Chapter 268: Sadness
"Rou'er——"
Helian Cong hugged Su Xianrou's gradually cold body tightly, the emperor's crown tilted at his temples, and his tears fell on her blood-stained clothes, blurring out dark flowers.
In a trance, time seemed to go back to more than 20 years ago, by the Taiye Lake, the gentle and lovely Su Xianrou was in his arms, smiling sweetly and looking at him with beautiful eyes.
He promised her: "Rou'er, wait for me to go to the palace to ask for permission and then I will marry you."
"Who wants to marry you?" As she ran away with a red face, she stuffed the love knot she had woven into his palm.
Unexpectedly, her angry words turned out to be a prophecy.
When they met again, she had become Xiao Beicheng's wife, and standing beside him was her sister Su Qinyao.
He trembled as he took out the faded love knot from his arms. The silk thread had long been worn rough, but it seemed to still retain the warmth of her fingertips.
For more than twenty years, he has been with her, as if this has helped him keep his youthful dreams alive.
But the woman he loved had already sunk into Xiao Beicheng's "love" and was crushed into mud by the truth.
In the end, it was he and Xiao Beicheng who betrayed her life.
The emperor wept silently at this moment. He clutched the knot tightly, as if trying to embed all the regrets of his life into the thread.
If he had given up the imperial power and fled far away with her and their son, what would the situation be like now?
Unfortunately, if you miss it, everything will change and there will be no turning back.
"Mother--"
Xiao Nanyue fell to his knees with a thud, and the Jinghong sword in his hand slipped to the ground, making a sharp sound.
His usually cold and hard face was now shattered into pieces.
With trembling fingertips, he stroked the sandalwood hairpin embedded in his mother's chest. The temperature of the hairpin was even colder than iron.
At this moment, he suddenly hated his almost cruel clarity and his terrible premonition - mother and son are connected by heart, and the inexplicable pain in his heart when his mother pulled out the hairpin just now was an omen.
With his skills, he could have saved his mother's life, but in the end, he did not stop it.
He understood his mother's stubbornness, just like when she wanted to hit her coffin and follow "Xiao Beicheng" to death eight years ago. The net that his father had forged with deep affection was the only support that allowed his mother to survive at that time.
Now that her pillar has collapsed, forcing her to stay will only make her linger in despair for the rest of her life.
He looked at the bloodstains on his mother's lips and suddenly couldn't tell whether, as a son, he was being helpful or being unfilial.
Xiao Nanyue felt as if his heart was being gripped by an invisible hand, causing him to be unable to breathe due to the pain. A tear finally fell and hit the blood-stained sandalwood hairpin.
Xiyan stood silently behind him, watching Xiao Nanyan lying beside his mother's body, his shoulders trembling slightly.
This was the first time in her life that she saw him let down all his guard. His eyes, which were usually filled with calculation and coldness, were now filled with deep sorrow. For a moment, she suddenly felt that he was like a lost child.
The mountain wind blew through the enclosure, blowing up the dead leaves on the ground. Xiyan stared at the grieving father and son in front of her, and suddenly realized that no matter how powerful an emperor or a politician was, when they said goodbye to their loved ones, they would be heartbroken like ordinary people.
However, Su Qinyao, who was on the hunting platform, saw the whole scene that had just happened. She felt extremely happy and couldn't help but smile.
That woman was the source of her jealousy for half her life. Why could she, the eldest daughter of the Su family, not be as good as the illegitimate daughter born to a maid?
Just because of her delicate and charming face, the two best men in Tianqi were crazy about her? She didn't deserve it!
Now, she was deeply hurt by the man she loved and died tragically. Isn't this the ending that Su Qinyao had been looking forward to for half her life?
If she wasn't on the battlefield, she would have held a banquet to celebrate on the spot.
Look, even if she was the most beautiful woman in Yandu, she still couldn't escape the fate of being played around by men. It was truly the law of nature, and she deserved to die.
She glanced at Xiao Beicheng and saw that he seemed to be petrified in place, his sinister pupils fixed on the gradually hypothermic body not far away. For a moment, he wanted to rush over and kick Helian Cong away.
Just now, he said those cold words because he wanted to see her regret, her heartbreak, and her kneeling down to confess her sins and collapse.
However, he never expected that she would end her life with the sandalwood hairpin that he had carved for her.
The words she had just said, "I only love him," rang in his ears, and he suddenly felt an inexplicable suffocation in his throat, as if it was blocked by gravel, unable to go up or down.
"Su Xianrou, you are a liar. How could you love me? It's just guilt!"
Xiao Beicheng growled in his heart, forcing himself to recall the scene of Su Xianrou "betraying" him:
She had an affair with someone before marriage and got pregnant; after marriage, she had two secret meetings with Helian Cong. Such a despicable woman deserves to die!
He had been married to her for fourteen years, but she had never gotten pregnant again. He told her that she had injured her Yuan when she gave birth to Nan Yan, making it difficult for her to conceive. She felt guilty and drank bitter and hard-to-swallow medicine every day to recuperate, hoping to give birth to a boy or girl for him.
Little did she know that he had already put a pill to prevent her from having children in the tonic. He wanted her to live in guilt every day.
Yes, she was a tool he used to deal with Helian Cong. He didn't kill her with his own hands, which was a favor. She committed suicide out of shame, so he couldn't be blamed!
Paralyzing himself in this way, the tightness in his chest slightly dissipated, and his eyes returned to their cold and hard look.
At this moment, Xiao Nanyue, who had been kneeling down in grief, suddenly raised his eyes.
The watery light in his eyes had not yet disappeared, but an icy fire had already ignited in his eyes.
He suddenly pulled out the blood-stained sandalwood hairpin from Su Xianrou's chest, paused his fingertips on the hairpin engraved with "Never Part in This Life", and suddenly raised his hand and threw it at Xiao Beicheng!
Xiao Beicheng was stunned, but when he saw a flash of cold light in front of him, he thought Xiao Nanyan had suddenly attacked with a hidden weapon, so he instinctively swung his sword to block it. With a crisp "ding" sound, the sandalwood hairpin was cut into two pieces.
When the broken hairpin fell to the ground, he could see the familiar carved patterns - it was the token of love that he had carved for Su Xianrou with his own hands. It was still stained with the warm blood from Su Xianrou's chest. Xiao Beicheng's pupils suddenly contracted.
Subconsciously, he picked up the two pieces of blood-soaked sandalwood on the ground with trembling hands. He suddenly remembered that on the day of their wedding, he had personally inserted the hairpin into her hair. She threw herself into his arms with tears in her eyes: "Bei Cheng, thank you for saving me. I will love you well for the rest of my life."
The crack in my heart that had been forcibly suppressed finally spread inch by inch.
Xiao Nanyan knew how to stab someone in the heart. His voice was as cold as ice:
"You made this hairpin with your own hands, so you should also break it with your own hands."
Xi Yan watched all this silently, her fingertips unconsciously clenching the hem of her skirt, her heart filled with sadness:
Xiao Nanyue had indeed planned everything out - he knew that beneath Xiao Beicheng's cruelty, there was an unconscious hesitation, so he used the broken hairpin to drive a thorn into the other's heart that could never be removed.
It's a pity that no matter how shrewd a politician is, he knows how to use a broken hairpin to hurt a man's obsession, but he will never understand the fragile heart of a woman...
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