"Will you commit suicide, or shall I kill you with my own hands?"
Qin Luan stared at Zhou Gu, his words toward someone he was obsessively fond of were cold, silent, and ruthless, "No one will come to save you, and you cannot escape the palm of my hand. If you feel angry or resentful, blame your own misfortune! Who asked you to encounter me?"
Zhou Gu was filled with hatred to the point of death, "I am indeed unlucky."
He looked at Qin Luan with icy disdain, "Even in death, I would not be with you. Even if you kill me, someone will take my remains back and turn you to dust."
He regretted not realizing sooner how mad this woman was, actually talking crazy about wanting to die with him. Living for so long, he didn’t know that there were such women in the world, rebelling against Nanchu just to drag him to die with her, truly mad to the core, mad without sense.
He scoffed coldly, "Even on Yellow Spring Road, don’t even think of walking beside me."
"I can’t control that, all I care about is dying with you, and that’s enough," Qin Luan said, waving her hand dismissively at those behind her, "Kill him."
Ziye stepped forward in an instant, sword in hand to protect Zhou Gu, and declared with cutting clarity, "Qin Luan, if you dare, if you dare kill our young master, not only you will be turned to dust, but all of your Qin Family members, without exception, will have a wretched end. You will drag down your elder brother, your mother, your uncle, and all of your Qin family and relatives. Because of you, your entire clan will be punished, do you still not realize?"
"Having made up my mind, I don’t plan to concern myself with anything else," Qin Luan said expressionlessly, facing Ziye. She commanded those behind her, "Kill, kill them all."
The hidden guards of the Imperial Court of Dawei, under her full command, drew their swords and advanced instantly.
From afar, Su Rong rode on horseback, bow and arrow in hand, aimed at Qin Luan’s back. In a flash, her arrow veered an inch off target and, just like an arrow released from the bowstring, hit Qin Luan’s back right shoulder with precision.
Qin Luan cried out in pain, falling to the ground with an arrow wound.
At the same time, Fen Ling led her hidden guards in a swarming attack, clashing with the hidden guards of Dawei and rescuing the besieged Zhou Gu.
Zhou Gu, seeing Fen Ling, was overwhelmed with joy, and then when he looked at Su Rong, his eyes reddened for a moment.
Su Rong put away her bow and arrows, dismounted her horse, and without a glance at the fallen Qin Luan, took over Zhou Gu from Ziye, reaching out to support him, "Are you alright?"
"Not good, I almost got killed by that madwoman," Zhou Gu complained with a sense of grievance, "After all these years, who knew she harbored such malicious intentions, concealing them so well that no one noticed a hint of it. What kind of official is she? She’s better off acting in a grand theater."
Su Rong was also grateful that she had arrived in time; she couldn’t afford to lose Zhou Gu, otherwise, she might go mad too and, perhaps overwhelmed with grief, follow him. She embraced him, "Thankfully, I made it."
"Yes, thankfully you did," Zhou Gu, wounded all over, still hugged Su Rong tightly, his chin resting in the crook of her neck, "Even when I was pursued by the Nangong Family with my father-in-law all those years ago, I was never this disheveled. I almost thought I was certain to die today."
He thought he had brought enough men, but who could have known that this woman, Qin Luan, had long colluded with Dawei, even convincing Yuan Zhao to give her so many imperial secret guards, just to kill him. Not daring to let anything go wrong with the provisions, he had half his men escort them, only to be pursued by her for days, chased into this desolate mountain and valley.
He was almost scared that if he really got killed by her, his bones would be buried here, or worse, taken by the imperial secret guards of Dawei to be used as a threat against Su Rong, as leverage against Nanchu.
Su Rong extended her hand to pat his back, feeling the genuine warmth of the body she held, which gradually steadied her increasingly fearful heart.
All around them swords clashed, and the scent of blood permeated the entire valley.
After a while, Zhou Gu’s emotions slowly stabilized, and only then did Su Rong let go of him. Supporting him with one hand and drawing her sword with the other, she threw the blade to Qin Luan, who had managed to rise to a seated position, her eyes chillingly cold, "Commit suicide."
Qin Luan silently watched Su Rong and Zhou Gu, her eyes filled with a bleak desolation.
Having nothing to say to Qin Luan, Su Rong looked at her, "Do you want me to do it myself?"
Qin Luan slowly picked up the sword Su Rong threw to her and held it in her hand, then spoke, "You could have killed me with a single arrow just now. Why didn’t you?"
Su Rong’s archery skills, though not perfect, were precise enough to take a life, a fact Qin Luan had witnessed during previous hunts. In her mind, Su Rong was without flaw; her archery was on par with any soldier in the army.
Su Rong looked at her coldly, "I’m giving you the chance to take your own life."
Qin Luan scoffed, "Should I thank you even for my own death?"
Su Rong sneered, "What do you think? Do you even know what you’ve been seeking your entire life? Was your path as an official in Nanchu not smooth enough? What brought you to seek death so desperately?"
"I know all I want is for Zhou Gu to die with me," Qin Luan said loudly, "Five years on the path of office, the whole world knows that the King and King’s husband share a love as deep as the ocean and control the fate of the nation together. What can I achieve spending my life as a subject? I will never be content."
"And what of it if you’re not content? Stop dreaming. You should understand by now that at any time, this has always been your delusion, something impossible," Su Rong said bluntly, "If you were aspiring for the title of the Empress of the Dawei Emperor, I could still respect you, admire your unbridled ambition and ruthless tactics. But look at you, what are you striving for? And what have you done? It’s absurd."
Qin Luan gripped the sword tightly, "I once thought that the highest position my ambition could reach was that of the Dawei Empress. But later..."
She paused dramatically, "Being the Empress is nothing great, a Dawei Emperor with a mere title and lacking true power. What glory is there in being his Empress? It’s better to kill Zhou Gu and then die with him. In this life, then, my desires would be fulfilled."
"But in the end, you are the only one who dies," Su Rong said emotionlessly. "And you will drag down everyone in the Qin Family with you, with your brother Qin Ruo bearing the brunt. Is he not innocent? Has he been unkind to you, his own sister? Do you wish to ruin his career and his life?"
There was no remorse in Qin Luan’s eyes, "If it weren’t for my insistence, you wouldn’t even have thought of asking the Crown Prince of Daliang for help, nor would he have been brought to Nanchu."
She slowly raised the sword, her words deliberate, "He deserves a sister like me."
After speaking, without any further words, she committed suicide by thrusting the sword through herself. Her strength was sufficient, her hand gripping the sword hilt tightly, and as her blood flowed down the Treasure Sword, her body collapsed limply to the ground.
Until death, she did not express regret or speak of the next life; she simply had no desire to live anymore.
Originally, her plan was to kill Zhou Gu and then die with him, but now, alone, she had taken her own life in front of him. All her familial affection, her obligations to her clan, her buried bitterness and ambition, ended with the spilling of her blood, which now stained the ground a vivid red.
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