Chapter 156 Stillborn

Xiao Yuanxiu tapped the table lightly with his fingertips, pondering for a long time.

The candlelight cast shifting, unpredictable shadows in his eyes.

"Why not use this opportunity to set a trap?" He gave a meaningful smile. "If Lord Lu goes alone, the Imperial Advisor will certainly not meet him. But if we use the excuse that Shu'er is critically ill..."

A glint flashed in Lu Xuan's eyes: "Your Highness is brilliant! But..."

He hesitated, "Although the Imperial Advisor is severely injured, his divination skills remain. If she sees through my disguise..."

Xiao Yuanxiu fiddled with the jade pendant at his waist and sneered, "So this 'critical illness' must be real."

The two exchanged a glance, then looked knowingly at Lu Shu, who was slumped on the ground.

A bolt of lightning struck outside the window, illuminating Lu Shu's pale face.

They gave Lu Shu a slow-acting poison, which would gradually weaken her but not kill her immediately.

The evil magic array used to suppress Lu Yao requires a crucial ingredient—the heart's blood of Lu Yao's closest relatives.

Lu Xuan and his wife were naturally unwilling to risk their lives in exchange.

Thus, this "honor" fell to Lu Shu, who shared the same father and mother as Lu Yao and was related by blood.

As for the empress position promised by Xiao Yuanxiu?

Lu Xuan sneered inwardly.

The Lu family has many illegitimate daughters; they can choose any one of them.

Every one of those girls was eagerly anticipating this opportunity.

As long as the Empress's surname is Lu, what does it matter whether she is Lu Shu or not?

Three days later, dark clouds surged over Broken Soul Ridge.

Lu Xuan stood in the magic array, holding up the blood-stained banner, watching Lu Shu being bound by iron chains in the center of the array.

The last thing Lu Shu saw as the dagger pierced her heart was a crimson shooting star streaking across the sky.

It's like the cinnabar mole at the corner of my sister's eye on the day the bandits robbed the road.

At this moment, a streak of red was winding down from her heart, turning the entire magic circle into a hellish landscape.

The vermilion coffin, smeared with black dog blood, sank slowly into the ground with a dull thud.

Lu Xuan raised the blood banner high and laughed loudly, startling the crows in the forest into flight.

Little did he know, a group of people were heading towards Broken Soul Ridge...

The anchor's story is over.

The live stream went silent for a moment, then erupted with a tsunami of comments.

[That couple is absolutely despicable!]

[Help! The eldest daughter was abandoned, and the youngest daughter was used as a living sacrifice. Aren't the Lu family's daughters human?!]

[My fists are hard! Please, streamer, make these two get their comeuppance! Wait, the streamer said this happened a thousand years ago, uh...]

[What else?? That's it?? Host, please continue!? I want to hear about Lu Xuan and his wife being skinned alive!!!]

Fan Huaiyuan was also listening attentively.

But after listening, he was completely confused.

"Host, is this story related to my friend's situation...?"

"Of course there is a connection."

The candlelight behind Lu Yao cast distorted shadows on the wall.

She said slowly, "The Nine Nether Soul-Locking Array they used uses the blood of their closest and purest relatives as a catalyst. But the more heaven-defying the evil technique, the more severe the backlash."

The screen was instantly flooded with "?", and even the special effects gifts stopped.

This insidious Nine Nether Soul-Locking Array is recorded in the book "The Book of Earthly Fiends Reversing Heaven," which once triggered a series of murders in Carp City.

The book records seven kinds of evil arts that are performed in reverse order, with the Nine Nether Soul Locking Array being the last one.

Lu Yao still remembers that when she turned to the last page of this evil book, the blood-red incantation of the Nine Nether Soul Locking Array gleamed with an eerie light.

"At the time, I just felt that this formation was too vicious..."

She murmured to herself.

Even if one can see through all the causes and effects in the world, one can never truly understand one's own destiny.

Unexpectedly, this evil magic was later used on herself.

What the Seventh Prince didn't tell them was...

The bloodline of the one who sets up the formation will be forever severed.

From the moment Lu Shu's heart stopped beating, the ancestral tablets in the Lu family ancestral hall began to bleed.

Every descendant of Lu Xuan and his wife dies a violent death on their birthday.

The two, now reincarnated as Lu Jianhong and Xie Yutong, are destined to have no descendants.

Their first child is the reincarnation of their eldest daughter, who was suppressed a thousand years ago, and has come to seek revenge and settle this grudge.

As a former guardian deity of the nation, she possessed a powerful spirit and escaped the curse.

Their second child was stillborn.

This is the backlash of the evil formation, and also the punishment of Heaven.

People as ruthless and cruel as them, who harm their own relatives, are not worthy of having children.

As for your friend, she has no blood relation to the Lu family.

Mr. Fan, do you have an answer now regarding the question in the brochure she gave you?

Yes, Lu Kangning is not Lu Shu.

Whether in the past life or this life, Lu Kangning and Lu Shu are not the same person.

Fifteen years ago, when Xie Yutong became pregnant again, the Lu family was overjoyed.

This time, they were finally able to send their mentally challenged and autistic eldest daughter, Lu Yao, to her maternal grandmother's house in the countryside, out of sight, out of mind.

Xie Yutong had a big fight with her mother over this, and the two never reconciled until the old woman passed away.

At every prenatal checkup, the doctor said the fetus was developing well.

Xie Yutong posted carefully taken maternity photos on her WeChat Moments, with the caption: "Looking forward to my little angel."

She spent a lot of money to book a postpartum care center and even specially invited a famous pianist to play prenatal music.

On the day of delivery, Xie Yutong was in pain from dawn until dusk, and the painless delivery seemed to have no effect at all.

After finally giving birth, she weakly reached out her hand: "Let me see the baby..."

The delivery room was eerily quiet.

The medical staff looked at each other in bewilderment.

The attending physician removed his mask: "Mrs. Lu, I'm very sorry... Please accept my condolences."

"No!" Xie Yutong struggled to get up, and the monitoring device emitted a piercing alarm.

When the nurse placed the small, bluish-purple body in her arms, her heart-wrenching cries startled everyone on the floor.

In the corridor, cigarette butts piled up like a small mountain at Lu Jianhong's feet.

The thick smoke made his eyes bloodshot, but it couldn't hide the two glaring words "stillborn" on the doctor's diagnosis report.

In the hospital room, Xie Yutong overheard Lu Jianhong saying on the phone when she woke up: "...It's definitely a genetic problem from her family's side. This is even worse than her first child, at least she's alive..."

She grabbed the water glass from the bedside table and threw it at the glass like a madwoman: "Your Lu family is the problem! Your uncle was a short-lived bastard—"

The argument continued late into the night.

Xie Yutong scrolled through photos of other new mothers' babies on her phone, tears wetting the screen.

Just as they were arguing until they were exhausted, the curtain of the next bed was gently pulled open.

A pale-faced young mother timidly asked, "Sir/Madam...would you be willing to adopt a girl?"

In her arms, a beautifully sculpted baby girl was sucking her fingers.

The baby girl suddenly smiled at Xie Yutong.

Xie Yutong reached out her hand, trembling.