After she woke up, Gu Yunxi felt her face a lot more relaxed. When she touched it, she was surprised to find all the bandages gone.

She did not know how many nights she had slept in this dark stone room.

The place was eerie and creepy, lacking in the change of day and night or the drop of a water clock.

Pulling over the peach-colored cotton quilt to cover herself, Gu Yunxi sat up on the bed and wore the silk embroidered shoes.

Losing time, she could not remember when she started to have more lucid intervals rather than slumbers.

She felt no pain in her face or body. Though she wanted to leave this weird room as earlier as possible, her wish was not granted.

The door of the room was made of bluestone also and carved with clouds. At the bottom of it installed was a small iron delivery passage.

Every day at the same time, delicious meals would be sent through it.

However, Gu Yunxi did find her in a good appetite every time. She only ate when she was starving. Soon after eating, she would doze off again.

When she woke up this time bandage-free, Gu Yunxi hurried off the bed to look at herself in the bronze mirror behind the dressing table.

Yet, the mirror with the flower frame was missing.

Did someone enter the room when she was asleep?

Gu Yunxi pondered before the cold stone dressing table.

It must have been that terrible and mysterious masked man...

There was a rustle on the other side of the rock door as if someone had been opening a large metal lock outside. Then, the heavy gate opened.

Refraining from her fright, Gu Yunxi turned to study the visitor vigilantly.

It was a woman in a plain satin coat, a green satin vest, and blue trousers. Her hair was made into a double-blade bun.

She minced to her obediently with eyes fixed on the dark ground as if she had dared not to peek anywhere else.

She was holding a rectangular tray in her hands, where exquisite dishes were set along with a porcelain bowl of fragrant white rice.

Gu Yunxi watched the woman in surprise. She put the tray on the stone table and then gently took the pot to pour a cup of hot tea. Subsequently, she pulled out the silver hairpin in her bun and picked at the candlewick to brighten the room up.

After being locked up for a long time, Gu Yunxi saw for the first time, besides the masked man, a living person, who happened to be a woman.

Gu Yunxi bent over and tilted her head to have a better look of her face.

In an instant, Gu Yunxi's face changed in shock and shouted.

"Baoting!"

She did not forget her. The submissive woman of her age was one of her sisters back in the Garden and also one of the victims in the missing damsels' case not long ago.

What was going on here?

Gu Yunxi tensed up. Her thoughts were completely messed up.

Had the Master found the switched-up damsels according to the three portraits she provided?

Imprisoned in the Eastern Depot by Leng Qingtang for a while, Gu Yunxi was not aware of what happened outside.

She didn't know that the Master had rescued two damsels from abroad and sent them to the imperial mausoleum of Da Yi in Mount Yin.

Isolated in an unfamiliar environment for too long, Gu Yunxi was extremely emotional and speechless to finally see someone she knew.

Her once gloomy eyes suddenly glowed like a cloudy sky that had finally cleared up.

Gu Yunxi rushed to the woman and grasped her skinny arms with her cold and trembling hands. She shook her thin body with an excited smile and chattered.

"Baoting, Baoting! I'm Gu Yunxi! Don't you recognize me?!"

The woman seemed startled and scared. Her sharp shoulders were lifted up, burying her slender neck. And her stiff and gaunt arms were abducted tightly to her body.

Wide-eyed, she stared blankly at the emotional stranger in front of her and shook her head repeatedly as she mumbled.

Gu Yunxi was so excited that she didn't pay attention to the woman's strange reaction at all. Instead, she continued the patter.

"Baoting, tell me, where is this place? Who brought us here? How can I get out of here? You must help me out, now! I have important things to do—"

After being shaken violently back and forth for a while, the woman's face became paler, and her chest heaved as if she had been about to die from the stimulation.

"What? Baoting ...Can't you speak anymore...?"

Gu Yunxi finally calmed down. Seeing Baoting's painful expression, her heart froze and fell into despair.

Her nose twitched and Gu Yunxi almost cried before Baoting. She blinked hard to force the brimming tears back.

"Baoting, no matter what, it's nice to meet you..."

With a quiet murmur, Gu Yunxi was surprised to find that her sister remained terrified and strange when she looked at her.

This was strange.

It was a little more than a year after she left the Garden for the Eastern Depot. How could Baoting's memory be so bad that she could not recognize her at all?

Also, on her way to perform in the Spring Banquet at the Palace, who had kidnapped and replaced her? Had the Master found out?

As many questions as she had, Baoting was already mute and could no longer provide any useful information.

Gu Yunxi tried her best to suppress the anxiety in her heart and have a gentle and cheerful attitude.

Gu Yunxi sighed. She felt bad for Baoting. It was a pity that a woman with such a beautiful face suffered so much in her youth.

As soon as she let go of Baoting's arms, she saw her stepping back while shaking her head in horror and gesturing with her hands.

In the end, she lowered her eyes in shivers and glanced at the teacup on the table unconsciously. Then she turned around and fled out of the stone room.

"Baoting—"

Gu Yunxi yelled and wanted to chase her.

It was not easy to meet acquaintances in this strange and unfamiliar place. She might leave here by following Baoting.

Before her cold fingertips could touch the gate, a black shadow loomed over her eyes. The man's black cloak swayed in the cold breezes, emitting a horrifying aura. Noble and lofty, meanwhile, cold and evil, he was half-dainty and half-devil.

His face was completely concealed by a mysterious iron mask that was reflecting the candlelight and shining gloomily.

"Ah!"

Gu Yunxi couldn't help but scream. She instinctively halted and found it difficult to calm her palpating heart.

Her eyebrows knit in a frown, under which her eyes were gleaming with lingering fear, fixed on the ghostly shadow before them.

Gu Yunxi clenched her fists and secretly wondered if the cold shadow before her was a person or a ghost...

"You're awake?"

The slow mumble coming from the mouth hole of the mysterious iron mask was the sweetly magnetic voice of an adult man, but it was chilling and emotionless. It seemed that the coldness in his body spread into his every breath.

Gu Yunxi was frozen all over as soon as she heard it. Her whole body was trembling.

It suddenly occurred to her that the shadow had met her many times, but this was the first time he spoke.

In this case, he should be a man in the flesh.

Her high-hung heart finally was put at rest.

"Where is this place?"

Gu Yunxi managed to cheer up and asked the masked man with a trembling voice.

"This is not something you should care about. Right now, all you need to do is eat, sleep, and recover. Leave anything else."

After speaking indifferently, he stretched out a palm under the black cloak. It was pale and bloodless, with long fingers and bumpy joints.

Curling up his index finger, he knocked twice on the stone table with his hard finger bone as a warning to Gu Yunxi.

Gu Yunxi naturally knew the consequences of resisting him. She never wanted to feel the pain in her abdomen anymore.

So, she obediently minced to the table and was about to sit on the stone chair. The moment she lowered her head, she saw a strange face reflected in the liquid.

Its skin was smooth. The facial features were not exquisite but still delicate.

"Ah!"

Screaming again, Gu Yunxi's knees ran soft and she almost fell.

Was she dreaming?

Whose face was that?

Who was she?

"My face, what happened to my face—"

She mustered the courage to peek into the cup again. Then with a miserable shriek, Gu Yunxi flipped her hands to hit the teacup on the table to the ground.

In a trance, she collapsed by the table, screaming and crying in despair. She clawed her face and her scalp.

It turned out Baoting failed to recognize her for another reason. Dumb as she was, she figured out another way to tell her the truth.

The strange face reflected in the cup was unrecognizable even for herself.

"The carriage you were in had an accident and your face was ruined. I had it changed."

The masked man walked to the table quietly, squatted, and reached to her, trying to comfort the sorrowful girl.

But at this moment, Gu Yunxi's limpid eyes were raised up, full of determination and hatred.

"It is the medical sage who changed the face for me, right? And you, you used despicable means to force him to perform on me!"

That day, she temporarily came to from a coma and happened to hear a conversation between the medical sage and a strange man. The unfamiliar man's cold and willful voice was no different from the mysterious man in the mask.

"...So you know it already? I can't hide it anymore..."

The muffled and enchanting voice of the masked man was somewhat playful. It echoed in the cold and dark stone chamber, frightening but luring.

Unable to conceal the fragility at the bottom of her heart, Gu Yunxi was exhausted. Tears mounted in her eyes when she quieted down. Then she wept her question.

"Why did you do this..."

Suddenly, her lowered eyes turned sharp as blades as she hurdled her palm straight at the mysterious man's iron mask.

Behind the mouth hole, his blood-loss lips curled into a sneer as if he had been mocking Gu Yunxi's recklessness.

"Interesting!"

The masked man quickly raised a cold hand to protect his face.

Only one centimeter away from that pale palm, Gu Yunxi's hand could not proceed to attack as hard as she tried. There seemed to be an invisible barrier.

How could this be? Such strong internal strength—

Just when Gu Yunxi was secretly marveled at the masked man's unpredictable Kungfu, his grin cut deeper.

Gu Yunxi's heart sank and her brows rose.

Before she could think of defense, the opponent had pushed his palm from his face to her easily.

Gu Yunxi was carried up by a huge force and thrown against the hard wall behind her along with the stone table.

Her back hit the wall heavily, and then she fell to the ground like a fragile piece of paper with the table pieces.

Spitting blood, she covered her suffocated chest with trembling hands as her bosom heaved fast.

With a cold draft, Gu Yunxi looked up with panic and saw the mysterious masked man standing before her.

"Why can't you learn to obey?"

The masked man said softly. He squatted down, clamped Gu Yunxi's cheeks to open her mouth, and then forced a pill down her throat.

The man carried her into his arms as soon as she swallowed the pill.

Through her clothes, Gu Yunxi could feel the coldness in her lower abdomen.

"No! No! I beg you—"

Gu Yunxi shook her head and struggled, defying that moment.

The masked man supported her back with one hand and placed the other on her belly.

The familiar pain swept through again. Gu Yunxi bit her lower lip tightly and withstood the agony in her abdomen.

Soon, the painful sensation of hell reached every end of the meridians. Her body convulsed for she felt all her bones severed by the powerful internal strength.

Gu Yunxi's hands tightly clenched the masked man's arm that was sending internal strength. Her face turned from pale to red, and her eyes widened, and her delicate face was twisted.

It was the first time for Gu Yunxi to bear the punishment of internal strength by lying in his brace.

The unique posture brought her face so close to the cold iron mask.

Then, she discerned the pair of eyes hidden behind the eyeholes.

Those deep and dark pupils resembled a cold night, glowing silently like stars. They resembled the eyes of Leng Qingtang.

"My... Master..."

A drop of tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Gu Yunxi opened her mouth and sighed sadly. The next moment, she backed out and fainted.

"Don't worry, don't worry. You will meet him soon..."

The masked man carried her up and stepped to the bed. He muttered to himself disappointedly.

"The Eastern Depot Master took you as a disciple but taught you nothing except for flirting? You are bad at Kungfu!"

After tucking Gu Yunxi in, he walked through many secret passages, turned a switch behind a terracotta statue, and opened the last hidden door connecting the secret room to the outside world.

It was stormy outside. Thousands of snowflakes whirled in the wind and fell on the earth.

The masked man was not afraid of the cold. He jumped up high, tapped on the top branches with his toes, and landed on the pinnacle of a mountain.

Looking in the distance, mountains and rivers were all covered under white snow, presenting pure and clean vast.

Holding his hands behind his back, the masked man sighed, and his breath steamed.

"Another had passed. Swallows... are returning home..."