Chapter 84 "Xue Yingyue, don't leave me behind..."
The white silk ribbon slowly slipped from her fingertips and hung on the ground like a dead snake.
Xue Yingyue looked down at the white silk ribbon and suddenly felt a little ridiculous. Her planned coup had been defeated by Pei Xuanlin so quickly.
She should have been more prepared and killed Pei Xuanlin; that would have been foolproof. She was too soft-hearted. Pei Xuanlin was now her political enemy, not her lover.
However, it seems that it's not too late to kill him now.
"Your Majesty, please don't do anything foolish!"
"The saint will surely forgive you..."
Several palace maids timidly tried to dissuade her and reached out to help Xue Yingyue down.
Xue Yingyue raised her hand to stop them, then slowly got off the stool and straightened the wrinkles on her dress.
She walked to the dressing table, and under the watchful eyes of everyone, opened the bottom drawer and took out a dagger.
The day has finally come.
"Pei Xuanlin wants to see me now, is that right? Then lead the way."
After speaking indifferently, Xue Yingyue swaggered into her hand, holding the dagger without any attempt to conceal it, and turned to walk towards the palace gate.
When the guards saw the dagger in her hand, they instinctively took a step back. None of them dared to step forward and take the dagger from her hand, as it would be disrespectful to her.
They all knew that the only one who could restrain the Empress was the Emperor, and the Emperor's decree was the final judgment. The Empress was an equal to him, sharing the world, and this would never change even if she were judged by the Emperor.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Xue Yingyue walked step by step toward the Xuanzheng Hall.
The rising sun cast her long shadow, like a lonely ink mark, across the cold ground.
She could feel the cautious gazes cast upon her by the palace servants around her. They must be pitying her for her impending death, but so what? She didn't care. She didn't care what others thought; she only cared about feeling better herself.
The empress's rebellion against the emperor will surely be recorded in history. This alone is enough for future generations to laugh at Pei Xuanlin for being unable to control his harem. In this world where the emperor is the dominant figure and imperial power reigns supreme, she has already done her part.
...
The doors of Xuanzheng Hall slowly opened before her, and a warm breeze rushed out, creating a stark contrast with the cold wind outside.
Xue Yingyue took a deep breath and stepped inside.
As dusk streamed through the high windows, it sliced the empty palace floor into fragments of light and shadow.
Inside the Xuanzheng Hall, the scent of ambergris permeated the air, along with a faint medicinal aroma. The atmosphere was so quiet that one could hear the dust settling on the ground.
Pei Xuanlin leaned back on the dragon throne, his lips pale, still wearing the thin nightgown, with only a cloak draped over his shoulders.
Although the medicine given last night wouldn't kill him, it would definitely make him very ill. In addition, he hadn't fully recovered, and Pei Xuanlin was so weak that even sitting for a long time required a lot of effort. He must be feeling unwell right now, but he still forced himself to sit here and wait for her arrival.
When Pei Xuanlin saw Xue Yingyue walk in holding a dagger, his deep eyes did not show a ripple.
It wasn't just because he was too sick to move, but also because the mutual torment had exhausted his energy and spirit.
When the palace servants saw the Empress enter, they all lowered their heads and, following the Emperor's prior instructions, quickly drew the curtains, lit the candles, and then withdrew.
The heavy palace doors closed slowly, making a dull sound, separating the inside from the outside into two worlds.
Inside the hall, only Xue Yingyue and Pei Xuanlin remained.
The lit candlelight flickered in front of the dragon throne, casting Pei Xuanlin's shadow on the screen behind him, making him appear exceptionally tall, yet also somewhat weak and precarious.
Xue Yingyue looked at him without saying a word.
"Why?"
Pei Xuanlin's weak voice broke the silence first, carrying the authority of a superior, yet sounding somewhat ethereal due to his illness.
"Xue Yingyue, tell me, why do you want to rebel?"
He asked about treason, a heinous crime, but his tone was very calm, as if it were a trivial matter.
Xue Yingyue did not answer. She took a few steps forward, her steps very light, each step feeling as if she were stepping on Pei Xuanlin's heart.
She walked slowly, her gaze fixed on Pei Xuanlin's face. Her expression was so complex that Pei Xuanlin could not discern whether it was pain, sorrow, or hatred.
Xue Yingyue walked to the center of the hall, stopped, drew her dagger, pulled it from its sheath, a cold light flashed, and her eyes held a despair of mutual destruction.
"Pei Xuanlin, let's die together."
Pei Xuanlin raised his eyes and calmly gazed at her.
He coughed violently a few times, his pale face showing weakness. After finally calming down, he slowly asked, "Why? Tell me, why did you do this?"
His voice carried a hint of weariness and hope, a desire for her to give a different answer, the answer he wanted.
Xue Yingyue remained silent, gripping the dagger as she walked step by step toward the dragon throne. With each step, it felt as if she were stepping on her own heart, aching and filled with despair.
She looked at Pei Xuanlin's face, the face she had looked at for more than two years. From the initial affection to the later dependence, and now to the resentment, every emotion was etched in her memory.
She didn't speak until she was right in front of Pei Xuanlin. Her voice was soft, and her tone was wistful as she reminisced about the past.
“What you once told me, Pei Xuanlin.”
Xue Yingyue smiled, a smile both poignant and desperate, like a flower in its final bloom, releasing its last bit of beauty.
"If one day you stop loving me, please let me kill you."
Xue Yingyue paused, her gaze fixed on his eyes, trying to find a ripple in that unfathomable calm.
Unfortunately, she had nothing and was greatly disappointed.
"A gentleman's word is as good as gold. Now, give me your life."
Before she finished speaking, a fierce glint flashed in Xue Yingyue's eyes, and she suddenly raised the dagger in her hand, stabbing it towards Pei Xuanlin's heart. The movement was so fast that only a silver afterimage remained.
Pei Xuanlin frowned. Despite his weakness, he was still a veteran of the battlefield and his skills remained agile. Just as the dagger was about to touch her robe, he flipped his wrist and precisely grabbed Xue Yingyue's wrist, twisting it forcefully!
With a clang, the dagger slipped from his hand and fell to the ground, its crisp sound echoing in the silent hall.
Pei Xuanlin shook off her hand, his eyes as cold as ice, his tone filled with suppressed anger and deep disappointment.
"Xue Yingyue! Wake up!"
The excruciating pain caused Xue Yingyue to stagger back a few steps before collapsing helplessly onto the cold ground.
She didn't look at the murder weapon lying to the side, but simply raised her head and looked at the emperor, who was also the man she loved, with a bleak yet relieved smile on her face.
"I lost, I lost completely."
Xue Yingyue looked up at Pei Xuanlin, her eyes filled with complex emotions. Her expression remained stubborn, and although she said she had lost completely, her face was full of defiance.
Pei Xuanlin leaned against the edge of the imperial desk, the movement just now almost exhausting all the strength he had accumulated. His chest heaved violently, and the urge to cough rose in his throat again.
He suppressed his discomfort, his gaze fixed on the woman on the ground, his voice hoarse: "Tell me... why did you say that? What do you mean... you've lost completely?"
Xue Yingyue refused to answer him, but instead stubbornly said, "Pei Xuanlin, just kill me."
Pei Xuanlin looked at her, the coldness in his eyes gradually melting away, replaced by a touch of regret.
He tried to say something, but his cough worsened due to weakness, and he could only force himself to ask, "Tell me, why did you do this?"
As Xue Yingyue watched him endure the pain, a complex emotion flashed in her eyes—pain, regret, and perhaps a lingering trace of love.
She took a deep breath, her head slowly lowered, and her long, black hair fell like the wings of a dying butterfly.
The shadows instantly swallowed her beautiful face, leaving only a chilling gloom.
When Xue Yingyue spoke again, her voice was filled with endless resentment and venom. Every word was chilling, and her tone was cold and sticky, as if a female demon had crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, wanting to drag Pei Xuanlin to the Yellow Springs with her.
"Pei Xuanlin, people have to pay a price for everything they want to gain. You betrayed me, so you should expect my revenge. You might think, 'I was clearly in the wrong first, and you're already doing me a huge favor by sparing my life. How could I dare to resist you?' But have you considered that my past wasn't my choice? If I could, I would have wanted to meet you innocently, without any entanglement with Xiao Chongheng. Yes, my stubbornness initially made me unwilling to bow my head or tell the truth, but later I realized my mistake and tried to explain to you. But what did you do? You despised me, slandered me, and showed no pity for my plight." Instead, they mocked my past as a prostitute, constantly humiliating me and reopening my painful wounds. They even used my most cherished child as leverage. Therefore, in my eyes, the woman suitable for you is that bitch Xue Xianzhu. You are unworthy of my love. But you provoked me and betrayed me, so I will definitely make you pay the price. There is no such thing as betrayal for me. If anyone dares to betray me, I will skin them alive, even tear them apart, and beat them until they can't get up again. You can say I have vile thoughts, but isn't the point of living to fight for your honor? If you can't even fight for your honor, you might as well be dead.
Pei Xuanlin watched her speak quietly, his gaze deep and intense, staring at her for a long time. This was one of the few times Xue Yingyue showed her true self in front of him.
"Do you know that I poisoned you?"
Xue Yingyue raised her head and looked directly into Pei Xuanlin's eyes, no longer avoiding them.
“I have poisoned your food, a little bit every day. It is colorless and odorless, and no one can detect it. There is no antidote for that poison, and you are doomed to die.”
The hall was deathly silent.
Pei Xuanlin had long suspected that his body had been poisoned and that Xue Yingyue was responsible. However, he did not expect Xue Yingyue to admit it, which made it impossible for him to continue deceiving himself.
He looked at Xue Yingyue in disbelief, the woman he loved so dearly, the woman he would never depose even if she betrayed him and even wanted him dead.
"Why did you poison her?" Pei Xuanlin looked at Xue Yingyue with wounded eyes, full of reluctance. "Because I fell in love with someone else, because I betrayed you, betrayed us?"
This time, Xue Yingyue didn't explain the reason again, but continued talking to herself, her tone carrying a calmness as if everything was over.
“Pei Xuanlin, we both made mistakes in the past, or perhaps we were wrong from the very beginning. I shouldn’t have married you, and you shouldn’t have met me. This was the beginning of our misfortune, and every step we took afterward was wrong. But no matter what mistakes we made, I was the one who made the first mistake. I owe you so much, and I have never properly apologized to you. Pei Xuanlin, I am sorry. I have deceived you so much, and I have broken your heart. I am powerless to fill the gaping hole between us. I can only atone with my death and settle all the grievances between us. I will exchange my death for yours, and we will be even.”
After saying that, Xue Yingyue suddenly opened her eyes wide. Before Pei Xuanlin could react, she quickly reached out and picked up the cold dagger on the ground.
"Xue Yingyue! What are you doing!"
Pei Xuanlin's expression changed drastically, and he shouted hoarsely. He rushed over to stop her, but it was too late. Xue Yingyue did not hesitate at all and slit her own throat.
The sharp dagger gleamed coldly. With all her might and a death wish, she slashed her slender neck.
The next second, warm blood gushed out, splashing onto Pei Xuanlin's robes as he lunged forward, and onto his face, which had instantly lost all color.
Pei Xuanlin let out a nearly desperate wail. He was terrified, as if his soul had been ripped out in an instant. He didn't care about his appearance and scrambled to Xue Yingyue's side.
Xue Yingyue, who was once bright and lively, who would laugh and joke with him, now lay on the ground, the hideous wound on her neck still gushing blood, staining her plain clothes red, and also staining Pei Xuanlin's trembling hands red.
He knelt down and held Xue Yingyue's body tightly in his arms, trying to cover the bleeding wound with his hands to stop the bleeding.
But the blood was so hot, so plentiful, flowing continuously between his fingers, and he couldn't stop it.
Pei Xuanlin raised his head and shouted wildly at the empty palace gate, his voice shrill and terrified, having long lost the composure that an emperor should have.
On her face, Xue Yingyue's blood and Pei Xuanlin's tears mingled together, creating a disheveled and miserable sight.
Pei Xuanlin lowered his head, looking at the person in his arms with fear, desperately covering her bleeding wound, as if afraid she would die.
Xue Yingyue's eyes were still slightly open, but her gaze was already unfocused, and her vision must have been blurred long ago.
Her lips moved as if she wanted to say something.
Pei Xuanlin hurriedly brought his ear close to her lips, only to hear her using her last bit of strength to speak intermittently.
"Now... I... don't owe you anything... we're even..."
As soon as she finished speaking, Xue Yingyue's head lolled to the side, and she completely lost consciousness, her arm hanging limply at her sides.
"Xue Yingyue! Xue Yingyue! Wake up! Open your eyes and look at me!"
Pei Xuanlin shook her violently, his voice filled with unprecedented panic and despair.
"I won't let you die! Do you hear me?! I won't let you die!"
However, he felt the body in his arms getting colder and colder, and the striking red almost burned his eyes.
At this moment, all reason, planning, and strategy vanished into thin air.
Pei Xuanlin's mind went blank, filled only with endless regret and overwhelming fear.
He never imagined that Xue Yingyue, a person so afraid of pain and death, would so resolutely choose death after believing that their relationship was over.
Is it because of love?
Is it because of the love that he ignored, or even that he might have personally pushed away and hurt?
He remembered what she had just said.
"If one day you stop loving me, please let me kill you."
When he said this, he was indeed filled with the intensity and absoluteness of deep affection.
But he never imagined that Xue Yingyue would personally fulfill his promise in such a tragic way.
She wasn't plotting a rebellion; she was committing suicide for love.
She used an extreme method to accuse him of not loving and betraying her, to settle what she felt was a debt, and to prove her unquestionable and inviolable love.
It turns out that love at its extreme can rival death.
Love, like death, has the power to destroy everything. It can make people act without hesitation, and it is both terrifyingly great and heartbreaking.
Pei Xuanlin held Xue Yingyue's gradually cooling body tightly, buried his face in her blood-stained neck, and tears silently streamed down his face.
He lost, defeated by her resolute decision, defeated by his own promise, and defeated by this belated realization that came at the cost of his life.
If she can't be saved...
He thought to himself, "Then I'll go after her right away."
This vast land, this supreme ruler, is nothing but a desolate prison in a world without her.
"Xue Yingyue, don't leave me in this hell without you."
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