Ugh—!

A muffled groan, suppressed with extreme horror and pain, suddenly rang out from the rosewood canopy bed in the East Palace's sleeping quarters, a symbol of supreme power.

As if struck by an invisible hammer, Xiao Chengjing sat bolt upright! Cold sweat instantly soaked through his bright yellow silk nightgown, clinging stickily to his skin and bringing waves of bone-chilling cold. He gasped for breath, his chest heaving violently like a fish out of water. His heart pounded wildly and erratically in his chest, each beat accompanied by a tearing pain.

The bedchamber was deathly silent, save for his own heavy, disordered breathing echoing through the empty space. The palace servants on night watch had clearly heard the commotion, but none dared to ask a question or approach. They remained outside, holding their breath and barely breathing.

The warm, fragrant chamber in the dream, the soft, warm touch of her daughter, Shen Yuewei's smiling eyes... all shattered and evaporated instantly, like thin ice being thrown into boiling water, vanishing without a trace. In their place was the cold, stiff little body in her arms, and Shen Yuewei's eyes, instantly filled with hatred and despair!

The image was so clear, so real, as if the cold touch of his daughter's skin still lingered on his fingertips!

Xiao Chengjing abruptly looked down at his hands. Long and slender, with distinct knuckles, calloused from years of holding a pen and practicing martial arts. These hands held life and death, the power to overturn the world. But in the dream just now, these hands held… his own flesh and blood… a dead child!

"You won't survive... Have you forgotten?" Shen Yuewei's icy voice rang in my ears once again.

Have you forgotten?

How could he forget!

Memories of his past life, like cold, venomous snakes, instantly coiled around his heart, biting fiercely. That child… the child Shen Yuewei had carried for ten months, the child he had secretly longed for, was born a stillborn, barely breathing! The imperial physician reported tremblingly, "The fetus was born with congenital deficiencies; it was impossible for it to survive!"

At that moment, immense disappointment overwhelmed him like a cold tide, followed by a deeper, more ruthless scheming ingrained in the blood of the imperial family. A stillborn child, destined to die young and potentially triggering rumors of divine retribution and misfortune, was not only worthless to him, who had just secured his position as crown prince and was being watched by countless eyes, but also a huge stain that had to be erased immediately!

He remembered his expression at the time; it must have been cold and authoritative. He remembered giving the order, his voice steady and without a ripple: "Clean it up thoroughly, and don't let a word of it leak out." He didn't even glance at the small, cold body, as if it were just a piece of junk to be discarded.

He remembered vividly the moment he delivered the devastating news to Shen Yuewei, who was weak and exhausted from childbirth. The light in her eyes vanished instantly. Those eyes, once brimming with stars and love for him, shattered into countless cold, icy fragments. She didn't cry, she didn't make a scene; she simply stared at him with a gaze he had never seen before—a gaze that seemed to see through everything and hate everything. That gaze chilled him to the bone more than any cry or scream. From that moment on, the already fragile bond between them, weakened by the power struggle, was completely severed, plunging them into an abyss.

Later... later came that bowl of poison...

Xiao Chengjing abruptly raised his hand and pressed hard against his throbbing temples. Veins throbbed on his forehead, and cold sweat trickled down his temples. The ecstasy of his dream clashed violently with the icy despair of waking, the cruel choices of his past life juxtaposed with the lingering, deep longing for the baby in his dream—a conflict that threatened to tear him apart!

Was that really a dream? Why did the baby feel so real? Why was the look in Vera's eyes when she looked at him last the exact same as when she learned of her child's death in her past life?

Could it be... that was more than just a dream? Could it be... something that foreshadowed?

An absurd and insane thought, like a vine sprouting in the darkness, quietly coiled around his heart—that child…that baby girl who was briefly and vividly alive in his dreams, bringing him overwhelming joy only to be snatched away in an instant…could it be…could it have actually existed? Could it be…could it be a past life…

"No..." He shook his head violently, trying to shake off the thought that was shaking him to his core. As the crown prince, he knew that fate could not be defied; a stillborn child was a stillborn child, with absolutely no chance of survival. It was just a dream! An absurd, meaningless nightmare born from the recent immense pressure at court!

But the corner of his heart, melted by the warmth of his dreams, now felt empty, filled with a biting cold wind and an indescribable, sharp, dull pain. The pain of loss was so real, so real that it almost suffocated him. He subconsciously raised his hand, his fingertips unconsciously stroking his chin—there, as if, still lingered the faint, milky warmth of his daughter's soft little fist brushing against him in his dreams.

The lingering, subtle sensation made his heart clench again!

Just then, a eunuch's deliberately lowered, slightly nervous voice came from outside: "Your Highness, the Ministry of Justice has sent a secret report...that matter...has been handled as you instructed."

That matter...

Xiao Chengjing's eyes instantly regained their clarity, as if drenched in ice water. All the vulnerability, pain, and confusion caused by the dream were frozen in an instant, suppressed to the deepest part of his heart, leaving only the coldness of a deep pool and the all-powerful majesty. He slowly lowered his hand, the warmth at his fingertips long gone, leaving only the hardness of a crown prince with thin calluses.

He threw back the brocade quilt and stepped barefoot onto the cold, gold-brick floor. The chill spread from the soles of his feet, quickly cooling the last trace of chaotic temperature in his body. He walked to the window; outside the carved wooden window, the deepest darkness before dawn stretched endlessly, swallowing all light.

"Understood." His voice was low and steady, without a trace of emotion, as if the terrifying nightmare had never happened. Only in the depths of his eyes, which were staring into the boundless darkness, did a fleeting pain, so rapid that even he himself was unaware of it, pass by like a shooting star.

Vera...

The intense hatred in her eyes at the end of his dream, and the cold, all-knowing gaze she gave him before drinking the poison in his past life, strangely overlapped in his mind.

He slowly raised his hand, as if trying to touch the soft contours of his daughter's face, long since vanished from his dreams, through the cold air. His fingertips curled slightly in the void, and finally, they fell limply to the ground.

Outside the window, the inky darkness of night swallowed the last glimmer of starlight.

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