Mu Qingshuang jolted, her nails nearly snapping in her palm.
Her steps didn’t falter as she spoke, her voice a mix of grief and self-mockery. “I won’t stay.”
Xiao Hanjin’s face remained expressionless. “While I’m still speaking calmly, you’d best not take another step.”
Mu Qingshuang’s entire body stiffened.
After a long pause, she said, “If I insist on leaving the palace, will you resort to force?”
“I’d rather not make this ugly, but if you’re set on defying me, I don’t mind using some measures.”
Her pupils shrank sharply, and she stopped dead.
Empress Ronghua observed her ashen face and let out a soft laugh. “Tsk tsk, His Majesty’s as ruthless as ever, isn’t he?”
Xiao Hanjin turned to her, a faint, unreadable tug at his lips. “If I don’t go along with you, you’ll leave. Now that I do, you call me ruthless. Ronghua, is there anything I can do to please you?”
The curve of Empress Ronghua’s lips deepened. “Oh, no, just a casual remark. After all, I’ve tasted your ruthlessness firsthand.”
His face froze.
She looped her arm through Fenghua’s, smiling at him. “I’m a bit tired. Arrange a place for us to stay.”
She seemed genuinely offhand about it, her face free of resentment, beaming as she clung to another man.
Xiao Hanjin stared at her for a long time, his gaze dark and desolate, mirroring the barren white crabapple wasteland around them.
“Alright,” he said.
…
At Empress Ronghua’s request, Mu Qingshuang’s palace was assigned right next to hers and Fenghua’s.
“Rongrong.”
Fenghua watched her bustling figure in the room, his eyes tinged with a sigh. “Stop fussing. It’s just a missing finger—it doesn’t affect much.”
Empress Ronghua shot him a glare. “If it doesn’t affect much, why not chop off the rest too?”
Fenghua: “…”
She grabbed some herbs and approached him, taking his hand and gently applying them.
His long, well-defined hand was the epitome of masculine beauty—except for the severed pinky.
Her movements paused, her breath catching sharply.
Even though it wasn’t her first time seeing it, each glimpse still pierced her with uncontrollable heartache.
Fenghua read her expression and sighed. “Don’t be sad. I’ve heard losing a tail costs a nine-tailed fox half its life. I’ve only lost a finger and even turned that misfortune into a blessing by gaining human form. You should be happy.”
A blessing from misfortune?
But a nine-tailed fox was the fox clan’s noblest symbol. Missing a tail, how could he remain their king?
Empress Ronghua’s eyes stung with tears. “I caused this.”
“We’re family—don’t say such distant things.” He hugged her gently, just as he’d nuzzled her hand as a fox, his handsome face lighting up with a pure smile. “Besides, aren’t you avenging me right now?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze steadily, her voice a vow. “Rest assured, I’ll take her life.”
“…Good.”
That rain of arrows years ago—Mu Qingshuang had killed so many innocents.
She’d poisoned Ronghua’s lungs, forcing her to cut open her own womb to save her daughter, entrusting the child to Su Miao after a single glance.
She’d left her comatose for four years, suffering in a liminal torment, neither human nor ghost…
He could overlook his lost tail, but this towering grudge—how could a mere death repay it?
