After the stadium spectacle, Zetian declines to return to Qin Zheng's quarantine chamber, instead arranging a secret midnight meeting with Yizhi via the tunnels beneath Gao Qiu's old manor, which she has chosen as her imperial quarters specifically for this access. She tells Wan'er she needs writing practice and continues her education on Huaxia's bureaucratic structure, lamenting her ignorance of governance and missing Shimin's political insight.

At midnight, Zetian descends a long elevator shaft into Warring Era tunnels and meets Yizhi, who is once again disguised as a maidservant using clip-on hair bundles to hide his shorn head. They explore an abandoned bunker where Yizhi notes his father chose pride over hiding. Zetian privately wonders how much of Yizhi's vengeful execution of the three oligarchs was performance versus personal hatred, recognizing he targeted men who had done terrible things to him personally.

The two struggle with the impossibility of their relationship: Qin Zheng can access Zetian's memories through their dream-link, so any sign of intimacy from Yizhi could get him killed. When Yizhi instinctively moves to give her his cloak, Zetian forces him to stop, addressing him by his new name, Zhang. They sit apart in the lantern light, unable to grieve Shimin together.

Speaking obliquely to evade divine surveillance, Zetian asks Yizhi to recommend someone skilled with calculations, gesturing upward to hint at the Heavenly Court plan. Yizhi suggests his unmarried second-oldest sister Taiping, a logistics genius. Zetian also asks Yizhi to track down the recipient of Shimin's harvested kidney, claiming Shimin haunts her—secretly intending to use his spirit signature to locate the Heavenly Court. Yizhi, moved, agrees to use their newly controlled government databases.