more important.
They had chosen a room near their residence, largely because that section of the palace was nearly abandoned and usually empty. They had also requested that the princess arrive with as small an entourage as possible. Whether any of it would actually work remained uncertain. The Netherworld Scorpion had confirmed the delivery of the message, but Mo Jian had not dared leave it there for long. As much faith as he had in the scorpion’s abilities, allowing it to linger had felt like tempting fate itself.
As for the rest… there was nothing they could do now except trust in luck.
They possessed nothing that could truly tempt or compel Xiang Muxue into meeting them. Hopefully, the careful and mysterious manner in which they had approached her would be enough to spark her curiosity.
Yet as the appointed hour drew near, Mo Jian found himself regretting his caution. Would it have been better to act first and contact her afterward? He already had a target in mind, and that alone might have been enough to secure her attention. But no, there was a reason he had chosen this approach. Besides, Xiang Muxue had no allies she could rely upon either. Surely that alone would make her curious enough to come…
The door to the room opened for only an instant before a figure slipped inside. It shut again just as quickly, and in the blink of an eye, someone stood before the two of them.
Bai Ning startled violently, springing to her feet as her qi flared on instinct.
Mo Jian only stared.
His spiritual sense had been spread throughout the room and the corridor beyond, fully alert. He could sense every drifting particle of dust in the air, let alone the movements of living people. Yet he had not detected this person at all. Even now, with her standing directly before him, his spiritual sense insisted the room contained no one besides himself and Bai Ning.
What a terrifying ability.
Xiang Muxue’s appearance gave little hint of that danger. She was a slender young woman with long black hair and a heart-shaped face. Her robes were simple black garments, well made, but far from lavish, and the only ornament she wore was a single bracelet of pearls around her left wrist.
She was beautiful, certainly, but not in the overwhelming way Mo Jian had expected from the second woman once destined to join Ye Chen’s harem. Only her eyes truly stood out. Her irises resembled panes of dark glass holding back a faint, luminous golden glow, like embers smoldering beneath fresh snow. The eyes of the imperial family.
Now, those eyes narrowed slightly as she regarded the two of them with equal parts question and challenge.
“Well?” she asked. “What does he want now?”
Mo Jian hurried to his feet, exchanging a quick glance with Bai Ning. The two bowed in perfect unison. “Your Celestial Highness.”
Xiang Muxue raised a hand dismissively.
“Enough. I have no patience for his games.” Her voice was calm, but the cold irritation beneath it was unmistakable. “Since you dared involve my handmaiden in your schemes, I assume Chengxuan has finally decided not to leave me in peace. Speak. Tell me what my dear cousin wants.”
She did not spit the words in anger, yet Mo Jian still felt it; her fury pressing into the room like a tangible force.
He could not sense her cultivation realm at all, though if events still followed the course of the book, she should only be at the peak of Core Formation. Even so, standing before her, he felt completely outmatched.
And more importantly, she was operating under the wrong assumption.
He exchanged another quick glance with Bai Ning before the two straightened.
“We are not here on Xiang Chengxuan’s behalf, Your Celestial Highness,” Mo Jian said as sincerely as he could. “The message we sent was a personal one.”
One of Xiang Muxue’s brows arched higher, an expression that somehow conveyed both disbelief and amusement at once. The corners of her lips curled into a faint, wry smile.
“So you say,” she murmured, “and so it seems you believe.”
A soft chime echoed through the room at her words, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. The Truth Tolling Bell. Mo Jian recognized it immediately: the princess’s natal artifact. He could have guarded himself against it, and Bai Ning likely could have as well, though with far greater difficulty, but neither of them had tried. Allowing their words to be verified could only help their case.
Xiang Muxue studied them for another long moment, her glowing eyes unreadable. Whatever the Truth Tolling Bell had revealed seemed to satisfy her enough that she did not immediately turn and leave.
“Interesting,” she said at last.
Then, folding her hands behind her back, she continued, “So, you asked to meet me in secret, involved my personal attendant, and took great care to leave no trace pointing back to yourselves. All for something you claim is personal.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Either you have no idea what you’re doing… or you have a better idea than even I do. Which is it?”
Mo Jian gathered his thoughts. He already knew what to say – had known for months, in fact – but there was value in ordering them properly, in adjusting the plan with what he was now learning about her. Unfortunately, Bai Ning was not someone who tolerated silence when a question had been asked.
She met Xiang Muxue’s gaze without hesitation. “If you thought we were sent by the crown prince, why come alone? Neither of us could have forced you to do anything.”
Mo Jian turned to her with open incredulity.
Bai Ning ignored him entirely. “What? It’s a perfectly valid question.”
Xiang Muxue held her gaze for a moment longer, then let out a quiet chuckle. The change was subtle, but unmistakable. The pressure in the room eased, and something in her expression softened by a fraction.
“You really have nothing to do with him,” she said. “Even someone pretending ignorance would not ask that so directly.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly in appraisal.
“It’s simple. No matter who he sent, no one in the palace would dare harm me, or any other member of the imperial family. Doing so would invite my grandfather’s attention, and that rarely ends well. However, that courtesy extends only to me and not to whomever I might have chosen to bring along, which is why I came alone.”
Mo Jian frowned. “Your grandfather?”
The question slipped out before he could stop it, but it was genuine. In his memory of the novel, the imperial hierarchy had never been explained so clearly. And the idea of the princess’s grandfather being relevant at all… wasn’t he already dead?
Xiang Muxue looked faintly amused. “You are clearly new to the palace.”
She tilted her head slightly. “I was referring to the Immortal Emperor, the founder of the empire and the imperial bloodline. The current emperor is always called his son or daughter, and in turn may address the Immortal Emperor as father. From that relationship, we derive our standing.”
Her lips quirked faintly. “In my case, the current emperor is my uncle. So the Immortal Emperor is my grandfather. In truth, though, he is my many-times great-great-great-great-grandfather… or something equally absurd.”
A brief silence followed her explanation. Xiang Muxue observed them quietly, her earlier tension now replaced with something lighter, almost entertained. Mo Jian suspected she was also gauging their reactions, perhaps even their qi through her artifact, confirming that their surprise was genuine.
Then her gaze drifted across the bare room, taking in the emptiness: unadorned walls, uncarpeted floor, no servants, or guards. Only the three of them.
“I have indulged your questions,” she said at last, her tone cooling again. “Now it is your turn.”
Her eyes settled on Mo Jian. “Why send me a message in such a manner? What is it you want?”
Mo Jian met her gaze without fear, and this time he did not hesitate to answer. “An alliance.”
Xiang Muxue’s lips curved faintly, as though the answer amused her more than it surprised her. “An alliance? With me?”
Bai Ning stepped in immediately beside him, her posture straight and unwavering as she nodded. “Yes, Your Celestial Highness. We seek an alliance for mutual benefit.”
For a long moment, Xiang Muxue said nothing. She simply looked at them, her luminous eyes unreadable, before she turned away and began to pace slowly across the room. It was not a restless movement, nor an anxious one, but rather something measured and deliberate, as though she was turning their very existence over in her mind while she walked. Her black robes swished softly with each step, the only sound in the otherwise still room.
“There are only three possible reasons why someone would do something like this,” she said at last, her voice calm and assured. “The first is ambition.”
She reached the far end of the room, turned smoothly, and began her return path, her hands still clasped neatly behind her back. “You are newly promoted to the palace, and unwilling to remain confined to the Outer Court for long, and thus willing to take risks that are both audacious and foolish. You plan to reach out to a member of the imperial family in the hope of leveraging that connection into something greater for yourselves, perhaps entry into the Inner Court, or perhaps something even beyond that if your greed is bold enough.”
Her gaze shifted toward them again, sharp and assessing as it lingered. “However, that explanation would require you to be ignorant of who I am, and also ignorant of why there is no longer any path forward for you in that direction through me.”
“We know,” Mo Jian said at once, cutting in before she could continue further. “We know the whole situation, including your father’s death and your fall from favor.”
Xiang Muxue did not grow angry or outraged. She did not so much as pause. She merely gave a small, almost indifferent nod, as though acknowledging that this fact had already been accounted for in her reasoning, and continued her pacing without interruption.
“So, it is not blind ambition,” she said lightly, though there was a faint note of doubt in her tone. “Then perhaps you believe I am your only viable option, that every other member of the imperial family would simply ignore you, while I might not.” Her steps slowed slightly as she crossed the room again, and her expression suggested she did not find this explanation much stronger than the first. “That assumption, however, is weak, and so I do not favor it either.”
She turned once more at the end of her path, her movement smooth and unhurried, continuing her slow circuit of the room as though she were tracing the outline of her own thoughts. “Which brings us to the second reason.”
Her tone shifted subtly at that point, becoming more precise, more intent, as though she were tightening a thread in her reasoning. “This one concerns the gui.” Her gaze returned to them again, no longer casual or speculative, but directly focused.
“It has nothing to do with the gui,” Bai Ning said immediately, her voice firm and without hesitation. A soft chime rang out in response, clear and delicate, filling the room for an instant before fading back into silence.
Xiang Muxue’s eyes lingered on them for a long moment longer, as though she was measuring not only their words but the absence of deceit behind them. Only after that did she resume her pacing, though her steps now carried a slightly slower, more thoughtful rhythm.
“Odd,” she murmured, almost to herself, though clearly still addressing them. “And yet not nearly as odd as it would have been if you had truly come to me for that reason.”
A faint, self-deprecating smile touched her lips as she continued speaking. “Chengxuan would have welcomed you without hesitation if you had brought it to him to present before grandfather. Any of my cousins would have done the same, and none of them would have found it strange in the slightest.”
Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, the faint amusement in them giving way to sharper scrutiny. “There is nothing I can offer you in that regard that others cannot already provide.” Her steps slowed further, as though her thoughts were beginning to converge. “And yet,” she said softly, letting the word linger as her gaze fixed on them once more, “you are not surprised by this information.”
A brief pause followed, heavier than the silence before it.
“That means,” she continued, her voice lowering slightly as her deduction deepened, “you already know that there are people within the palace who are aware of your possession of it.” She came to a stop at the end of her pacing, no longer moving at all. “And still,” she added, her tone quieter now, more contemplative, “you have done nothing with that knowledge.”
The silence that followed was even thicker than before, pressing gently against the room.
“Which means you are not seeking to present the gui,” she said at last, almost as though she was completing a thought she had been forming aloud, “at least not yet.”
Her gaze lifted fully to Mo Jian and Bai Ning again, steady and unblinking. Neither of them said anything, even though this was no longer a rhetorical question.
Xiang Muxue had already learned of the gui; that much was not surprising. A princess, even a fallen one, remained a princess. There would always be people within the palace walls willing to trade information to her, so long as it was done carefully and never traced back to the crown prince. In fact, Mo Jian even recalled a passage from the novel, where Ye Chen had once needed information about a cultivator stationed on the fourteenth floor. It had been Xiang Muxue who obtained it for him.
When he had asked her how she managed it, she had only smiled faintly and said, “There are still those who know honor within these walls, Chen. As long as it does not reach back to Chengxuan, they will help me as much as they are able. They remember my father.”
The princess turned away again, clearly recognizing that neither of them intended to add anything further for the moment.
“Then the third reason,” she continued, her tone one more smooth and unhurried, “can only be that this is a trap.”
She paced once more, though her steps had slowed slightly, as though she was now considering the implications rather than simply listing them. “You are here on behalf of Chengxuan, and you have somehow devised a method to deceive my Truth Tolling Bell, all while maintaining a fully open circulation of qi so that I would not immediately suspect interference.”
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
“In that case, the most rational response would be for me to disengage entirely. After all, I cannot imagine why Chengxuan would go to such lengths simply to target me, and yet…” Her lips tightened slightly. “He is not without cruelty. It would not be beyond him to construct something this elaborate and humiliating, simply to remind me of my position.”
She stopped pacing and turned back toward them once more, her expression now fully focused, her presence sharpened.
“What do you think?” she asked quietly.
At last, Mo Jian stirred. “There is another possibility, Your Celestial Highness,” he said. “We are offering an alliance because there is something only you can do for us, and something only we can do for you.”
He met her eyes directly, without flinching. “You want to kill Xiang Chengxuan and reclaim the position of crown heir that he took from your father. You have spent the last fifty years with nothing but that thought in your mind. And we have the ability to make it happen.”
Xiang Muxue’s smile vanished instantly. Her face went still, cold as carved stone.
“Do you, now?” she asked softly.
Mo Jian nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “We do. We can assassinate anyone within the palace, so long as they are not a member of the imperial family. No one would be able to stop us, and no one would be able to trace it back to us either. I am willing to place that ability at your disposal, to deal with the crown prince, so long as it is used wisely, and only against those who have crossed a line from which there is no return.”
He did not look away from her. “So do not tell us that you cannot achieve what you want with such a power.”
Xiang Muxue watched them in silence, her expression unchanged, but now entirely devoid of warmth.
“Oh, of course,” she said at last, her voice dripping with quiet sarcasm. “Silly me. Obviously, you possess some heaven-defying, miraculous ability that no one else has ever heard of, not even in stories or ancient scrolls.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“And what, exactly, is the grand favor you require in return for this extraordinary gift?”
Mo Jian ignored the sarcasm entirely. In that moment, something else surfaced in his mind instead: an odd, detached realization about the similarity between Bai Ning and the princess before him. The same sharpness. The same refusal to yield. So, Ye Chen had a type, after all…
He pushed the thought aside.
“The current Emperor of the Empire, and the Crown Heir, both possess the right to request an audience with the Immortal Emperor and be heard,” he said steadily. “More than that, this audience is not merely tradition; it is bound by oath. It is something established by the Immortal Emperor himself for the governance of the Empire. No matter what is said, or how it is said, he is obligated to listen seriously and consider it in good faith.”
He paused only briefly. “Of course, such an audience is not granted lightly nor is it something asked for frivolously.”
His gaze remained fixed on her. “But when you become Crown Princess through our help, we want you to grant us that right of audience, so that we may speak to the Immortal Emperor on a matter of great importance.”
Xiang Muxue’s face did not change from its stony stillness.
Mo Jian continued anyway. “The reason I did not approach any other member of the imperial family is simple. They would either laugh at me, or they would demand a price I cannot pay. The only thing of value I possess that would interest someone of your standing is the gui, which I cannot give you under any circumstances, because I intend to use it in that audience myself.”
His tone remained calm, but firm.
“And even if others took me seriously, there is no guarantee they would honor their word. But I know you. And I know that if I deliver Xiang Chengxuan’s head to you, or at the very least clear your path to him, you will grant us this favor.”
Finally, Xiang Muxue shifted.
Her expression remained unchanged, still as though carved from ice, but something in her posture tightened ever so slightly. She met both of their gazes in turn – Mo Jian, steady and earnest; Bai Ning, quiet but unyielding – and then turned away.
“This conversation is at an end,” she said coldly. “Do not reach out to me again, or I will report you. I have no interest in listening to any more of your delusional ramblings.”
She walked toward the door without hesitation, not even waiting to see if they would respond. Mo Jian and Bai Ning exchanged a glance. They had expected this. Of course they had. Words alone were never going to be enough. This reaction was not surprising; it was, in fact, the most natural outcome.
“Yue Shouming,” Mo Jian said.
Xiang Muxue stopped. Her hand, already resting on the latch, froze in place.
“He will die tomorrow, without cause or struggle,” Mo Jian continued evenly.
The princess did not turn around or speak. She did not even acknowledge the statement with movement, but the stillness in the room deepened.
Mo Jian pressed on. “He is a favored servant of the crown prince. Surely not someone Xiang Chengxuan would be willing to sacrifice merely to entangle you in a scheme like this. Will that suffice as proof?”
Only then did Xiang Muxue turn. Her golden eyes landed squarely on Mo Jian, and this time she ignored Bai Ning entirely. She simply looked at him, long and unblinking, as though weighing not just his words, but the space between them. Still, she said nothing. After a moment that stretched uncomfortably long, she turned away again and opened the door. It closed behind her in a single smooth motion, leaving no trace of her presence behind except the faint pressure of her departure.
Silence settled into the room. Mo Jian and Bai Ning exchanged another look. Bai Ning lifted her hand, and the barrier of qi around the room shrank inward, tightening until it enclosed only the two of them once more.
“That went about as well as it could have,” Bai Ning said at last, exhaling.
Mo Jian gave a wry smile. “Not really. It could have definitely gone better.”
Bai Ning shrugged. “I thought your initial plan was optimistic, Master, so in that sense, it went quite well. Do you think she will return?”
Mo Jian’s gaze remained on the door through which Xiang Muxue had left. “She will.”
His voice was calm and certain. “I understated it when I said she has thought of nothing but killing Xiang Chengxuan for the past fifty years. She has not had a single peaceful night in all that time, because every moment she is awake, she is thinking about how to bring him down.”
Bai Ning raised an eyebrow slightly. “Huh. Then I suppose there is only one thing left to do now.”
Mo Jian’s faint smile returned, sharper this time.
He nodded.
“One thing left to do, indeed.”
………………………………………………………………………………
The next morning, no news came.
Mo Jian went to the Incense Forest as usual, and this time Bai Ning accompanied him as well. Neither of them spoke much on the way. There was nothing left to do but wait.
It was mid afternoon when the first real change arrived. A voice transmission talisman from Gu Daisheng reached Mo Jian while he was overseeing the outer trees. The message was brief, and delivered in a careful, restrained tone. A Nascent Soul cultivator had died on the lowest floor.
No battle had been recorded. No disturbance had been sensed. And most troubling of all, the man had been known to be in good health, nowhere near the end of his lifespan.
Two hours later, Shen Jinglan arrived.
She stepped into the Incense Forest like someone who was not entirely sure she should be there at all. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and unsettled, and there was a strange tension in her movements, as though every step cost her effort. When her gaze finally landed on Mo Jian and Bai Ning, it flickered; shock, fear, and something that looked uncomfortably close to betrayal all passing through in quick succession.
Bai Ning did not speak, but Mo Jian knew her well enough to recognize the faint tightening in her expression. She was hurt. That much was obvious. And yet neither of them had any right to explain themselves. Whatever trust Shen Jinglan thought she had extended had already been broken the moment they stepped onto this path.
Shen Jinglan stopped in front of them. She bowed, low and precise, and when she rose, she offered a small token forward without a word.
Mo Jian took it. There was only a single line of message inside.
The twenty first floor. Tomorrow. Two people allowed.
He closed his fingers around it slowly.
And just like that, the answer arrived. They had been invited to meet Xiang Muxue.
...............................................................................
AN: First, they have to convince her that they're both sincere and capable. Only then will she even consider working with them...
As for Mo Jian's plan, what's your read on it so far? I've revealed enough of the logic behind it that you should be able to piece together most of the picture, even if a few key details are still missing.
Is he a genius? Completely insane? Working from information nobody else has access to (partly true)? Or some combination of the above?