In the dark, damp dungeon, two thick iron hooks drove at terrifying speed, inch by inch through flesh and blood, accompanied by spattering crimson, mercilessly piercing through Xiao Yuge's scapulae.
"Ah!"
She let out a wretched scream, her whole body jolting rigid with a start. The searing pain sent unrelenting shudders through her frame; her sunken left eye and the earthworm-like scar slashed across her face seemed to grow all the more grotesque and fearsome. Blood dripped from the hook in steady drops, pattering onto the ground and staining it red.
The three men standing before her, faced with her wretched state, all seemed utterly unmoved.
"Why? Why would you treat me like this?" Xiao Yuge forced herself to endure the suffocating pain, struggling to lift her head and look at them — one was the man she deeply loved, one was her elder brother, and one was her childhood sweetheart. She could not believe they could be so ruthless toward her.
Qian Sichen stepped in front of her. "Yuge, you shouldn't have run. Yufu is your elder sister—she has been frail since childhood, while your blood has been steeped in a hundred divine medicines, making you immune to all poisons and granting you the power to bring the dying back to life. The imperial physician has said that if your blood were given to Yufu, she would live to a ripe old age. You have taken Yufu's place for so many years, yet she has never once blamed you—she has only ever treated you with kindness. You don't want anything bad to happen to her, do you?"
"She gets to live a long life — then what about me? Am I just supposed to die?" Xiao Yuge stared at the man she had loved so deeply, yet found him a stranger now. "Brother Sichen, you promised you would never betray me!" For his sake, she had endured hundreds of poisons and survived countless brushes with death, all to forge this body immune to every toxin — yet never once had she imagined that it would one day become the very excuse he used to hurt her.
"From beginning to end, the one I loved was always Fu'er. It was Fu'er's kind heart — unable to bear seeing you in pain — that compelled her to force me into making you that promise."
"But I am your fiancée!" Xiao Yuge's heart twisted with anguish. For the chance to be with him, she had even agreed to his absurd demand—two sisters sharing one husband. She had yielded again and again, only to be rewarded with this.
"But I never loved you at all! The Kingdom of Lan Zhao would never accept a one-eyed, scarred Crown Princess!" Heartlessness was written all over the face that had once driven her to madness.
"But my eyes — you were the ones who forced me to give them to Sister, and this scar was left because I saved you!" His words pierced Xiao Yuge's heart once again, a heart already riddled with countless wounds.
Qian Sichen turned his face away, refusing to look at her. "Ge'er, in the end it is I who have wronged you. Rest assured — once I ascend the throne, I shall issue an imperial decree posthumously conferring upon you the title of Noble Consort and have you interred in the imperial mausoleum. A hundred years hence, Fufu and I will be buried alongside you, and we shall all be together again." He had truly taken shamelessness to its absolute zenith.
"Qian Sichen, there are so many ways to save my sister. I truly don't want to die……" Xiao Yuge had never imagined, not even in her wildest dreams, that the man she had loved with her very life would treat her this way. The primal instinct to survive stirred a thread of fear within her.
Beside him, Chu Tianqi, fearing that Qian Sichen might soften his resolve, urged anxiously: "Your Highness the Crown Prince, this is no time for indecision. We can wait—but Fu'er cannot."
"Brother, I am your sister too. When you asked me to gouge out my own eyes for my elder sister, you swore you would watch over me for the rest of my life. How can you bring yourself to wound me like this?" Xiao Yuge gazed at this man who had once cherished her with such tender devotion, her heart breaking beyond measure.
Chu Tianqi let out a cold snort, his gaze ice-cold as he said: "If not for Fu'er's sake, a nameless bastard like you — crawled out of god knows where — would never be fit to call me brother. You stole over a decade of Fu'er's life. It's time you paid it back!"
"You keep saying I stole her life — but was that my fault? Why do you insist on placing every single blame on my head?" So it turned out that all the kindness they had ever shown her was nothing more than for Xiao Yufu's sake. She turned her last hopeful gaze toward another man: "Brother Feng, what about you? Do you think the same?" This was her final hope. She prayed silently in her heart.
But Ning Feng's next words plunged her back into the abyss: "Xiao Yuge, Fuér saved my life — what have you ever given me? If I didn't know your blood still had some use to Fuér, I wouldn't have spared you a single glance!"
The words of the three men were like three sharp daggers, plunging deep into Xiao Yuge's heart. In that moment, she tasted the full bitterness of pain—body and soul alike—as she journeyed from the first stirrings of hope, to disappointment, and finally into despair……
"The one who could save you is clearly......" Clearly, it was her!
All three of them had once been the light of her life — yet only now, in this very moment, did she realize that it had all been a lie. It turned out...... her life had never known light at all.
So it turned out… every kindness they had ever shown her was for this day alone—to save the one forever enshrined in their hearts like an untouchable moonlight, her elder sister, Xiao Yufu.
"Your Highness the Crown Prince, something is wrong — our Young Miss has fainted!" At that moment, An Ling, the maidservant at Xiao Yufu's side, came rushing over in a panic to report.
"Your Highness the Crown Prince, we cannot wait any longer! Make your move!" urged Chu Tianqi and Ning Feng in frantic haste.
"Ge'er, forgive me……" Qian Sichen drew out a sharp dagger and sliced deep across her own right wrist. Instantly, blood surged forth like a spring, flowing down her pale little hand into the vessel that had long been prepared.
Xiao Yuge tried to struggle, but her already-crippled hands could not even be raised. She felt all the blood in her body surge into her right hand as her life drained away with terrifying speed. The pain was unbearable, and a bone-deep cold spread through her. She begged them desperately to spare her—yet her voice grew fainter and fainter, and her consciousness dimmer and dimmer......
To die just like this? She was so deeply unwilling to accept it!
If she could have another chance, she would never let those who had wronged her go unpunished!
"Ah!"
Xiao Yuge sat bolt upright, waving her little hands and crying out.
"Miss! Miss!" At that moment, a voice rang out from nearby, filled with both surprise and joy.
"Qing Luo?" Xiao Yuge stared at the girl standing before her, momentarily lost in a daze. Hadn't Qing Luo been beaten to death? How could this be?
She looked down at her hands — no rough, unsightly scars, still slender and fair as ever. She rushed immediately to the mirror, touching her face: her left eye was still there, and that ugly scar was nowhere to be seen. It all felt like a lifetime away.
Heaven had taken pity on her—she had truly been reborn! Reborn to three years ago, when she was fifteen and her coming-of-age ceremony was almost upon her. And at that time, she was still the legitimate daughter of the Xiao family!
"Miss, you've finally awakened!" Qing Luo, eyes red, rushed outside in a burst of shock and joy, crying out: "Master, Madam, First Young Miss—the Young Miss has awakened! The Young Miss has awakened!"
The outside instantly erupted into a commotion. Then Xiao Yufu was the first to rush in, throwing her arms tightly around Xiao Yuge. Before she could even speak, her tears had already fallen: "Yuge, I'm sorry—it's all Sister's fault. Sister failed to protect you. Had I known, I would have stopped you even at the cost of my life. If anything had happened to you, how could I ever face Father and Mother? How I wish it had been me who fell instead……"