44 Dugu

Shi Nian’s entire body went rigid.

The tactile sensation of the palm against her waist was entirely too real. The man’s hot breath drifted gently across the back of her ear, making her scalp tingle down to the roots.

Wh-what was going on?

If she guessed correctly, she was currently inside a brothel in the Tang Dynasty. The man behind her was a patron, and he took her to be...

A prostitute?!

Shi Nian told herself to stay calm, to remain absolutely calm, but the man’s hand had already moved upward, cupping her chin. "Why aren't you speaking?"

Shi Nian jolted. Just as she was about to push aside all considerations and break free first, he let out a low sigh, rested his chin on the crook of her shoulder, and murmured, "I forgot. This is a dream. You never speak."

His tone carried a hint of wistfulness, along with the bewilderment of someone who had lost all sense of place. Only then did Shi Nian notice that the man’s body was swaying, his speech slightly slurred, as if he were heavily intoxicated.

So, he thought he was dreaming?

"Ah—" Shi Nian gasped as the man suddenly bent down and swept her up horizontally into his arms!

Amidst the swaying lamplight and fluttering gauze curtains, she spun through a dizzying world and finally caught a clear look at his face.

With sharp brows and dark, deep-set eyes, the man possessed a face so handsome it bordered on feminine. Because he stood against the light, she could see clusters of shadows beneath his eyelids, giving his features a somewhat exotic, Central Asian depth while also casting a gloomy aura over him.

When he saw Shi Nian, he was also taken aback. "Wan Niang... Who are you?"

"I..."

Holding her, his expression suddenly turned somewhat dangerous. The man’s gaze was like a viper's tongue, slithering inch by inch across her features. "Who are you? How did you end up in my dream? Or could it be... I'm not dreaming after all..."

Just as his voice trailed off, a sharp pain suddenly struck the back of the man's neck. Instantly drained of strength, he tumbled backward. The moment he fell, Shi Nian leaped to the ground, clutching her chest as she let out a long breath.

"That was close..."

She looked down at her right hand. In the dim, yellowish light rested a familiar black short baton—her trusty anti-wolf stun baton!

Shi Nian thought, *I never expected you would actually get a chance to make an appearance. To be honest, I'm already sick of using this trick myself!*

Old as the move was, as long as it worked, it was fine. Thinking this, Shi Nian casually ruffled her hair. In her hurried departure earlier, her hair bun had already been pinned up loosely, and the commotion had shaken most of it apart. The hairpin used to secure it was nowhere to be found, meaning she must look a lot like Mei Chaofeng right now. However, she had no time to worry about that. Walking over to the window and peering outside, she spotted a cold, crescent moon hanging like a hook over the eaves. So it was nighttime here.

Well, naturally. Brothels wouldn't be open in broad daylight anyway.

As she considered her current location, her head began to throbbing again. It seemed she had, predictably, ended up alone again, and in such a dangerous place to boot. What should she do next? Should she take the initiative to look for Nie Cheng and the others, or find a safe place to hide and wait for them to find her?

Though, judging by Nie Cheng's usual efficiency, it would probably take until tomorrow for him to find her...

The very next second after that thought crossed her mind, her shoulder was tapped gently. "Hey, girl."

Shi Nian whirled around to see a smiling Blis, alongside Nie Cheng standing right behind him. After a moment of stunned silence, she blurted out in disbelief, "No way! You guys found me this fast this time?!"

Blis replied, "We landed right outside the courtyard, so getting in was quick. What's going on with you here?"

The three of them looked together toward the floor. The man was still lying there, his hair disheveled and his face pale, showing no signs of waking up.

"He's the owner of this room, and then... he mistook me for someone else. The moment I panicked, I..."

***

After listening to Shi Nian's explanation, Nie Cheng fell silent for a brief moment. "Someone could walk in here at any time. This is no place to linger. Let's leave first."

This suited Shi Nian's wishes perfectly, so she nodded. "By the way, if the two of you are here, where are Xiaoxia and Zhang Ke? Are they keeping watch outside?"

She merely asked out of habit, assuming it was most likely the case. They weren't as unlucky as she was; Nie Cheng had said that whenever they time-traveled together, they always landed in the same place.

Nie Cheng didn't answer. When Shi Nian turned to look, she noticed his expression was somewhat peculiar. Her heart skipped a beat, and an ominous premonition washed over her. Sure enough, Nie Cheng slowly said, "Xiaoxia and Ke... are not here."

"What do you mean?" Shi Nian asked. "Did you get separated too? Did they land somewhere else?"

Nie Cheng shook his head. "I mean they didn't come to this spacetime at all."

The morning of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty arrived amidst the thunderous rolling of drums.

When the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds, the gate officer atop the Chengtian Gate tower struck the first dawn drum. Following that, the drum towers along the six main thoroughfares echoed in unison, sounding three thousand beats. The slumbering city of Chang'an slowly awakened to these earth-shaking drums; the palace gates, city gates, and ward gates opened simultaneously, and bustling crowds poured into the avenues outside the wards. Bathed in the morning light, this peerless and magnificent city finally revealed its splendor and prosperity.

Located in the northern part of Chang'an City, east of the Imperial City, Chongren Ward was densely packed with inns and had always been the primary residence for visiting merchants, scholars, and literati coming to Chang'an. At that moment, inside one of the lodgings, Shi Nian stood by a second-story window, gazing past the ward wall toward the distant horizon.

She had been awakened by the morning drums—such grand, solemn, and awe-inspiring drumbeats that the entire building seemed to vibrate along with them. Watching this majestic city gradually come to life, observing the streets and houses bathed in the morning glow, Shi Nian held back for a long moment before finally letting a smile slip through.

Chang'an. She was back.

And this time, it was the Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty.

"Stop standing there daydreaming like a fool. Come eat."

Shi Nian turned her head to see that Nie Cheng and Blis had entered at some point, carrying breakfast with them. She walked over to the dining table and sat down, picking up a bowl of steaming hot noodle soup. After taking a couple of bites, she said, "I was just enjoying the cityscape! Last night was too rushed, I couldn't see anything clearly at all. This is the capital of the Tang Dynasty!"

After fleeing Pingkang Ward late last night, they had slipped nearby into Chongren Ward in the north and found a lodging to settle in. It was worth noting that even in ancient times, staying at an hotel required identification. Fortunately, Nie Cheng had prepared everyone's fake household registers and false identities in advance, slipping away a bit of silver so they managed to muddle through.

At this thought, Shi Nian worriedly said, "We managed to find a place to stay, but what about Zhang Ke and Xiaoxia? Their household registration documents are all with you, right?"

Nie Cheng replied, "Compared to that, I'd rather know where they actually are right now."

This was the most unexpected of all the unexpected events during this operation. As soon as Nie Cheng arrived, he discovered that Zhang Ke and Meng Xia were missing. He had tried to sense them, but could not find their string frequencies. Their mutual string resonance couldn't be wrong, which left only one possibility: the two of them were not in this spacetime.

That was strange. According to past experience, the string array would automatically send them to the year where the fluctuation occurred. Since Zhang Ke and Meng Xia had set off with them, they should have arrived at the same destination.

What reason could there be for them to disappear?

Catching a glimpse of Nie Cheng’s expression, Shi Nian instantly grew alert. "You, you, you... You can't possibly be suspecting them!"

Nie Cheng had mentioned earlier that his suspicions toward the team members had not been cleared. Now that Meng Xia and Zhang Ke had mysteriously vanished, he couldn't possibly think they did it on purpose, could he?

Not this again!

Nie Cheng was momentarily stunned. Catching sight of her fierce expression, a trace of amusement flickered in his eyes. "What if I said I am?"

"Get real, would you? What do they stand to gain by doing this? If that mysterious person's goal is to sabotage us, how can they sabotage us if they aren't even with us?" Shi Nian argued. "Besides, shouldn't an internal traitor prioritize concealment above all else? Knowing full well you suspect them, doing something so obvious would just expose them immediately!"

"That sounds somewhat reasonable. Then you tell me, if they didn't hide themselves, how did they just vanish?"

Assuming he still didn't believe her, Shi Nian panicked internally and her mind raced. The string array had activated, so they definitely had to time-jump. If they didn't jump here, where else could they have gone?

A flash of inspiration struck her brain. Excitedly, she grabbed Nie Cheng's arm. "I've got it! Before we came, Su Geng said the range of this string fluctuation is from 600 AD to 760 AD. Over such a long span of time, is there really only one fluctuation point? Is it possible that the three of us were sent to one of the time points where a critical historical deviation occurs, while they were sent to another point, which also holds a critical deviation point...?"

After finishing, Shi Nian looked expectantly at Nie Cheng. Under her gaze, the man pondered for a moment, raised a hand, and gave her forehead a light flick. "Exam passed. Plus one point."

...Huh?

Blis let out a snort of laughter. "Nie Cheng already told me last night. He thought of the exact same thing. You two really do think alike."

Only then did Shi Nian realize she had been played. Annoyed, she rolled her eyes. "Who thinks alike with him!"

Even though he hadn't thought that way, he had deliberately tricked her. Was this guy for real?

Having finished teasing her, Nie Cheng finally said, "Zhang Ke and Meng Xia have experience, don't worry about them. Let's talk about us. Just like Shi Nian said, what we reached should only be one of the fluctuation points. I've asked around; right now it's 755 AD, which is the fourteenth year of Tianbao."

Blis chimed in, "Tianbao, eh? Emperor Xuanzong of Tang is a huge celebrity. I wonder if we'll have a chance to meet Imperial Consort Yang."

"I spent half the night chatting up the lodging owner, asking about all kinds of news in Chang'an City over the past three months. Unfortunately, I found out that neither in the imperial court nor outside the palace is there any place where a historical deviation has occurred."

"Really?" Shi Nian scoffed. "If there's nothing, why did we even come? You probably just failed to find it."

Despite the girl's hostile attitude, Nie Cheng acted as if he hadn't noticed. "That's also possible. So I think we need to change our direction."

"What direction?"

"Remember the man from last night? The one you bumped into when you arrived."

Shi Nian’s mind flashed back to a slender, handsome face, along with his almond-shaped eyes amidst the swaying lamplight, and she said slowly, "I remember."

"I think he should be our breakthrough."

According to Nie Cheng’s perspective, the first person Shi Nian ran into during her previous two arrivals happened to be the key to solving the problem, so this man should be the same this time. Shi Nian agreed, but when Nie Cheng brought back his background information, she grew doubtful again.

"Dugu Ying, known by the alias Jade Lad, age unknown, around thirty, hometown unknown, known only to not be a local of Chang'an. He appeared in Pingkang Ward three months ago and became famous overnight during a poetry competition battle. He's good-looking and has literary talent, but unfortunately lacks money—a down-and-out poet." Shi Nian found it absurd. "My history isn't great, but was there ever such a person in the Tang Dynasty?"

"No, at least not one I know of," Nie Cheng said.

"Oh, *you* don't know," Shi Nian muttered thoughtfully, before changing her tone into a solemn one. "Then does Su Geng know?"

Nie Cheng: "..."

Looking thoroughly exasperated, he retorted, "Su Geng probably doesn't know either."

If even Su Geng didn't know, then the guy simply didn't exist in history! Shi Nian was genuinely baffled. In the past, whether it was Liu Che or Zhu Houzhao, they had all been figures of noble status who left their names in the annals of history. Objectively speaking, such people were indeed more likely to influence the course of history. Yet this Dugu Ying—a commoner with no fame to his name—why would he become the key to swaying history?

Nie Cheng asked, "Want to find out? Simple. Just ask him in person."

Shi Nian blinked, seeming to understand.

Nie Cheng continued, "Like I said, that Dugu Jade Lad has been drinking and sleeping in Pingkang Ward ever since he came to Chang'an. If we want to get close to him, naturally, we have to go in there too."

He threw an arm around Shi Nian’s shoulder, ignoring whatever reaction she might have, and spoke with the camaraderie of a buddy: "Didn't get a good look last night? No worries. Tonight, big brother will take you to see what a brothel in our Tang Dynasty looks like."