In the dead of the night, 2 shadows clad in black silently slipped past a pair of patrolling guards and entered the Dragon Palace’s courtyard.

They entered the storage house through the window and hid in the corner.

“It’s going to get tricky from here,” Mo Shen took out the map.

He made it when he scouted the place and marked the areas which were regularly guarded. Right now, he also sent out 3 puppets to give him live views of the current situation to find blind spots on their path.

Mo Shen waited for the right timing and signalled Xue Lan with a nod. The two of them leapt out and headed to their next checkpoint which was the garden.

They hid behind the bushes as guards walked past them.

Using the bushes and trees as their cover, they encircled the area until they reached the backyard.

“Get down,” Mo Shen pulled Xue Lan to lay on the ground. “There’s surveillance on the roof.”

Xue Lan looked at where Mo Shen was looking and found the person Mo Shen was talking about. It took quite a while to see them because their figure was blending perfectly into the night.

To enter the bathroom, they would need to reach the kitchen behind it. From where they were, they must cross the backyard to get there. They would be exposed under the person’s sight.

“Make a distraction with your puppet,” Xue Lan ordered.

Mo Shen mobilized one of his birds. After another pair of guards passed, he used his crow to crash onto the person’s face.

While they struggled, he swiftly picked Xue Lan up and flashed to the kitchen.

“Almost there,” Mo Shen cocked his chin to the bathroom window facing them. “Just need to unlock one for us to jump in.”

They waited for a couple of guards to finish their chit-chat and left before making a beeline to the window at the far left corner.

Mo Shen took out a metal wire and unbolted one side. The two of them entered and swiftly locked the window back.

Just then, footsteps were heard coming towards them. They looked at each other and tacitly went to hide at either side of the door.

Soon after, two servants entered with lanterns and cleaning tools. The Emperor usually finished his bath late and it was their schedule to clean it.

Not noticing the intruders, they walked to the edge of the wide tub, basically a pool.

Mo Shen sneaked behind them and hit the back of their neck. As they fell unconscious, he kicked their body into the empty pool, staging them like accidents. Their lanterns were promptly extinguished.

Xue Lan looked at Mo Shen for confirmation and the other nodded in reply.

He lowered his mask, “Where should we go?”

“The layout is completely different than its initial design, so we’ll have to layer the construction in our head,” Mo Shen took out the floorplan.

“However they renovated it, the location of the entrance should be the same,” Xue Lan pointed at a room labelled as the music room on the map. “We’re probably around here.”

“What we’re looking for is this altar room,” Mo Shen pointed at a red rectangular shape inside the room, the only place that was drawn with cinnabar in the parchment.

“Then it should be at our left side a few steps away from the bathroom.”

They left the bathroom, not forgetting to close the door behind them. Following their guess, they stopped in the hallway connecting the front and the back.

On their left, there was nothing but a wall.

Mo Shen pressed his ear on it and knocked on it from end to end. He went back to Xue Lan, “No hollow spaces.”

“What about the floor?”

Mo Shen gave it a check and shook his head.

“The construction workers must’ve failed to notice the secret entrance in the praying room. From what I found in the other books I read before discovering our second clue, the walls of every building in the Dragon Palace were thickened enough to withstand explosives,” Mo Shen rubbed his chin.

“How loud will it be for you to destroy it?”

“Without any tools? Very loud.”

Xue Lan thought for a moment and decided to retreat for the night.

Arriving back in his chamber, he sighed in disappointment. He should’ve known that the old floorplan wouldn’t match the current Dragon Palace. He was too impatient.

Mo Shen helped him out of his robe and massaged him on the bed.

“Break that wall and find the secret entrance within a week,” Xue Lan tiredly said.

“My reward?” Mo Shen raised an eyebrow though inwardly he was already excited.

Xue Lan glanced at him and shifted to his side, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“That is a dangerous offer, My Lord,” Mo Shen traced up Xue Lan’s leg lightly with his fingers. “Are you sure?”

“…I’ll come up with something,” Xue Lan took back his words and laid back on his stomach.

He was too lazy to think of anything but it was indeed dangerous to hand the decision to Mo Shen.

Mo Shen chuckled and continued his massage.

His master’s laziness was also cute.

Once he finished wiping Xue Lan and massaging him, Xue Lan beckoned him after the lights were extinguished.

He whispered to his ear in a soft voice. He was certain that Xue Lan must’ve not realised how sensual his breathy voice sounded.

Mo Shen’s lips curved in anticipation and whispered back, “I’ll work hard, My Lord.”

***

On the battlefield, Tian Chen was getting impatient.

Qi Ming was holding out better than he thought. He never underestimated his enemies, but the spies the generals sent weren’t accurate with their intel.

He knew he should’ve used his own spies instead.

“Start attacking them from the inside,” Tian Chen decided.

“We have located their supply storage, water source, and weaponry. Which one should we attack first, Your Majesty?” a general asked.

“Water source. Contaminate them with odourless and colourless poison,” Tian Chen turned to the other 2 generals. “Continue attacking as usual and send a mercenary group in as a distraction.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the generals saluted.

Once the meeting finished, Tian Chen dismissed everyone while he stayed in the tent. He missed Xue Lan every second that passed.

In his sleep, he always dreamt of him standing within his arm’s reach yet unable to be touched. So close yet so distant.

Deep down, he wished that Xue Lan missed him as well.

He didn’t want to separate from him but he also couldn’t entrust this important task to anybody else.

“Xue Lan…” Tian Chen closed his eyes and called out his name in longing.

He was recalling each moment he spent with Xue Lan when one of his spies entered and knelt down nervously.

“Your Majesty, the Empress…”

Tian Chen opened his eyes slightly, “What?”

“The Empress is gone…possibly kidnapped,” the spy’s head buried lower.

Tian Chen slowly stood up, making the spy tremble more fearfully. When his boots entered her vision, they immediately kowtowed.

“Execute those who are responsible and retrieve her before she reaches Qi Ming.”

The spy felt the chill of Tian Chen’s blade tracing the back of her neck and she broke into cold sweats.

“Or else your head will be the next thing gone,” Tian Chen stabbed his sword right next to the spy’s ear.

“Y-yes, Your Majesty…”

“Go.”

The spy quickly stood up and left with her back still bent.

Tian Chen stared at the ground thoughtfully.

There was a traitor in Qian Jin. He had kept an eye out at every person who had been making suspicious moves but it seemed like it wasn’t enough. 

Who could it be?

Only a few people knew that Huang Xieli wasn’t dead and even lesser of those were aware of her location. Including him, only Huang Xieli’s uncle and the Head of the Imperial Guard knew about it.

Was she really kidnapped?

It wasn’t impossible that she ran away by herself. How could none of the 10 guards assigned to her notice the kidnappers coming in and out of the safe house?

If she really did, he would make the lie a reality.

Meanwhile, the spy searched for clues with her team and tracked Huang Xieli with their life on the line. At night, they found the carriage containing the Empress on its way to Qi Ming.

The spies hid on the cliffs on either side of the path the carriage was about to pass.

They waited for the right timing and one of them shot an arrow at one of the mercenaries escorting the convoy. With that signal, the rest of them moved to kill.

As people chosen directly by Tian Chen, it didn’t take long for the group to defeat the mercenaries.

But when they opened the carriage, there was only a mannequin inside with laughter scribbled on its face.