A sudden downpour seemed to threaten to engulf the world.

Under the dark sky, lightning ripped across the horizon, as if enormous cracks had suddenly appeared between heaven and earth, threatening to devour everything.

After a hurried meeting with Yi Shangkun, Yi Shangyun, who felt extremely flustered for some reason, paid no attention to the torrential rain outside and quickened her pace.

He muttered to himself, "Please, please, nothing bad should happen!"

Upon returning to Changning Palace, he found that the guards who used to protect the palace, day and night, had all vanished.

Yi Shangyun felt very strange: "Why is there no one guarding Changning Palace tonight?"

Hesitantly, he pushed open the door and entered the hall. Without thinking too much, he began searching everywhere for Dingxiang.

"I'm back."

"Lilac, where are you? I'm back."

"clove?"

"clove?"

However, after searching the entire palace, they still could not find Dingxiang.

So he wondered to himself, "If Dingxiang isn't here, could she be with the Second Prince?"

With this thought in mind, he dared not linger any longer and hurriedly went out again, rushing towards the direction where Tuoba Hong lived.

But as soon as she pushed open the door and entered the courtyard where Tuoba Hong was, Yi Shangyun was stunned by what she saw.

By the dim light of the palace courtyard, one could see that Tuoba Hong had somehow gotten up and was now lying face down on the cold bluestone path in front of him, standing alone in the pouring rain, seemingly motionless.

Suddenly, Yi Shangyun's eyes widened, and the oil-paper umbrella she was holding fell to the ground.

As soon as she landed, before she could even touch the ground, a gust of wind swept her away along with the rain, and a very bad premonition rose in her heart.

Without giving her time to think, she took off running towards him in the rain.

With a thud, he knelt down beside him and struggled to lift Tuoba Hong's already soaked and cold body a little.

At that moment, she could hardly believe her eyes.

The person in front of me was perfectly fine when I left.

At this moment, Tuoba Hong's eyes were closed, his face was expressionless, and his consciousness seemed to be absent.

He quickly reached out to check and found that her breath was so weak that she was almost on her deathbed, as if her breath would disappear completely in the next second.

In this situation, Yi Shangyun was filled with doubt and confusion. What exactly happened here after he left?

So she tried gently shaking his body and calling his name in his ear.

"Second Prince"

"Second Prince"

However, there was still no sign of him responding to her. She tried to open her rain-washed eyes wide and looked around.

Then he made another sound that seemed to be talking to himself.

Where is the lilac person?

Where did she go?

Who is it?

"Who did this?"

In the noisy rainy night, the raindrops were too big, relentlessly washing over their faces, hitting their skin and causing a sharp pain.

Finally, she used all her strength to try to help him back into the palace to escape the cold, merciless rain of the night.

Unfortunately, she was too weak and tried for a long time without success. She was both anxious and scared.

"Second Prince"

"Wake up, wake up!"

What's wrong with you?

"clove"

"Please help me!"

"Help"

"Help! Someone come quick!"

She called out for a long time, but no one in the vast palace responded to her in the slightest.

She then remembered that when she returned, from the moment she entered the palace until now, Changning Palace seemed to be shrouded in endless darkness and deathly silence.

Apart from the two of them, there was no one else in the entire palace.

Just when she was all alone and had no other choice but to seek help, her eyes suddenly caught sight of a row of fences next to the flower bushes in the corner of the yard.

She quickly got up and went over to start taking it apart.

However, due to the poor lighting at night, as soon as her delicate fingers touched the ground and exerted force, a bamboo thorn was inserted and pierced her fingertip.

Yi Shangyun instinctively shuddered and let out a muffled groan: "Hiss..."

Without a second thought, she reached out and pulled down another section of the fence, then went back and laboriously dragged Tuoba Hong's body back up.

Without the slightest hesitation, she tore off a section of the skirt from her still-unchanged palace maid's dress, quickly tied it into a rope, and secured it to the fence. Only then did she slowly drag and pull Tuoba Hong back to the bedchamber.

Illuminated by the dim candlelight inside the hall.

Yi Shangyun changed him into a dry robe and covered him with a brocade quilt.

Only then did I feel a little more at ease sitting down beside him, and I picked up a piece of cloth to wipe his hair, which had just been wet by the rain.

Suddenly, he noticed that Tuoba Hong's face was flushed, so he reached out and touched his forehead.

Startled once again by the scalding heat she touched, she exclaimed, "Oh no, why is it so hot?"

So she quickly fetched a basin of cold water, soaked the cloth in her hand, wrung it out, and carefully applied it to Tuoba Hong's forehead.

This cycle repeated itself countless times.

Finally, Tuoba Hong's temperature dropped.

"Thank goodness, the fever has finally gone down."

Yi Shangyun finally breathed a long sigh of relief and carefully took his pulse again.

However, in a short while, Yi Shangyun seemed to have some doubts in his heart. He muttered to himself, "Could it be because of... musk! Musk can indeed open the mind, invigorate blood circulation, reduce swelling and relieve pain, but there are many people in the world who are allergic to musk. Could it be... that the Second Prince is allergic to musk?"

Upon realizing this, she examined the area again carefully and became even more certain, yet also extremely astonished: "It must be so! Judging from Tuoba Hong's current condition, his kidneys, liver, and other organs have already suffered severe damage."

Just as he was pondering this, Tuoba Hong slowly opened his eyes and weakly called out, "Wu Le!"

Clearly, Tuoba Hong thought he had arrived in another world.

Seeing the familiar face before me is the person I most wanted to see.

In a daze, he muttered to himself in disbelief, "Am I already dead? I've heard that only when a person dies can they see the person they most want to see."

At this moment, Yi Shangyun realized that Tuoba Hong had woken up, and she cried with joy, "Second Prince, you're finally awake! Do you know how scared I was of you in the courtyard just now?"

Seeing that Yi Shangyun was so worried about him that she shed tears, Tuoba Hong felt both happy and heartbroken.

It was only then that he realized he was still alive, so he struggled to sit up and hurriedly comforted the tearful woman in front of him.

"Don't cry, I'm perfectly fine! I thought I'd never see you again in this lifetime."

Yi Shangyun wiped away her tears. Just now she was thinking that Zhang Zhiyuan's medical skills were superb, and he would not prescribe medicine arbitrarily without asking the patient about the contraindications.

So she anxiously asked him, "Did you tell Zhang Zhiyuan that you are allergic to musk? Or... did Zhang Zhiyuan know you were allergic to musk and deliberately put it in your prescription...?"

Tuoba Hong quickly interrupted her thoughts, cutting her off and explaining, "No... it wasn't Lord Zhang, it was myself."

"What did you say? Yourself?" Yi Shangyun looked at his face in astonishment upon hearing this.

Seeing the surprised look in her eyes, Tuoba Hong slowly said, "I'm sorry, Wule. I know that all of this is because of me, which is why you are trapped inside this high wall by Emperor Jing."

Yi Shangyun then said, "But if it weren't for me, you wouldn't be trapped here and suffer such humiliation, no matter how vast the world is."

Tuoba Hong's lips curled up slightly, revealing a faint smile, but he could not hide the bitterness in his heart. He said, "No matter where I go in my life, it is always like a cage for me."

As she spoke, she suddenly frowned, looked intently into Yi Shangyun's eyes, and said, "But you...you are different from me. I can't drag you down anymore. You...you really shouldn't have come back."

Yi Shangyun said firmly, "We'll go together if we have to, and we'll be trapped together if we have to. I said I would definitely take you away from here, and I will never break my promise."

Hearing that she had never abandoned him, Tuoba Hong was overjoyed.

But in the end, he quietly whispered, "It's too late."

Yi Shangyun didn't hear him clearly, so she pressed him for an answer: "What did you say?"

At this moment, Tuoba Hong appeared increasingly weak, and his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Yi Shangyun noticed and quickly asked, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

But all that could be heard was Tuoba Hong lowering his head and uttering a very low, intermittent sound.

“Ule…”

"In the next life..."

"If only we had met sooner..."

"OK?"

I saw that Tuoba Hong's consciousness was gradually fading away once again.

Yi Shangyun's heart was once again in suspense, and she said anxiously, "No, there's nothing here. I have to go find the imperial physician right away."

Upon realizing this, she quickly got up and ran towards the door.

But then he saw that she hadn't left the house yet, so he suddenly started to back away.

It turned out to be an old man approaching from the opposite direction, who questioned Yi Shangyun: "Trying to sneak away again?"

Yi Shangyun first shook her head, then grabbed the eunuch's sleeve tightly and pleaded, "Save him! Please let the imperial physician save him!"

The eunuch glanced disdainfully in Tuoba Hong's direction and said coldly, "You want the imperial physicians of the mighty Western Qin to save a wretched slave of a conquered nation? Bah..."

Upon hearing this, Yi Shangyun, who was extremely anxious, instantly had tears blurring her vision.

But all she could do was plead, "No, it's not like that. He's a good man. He was once a renowned doctor who saved countless lives. I beg you to save him!"

Unexpectedly, the eunuch suddenly said, "He... knew the medicine was dangerous, yet he willingly took it. Now he's clearly beyond saving. I advise you to save your energy and worry about the one who's still alive!"

Yi Shangyun looked at his profile with a puzzled expression and asked, "You mean... Dingxiang? What did you do to her?"

The eunuch raised his voice and sternly rebuked, "You ignorant fool, how dare you act so cleverly in Changning Palace, deceiving the emperor! You must be tired of living!"

Yi Shangyun asked anxiously, "What exactly did you do to Dingxiang?"

The old man said sarcastically, "She's quite a tough nut to crack. However, whether that girl can survive tonight depends on whether you're still determined to leave."

In the end, he had dragged everyone down with him. Yi Shangyun pleaded, "Let me see Dingxiang one last time!"

To everyone's surprise, the old man said, "Do you even know how to ask for favors?"

Yi Shangyun gripped her skirt tightly, struggling internally for a long time. Just as her knees were about to fall to the ground, Tuoba Hong on the couch behind her suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

This time, he finally used the last bit of strength he had left to raise his voice and stop her: "You can't kneel..."

After saying that, he lay down on the couch and breathed his last.

"Second Prince..."

Then, a heart-wrenching sound echoed throughout the entire palace…