"Ah Ning, Ah Ning, how are you?" Jing Ning's call pierced Yu Chuxuan's heart. He stumbled to the bedside, wrapped his arms around Jing Ning's neck, and held her in his arms, responding to her incessantly.
"I'm back, I'm back, Aning, how are you?"
Jingning's abdomen was covered in bloodstains, and the gauze wrapped around it would be soaked with a layer of dark red from time to time.
Yu Chuxuan took a hairpin-shaped dagger from her tightly clenched hand, his heart aching with grief.
“I gave you this hairpin so you could keep it in peace of mind, why are you so foolish.”
Jing Ning weakly raised her face and was immediately frightened by the sight of the person in front of her covered in blood. Even then, she still cared about him.
“Why do you look so pale… and there’s so much… blood, Chu Yi, no…” Jing Ning spoke haltingly, tears streaming down her face, until she called out Chu Yi’s name again, then suddenly realized and shook her head.
“You are not Yu Chuyi, you are… Chu… Yu Chuxuan, I know all that.”
She struggled to raise her uncontrollable arm, trembling as she touched Yu Chuxuan's face, forcing a smile and saying that she didn't mind.
"Who are you... and what does it matter? I only like you... that's all. Whether you are good or bad in other people's eyes is irrelevant."
"But when I was most helpless... you accepted me, held me without pushing me away, comforted me... comforted me and said I wasn't afraid. In my heart, you... how could you be a bad person?"
"You didn't impersonate anyone... to make me like... like. He only gave me temporary comfort, his eyes were cold, and the thoughts that sprouted in my mind were all bitter, so I dared not let them take root. The only one I like is you."
"Chu Xuan, Chu Xuan, do you like it when I call you like this...?"
"I like it, I like it, I like whatever Aning calls me," the person in his arms was even colder than him, shivering incessantly, and Yu Chuxuan felt his heart breaking with every word he heard.
He gradually realized one thing: Jing Ning was never stupid; it was he who was stupid.
He is the only culprit for Jingning becoming like this.
Jingning is right. Yu Chuyi will never give Jingning any hope of becoming a princess of another country, and he will never let Jingning fall in love with him.
Jingning was also very smart. Although she was saddened and disappointed that Yu Chuyi could not give her a response, what she cared about more was that little bit of warmth in his words.
Besides that, I have no other delusions.
It was Yu Chuxuan who was truly incomparable to Yu Chuyi. If he had been able to imitate him, he would never have provoked Jing Ning.
If Yu Chuxuan had ignored Jing Ning from the beginning, she wouldn't have dared to try to get close to him again and again.
Now, it is he who has ruined Jingning into this state.
Jingning's tears deepened, overwhelmed with grievance: "Then why...why did you treat me like this? Not only did you abandon me, but you also humiliated me. Do you...do you think I'm that easy to bully?"
"Can I keep it with you, or can you give it to someone else as you please?"
Yu Chuxuan shook his head vigorously, filled with regret. He admitted his mistake, saying, "It's my fault. I was too clever for my own good, pfft..."
Before he could finish speaking, his heart churned again, and a mouthful of blood gushed out, spraying onto the peony-patterned brocade quilt, making the peonies even more vibrant. Then, his whole body went limp and he collapsed onto the bed.
"Chu Xuan," Jing Ning exclaimed in surprise, but she was also at her limit. Even the slightest movement would aggravate her incurable wounds, and blood continued to trickle out.
She bit her lip and kept calling out to Yu Chuxuan: "Chuxuan, wake up, wake up."
"Ah Ning, don't torture yourself, it will hurt," Yu Chuxuan struggled to lift his head, grabbed Jing Ning's hand, and stopped her from torturing herself any further.
"Ah Ning, I'm about to die too. If you don't forgive me now, I'll make sure to apologize to you honestly when I get down here."
Jing Ning was surprised. Even on the verge of death, she refused to close her eyes. She gasped for breath and weakly asked, "What... is wrong with you?"
At this moment, Yu Chuxuan's eyes were no longer extreme or hostile. His gaze was as calm as a still, undisturbed spring, no longer capable of stirring up any waves.
He struggled to sit up beside Jingning, pulling her back into his arms, his hands, soaked with blood, gently pressing on her wound.
Yu Chuxuan smiled humbly and said, "A-Ning has heard too much about Yu Chuyi. Let me tell you a story about Yu Chuxuan. After you hear it, A-Ning, go to sleep. I'll come find you in a little while."
Jing Ning nodded weakly: "Okay!"
Yu Chuxuan coughed twice, cleared his throat, and began to recall: "Because Yu Chuyi and I were both sickly children from birth, Father Emperor found a sorcerer to predict whether we could survive."
As Yu Chuxuan recounted this past event, a tear silently slid down the cheek of Yu Chuyi, who lay on the ground, her eyes glazed over.
Yu Chuxuan recounted the sorcerer's answer: "The sorcerer calculated that we are twins but born weak, which is a warning from heaven that one of us is an unlucky being."
"The old man has done something terrible. Now that we've gotten into this mess, he's naturally scared. He thinks it's retribution. At that time, he insisted on going against the will of heaven and refused to believe that he had done anything wrong. So he asked the sorcerer to help him find a way to break the curse."
"The sorcerer said that although there was something ominous about us, we were still fortunate to be born safely. However, the fortune was being depleted quickly due to the sharing of it, and it couldn't support us as we grew up."
“The sorcerer is talking nonsense,” Jing Ning blinked her tired eyelashes and said indignantly.
She still remembered the night she was sent up the mountain on her wedding night, when she was led into the room of the former emperor of the Jade Kingdom.
The room was filled with strange and unusual things. The late emperor of the Jade Kingdom circled around her, and later forced Jingning to sit in a circle with him.
There were sorcerers chanting incantations nearby, and the former emperor of the Jade Kingdom kept muttering about immortality, saying something about exchanging one's life for another.
Jingning then realized that the former emperor of the Jade Kingdom had used her as a sacrifice for his immortality.
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