Su Mingli crawled out of the cave last.

He had been crouching in the innermost corner the entire time.

Seeing that it was completely quiet outside, he finally dared to emerge.

When he saw the state of Empress Su Mingyue, the expression on his face became incredibly vivid.

He froze for a moment, then rolled his eyes, hunched his shoulders, and circled behind her, not even daring to greet her, before blending into the crowd of servants.

Only the people from the Yongning Marquis Mansion did not lower their heads.

The four senior maidservants had sheathed their short swords and remained guarding Empress Su Mingyue.

Dongmei was wiping the residual blood from her short sword with a piece of cloth torn from who knows where, while the other three were counting heads and checking on the wounded.

The Guard Commander stood two steps behind Empress Su Mingyue, leaning on his long saber, his back straight.

The guards of the Yongning Marquis Mansion quietly began to clean up the aftermath.

No one spoke, and no one needed to.

After that battle, they all saw very clearly who the true leader was.

The respect for the Eldest Miss had already transformed from a master-servant relationship into something much deeper.

The carriages arrived.

The carriages and horses lined up on the mountain road, the wheels grinding into the ground, leaving deep ruts.

The stewards of each family were busy counting their own people, determining casualties, helping those who could walk into the carriages, and carrying those who were severely injured on stretchers.

Once everyone from each family had arrived, the carriages began to turn around.

There was no small talk, no farewells.

One carriage after another departed silently along the mountain road.

Compared to the high-spirited and magnificent Dragon-like procession that had arrived, the returning group was sparse and quiet, with every carriage filled with the exhaustion and lingering fear of having survived a disaster.

Zhou Ming also sat in a carriage transporting the wounded, leaning against the carriage wall, the piece of broken wood in his hand long gone, he knew not where.

By the time they returned to the Yongning Marquis Mansion, it was already dusk.

The carriage procession entered through the main gate one after another, no one speaking.

The servants guarding the gate had received the news early and were waiting in a row inside the gate, holding lanterns, their dim light reflecting on faces filled with grave expressions.

A steward stepped forward to whisper something to Empress Su Mingyue, who simply nodded and dismounted.

She casually handed the long sword, its blade already chipped, to Dongmei beside her.

She turned around and said only two words to the retinue and guards behind her.

"Dismissed."

The crowd felt as if they had received a pardon.

Not the kind of pardon that brings cheers, but the pardon of having survived a disaster and finally being able to relax.

No one spoke loudly, no one chatted; everyone dispersed in silence, each walking toward their own quarters.

Some people's legs went soft as they walked, and they squatted down against the wall.

The people beside them didn't ask or urge them, just stood by and waited for a while.

Zhou Ming lowered his head, walked through the alley he knew like the back of his hand, pushed open his door, and closed it behind him.

The sound of the door latch falling into place was exceptionally crisp in the darkness.

He sat down on the bed with a thud.

The bed board was hard, and the quilt was still in the messy state he had left it in the morning.

He didn't light a lamp, just sat there in the darkness, his hands resting on his knees, the back of his hands still stained with dried mud.

The room was very quiet, so quiet he could hear his own breathing, one inhale and one exhale, one inhale and one exhale, like someone who had just surfaced from underwater and was still confirming if they had truly reached the shore.

Then, a wave of post-traumatic fear surged up from the bottom of his heart.

It didn't surge up slowly; it was sudden, as if a floodgate had been struck open, and everything he had suppressed along the way poured out in an instant.

His fingers began to tremble, first the fingertips, then the whole hand, and finally both arms began to shake slightly.

He subconsciously wanted to clench his fists to stop the trembling, but found he couldn't, as if he had been drained of all strength.

The image of those black-clad men on the West Mountain raising their blades jumped into his mind without warning.

He had almost died on the West Mountain.

Having lived two lives, this was the most dangerous time.

Was watching thugs fight in front of the school in his previous life dangerous?

Was falling down in the antique street dangerous?

It didn't count.

None of it counted.

He sat on the edge of the bed, hunched over, his hands gripping the fabric on his knees, his knuckles turning white.

In the darkness, his breathing gradually became heavy, and then he swallowed hard, as if forcing something back down his throat.

After a long while, his hands finally stopped shaking.

Zhou Ming let out a long breath, fell back onto the bed, and stared at the pitch-black rafters.

A decision slowly took shape in the silence.

It emerged from the most chaotic corner of his mind, then walked step by step to the very center, and sat down firmly.

From now on, unless absolutely necessary, he would never step one foot out of the Yongning Marquis Mansion.

The outside world was too dangerous.

He didn't know the origins of the masked men on the West Mountain, but the fact that they could precisely block so many children of noble families meant this assassination was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, but a long-planned conspiracy.

Who knew who they were targeting? Who knew who was behind them? Who knew if they still had accomplices in the city?

In this situation, he, a lowly servant of the mansion with zero Rank, was just going to his death if he went out.

Although the Yongning Marquis Mansion had strict Rank and rules that could crush a person, looking at it from another angle, those rules were also his protective umbrella.

The masters lived in the inner courtyard, the servants in the outer courtyard, and the guards patrolled day and night.

As long as he kept his mouth shut and didn't say what he shouldn't, kept his eyes shut and didn't look at what he shouldn't, worked when he was supposed to work, ate when he was supposed to eat, followed the rules, didn't stand out, and didn't step out of line, there was actually no threat.

Besides, he had seen his Eldest Miss's performance today with his own eyes.

That woman who could stand in a pile of corpses with a sword without changing her expression—regardless of her usual attitude toward small servants like him—was at least a master who could shoulder responsibility.

It is good to enjoy the shade under a big tree; although this big tree was a bit sharp, it had deep roots and lush leaves, and it was reliable.

As for the matter of spreading the Dushi Sutra, let's put it aside for now.

Zhou Ming rolled over and buried his face in the quilt.

The copy of the Dushi Sutra was still tucked in his chest, and the Causal Chain of Fang Yuan and the others were still firmly suspended between his eyebrows.

He knew that the matter of the scripture was already slowly brewing, but he didn't want to push it a single step further right now.

Why spread the scripture? To increase strength.

Why increase strength? To save his own life.

If he couldn't even save his own life, what was the point of spreading the scripture?

Only after the scripture was distributed and someone successfully cultivated it could he eventually recover his capital with interest.

But if he, the transmitter of the scripture, died halfway, then no matter how thick or dense those Causal Chains were, they would be utterly useless.

No matter how big the matter was, nothing was bigger than his own life.

Lay low, he must absolutely lay low first; only by keeping his life could he talk about the future.

Zhou Ming pulled the quilt over himself, curled up his legs, and shrank himself into an inconspicuous ball.

He didn't take off his clothes, didn't wash up, and didn't do any of the things he should have done before bed.

He just curled up on the bed, listening to the occasional beat of the night watchman's clapper from outside the window, and slowly closed his eyes.