Jumping into the Dragon Palace, Mo Shen put Xue Lan down from his arms as they reached the hallway.

He had been coming in and out of the area for 6 continuous days. Infiltrating with his master in his arms was no longer an issue.

Xue Lan looked at the wall that was no less different than when he saw it last week. He glanced at Mo Shen in askance.

Mo Shen stepped forward and stretched out his claw. With one swift motion, he ripped the layer covering the real wall, revealing the huge hole in it. No one would realize it was a fake wall unless they leaned onto it.

He guided Xue Lan in with one hand and closed the tear he made. They brought a small lantern with them and he lit it up for Xue Lan’s vision.

“It was quite a task to find the exact spot of the trap door,” Mo Shen knelt down and showed Xue Lan the small hatch on the ground. “I also very thoughtfully repaired the wall I broke in my search.”

“What are you trying to say?” Xue Lan crossed his arms and tilted his head questioningly.

“I’m more than capable to break the wall and repair it in one day without getting caught and not leaving any evidence. Can that human pet of yours do that?” Mo Shen scoffed and opened the door.

Xue Lan inwardly felt amused, “It’s rather ridiculous how you compare yourself while we both know you’re a superior being. It’s not even a competition.”

Mo Shen grabbed Xue Lan’s waist and stared at him in displeasure, “And knowing that I am indeed a superior being, you should start raising your standard of satisfaction, My Lord.”

“You also agreed for Yuan Zhi to take on the task to find the Empress. If he didn’t come, we wouldn’t have enough time to complete both this and that, would we?” Xue Lan raised an eyebrow.

“We only tasked him to find her, not to send her directly to Qi Ming. He should be punished for acting on his own,” Mo Shen scowled.

“Compared to you who need ‘motivation’ to move even though we’re already in contract, I am very much pleased with Yuan Zhi’s initiative,” Xue Lan sneered and pushed Mo Shen away. “Enough whining. You’re wasting our time.”

Mo Shen was dissatisfied with Xue Lan’s opinion. He decided to completely change it later when he received his reward.

He gave the lantern to Xue Lan and led the way in front since the stairway was only wide enough for one person at a time. He held Xue Lan’s free hand to make sure he didn’t slip on his steps since there was no railing safeguarding the spiralling stairway.

Not that he couldn’t catch Xue Lan if he fell.

Xue Lan looked up at the distance they had descended, “How deep are we?”

“About 30 meters down from the surface,” Mo Shen answered and turned with a smile. “We can reach the bottom faster if you want to.”

Xue Lan, “…”

He didn’t need to guess what Mo Shen was suggesting.

After walking down a few more minutes, he finally relented and let Mo Shen carry him. He tightly wrapped his arms around Mo Shen’s neck as the demon walked straight to the centre of the spiral and dropped down.

When Mo Shen landed, his lightness didn’t produce any sound in the space. Xue Lan almost thought they were still falling if he didn’t feel the weight of gravity downing onto him.

Without putting him down, Mo Shen continued forward. He stared holes at him but the other shamelessly feign ignorance.

“This is the door,” Mo Shen lowered Xue Lan down and brightened the lantern.

Xue Lan turned to see the door Mo Shen mentioned before they set out to the Dragon Palace. He suspected that this was where the book would be of use.

In front of them was a 4-meter tall and 2-meter wide double stone door. On both doors was the carving of Qian Jin’s original crest and a statue of an unknown guardian deity was erected on its either side. On top of the door was a black stone plaque with silver characters.

‘Begin with none, end with none’

“My Lord, look closer,” Mo Shen beckoned Xue Lan.

Xue Lan walked closer to the door and found that the door frame had characters carved throughout the line. Each side had exactly 50 characters.

Mo Shen pressed one and it actually sunk into the wall before returning back to place.

“I tried following the order of the characters according to the book, but it didn’t work.”

Xue Lan touched the door thoughtfully, “It’s possible for you to reach the top half of the characters, but is it possible for normal people to reach it?”

“I believe this place is not for regular visits,” Mo Shen rubbed his chin. “Begin with none, end with none.”

“The beginning and end…” Xue Lan contemplated its meaning. “Have you tried following the order in reverse?”

“Yes. Not the correct answer either.”

The two of them took out the copy of the book Mo Shen made and the paper containing the permanent characters. In the copy of the book, Mo Shen wrote the permanent characters in red to distinguish them.

Flipping through the pages for a while, Xue Lan soon saw the pattern.

The book could fit 20 characters vertically and 10 characters horizontally for each page. Every page only had one red character on them at most.

If he read it one way, for example, only the left side of the pages, none of the red characters were on top of each other. Moreover, there was no red character on the 4 middle lines at all.

Although the position of the characters was in accordance with the one on the door frame, they weren’t in the same order.

“You found something,” Mo Shen undoubtedly stated.

“Perhaps,” Xue Lan couldn’t say for sure since he hadn’t deciphered it completely yet.

Choosing between left or right, Xue Lan chose the left page. That was merely because the book started on the right page and ended on the left written from right to left. If he was wrong, they could just try the right page afterwards.

The problem was how to alternate between the left and right sides of the door frame since the order overlapped with each other.

“Begin with none, end with none…” Xue Lan repeated the phrase. “The beginning is the end. The end is the beginning…”

While Xue Lan immersed himself in the puzzle, Mo Shen studied the statues. The two looked identical appearance-wise, but their garments were slightly different. Their posture mirrored one another with both holding some kind of a tablet in their hands.

‘One of heart’ was written on the tablet belonging to the right statue while the one on the left was written with ‘One of mind’.

“Huh…” Mo Shen turned around. “Should we–”

“Press them together,” Xue Lan looked up and said the exact same words as Mo Shen.

The two of them blinked and stared at each other in silence for a split second. They each tacitly took one side.

Xue Lan picked the topmost red character on both the left and right sides of the book.

The first one was on a reachable level for both of them.

“Ready?” Xue Lan turned to Mo Shen.

Mo Shen gave a nod.

“Now.”

The two of them pressed the character in front of them at the same time. Unlike before, the characters stayed inside the wall instead of resurfacing back.

The floor trembled after their action and the tile Mo Shen was stepping on suddenly rose up.

Xue Lan was surprised for a brief moment and he found that it stopped when the next character reached Mo Shen’s chest.

“I believe you solve it, My Lord,” Mo Shen was genuinely impressed.

“I believe so as well,” Xue Lan didn’t humble away from the praise. “Let’s open this door.”

“Certainly.”

***

The news of Qian Jin’s victory in the war spread magnificently along with the ‘truth’ of the Empress’s death. Every war Tian Chen personally led was bound to end with victory but people still rejoiced nonetheless.

When Qi Ming’s royal family was paraded to their execution site, the crowd jeered, throwing rocks and rotten eggs at them. The execution was opened to the public and they all eagerly surrounded the stage.

Now that Qi Ming had fallen, they all waited for the appearance of the so-called Honorable Prince of Qian Jin. He must be imprisoned in the palace to be executed together with his family, right?

The Honorable Prince indeed appeared after everyone was restrained to the wooden pillory.

But unlike their expectations, he was perfectly clean and prim. His beauty, nobility, and sophisticated garments were just as the rumours described him to be.

Instead of the execution stage, the guards escorted him to the exclusive seat to witness the execution where the Emperor had been waiting for him.