Yuwen Sheng looked directly into her eyes and said slowly, "It seems you came prepared."
"Well, I came here specifically to ask you if you dare to fight me," she asked.
Yuwen Sheng readily replied, "Our fortunes are intertwined; we share both glory and ruin. What is there to be afraid of?"
"What if we lose? Aren't you worried that the country you worked so hard to seize will be lost?" Zheng Quchi asked him, trying to test him.
Yuwen Sheng's eyes were incredibly sharp and keen. Even though he deliberately concealed his frightening insight in front of Zheng Quchi, a powerful aura still emanated from him when he slightly narrowed his eyes.
"You forgot what I said: my only goal is revenge. I don't care what happens to this country. It's just that you want it to exist, and that's why I want it to continue to exist."
He spoke very frankly, and Zheng Quchi understood him perfectly.
Now that things have come to this, it's not a bad idea to thoroughly explain what happened in the past.
"Alright, we've settled the business. Now it's your turn to fulfill your promise. You said you'd tell me everything if you came back alive. Now you're not only alive, but I've also made it here on my own. So shouldn't you give me a reasonable explanation?"
Yuwen Sheng leaned back on the cushion: "What do you want to know?"
"Was your death planned?" Zheng Quchi asked without thinking.
"Yes." He nodded.
Even though Zheng Quchi thought he was somewhat prepared and would be able to have a calm conversation with him, he still couldn't help but get angry at this moment.
"From the moment you took me away at Huxiao Pass, to the moment you let Gongshu Jiruo go at the last moment, you deliberately transferred all your troops to escort Wang Zebang and the others home with secret intelligence, attracting various forces to hunt you down along the way, and then... you died in a joint hunt by the Julu Army and Gongshu Jiruo's men, just to make your death seem more natural and convincing, right?"
He said softly, "Mm."
Looking at his hateful masked face, Zheng Quchi asked in bewilderment, "Whom were you plotting to kill?"
This time, Yuwen Sheng's expression changed, and he parted his thin lips slightly, uttering a single word: "You."
Zheng Quchi was stunned.
She never expected to receive such an answer.
"Isn't it to escape and return to the palace to seize the throne?" That was the only guess she had ever made.
However, Yuwen Sheng smiled and said, "Do you think that with the pig-like brain of the Prince of Ye and the despicable and vile methods of the Empress of Ye, I would need to go to such lengths to fake my death?"
Zheng Quchi's usually serious mind suddenly went blank for a moment, and he blurted out subconsciously, "No, I think I'm not as good as the two of them, so why are you going to such lengths to scheme against me?"
Although these words belittled her, they were the truth. What Yuwen Sheng considered crude tricks were high-level operations for Zheng Quchi. If it were her, she would have been played to death hundreds of times over in no time.
"It might not be accurate to say you were scheming; I'd rather see what you would do if I died."
What do you mean by that?
"A couple, one dies, one lives. Some choose to die for each other, some choose to abandon everything and marry someone else, some choose to live a lonely life, and some choose to take revenge. I'm curious, what would you do?"
"I will not commit suicide for love, nor will I remarry, nor will I go mad to seek revenge. I will only live well and dedicate the rest of my life to my career." Given her situation, none of these options apply, are worthwhile, or warrant such actions.
Yuwen Sheng should have been satisfied with this answer, but he was not quite satisfied with her indifferent attitude.
"Actually, I've always been by your side. I've seen everything you've done... To be honest, Quchi, I never intended to be entangled with anyone for the rest of my life. At first, I planned to let you go after I destroyed everything and go wherever you wanted."
He removed his mask in front of her, revealing Yuwen Sheng's exquisitely beautiful, porcelain-white face, deep red lips, and dark, unfathomable eyes. He moved closer to her—
"Perhaps I overestimated myself. I was just deceiving myself. From the moment I chose to send him to the Jichun Craftsmen's Guild, I had my own selfish motives and started everything..."
Yuwen Sheng pinched her chin, and his calm and composed gaze was finally torn away, revealing the wolfish ambition and greed beneath.
“I don’t want you to see through me, because I know that once you know what kind of person I am, you will feel disgusted and repulsed, and you will run away. So I would rather give up everything that belongs to Yuwen Sheng, and I can forever remain the Crown Prince of Ye, Yuan Xingzhou…”
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