Li Shimin lifted the curtain and stepped out.
The sky outside was still dull and gray, unchanged.
He stood beneath the corridor, looking at the people in the courtyard—Cheng Yaojin squatting by the stone table, Qin Qiong standing beside him, Empress Zhangsun and Li Liyu sitting at the far end of the corridor, and Zhou Yi standing next to them.
He took a deep breath.
And then he saw it.
Someone was standing right in front of him, he didn’t know when they had arrived.
Li Chunfeng.
Li Shimin froze for a moment.
Seeing him come out, Li Chunfeng stepped forward and bowed.
“Your Majesty.”
Li Shimin nodded.
He glanced at Li Chunfeng, then at the door.
He said nothing.
He simply raised his hand and pointed toward the door.
Li Chunfeng understood.
He turned around, lifted the curtain, and went inside.
The room was dim.
Li Chunfeng stood at the entrance for a moment, letting his eyes adjust.
Then he saw it.
A man was sitting by the window.
Back to the door, completely motionless.
Li Chunfeng took a step forward.
The man did not move.
He took another step.
Still no movement.
He walked up to the man and stopped.
Zhou Xiong raised his head and looked at him.
The two of them stared at each other.
Li Chunfeng looked into those eyes.
Chaotic.
But beneath the chaos—something was there.
He couldn’t tell what it was.
He studied it for a long time.
Then he frowned.
He had seen countless faces in his life. Every face had its fate, its trajectory—clearly marked origin and destination.
But this face… was wrong.
Not the kind of wrong where it was simply unreadable.
A different kind.
As if this should have been a blank sheet of paper—but someone had forcibly written something onto it.
Li Chunfeng’s fingers moved.
Almost instinctively, he began to calculate.
His thumb moved rapidly across his other fingers—one, two, three—
Then his expression changed.
A surge of blood rushed up from his chest to his head.
His fingers froze.
The blood energy continued to churn, as if it would overturn him completely.
He took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed it. His chest tightened. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Zhou Xiong looked at him.
Expressionless.
Li Chunfeng stood there, staring at him.
Three breaths passed.
“Figured it out?” Zhou Xiong suddenly spoke.
A sense of danger rose in Li Chunfeng’s heart.
Then he turned around and walked out quickly.
He lifted the curtain and stepped outside.
Li Shimin stood beneath the corridor. Seeing him emerge, he stepped forward.
“How is it?”
Li Chunfeng raised his head and looked at him.
On that face was an expression Li Shimin had never seen before.
Fear.
A man who had cultivated for many years in the Daoist arts—now showing fear.
Li Shimin’s heart sank slightly.
“What is it?”
Li Chunfeng opened his mouth.
The words squeezed out of his throat, cracked and hoarse.
“Your Majesty…”
Li Shimin waited.
Li Chunfeng took a deep breath.
Then he spoke.
The moment those words were said, everyone in the courtyard froze.
“This man’s fate… has been severed for nearly twenty years.”
He looked at Li Shimin.
“How is he still alive?”
The courtyard fell completely silent.
So silent that even the sound of wind passing through the leaves could be heard.
Cheng Yaojin remained squatting, motionless.
Qin Qiong stood frozen, his brows tightly furrowed.
Empress Zhangsun covered her mouth.
Li Liyu didn’t understand what it meant, but seeing everyone unmoving, she didn’t dare move either.
Zhou Yi stood there, staring at Li Chunfeng.
Something was shifting in his eyes.
Li Shimin stood under the corridor, unmoving.
He looked at Li Chunfeng, his mind completely blank.
Fate severed for nearly twenty years?
Twenty years?
If his fate had been severed for nearly twenty years…
When did that even happen to Zhou Xiong?
Li Shimin stood there, staring at the door.
The curtain did not move.
Inside the room, the man sat by the window.
He didn’t know what he was thinking.
He only knew one thing:
This man had been wrong from the very beginning.
They had simply never seen it.
Li Chunfeng stood there, still breathing heavily.
The surging blood energy had not fully settled. His hands were trembling, and he knew it himself.
He looked at the door and said softly:
“Your Majesty, this man…”
No one responded.
Only the wind remained in the courtyard.
Occasionally it passed through, lifting a few fallen leaves.
They spun once in the air—and settled back to the ground.
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