Through a narrow gap in the carriage curtain, Shen Qinglan quietly looked outside.
Beyond the thin layer of fabric, Bai Yanzhou stood alone in the depths of the bamboo forest.
Moonlight filtered through the swaying leaves and fell across the sharp lines of his profile, making him look pale and distant.
The warmth he had shown her earlier was gone.
For a moment, Shen Qinglan almost felt as though she were looking at a completely different Bai Yanzhou.
She watched him for a little longer.
Only after he seemed to finish whatever he was dealing with did he finally turn around.
A moment later, the carriage door opened and he stepped inside.
Outside, one of his shadow guards had already taken the driver’s seat.
The man held the reins in silence, keeping watch over the dark surroundings.
The carriage door closed again.
Bai Yanzhou had barely settled down when he found Shen Qinglan staring directly at him.
Her gaze was so serious that he couldn’t help raising an eyebrow.
“What?” A faint smile appeared on his lips.
“Regretting coming with me already?” “No.” Shen Qinglan shook her head without hesitation, but her eyes remained fixed on him.
“Those people earlier…” She paused, recalling the black-clad men who had chased them across the rooftops.
“They were after you, weren’t they?” Bai Yanzhou’s expression shifted slightly.
It was subtle, but Shen Qinglan caught it.
Her eyes narrowed.
“They wanted to kill you?” Bai Yanzhou nearly raised a hand to his forehead.
Why had he even bothered asking whether she regretted coming with him?
She had completely ignored his question and somehow turned the conversation around on him instead.
Judging by her expression, she clearly wasn’t going to let the matter go easily.
When Shen Qinglan saw that he had no intention of answering, a mischievous smile appeared on her face.
“You don’t want to tell me?” She shrugged.
“That’s fine.
I’ll figure it out myself.” Bai Yanzhou looked at her, unsure whether to laugh or sigh.
This girl had a remarkable way of backing people into a corner without ever needing to press them for answers.
She simply watched, thought about what she had seen, and eventually reached her own conclusions.
And somehow, that was even more troublesome.
Bai Yanzhou studied her for a moment before deciding to turn the question back on her.
“Little girl.” Shen Qinglan blinked.
“Hm?” He leaned back slightly, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his lips.
“Why don’t you answer something for me first?” Shen Qinglan immediately became cautious.
“What?” Bai Yanzhou kept his eyes on her.
“How do you know the master of Green Bamboo Residence isn’t your biological father?” The carriage fell quiet.
The playful light in Shen Qinglan’s eyes disappeared.
For several moments, neither of them spoke.
Only the steady rumble of the carriage wheels and the rhythmic sound of horses’ hooves could be heard outside.
Shen Qinglan lowered her gaze.
This time, she didn’t answer immediately.
After a long moment, she finally looked up again.
“My father…” She paused.
“He rescued me from human traffickers when I was seven.” Bai Yanzhou froze.
“Seven?” His brows drew together.
“Then before you were seven…
how did you survive?” His voice softened without him realizing it.
“Oh…” Shen Qinglan leaned back against the carriage wall.
Her tone was casual, almost as though she were talking about someone else’s childhood.
“I kept getting abducted and sold.
Whenever I managed to run away and got caught again, they beat me.” Bai Yanzhou stared at her.
For several seconds, he didn’t know what to say.
She had said it far too calmly.
There was no resentment in her voice and no attempt to make her past sound more miserable than it already was.
She simply told him what had happened.
Perhaps that was what made it harder to hear.
She had only been seven when Shen Yuxing found her, which meant all of this had happened before then.
How young had she been when it started?
Bai Yanzhou looked at the girl sitting across from him.
It was difficult to connect the calm, sharp, occasionally mischievous Shen Qinglan in front of him with the child she had just described—a little girl who had been abducted, sold, beaten, and forced to run away again and again.
His jaw tightened slightly.
For the first time, he regretted asking.
He had only wanted to know why she was so certain Shen Yuxing wasn’t her biological father.
Instead, he had accidentally brought up a part of her past that she probably had no reason to remember fondly.
His expression softened.
“Then do you have anything from your biological family?” He paused.
“Some kind of token?
Anything that could prove your identity?” Shen Qinglan stared at him.
Then the corner of her mouth twitched.
“I was abducted when I was little.” She gave him an exasperated look.
“Do you really think I would’ve been able to keep something like that?” Bai Yanzhou fell silent.
Shen Qinglan crossed her arms.
“If I had some unique jade pendant, family heirloom, birth token, or anything else that could prove who I was, would I still be sitting here worrying about this?” She raised her brows.
“I probably would’ve found my family long ago.
I certainly wouldn’t need your help.” For once, Bai Yanzhou had nothing to say.
He silently looked away.
Concern really did make people ask stupid questions.
Under normal circumstances, he would never have overlooked something so obvious.
But after hearing what she had gone through, his thoughts had clearly become a little less organized than usual.
Shen Qinglan noticed his awkward expression, but she didn’t tease him.
When Bai Yanzhou looked back at her, he found that the conversation hadn’t affected her as much as he had feared.
Her expression was still calm, and her eyes remained clear.
Whatever had happened in the past, she had already learned how to live with it.
A moment later, a sly gleam returned to her eyes.
“Actually…” Shen Qinglan leaned forward slightly.
“Why don’t we start with something much more useful?” Bai Yanzhou raised an eyebrow.
She smiled.
“The fact that I’m your fiancée.” His expression immediately became more serious.
“Mm.” He nodded.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Shen Qinglan straightened and waited for him to continue.
Bai Yanzhou was silent for a moment before speaking.
“Our engagement was arranged before we were born.” Shen Qinglan’s expression shifted.
“When my mother was still alive, she told me personally that the woman I would marry in the future was the legitimate daughter of Tangxi Feng, heir to the Duke’s household.” Shen Qinglan’s eyes flickered.
Tangxi Feng?
Bai Yanzhou continued.
“Her name was…” He paused briefly before saying it clearly.
“Tangxi Ling.” Something stirred faintly in Shen Qinglan’s mind.
It wasn’t quite a memory.
It was more like a vague sense of familiarity that appeared before she could understand where it came from.
She frowned.
“Tangxi Feng?” She repeated the name slowly.
“The Duke’s household…?” Something seemed to be buried deep in her memory, but whenever she tried to grasp it, it slipped away again.
She couldn’t tell whether she had really heard those names before or whether they simply felt familiar because of what Bai Yanzhou had just told her.
Bai Yanzhou watched her quietly without interrupting.
After a moment, he continued.
“But later, my father denied it.” Shen Qinglan immediately looked up.
“He denied it?” Bai Yanzhou nodded.
“He changed his story.” His voice slowed slightly.
“He told me that my fiancée wasn’t Tangxi Feng’s daughter.” He looked directly at her.
“Instead, he said she was the daughter of the master of Green Bamboo Residence.” Shen Qinglan’s expression immediately became serious.
The two statements couldn’t both be true.
Tangxi Feng’s legitimate daughter and the daughter of the master of Green Bamboo Residence were two completely different identities.
Yet both had somehow been connected to the same engagement.
Unless there was some connection between them that neither she nor Bai Yanzhou understood yet.
Shen Qinglan fell silent.
Bai Yanzhou didn’t say anything either.
There were clearly things he knew and things he suspected, but there were also parts of the matter that he hadn’t figured out himself.
The carriage gradually became quiet again, leaving only the steady rhythm of hoofbeats and rolling wheels.
Outside, the night wind brushed softly against the carriage walls as they continued down the road.
Shen Qinglan leaned back against the cushions, her thoughts still circling around the same few names.
Tangxi Feng.
Tangxi Ling.
The Duke’s household.
Green Bamboo Residence.
She tried to connect them and find the missing link between the two identities, but after everything that had happened that night, exhaustion gradually began to catch up with her.
Her eyelids grew heavier.
She forced them open once, but before long, even thinking became difficult.
Her head slowly tilted to one side, and eventually, her breathing became soft and even.
She had fallen asleep.
Bai Yanzhou turned his head toward her.
For a while, he simply watched her sleeping face.
The sharpness in his eyes gradually softened.
She had gone through far more than most children ever should, yet somehow, she had survived all of it and grown into the girl sitting before him now.
Bai Yanzhou leaned back against the carriage wall.
His gaze lingered on her for another moment before shifting toward the dark road outside the window.
Tangxi Ling.
The name remained in his thoughts.
Perhaps this journey would finally give them the answers they were looking for.