Chapter 3 — The Heir to the Throne with the Wicked Face

Anonymous Person At The Foot Of Lam Phong Mountain

Tịnh Nghiệp Am is located in the middle of a small valley at the foot of Lam Phong mountain, covered in fog all year round, only the sound of the temple bell and the sound of the flowing stream break the silence. Nhược Hi arrived here on a cold winter afternoon and was escorted out of a prison vehicle in front of the hermitage gate, her hands still showing marks from the ropes.

The person who came out to welcome her was a nun in her fifties, with a slim figure but unusually sharp eyes, unlike the gentleness often seen in monks. That is Monk Tịnh Nghi, abbot of Tịnh Nghiệp Am.

"From now on I will stay here." The monk spoke to the escorting soldiers, his voice calm and without any emotion. "I will take care of this sinner according to royal decree."

The soldiers handed over their people and left, leaving only two soldiers standing guard outside the gate of the hut according to Khưu Bá Trạch's orders. When the wooden gate closed, Master Tịnh Nghi took Nhược Hi into a small room at the end of the row of rooms and personally untied her.

"You don't need to pretend in front of me." The monk spoke softly, loud enough for only two people to hear, her eyes looking straight at Nhược Hi's haggard face. "I served in the palace for many years before becoming a monk. I was a servant to the Immortal Queen when I was a concubine. I cannot mistake your face."

Nhược Hi was stunned, her defensive instincts arose, but looking into Su Thai's eyes, she suddenly saw a rare sincerity that she had never seen in the past few months.

"Master, do you intend to denounce me?"

"If I wanted that, you wouldn't be standing here talking to me." Monk Tịnh Nghi poured her a cup of hot tea, his voice lowered. "The Fairy Queen once saved our entire family from a famine in the past. I will never repay that gratitude for the rest of my life. You are her daughter, I cannot stand by and watch you be destroyed again."

That night, for the first time in many months, Nhược Hi slept without dreams.

In the following days, under the protection of Master Tịnh Nghi, Nhược Hi began to learn how to live two parallel lives. During the day, she is a young nun who quietly sweeps the yard, chants, does laundry, and looks resigned in front of the two soldiers guarding her. But on moonlit nights, when the hut itself fell asleep, she sneaked out of the room through a secret passage behind the medicinal garden that the Master showed her, and practiced martial arts in a cave deep in the mountain.

Master Tịnh Nghi once learned a few self-defense techniques from a gypsy brother before becoming a monk, not many but enough to serve as a foundation. For the rest, Nhược Hi practiced on her own, using pain and hatred as motivation, training day after day until her hands, once only used to holding a pen, could now swing a knife and cut off a large tree branch with one decisive blow.

She also started wearing the ghost mask again on nights of heavy rain, sneaking down to small towns around the foot of the mountain. At first it was just to listen to news from the capital, but gradually, she discovered that this land was being brutally exploited by a group of local officials in collusion with bandits. Tax upon tax forced people to sell their children. Nhược Hi, in the name of the already famous Ghost-Faced Witch, began robbing the officials of their ill-gotten wealth and distributing it to the poor. At the same time, she secretly recruited people who resented the royal court into a network she later named the Night Shadow Pavilion—a refuge and a cause for those abandoned by the government.

During the first year, the Night Shadow Pavilion was just a name that existed in Nhược Hi's mind, without a clear shape. She started with the smallest things: helping a blacksmith who was falsely accused of theft by the government clear his name by tracking down the real thief, saving an orphan from human traffickers operating openly under the protection of local officials, and silently teaching literacy to a few poor children in the village at the foot of the mountain. One by one, they began to trust the dark shadow wearing a demon mask, even though no one knew her real face and many people were still wary because her name was once associated with heinous crimes.

The first person to actually join her was a hunter named Tam, who lost his entire family in a land-grabbing battle a few years ago, and later became Nhược Hi's eyes and ears throughout the Lam Phong mountains. Then there were a few veterans who were forced to discharge without reason, and a few small traders were forced into bankruptcy by local officials to take over their businesses. Nhược Hi was not in a hurry, she understands better than anyone that a force built in haste will collapse even faster than when it had not had time to take shape, so step by step, silently and patiently, she weaves a wide network that made even Master Tịnh Nghi sometimes marvel at the maturity of the student she once hugged like a daughter.

One spring night of her second year, while chasing a greedy tax collector who had just robbed a farmer family of land, Nhược Hi first encountered a man who was also ambushing the same target.

That person was tall, wearing old, worn-out civilian clothes, but the way he moved, the way he struck when the two military officers rushed in, gave the appearance of someone who had undergone formal military training, not an ordinary gangster.

"You also came for this official?" The man asked, his voice was deep but alert, his hand still holding the long sword pointed at Nhược Hi's black mask.

"If you intend to compete, I advise you to withdraw," Nhược Hi replied, her voice deliberately changed to be darker than usual to hide her true identity.

"I don't compete." The man lowered his sword, his eyes examining her, not with the contempt of a thief, but with careful scrutiny. "I just want to make sure he doesn't run away with the money he stole from Thanh Ha villagers."

That night, the two of them coordinated unexpectedly to stop the robber, collect all the money he stole, and return it to the victims' families. When everything was finished, the man stood looking at Nhược Hi from afar, did not ask another word about her true identity, just nodded slightly in greeting and disappeared into the night.

She did not know that man was Lieutenant Trường Phong—the only son of the late Chinh Tây General, Lieutenant Thành Kiệt, who once commanded the army guarding the western border of Đại Hạ before being falsely accused of colluding with foreign invaders and executed at the military camp four years ago. Trường Phong was only twenty-one years old at the time. He witnessed his father being beheaded in front of three soldiers but could do nothing. He was forced to take his mother's surname and live anonymously in the remote countryside, away from the court's watchful eyes.

Over the next several months, they happened to encounter each other no less than a dozen times, always in missions to punish evil tyrants or rescue innocent people. Gradually, an implicit trust formed between the two, even though neither of them had ever revealed their true identities.

On a late autumn night in the second year, after together defeating a group of bandits who were robbing a trading group at the foot of Lam Phong mountain, Trường Phong sat down next to a small campfire, looking at Nhược Hi from afar.

"You are not like what people say about the Demon Faced Witch," he said, his voice quiet. "Whoever kills the king and steals his wealth, why does he always help the poor and never harm an innocent person's life?"

Nhược Hi was silent for a long time, the firelight reflected in her eyes behind the mask. "Perhaps, what people say may not be true."

"I think so too." Trường Phong nodded slightly, his eyes looking far away at the clouds passing over the top of Lam Phong mountain, where the curved roof of Tịnh Nghiệp Am was hidden in the distance. "There are more buried truths in this world than you think."

That casual statement made Nhược Hi slightly startled, wondering if this man was carrying a secret similar to hers. She doesn't know yet, but a vague premonition tells her that the person sitting by the fire tonight will most likely be the most important ally on the road to regaining justice ahead.

That night, when returning to Tịnh Nghiệp Am before dawn, Nhược Hi quietly sat on the stone steps, took off her mask, and let the cold mountain wind blow across her face, which had become more mature than the innocent sixteen-year-old girl. Monk Tịnh Nghi did not sleep, so he quietly walked out and sat next to her, giving her a cup of warm ginger tea.

"You've met someone trustworthy, right?" The monk asked, his voice as light as a breeze.

"I'm not sure." Nhược Hi took a sip of tea, the warmth spreading down her dry throat. "But I feel like that person is carrying the same hatred as me."

"If that's the case," the monk looked towards the misty mountain peak, "two fires burning together will sometimes illuminate the path for each other that alone cannot see. But you also have to be careful, people's hearts are difficult to fathom, especially in chaotic times like today." Nhược Hi nodded slightly, her eyes looking far away at the rolling mountains on the horizon, somewhere out there, the capital city of Vân Khánh was still sinking in the hands of the person who took away her entire family. She knew the road ahead was still very long, but for the first time in many months, she felt like she was no longer completely alone on that road.