“No.”
“Ronghua, you can hate me,” he said hoarsely, “but don’t hide things from me, alright?”
Di Ronghua’s face turned cold. Before she could respond, a panicked voice came from outside, “Your Majesty, something’s happening at the palace gates!”
…
The solemn and majestic palace gates were not a place where people should linger.
Yet at this moment, about twenty individuals clad in prisoner-like garb stood nearby. Calling it prisoner attire wasn’t entirely accurate, as it wasn’t the standard issue from the authorities—merely similar in colour and style.
All of them were bound, their pleas for mercy filling the air.
The guards stationed at the gates watched from a distance, unsure of the situation, standing on high alert.
Mu Qingshuang received word and hurried out.
Seeing those long-lost faces from her memory, she froze in place.
At that very moment, the voice she loathed most in her life sounded behind her, “It seems Miss Mu hasn’t forgotten who they are.”
Mu Qingshuang spun around sharply, only to see Di Ronghua standing beside Xiao Hanjin, slowly approaching.
Her eyelid twitched, a wave of overwhelming panic surging in her chest, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No matter, you’ll remember soon enough.”
Di Ronghua smiled faintly, her voice suddenly rising a few notches, “Fenghua, do it.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, the man who should have been in the palace but had mysteriously vanished appeared behind the crowd.
He raised a longbow, nocking five arrows at once, aimed directly at the people in prisoner garb!
Mu Qingshuang’s face turned deathly pale.
The guards instinctively moved to intervene, but the emperor’s icy voice halted them, “Wait.”
The crowd turned to him in confusion, “Your Majesty?”
Was he really going to let someone commit violence at the palace gates just for a woman?
Xiao Hanjin, however, turned his gaze to the woman beside him, “Ronghua, are you still going to tell me this is just you venting because you’re in a bad mood?”
Di Ronghua raised an eyebrow.
She was about to speak when something seemed to occur to her. Her gaze swept over the ashen-faced Mu Qingshuang, and a thin smile curled her red lips, “If you really want to know, it’s not impossible. Kill her, and I’ll tell you exactly what happened all these years.”
The crowd gasped again.
Mu Qingshuang’s pupils shrank, “Di Ronghua!”
Xiao Hanjin’s gaze grew even deeper, “Tell me first—what did she do to you?”
Di Ronghua gave a half-smile, “She didn’t do anything to me. Can’t you just kill her?”
“Di Ronghua, don’t push it too far!” Mu Qingshuang snapped furiously, “Using his concern for you to force him into something like this?”
She knew what Di Ronghua was plotting.
If Di Ronghua revealed the reason first, what Mu Qingshuang had done back then would be enough for this man to kill her with full justification.
But if he acted against her without knowing anything, it would be the ultimate humiliation and revenge for her!
This woman was doing it on purpose…
The air around them fell into an eerie stillness, even Fenghua’s arrows remaining unloosed.
All eyes were fixed on Xiao Hanjin and Di Ronghua.
“Fine, if you won’t, forget it.”
Di Ronghua didn’t get upset. She merely shrugged, flashing a regretful smile at the man, “But don’t ask me what happened again in the future, and don’t say I didn’t give you the chance to know.”
Xiao Hanjin’s gaze darkened, his lips pressing heavily together, “If I kill her, you’ll tell me everything about you without holding back, no lies?”
“Yes,” Di Ronghua nodded, her tone light but firm, “everything—every detail of these past four years. I won’t hide a thing.”
