Chapter 80: Retire after success, the prince is obsessed with him
The golden bricks of the Hall of Supreme Harmony were freezing cold. Yun Zhi, holding the bright yellow imperial edict, had just touched the copper ring of the hall door with her fingertips when she suddenly heard a burst of hurried footsteps behind her - like a trapped beast on its last legs, with a despair that could destroy the world.
"Zhi'er! Don't go!"
Xiao Jin's voice was hoarse, as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. He stumbled forward, and before Yun Zhi could react, his scorching palm suddenly grasped her wrist. The force was astonishing, as if it would crush her bones. The calloused fingertips scraped against the skin of her wrist, and with a physiological tremor, he betrayed his panic.
Yun Zhi's body stiffened imperceptibly, and then she tried to pull her hand back as if she had touched something dirty. "Your Highness, please respect yourself."
Her voice was silent, and she didn't even lift her eyelids. Her gaze remained fixed on the stone steps outside the hall, where the sun was shining brightly, the hem of Xie Heng's blue shirt swaying gently in the wind. That was her path to safety, her only escape from three years of hell. She could not let the man behind her drag her back again.
"Respect yourself?" Xiao Jin suddenly chuckled, his laughter filled with self-mockery mixed with blood and tears. He leaned in very close, the alcohol in his breath mixed with the salty taste of tears, spraying on Yun Zhi's neck, "I'm telling you to respect yourself now? Why didn't you say it when I forced you to drink the abortion drug? Why didn't you say it when I saw you being pushed to the ground by Lord Wang? Why didn't you say it when I asked you to serve at the banquet in slave clothes and when Shen Qingyue gave you a hard time?"
His fingers tightened, his nails almost digging into Yun Zhi's flesh. His eyes were bloodshot, like a burnt-out charcoal fire, leaving only ash-like regret. "Zhi'er, I know I was wrong. I really know I was wrong! You can ask me to do anything, hit me, scold me, even make me kneel in front of the Yun family's grave for the rest of my life. I'm willing to do it! I only ask you not to leave me, don't leave me here alone..."
He spoke his last words almost pleadingly, his voice trailing off with a suppressed sob. The once aloof Prince Duan now resembled an abandoned child, clinging to his last straw, completely discarding even the last trace of dignity.
The surrounding guards and eunuchs had already fallen to their knees in fear, no one daring to look up. Everyone knew that Prince Duan had gone completely mad—mad at the evil he had caused himself, mad at the wound that Yun Zhi had left behind, which would never heal.
Yun Zhi finally turned her head slowly and looked at Xiao Jin directly for the first time.
His dark brocade robe was stained with dust, his hair disheveled, and tears still stained his face. His eyes, once sharp as an eagle's, were now filled with only murky pain. But Yunzhi looked at that face without a ripple of emotion, as if she were looking at an insignificant stone on the side of the road—she had felt pain, she had hated it, but when the wound had scabbed over and she saw the thing that had caused it, all she felt was numb indifference.
"Your Highness," her voice was gentle, but it was like an icicle, piercing Xiao Jin's heart. "Do you think you regret hurting me? You regret your blindness, mistaking a serpent for your white moonlight. You regret your stupidity, letting the Shen family play you so easily. You regret that now that the Yun family's injustice has been redressed, you can no longer use the name 'daughter of a guilty minister' to mistreat me at will."
She paused, looking at Xiao Jin's suddenly pale face, and continued, "You've never regretted what you did to me—not the child in my belly who didn't even have time to open his eyes, not the lives of the 173 people in the Yun family, not the fact that I've lived worse than a dog for the past three years. You only regret yourself, regretting that you lost the 'obedience' that you could control at will, regretting that you realized you might have really been moved, but pushed someone into a desperate situation."
Every word hit Xiao Jin like ice, hammering at his heart. He opened his mouth to retort, but found his throat blocked, unable to utter a single word. Every word Yun Zhi said pierced his most selfish, the one he dared not admit—he never regretted hurting her, only his own "loss."
"So," Yun Zhi raised her other hand, her fingertips resting on the back of Xiao Jin's hand that was gripping her wrist. She slowly pried his fingers apart, one by one, her movements as calm as if she were doing something perfectly normal. "Your Highness, stop deceiving yourself. Between you and me, everything was dead from the moment you brought me that bowl of abortion medicine. Now that the Shen family has been executed and the Yun family has been cleared, we are cleared."
She gently pushed aside the first finger, and the warmth from the fingertips faded from her wrist.
With the second finger, Xiao Jin's fingertips trembled slightly, but he did not use any more force.
With the third finger, his tears suddenly fell on the back of Yun Zhi's hand. The scorching temperature did not move her at all.
The fourth, the fifth... When the last finger slipped from her wrist, Xiao Jin seemed to have lost all his strength. He staggered back two steps and hit the copper ring of the palace door heavily, making a dull "clang" sound.
Yun Zhi rubbed her wrist, which had been gripped red, and turned away, not glancing at him again. The hem of her plain dress swept across the threshold, as if sweeping away all the pain and humiliation of the past three years. Each step she took was firm and brisk.
The sunlight fell on her, stretching her shadow outwards to the palace gate. Xie Heng stood there, carrying a small bundle containing a few changes of clothes for Yun Zhi. When he saw her come out, he immediately went to meet her and said in a very soft voice, "Is everything taken care of?"
"Yes." Yun Zhi nodded and handed the imperial edict to Xie Heng. A hint of warmth finally appeared in her eyes. "Next, we will go to pick up the Yun family's spirit tablet and return it to the ancestral home for burial."
Xie Heng took the imperial edict and carefully put it into his bundle. He then took out an oil-paper bag from his arms, which contained the sweet-scented osmanthus cake he had just bought. "I know you didn't have breakfast, so this is something to fill your stomach for the journey."
Yun Zhi took the oil-paper package, and as her fingertips touched the warm pastry, a long-lost warmth welled up in her heart. Just as she was about to speak, her gaze suddenly stopped—a strange man in a black robe stood beneath a willow tree not far from the palace gate. He stared at her intently, his eyes filled with intense hostility, and in his hand was a dagger that gleamed coldly.
Xie Heng also noticed something was wrong and immediately protected Yun Zhi behind him. He placed his hand on the dagger at his waist and said in a vigilant voice, "Who are you? What do you want to do?"
The man didn't say anything, just glanced at Yun Zhi, turned around and ran into the alley, quickly disappearing around the corner.
Yun Zhi frowned, a sense of unease rising within her. Who was this person? Was he one of the Shen family's thieves who slipped through the net? Or was he targeting her?
Xie Heng looked at the direction the man disappeared in, his expression darkening. "Looks like we can't leave for now. Let's find a place to stay first and find out who this man is, so we don't leave any trouble behind."
Yun Zhi nodded, her gaze instinctively turning back towards the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Xiao Jin was still standing at the entrance, his dark figure looking particularly lonely in the sunlight, like an abandoned statue. His gaze remained fixed on her, filled with unwavering regret and pain.
But she just gently withdrew her gaze and said to Xie Heng: "Let's go. We don't need to worry about the past anymore."
But she knew in her heart that some things might not be over yet. The appearance of that strange man was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, foreshadowing new waves, quietly brewing.
At the gate of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Xiao Jin stood frozen in place, watching Yun Zhi's figure disappear outside the palace gate, watching her and Xie Heng leave side by side, watching the sunlight overlap their shadows. It felt like a piece of his heart was dug out, and the pain made him almost suffocate.
He slowly squatted down, holding his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking violently. The guards and eunuchs around him still didn't dare to look up, and could only hear his suppressed sobs, which echoed in circles in the empty palace square, like an endless confession.
He finally understood that some mistakes, once made, can never be made up for; some people, once lost, can never be recovered.
The sun was shining brightly outside the palace gate, but his world was forever left in the rainy night when he gave her the abortion drug, in the morning when she knelt at the palace gate to beg him, and in the cold look in his eyes when she pried open his fingers today.
The rest of his life was destined to be spent in endless regret, guarding an empty palace and a past that he had destroyed with his own hands until it turned to dust.
Yun Zhi, carrying the Yun family's hopes and expectations for the future, walked with Xie Heng into the sunlight outside the palace gates. But she didn't know whether true freedom or a new crisis awaited her. The dark figure, like an ominous omen, cast a faint shadow on her future.
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