Chapter 118 – Extra 2: No Wings to Flee (Part II)

“Banban?”

Xie Lanxu picked up the silk handkerchief lying on the floor, his gaze searching the warm greenhouse in disbelief.

His voice disappeared like a stone sinking into water—its echo swallowed by utter silence.

“Banban?”

He called out again and again, striding rapidly through the entire conservatory.

Built at the heart of the Epiphyllum Garden, the greenhouse mimicked the form of a blooming epiphyllum, its tiered levels arranged like petals encircling a central stamen. The hollow column at the center, shaped like the flower’s core, connected to a flue that continuously fed warmth into the chamber.

Xie Lanxu stood beside the steaming pillar, but his heart felt like it had plummeted into an icy abyss.

A sudden, overwhelming fear filled his chest.

“Li Zhi—!”

Clutching the embroidered handkerchief, he roared her name like a trapped beast.

Palace attendants rushed into the greenhouse all at once, crowding the space.

“Seal the palace gates! No one enters or leaves without my order!”

“Your Majesty—”

A eunuch tried to speak—perhaps to remind him that officials from the New Year’s banquet were still within the palace and locking the gates might stir unrest.

But before he could finish, the Emperor’s blood-chilling, predatory glare silenced him. The warning in that look chilled the eunuch to the bone, and the words died in his throat.

Everyone in the room could feel it. The atmosphere teetered on the edge of violent danger, and legs trembled uncontrollably under the weight of that invisible pressure.

The Empress was missing.

They scoured the greenhouse. They searched every inch of the Epiphyllum Garden. The Imperial Guards swept through the entire palace but found no trace of her.

A living, breathing person—gone without a sound from a room with only one entrance?

Panic spread through the court like a plague.

“I heard that greenhouse only has one exit, and there were over a dozen attendants standing guard. How could the Empress just vanish?”

“Exactly! Whether someone came to abduct her or she left on her own—how could not one of them notice anything?”

“Do you think… His Majesty is going to…”

“Don’t speak such dangerous nonsense!”

“But the Empress just announced her pregnancy. What if someone didn’t want her to give birth to that child?”

“But there aren’t even any consorts in the palace…”

“This is all too strange…”

At Weiyang Palace, Xie Lanxu sat unmoving on the same bed where Li Zhi had rested not long ago, staring at the handkerchief in his hands.

It was spotless—just a single epiphyllum embroidered on the corner.

The flower remained.

But she was gone.

Had she been taken? Or had she—

Was it premeditated? Or a sudden impulse?

Had the pregnancy announcement been part of the plan? Or the trigger?

Xie Lanxu, who had always prided himself on his keen intellect, felt like he’d been struck out of nowhere—dazed, disoriented. His mind swirled with a thousand questions and no answers.

Time passed—minute by minute, hour by hour. He didn’t move, a statue carved from grief.

Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed from outside.

Like a drowning man catching a breath, Xie Lanxu snapped his head up, eyes blazing, staring at Chief Eunuch Gao as he entered.

Chief Eunuch Gao froze for a beat, then bowed deeply and reported in a low voice, “Your Majesty. The Imperial Guards have searched the palace… There is no trace of the Empress, nor of any suspicious persons.”

“Keep searching.”

Chief Eunuch Gao bowed again and slipped away silently.

Silence returned to Weiyang Palace.

One day passed. Then two. Then three.

Report after report. Hope after hope crushed.

The officials, still locked within the palace, began with composure but now grew visibly anxious.

Many petitioned for an audience, requesting permission to leave—but the Emperor refused to see anyone.

Among them were some who carried guilt and hence were haunted, sleepless, and fearing they were caught in a trap with no escape.

Others, who had nothing to hide, joined the search efforts to occupy their time and ease their minds.

Even Moqi Danliao, though a princess, joined the search of her own accord.

If there were anyone in the world she admired from the heart, the Empress was that person. In fact, she was the only woman she respected.

The reforms the Empress had championed—ideas she had never conceived of—had struck her with the force of revelation. She thought back to how, during her infatuation with Xie Lanxu, she had once felt petty resentment toward such a woman. And then there was Heihuo, the terrifying General of Zhenhai who now guarded the frontier. Back in their youth, they had mocked him for his skin color and looks, treating him as a joke.

The Empress, despite being the same age as her, had never made such foolish mistakes.

The memory filled her with shame.

Moqi Danliao had never wanted people to think she was clinging to power by association, so she rarely entered the palace. Most assumed her ties to the imperial couple were purely political.

What they didn’t know was that she saw the Empress as a role model—measuring herself quietly against her, hoping someday to stand as her equal.

As for the Emperor…

Every time she thought of him, her teeth itched with frustration.

That smug, two-faced hypocrite—he only had Li Zhi because of the luck of a past life.

Leaving the cold palace with no leads, Danliao wandered into the deepening twilight.

She had sworn to search every place she could see. She’d even stared down passing eunuchs in case one of them was in disguise.

The palace gates had been closed for three days.

Could a living person truly vanish?

Out of ideas, she returned to the Epiphyllum Garden.

The garden had been searched countless times. She didn’t expect to find anything new—but her feet led her there all the same.

Back to the place where Li Zhi had vanished.

Danliao pushed the door open and stepped onto the thick felt carpet. After three days of frantic searching, the once-pristine greenhouse was a mess.

The tiered platforms were littered with toppled pots and shattered porcelain. No one had cleaned up—the fallen soil and broken blossoms lay strewn in disarray.

Frowning, Danliao stepped forward, climbing the petal-like steps.

Then she froze.

In the midst of the snow-white blooms… lay a person.

Startled, she almost reached for the sword at her waist.

But when she recognized the face amidst the flowers, her hand dropped.

Xie Lanxu.

He wore a simple white inner robe, covered only by a light moon-colored cloak. He lay motionless among the epiphyllum, eyes open, unblinking, staring into the void above.

If she hadn’t been looking closely, she might not have seen him at all—so still, so pale.

“…Your Majesty,” she blurted out.

Her voice shattered the silence.

“Did you find her?” Xie Lanxu rasped.

Danliao felt a pang of guilt. At least he was lying down—she didn’t have to meet his eyes.

“…No.”

Xie Lanxu slowly sat up. A petal drifted from his shoulder.

His face… was paler than the flowers.

Her sympathy lasted only a moment—before it withered beneath his chilling, murderous gaze.

His bloodless lips moved. Barely a sound emerged.

But she caught it.

“All of you are useless.”

He sat amid a sea of withered epiphyllum, his black hair trailing over his shoulders, making his pallor seem all the more stark.

Only three days had passed since the banquet, yet the Emperor had visibly thinned. The sleeves of his robe hung loose; his chest beneath the slightly open collar seemed hollowed out—as though with the Empress’s disappearance, everything inside him had been taken too.

“There’s a rumor going around the palace,” Xie Lanxu murmured suddenly. “They say the Empress became a butterfly and ascended. That you can hear her humming at night in the garden.”

Danliao stared at him, puzzled.

“I waited all night…” he said, “but nothing came.”

He didn’t look at her.

He stood from the steps and slowly descended. She bowed, but he walked past without a glance.

“Nothing at all…”

His voice, thin as mist, drifted behind him. Danliao turned to look.

All she saw was the wind, ruffling the figure of a lonely sovereign.

That night, for the first time since the banquet, the emperor received the trapped officials in Weiyang Palace.

They entered cautiously, prepared to face imperial wrath.

Only Danliao had seen him since the Empress vanished, and she was shocked to see that the man sitting upright on the luohan couch now looked completely different.

He was neatly dressed, smiling faintly, and even the color had returned to his lips.

In just a few hours, it was as if he had found clarity.

“Rise, my loyal ministers,” he said warmly.

“You’ve all heard by now—after the New Year’s banquet, the Empress vanished in the Epiphyllum Garden. She is my other half—the mother of the nation. Now she may have been taken by enemies. As pillars of the court, it is your duty to aid me, to ease the burden on the nation.”

“Three days. Still nothing. I refuse to believe someone can disappear without a trace. I’ve realized—it must be because I’ve offered you too little motivation.”

He hadn’t finished the sentence when hurried steps rang from outside.

Li Xiangsheng, who had been leading the Imperial Guards in the search, arrived late and joined the others silently.

“So,” Xie Lanxu said with a soft smile, “I’ve thought of a solution.”

“If, within three more days, the Empress is not found—I will begin executing those most likely to have wished her harm.”

The hall sucked in a collective breath—but Xie Lanxu remained cheerful.

“Lord Li, Lord Wang—weren’t you the ones who submitted the most petitions urging me to expand the imperial harem?”

“And you, Lord Xu—you opposed the establishment of the Women’s Academy and women’s examinations the loudest, didn’t you?”

“And Lord Chen…”

Those he named were dumbstruck. They dropped to their knees, shouting their innocence.

“No need to panic,” Xie Lanxu said gently.

“I don’t believe people become butterflies and ascend to heaven. From the moment the Empress vanished, I ordered all four palace gates sealed. In three days, no one has entered or exited—not even a single letter.”

“The Empress is still here. Somewhere.”

“Whoever brings me the first clue—”

“I shall name him the first non-imperial prince of this dynasty.”

Xie Lanxu looked around, enunciating each word. “His title shall pass down forever—eternal and undying, with the nation as its witness.”