The forest mist entangled among the pine branches, covering the entire mountain as if it were immersed in cold water.Xiao Changying led his men and horses to search back and forth between the mountain col and the stone gorge. The sound of the horse's hooves crushing the remaining leaves, mixed with his uncontrollable anxiety, filled the deserted path again and again.Shen Xihe stood under a rock sheltered from the wind, repeatedly twisting the laces of her cloak with her fingertips. No matter how her entourage tried to persuade her to go down the mountain for a while, she refused to move - she wanted to wait here for Xiao Huayong's safe return.

In the dark corners of the deep forest, masked men stepped on the shadows of the night to investigate.Xiao Huayong and Xiao Changqing had closed their eyes and pretended to be in a coma. Even their breathing was as light as dust. When the other party bent down to feel their breath, they suddenly took action at the same time, knocking the person unconscious when the wind of their palms fell, snatched the key from his waist, and quickly jumped into the waist-deep grass.They used the shadows of trees and rocks to hide their figures. The enemy was in the open and the other was in the dark. They took advantage of the cover of night to quietly eliminate the lone men in black one by one, until dense footsteps were heard in the distance, and a large number of pursuers came in like a tide with torches. Xiao Changqing had already been stabbed in the arm, and the blood soaked his sleeves. If it continued, both of them would be trapped here and die.

Xiao Huayong violently pushed Xiao Changqing deeper into the grass, turned around and swept in the opposite direction, deliberately breaking the branches to make a huge noise and locking the eyes of all the pursuers on him.The sound of horse hooves and shouts of death gradually faded away, and he was captured with all his strength. When he regained consciousness, he was already in the stone house of the Le tribe.The person in front of him slowly took off his mask, revealing Xiao Changtai's face that had been hiding his calculations for many years.

In fact, from the moment he was surrounded, Xiao Huayong vaguely guessed that the person behind the kidnapping was the person in front of him.Years of resentment surged in Xiao Changtai's eyes, and he offered him a deal: as long as he washed away Li Yanhui's grievances and allowed her to be buried with him in the imperial mausoleum, he would reveal the true culprits who had secretly poisoned him for many years.Xiao Huayong did not agree to the deal, but only advised him to return to the palace with him and apologize to his father in person.

Xiao Changtai suddenly became furious and sternly scolded him for being confused, saying that he would never bow to the man who killed his brother to seize the throne. Then he hit his ears word by word - the one who poisoned you over the years is none other than your majesty.Seeing the disbelief on his face, Xiao Changtai threw a secret letter with scorched edges in front of him.The letter was written by the Queen Mother in her own handwriting, and the ink was soaked with the blood and tears of that year: In the eighth year of Youning, the Queen Mother could not afford to kneel in front of the ancestral tablet. She had confessed her second son's crime of murdering her eldest son, but in order to stabilize the country, she could only burn all the evidence of the crime with her own hands, and fully assist her second son in ascending to the throne.

Xiao Changtai took advantage of the chaos to snatch this secret letter out of the fire and hid it for more than ten years.Xiao Huayong's knuckles turned white as he held the letter, and all the hesitant reminders from the old ministers in the past came flooding back, like ice needles piercing his heart. He felt that all the strength in his body was drained, and he walked out of the Le clan's territory in despair.Suddenly a familiar scent of medicinal herbs floated in the mountain breeze. Shen Xihe followed his unique scent and looked for it. When they saw him, they threw themselves into his arms.

As soon as he raised his arms to hug her back, his heart suddenly felt cramped, and his vision went dark before he fell down.Throughout the night of his coma, he kept muttering intermittently that he refused to believe that his father would harm him. Shen tide and Cun Buju stayed by the bed, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead over and over again. It was not until late in the night that he slowly woke up. She had already warmed the soup and fed it to his lips one spoonful at a time.At dawn the next day, Xiao Huayong stepped into the palace gate wearing court uniform, with determination in his eyes to ask everything clearly in front of his father.

But when I walked outside the royal study, I learned that His Majesty was too worried about the disappearance of the prince, had contracted the cold, and was lying on the couch coughing.He looked at the haggard old man on the couch, and the questions that were on the tip of his tongue suddenly got stuck in his throat.He only bowed and reported back, saying that he had a chance to escape when the guards were unprepared, took the soup on the case, and fed it to his father's lips with his own hands.

In a daze, the image of the time when he was poisoned and had a high fever when he was young came into his mind. It was his father who stayed by his bed with his clothes untied and didn't close his eyes for three days, and then he was brought back from the hell.The handwriting of the secret letter and the warmth of his childhood palms repeatedly tore at the bottom of his heart. His mind was turbulent all night long, and he couldn't sleep at all.Shen Xihe saw the gloom in his eyes, and secretly prepared a bucket of soothing medicinal soup in the side room. The warm medicinal fragrance spread through the window lattice, gently pulling him out of his chaotic thoughts.