A piece of Japanese incense

Zhi Yihe spent the whole night to finish copying all those crooked characters. Faced with the table full of shoddy works, she couldn't help but twitch her lips in embarrassment.

Four elegantly dressed women walked into the study room. The leader bowed to her and said, "Madam Zhi, Sister Yuyi is decocting medicine, and I have sent the servants to help you wash up."

"Oh, why be so polite? Just leave the things there. I'll wash myself up later." Zhi Yihe responded casually while arranging the papers.

There was no sound in the room. She paused for a moment and looked up, only to see the four people still holding basins and towels, quietly waiting by the side.

"Forget it, forget it!" Zhi Yihe stood up helplessly and began to rinse his mouth and wash his face.

"Are you all Hefeng's personal maids? I don't think this house has been lived in before. Could it be that you have just moved here? Where are you and the master's family? Has he been serving the prince for a long time?"

Zhi Yihe asked a series of questions like a machine gun, but the four women just lowered their heads in silence. She smiled helplessly: "Then, can you tell me your names?"

"My name is Jin Tao."

"The servant Guihua."

"My servant Bingmei."

"Slave Flower Dew."

"Wow~ Your master seems to be a food lover." Zhi Yihe wiped his hands and handed the thick stack of sorted papers to Jin Tao: "I'll give it to your master. Tell him that this is the clue left by Ah Ban's father. I can only help him up to this point~"

Zhi Yihe returned to her bedroom and fell asleep. She dreamed of her long-lost relatives, her grandmother, her mother, and Aunt Hong. They were sitting together, eating and joking, but the dream suddenly changed and they disappeared one by one in front of her...

"He'er, we're going to see your grandfather..."

“Grandma! Mother! Brother Nian!” Zhi Yihe reached out eagerly to grab them, but they gradually became transparent before her eyes until they turned into nothingness and disappeared completely…

"Ah He! Ah He!" Hefeng sat beside the bed, shaking her body.

Zhi Yihe half closed his eyes and called out in a daze: "Brother Nian...Brother Nian..." Tears quietly dripped from the corners of his eyes.

"Zhi Yihe! Look carefully at who I am!" Hefeng grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them hard.

Zhi Yihe woke up from the pain and regained consciousness: "You stinky hooligan! What do you want to do by breaking into a woman's boudoir in the middle of the night! You lecher, you want to take advantage of me, I will beat you to death!" Zhi Yihe picked up the pillow and smashed it on Hefeng.

"Hey! Stop it! Listen to me!" Hefeng blocked the attack with his hands and knelt on the side of the bed until he forced Zhi Yihe back to the corner.

Zhi Yihe's pillow was taken away, so he had to hold up the quilt to separate the two of them: "If you come over again, I will kill you! Don't be ungrateful! I kill people all the time, I tell you! I can drown you with just a spit!"

She moved towards the bed while talking, but there was no movement. She poked her head out from under the quilt and peeked, but it was pitch black, with her entire body covered by the quilt.

A familiar sense of horror came over her, her breathing seemed to be frozen, her chest was tightly clenched, as if a heavy rock was pressing on her chest. Every moment passed so slowly that she could hardly breathe. Her instinct for survival drove her to break free, but her body seemed to be fixed, and she could only let fear run rampant in the enclosed space.

"Ah He? Ah He! I'm sorry! What's wrong with you? I was just joking! Ah He!" He Feng noticed that something was wrong with her and quickly lifted the quilt. What he saw was that she was soaked all over, her palms were cold, and she was curled up and shivering.

The night was as dark as ink, and the moonlight shone through the window lattice, shining on the two of them. Zhi Yihe cried and shouted incoherently: "Don't catch me! Don't catch me! Brother Nian! Please come and save me! Brother Nian!"

"Ah He! Everything is over! No one will catch you! Those people are dead! They can't hurt you anymore! I promise you, no one will hurt you again! I swear! Ah He, look at me, okay? I will protect you!"

Zhi Yihe gasped for breath until the depression and fear slowly dissipated.

He Feng was still kneeling beside her, calling out, "Ah He, I'm sorry! Can you please take care of me? Please..."

(How did he know those people were no longer alive? How did he know so much about my past? Who was he?)

Zhi Yihe stood up and put her arm around his neck, still pretending to be unconscious, and hugged him anxiously: "I want to go home, can you take me home?"

He Feng's Adam's apple rolled, and he suddenly forgot how to breathe. He blurted out without thinking: "Okay, I'll take you home, I'll take you home."

Zhiyi buried her face deep in his chest, a familiar breath surrounded her. She didn't dare to raise her head, for fear that he would notice something unusual.

Hefeng put a cloak on her, then picked her up and carried her into the carriage.

Zhi Yihe never expected that she would actually return to the He Mansion, where the couplets she had posted with her own hands had faded, and spiders had woven intricate webs under the eaves.

"Open the door." Hefeng ordered in a deep voice, and the guards hurriedly tore off the seal and opened the dusty door.

Zhi Yihe stepped into the yard, seeing fallen leaves all over the ground. She ran eagerly into her grandfather's bedroom. There was an indescribable smell in the air and the dried bloodstains on the ground made her vaguely feel that her grandfather was still guarding her.

She covered her nose and walked to the bed. It was so quiet that only the sound of the wind could be heard, and occasionally the cry of a crow pierced the sky.

Zhi Yihe searched around and looked carefully, but found nothing.

"Yuyi told you everything after all, didn't she?" Hefeng's cold voice sounded behind her.

Zhi Yihe stayed where he was, not daring to move at all.

"Everything you just did was a lie to me?"

Zhi Yihe realized that someone was approaching from behind, so she quietly took out a hairpin from the drawer of her dressing table and held it in her hand.

"Is it bad to know nothing?"

Zhi Yihe suddenly turned around, and Hefeng was already behind her. He put one arm around her waist and clamped her hand holding the hairpin with the other.

The hairpin fell to the ground with a "clack". Zhi Yihe struggled to break free and picked up another hairpin. She pointed it at Hefeng and said in a trembling voice, "Who are you? How do you know everything about me? The scent on you is the 'Four Seasons' that I prepared when I was a child. No one knows about it. How do you have it? How do you know that the person who captured me is dead? Where are my family members imprisoned? What do you want from me?"

Hefeng walked calmly, approaching slowly like flowing water, gently knocked the hairpin off, and held Zhi Yihe's hands with both hands: "So you still remember this fragrance, this is the first fragrance you made when you were six years old."

"You pervert! Let me go!" Zhi Yihe struggled angrily.

Hefeng held Zhi Yihe's hand and walked to Ainiangyuan. With a new light in his eyes, he said leisurely, "In the past, I only looked down from the roof, but today I am down to earth and experience every inch of this courtyard in person."

"You're a peeping Tom! You..."

He Feng let go of her hand dejectedly, sat on the swing and whispered: "You can curse as much as you want, I will wait here until you have cursed enough and are relieved, then I will tell you everything."

Zhi Yihe was silent for a moment, and asked hesitantly: "Will you really tell me everything?"

"Then, are you willing to believe me?"

Zhiyihe did not answer a word and sat silently on the stone bench.

"My grandfather was killed by Emperor Zhaoding, and my father was lucky enough to escape death. So since I was born, everyone around me has taught me to kill Emperor Zhaoding with my own hands to avenge the extermination of my family."

"Don't go off topic! What does this have to do with you spying on my family?" Zhi Yihe frowned, his tone revealing impatience.

"My mother was once a maidservant of a prominent family in Xiqi. By chance, she recognized your father, who turned out to be the only son of Princess Zhaoren. Princess Zhaoren brought Xiqi's national treasure to Dongli to negotiate peace, but she was robbed upon entering the country, and the national treasure was lost."

"I know everything you said, so what?"

"Disappeared along with the national treasure was Princess Zhaoren's personal maid, Jiang Yu."

Zhi Yihe supported his chin with one hand: "You mean, Jiang Yu took away the national treasure?"

"Nine times out of ten."

"So you set your sights on my father, thinking that Jiang Yu would do everything he could to find my father and give him the national treasure? Then you can catch the national treasure by stalking the cicada?"