 As Zhi Wei guessed, the Crown Prince promptly threw Ning Yi out as his scapegoat when he belatedly Crown
Crown Prince pushed all the responsibilities onto Ning Yi and all the other princes joined in, the Emperor’s
realizes that all evidence seems to be pointing to him as the mastermind behind the assassination
attempt. (An assassin testified against the Crown Prince who then turns around points at Ning Yi as the
one who had vouched for the assassin before and that’s why he had mistakenly allowed the assassin to
join in as one of his guards. In reality, Ning Yi had warned the Crown Prince that the assassin looked fishy
and advised him against hiring the guy but the Crown Prince ignored him.)
 Exchanging a knowing glance with Zhi Wei right after the Crown Prince turned against him (Remember,
everyone knows Ning Yi as the Crown Prince’s “faithful” sidekick, so the Crown Prince’s action comes
through clearly as a ruthless leader who has no qualms sacrificing those who are loyal to him.), Ning Yi
meekly accepts everything the Crown Prince said and drags his forlorn self away…but faints after taking
only a few steps.
 Feeling a bit sad for Ning Yi as she watches all of his other older brothers gleefully joining in to malign him
in front of the Emperor, Zhi Wei nonetheless applaud silently when Ning Yi “faints” at exactly the right
time to remind the Emperor for whom his obedient son was hurt.
 Impressed with Zhi Wei after conversing with her, the Emperor quickly decide that Zhi Wei could be a very
useful pawn to him and promptly rewards Zhi Wei handsomely as the Nation’s Scholar and gave her a
surprisingly high office in the Royal Court.
 While a severely wounded Ning Yi is locked up, things quickly spin out of control for the Crown Prince and
his brothers. A maid was caught by the guards attempting to poison Ning Yi. The Crown Prince was
summoned by the Emperor and judging by the number of cups thrown, the Emperor was immensely
displeased. (Everyone would’ve assumed the Crown Prince had tried to kill Ning Yi to cover his own crime.)
To show his displeasure, the Emperor transfers an army that was under the Crown Prince’s control to the
5th Prince which starts a fiery feud between the two brothers. Depressed by how badly things are going,
the Crown Prince confides in the 10th Prince (who is too young to be in the fight for the throne) who then
encourages him to show everyone that a Crown Prince can’t be messed with. Bolstered by the 10th
Prince’s encouragement, the Crown Prince begins to gather corruption evidence against the 5th Prince
and much to his joy, finds evidence against the 5th AND the 7th Prince.  Quite pleased to have a chance to
shoot two birds with one stone but afraid his two brothers would do something drastic to fight back, the
Crown Prince orders his own armies to surround the two Prince’s manor. Still lost in the glee of having
shown off his mighty powers, the Crown Prince finally gets the rug pulled out right under him when the
Emperor appears.
So Ning Yi’s goal has always been the Crown Prince right from the start…along with his greedy older
brothers.
Sitting under the early summer sun, Zhi Wei laughs as she cracks open walnuts with a small golden plier.
“What a great plan! Such an elaborate plan with a carefully planned chain of events!”
Gu Nan Yi sits in front of Zhi Wei, completely focused on eating the walnuts.
“This is the Crown Prince” Zhi Wei takes a handful of walnuts and starts making a diagram. “This is Ning Yi,
the one everyone believes to be Crown Prince’s loyal follower.”
Gu Nan Yi immediately grabs the Ning Yi walnut and eats it.
Blinking in surprise, Zhi Wei puts out another walnut to represent Ning Yi…but it was no use, Mr. Gu
promptly eats that one too.
Zhi Wei finally resorts to using a brush pen to represent Ning Yi so it could escape the fate of getting eaten.
“Because he is considered to be on Crown Prince’s side so he can never get rid of the Crown Prince
personally. Anything happens to the Crown Prince will also drag him down as well.”
“So what should he do?” Pulling out a bunch more walnuts, Zhi Wei throws it over by the Ning Yi and Crown
Prince’s corner so the walnuts bump into each other, flying all over. “Get himself out of the whole situation
then use outside force to drag everyone down leaving him completely untouched.”
Grabbing Ning Yi, the brush pen, Zhi Wei uses it to jab the Crown Prince walnut “That assassin was the first
step. The assassination goal was never the Emperor but it was to frame the Crown Prince.”
“He had purposefully introduced the assassin to the Crown Prince in full view of his older brother. He knew
how selfish the Crown Prince is, so there is no doubt the Crown Prince would make him the scapegoat.” Zhi
Wei cocks her head to the side, thinking for a moment “If I am guessing correctly, Ning Yi must’ve used
some special way to let the Emperor know where the assassin came from. Even if he didn’t, based on the
Emperor’s personality, there is no way he is clueless of what his sons are up to. So that’s why when the
expression was so dark.”
“He was obviously innocent but out of concern for his family he held his tongue. In comparison, his brothers
who all knew he was innocent,  had no brotherly affection at all and had instead jumped eagerly on the
bandwagon to step on him.”
Picking up the Crown Prince walnut to break it open, Zhi Wei eats half of it while giving the other half to Gu
Nan Yi “The old Emperor is really not one to underestimate.  He pretended ignorance the whole time and
locked up Ning Yi as a way to test everyone. How ironic is that those royal princes were too busy
congratulating themselves that they got rid of their younger brother, completely clueless that the real test
had just begun.”
“What followed after was still part of Ning Yi’s plan. But by this time, he can no longer be counted as one of
the Crown Prince’s people. Plus, he was locked up while confined to bed because of his wounds so none of
it could possibly fall on his head.” All smiles, Zhi Wei muses “A little poison, move the armies around a bit,
dig here and there for evidence…by the time the Crown Prince and his brothers had finished battling one
another, his royal highness has recovered from his wounds, proven his innocence and just in time to rejoin
the party.”
 Realizing the Emperor is really going to take away his title, the Crown Prince starts a rebellion. However,
before the Crown Prince’s army could even get close to the palace, the Emperor is already far away from
it. Thanks to Gu Nan Yi’s super fighting ability, Zhi Wei is also one of the few officials that accompanied
the Emperor.
  Receiving words of where his father is, Ning Yi immediately seeks an audience with the Emperor. No one
knew what the Father and son talked about that night, but by the next morning, Ning Yi is seen backing
out of the royal tent respectfully with his eyes obviously red from emotions.
Sensing something, Ning Yi rises his head towards the hill. Under the breaking dawn, the woman in disguise
as a man stares at him from afar…seemingly with a smile or perhaps not.
From the first time they met when her life is completely in his control to now, staring at each from afar,
they are each calculating their own plot within their smile.
He knows she knows everything about him, just as she knows that he knows what she knows.
Ning Yi suddenly has a strange premonition – from this point on, she will start to approach him in a manner
that no one could guess.
Suddenly filled with a desire to go over and say something. As to what he would say…he doesn’t know, but
he thinks he would figure out what he really wants to say as he crossed the short distance to her.
Just as he is about to step forward, she suddenly turned around. Far off, standing on the green hill by her
side, the man’s chin could only be seen peeking out of the vail on his face. as the sunlight danced around
them.
She had looked away to say something to the man. Whatever she said didn’t elicit a response from the man
as he continued to look towards the sky. Unconcerned, she bends down, searched for a few moments until
she plucked a blade of sweet grass, broke it in half, stuck the grass into her own mouth and hands the other
to the man with eyes full of smile.
The jade like young man stares at the blade of grass for a long moment then finally copied her and stuck it
into his own mouth.
Tranquil and peaceful, she smiled at that person.
This is a different side of her he has never seen.
What he gets from her is cunning, ruthless, full of trickery, eager to get away.
Suddenly annoyed, the sunlight seems too bright and the air too stuffy to Ning Yi.
Rising his hand, Ning Yi points his finger at Zhi Wei.
Returning a short nod in reply, Zhi Wei sees Ning Yi’s expression turns a shade darker seemingly harboring a
trace if resentment. Your highness looked quite peaceful a second ago, so how did you get in such a bad
mood in the blink of an eye?
After pointing at her then at the Captial, Ning Yi stomps off without another backward glance.
“Behave yourself.”
Bowing slightly, Zhi Wei smiles as she watches him leave.
“As you wish.”