The third watch drum echoed through the damp night air, cutting through the thick darkness like a dull blade. Shen Mingyue pressed herself against the cold, blue-brick wall of the Crown Prince’s estate, the light sweat on her palms making the iron grappling hook in her hand slightly slippery. The summer cicadas shrieked in a rhythmic, feverish trance, yet they could not drown out the measured footsteps from within the walls—the route map provided by Tianji Pavilion three days ago played on a loop in her mind, and every step she took matched the memory perfectly. Instinctively, she touched the oil-paper-wrapped remnants of the secret letter tucked against her chest; the coarse texture of the paper grazed her skin through her clothes. The cinnabar seal at the bottom, marked "To be opened by the Crown Prince personally," felt like a brand upon her heart, overlapping with the symbol her mother had struggled to draw in her own blood before she died. In the darkness, the distant lanterns flickered, mirroring her own precarious fate.
"Watch out for the west corner tower," Xuanying’s voice grazed her ear, carried by the night wind, his tone raspy and strained with suppressed pain. Shen Mingyue glanced at him; in the shadows, his tall frame was slightly hunched, and his fresh bandages were already soaked through with blood, casting an eerie, dark-red hue in the moonlight. A bitter taste rose in her throat as she recalled the brutal fight two days prior, where Xuanying had taken a poi…
Chapter 20