"Father, why are you calling us? Is there something important that you want to talk about?" Yao Ling asked with a smile. Having more time to talk with her father, she naturally became quite happy.

Rong Qiu motioned for them to sit down and asked Yao Ling seriously without beating around the bush, "Now... tell Father. What is wrong with you?" Rong Qiu felt if he didn't directly ask, Yao Ling would just keep being worried without telling him the reasons.

Yao Ling's expression changed and asked in distress, "What do you mean, Father? I'm fine!" She didn't know how to answer the question honestly and didn't even dare to look at her father's face.

Rong Qiu sighed. "You can try to lie to me because I just met you recently and probably, you think that you can get away with it. However, can you lie to Yao Ying too? He must have noticed your weird behavior from the start!"

Yao Ling was taken aback and she looked at Yao Ying while biting her lower lips. Yao Ying nodded his head, telling her that what Rong Qiu had said was correct... He felt that something was wrong with Yao Ling right after their departure from Crescent Lake.

Yao Ling sighed and finally decided that she should have admitted from the start --- there was no use to lie anymore. Ever since her grandmother was gone, she had a dream each night about her... and it wasn't a good one.

"Grandmother is already dead, isn't she?" Yao Ling asked carefully. She had a guess, but didn't dare to say it out loud at first. However, she couldn't help herself --- she needed to know the truth.

"How do you know?" Both men asked in surprise at the same time.

Yao Ling didn't want to tell them the content of her dream, because it was actually a nightmare --- not a mere dream. It made her become haggard and afraid. It was like her grandmother was pointing at her and blaming her for her death.

Rong Qiu sighed. "Your grandmother wouldn't blame you..."

Even if Yao Ling tried to convince herself that her grandmother didn't blame her, but she couldn't. The nightmare felt too real for her and it didn't stop at that!

"Father... it started after we make our plan..." Yao Ling admitted. "The nightmare..."

"What do you mean?" Rong Qiu asked in surprise.

"After you mentioned the jade pendant..." Yao Ling bit her lower lip in apprehension.

"Tell me in details!" Rong Qiu's heart skipped a bit. He started to feel that he had made the wrong decision by using that jade pendant to frame Bai Bing Wen.

"At first, the dream wasn't really clear. However, one or two days after that, what grandmother said has become clearer... Don't let other people have that jade pendant!" Yao Ling honestly told them her dreams. That was the reason that she couldn't warn then beforehand... she couldn't hear what her grandmother had said inside the dream!

"What else? Did grandmother mention why?" Yao Ying asked. He had abandoned the idea that the dream that Yao Ling had dreamt about must have been only a simple dream, after knowing that Yao Ling had a special power. Thus, he preferred to believe in the content of her dream.

"No... " Yao Ling answered. "At first, I really thought that it was only a simple nightmare until it was getting worse." She didn't know how to open up this weird thing, but when she saw her father's reaction, she started to feel that she had made a great mistake.

"Ying... Father... what should we do?" Yao Ling asked in fear.

Both men sighed. This matter couldn't be blamed to Yao Ling --- if someone wanted to blame... it would be Rong Jiu's fault, the latter thought to himself.

"We can do nothing for now... after all, we don't know the secret of that jade pendant," Yao Ying answered with a frown. "The most important thing is to find out about this man's ident.i.ty. However, I don't think it will be possible to take the jade pendant back..."

After all, an esteemed guest of the Han Emperor must have been not an ordinary person.

Rong Qiu nodded while sighing heavily. There was no medicine for regret ah~! There were some things that didn't need to be put into words for them to understand. If Bai Bing Wen found out about the secret, it would become a danger to Yao Ling --- after all, even her deceased grandmother had warned her for a few times.

They could only hope that Bai Bing Wen wouldn't find out, even though the chance was a bit small... This thing, they didn't tell Lin Jian and Xiao Fang because it could be counted as a private matter.

The ones who would be directly impacted were the couple, thus, they didn't want to involve other people.

------------------

Just like how they had planned beforehand, Rong Qiu went back to the capital first even though he did it with a heavy heart. His mind was full of the jade pendant thing and yet, he had to deal with the Han Emperor.

Despite the headache, he couldn't s.h.i.+rk away from his responsibility.

Yao Ling looked at her father and wished him luck, knowing that they had to pa.s.s this hurdle first before going home to the Shu Kingdom.

When Yao Ling's party thought they had nothing to do for the day --- someone came from the capital and he was searching for Xiao Fang. He found Xiao Fang when the latter was eating on the first floor of the inn with the trio.

"Xiao Fang?"

When Xiao Fang heard her name was being called, she looked up in surprise. She heard a familiar voice that she had missed so much!

Xiao Fang looked at the source of the voice and gasped in surprise, "Da Ge [=Big Brother], what are you doing here?" Without a second thought, she jumped into the man's embrace.

Yes, the one who came was Xiao Fang's stepbrother, Qi Hao. The man was the scholarly type and fairly handsome. Qi Hao followed his father's footsteps and his body wasn't suitable for learning martial arts, hence he didn't look too imposing and seemed to be a gentleman. His skin was as white as snow just like a woman and indeed, his face was far different from Xiao Fang.

The others wondered how could Xiao Fang not notice that they weren't real siblings? However, they didn't dare to say it out loud.

Qi Hao smiled softly at Xiao Fang and answered, "Because I'm missing you ah~!"

Even though he was smiling, Xiao Fang could feel that something wasn't right. "Was there something wrong happened in the capital?" Xiao Fang quickly asked.

Qi Hao was quite surprised... Since when his sister became this sharp? She usually looked at him with a silly smile and obeyed whatever he said. He didn't think Xiao Fang knew the difference meaning of his smile back then. She had just gone for a little while... did something happened on her trip? She seemed more mature in his eyes.

Qi Hao laughed, "Little sister has finally grown up ah~!" He didn't forget to pat her head which made Xiao Fang's face turned red. She glanced around and looked at the trio who were laughing at her which made her feel embarra.s.sed.

Xiao Fang quickly dodged his hand and said, "Da Ge! I'm not a little girl anymore!"

Qi Hao didn't know whether he should laugh or cry ah~! She used to follow him everywhere and now, she even felt ashamed to be patted. However, Qi Hao didn't put too much thought on it because there was more important matter to deal with.

"Let's talk somewhere safe!" Qi Hao said.

After they went inside a relatively safe room, Xiao Fang introduced the trio to Qi Hao. The trio had a good impression of Xiao Fang's brother after seeing his warm interaction with Xiao Fang.