You must marry her
Inside the Prince's mansion, Xiao Chengyan personally closed the door, the bolt making a dull thud.
Almost simultaneously, Gu Jinghong abruptly shook off his hand that had been holding hers, the force so great that her palm instantly felt empty, leaving only the coldness she had left behind.
She turned away from him, walked to the window, her back view resembling a taut jade sculpture.
But the slight trembling of her shoulders betrayed the turbulent undercurrents beneath the calm surface.
“Ah Hong…”
"Don't call me Ah Hong anymore! We're not that close!" Gu Jinghong interrupted him as soon as he opened his mouth.
Her voice was like shattered jade tempered with ice, carrying a sharp sarcasm, "Your Highness's heart is truly unfathomable. On one hand, you listen to others discussing your upcoming marriage, and on the other hand... and..."
Xiao Chengyan's brow furrowed as he looked at her seemingly hesitant expression. He stepped forward and said, "So what if we met once? Did we spend time together in bed, enjoying each other's company? Jinghong, how could you think of me like that? Things aren't like that..."
"Not what?" She turned abruptly, interrupting him, her eyes already brimming with crimson tears. "Not your intention? Or did you, Your Highness Prince Jin, originally plan to enjoy the bliss of having two wives?"
Tears rolled down her cheeks without warning, as if she were unaware of it, and she didn't even reach out to wipe them away, letting them run down her pale cheeks, leaving wet, cool traces.
Xiao Chengyan was startled by her falling tears and suddenly couldn't say what he had prepared.
It seems that this cold and aloof person has learned to yield over time in his interactions with her.
Gu Jinghong became even angrier because of his silence.
"...Why aren't you saying anything?!"
"...Yes, we need to think things through before we speak. If it weren't for the Emperor's decree, would Gongsun Lie, facing a prince like you, speak so carelessly?! 'Your Highness's intentions'...Your Highness, what are your intentions?"
“Gongsun Jinyao is a noble lady of the Duke’s mansion, so naturally she is not comparable to a maid like me who comes from a ‘brothel’.”
"So Your Highness, what were you thinking when you touched me?! How were you planning to deal with me? As a mistress to be kept in the dark? Or as a troublesome woman to be quietly dealt with after your future princess enters the household?!"
These words are too hurtful and too self-deprecating.
Xiao Chengyan's face instantly darkened, his eyes surging with pain and anger. He stepped forward again, trying to grab her and calm her down.
Gu Jinghong suddenly stepped back, her back hitting the cold window frame. She grabbed something from the small table beside her.
"Don't touch me!"
She slapped Xiao Chengyan's hand away.
At the same time, her hands were trembling violently, whether from anger or the rekindled poison, it was hard to tell.
"Isn't she wonderful? Under Gongsun Lie's protection, she doesn't need to know anything, understand anything, and lives a free and clean life without lifting a finger..."
"What about you? Do you like her?"
She practically screamed, all her reason and plans vanishing in that instant. "You're going to marry her, aren't you?!"
A fleeting moment of reason told her that it didn't have to be this way.
Qianyuan Pavilion is already under her control. Even without Xiao Chengyan, there is a place for her in this vast world. Even if there isn't, she probably won't live for long anyway. Why be so attached to these things?
Even she herself found the frantic yet futile argument she had just witnessed repulsive.
But she couldn't control herself.
As Guoda held her hand and plunged the dagger into his heart, her beautiful eyes stared at their exceptionally delicate hands, so stunned that she even forgot to breathe.
She didn't know if what she was doing was right; she even subconsciously avoided going to the Zhiji Pavilion to find out the mystery of her origins. And now, Xiao Chengyan was also turning to leave… Did he… did he know something?
"What are you saying?" Xiao Chengyan was a little angry, but even more so, he felt heartache.
He was angry that she said he liked Gongsun Jinyao—hadn't he just explained it? She hadn't listened to a word he said, and now she was still arguing back.
However, she rarely acted so unreasonably. She must have been provoked by something today, otherwise she wouldn't have been drinking or saying that under Gongsun Lie's protection, she didn't need to know or understand anything and could live freely and cleanly without lifting a finger.
She despises herself.
What she didn't know was that Xiao Chengyan, who seemed so high and mighty, also despised her.
Seeing the almost frantic despair in her bloodshot eyes, all his words of explanation stuck in his throat.
He couldn't talk about the plan, nor could he express his predicament.
Because his daughter was so intelligent, he knew very well that if she revealed even the slightest detail, she would follow the clues and uncover her background. Princess Nanfeng… Father had never let go of his fear of the Nanfeng royal family, and even if he risked his life, he might not be able to reverse the situation.
"Okay...okay..." She nodded repeatedly, tears streaming down her face. Suddenly, she picked up the strangely shaped mechanical bird she had made from the table and hurled it at him!
"Bang--"
The mechanical bird struck Xiao Chengyan's forehead, then bounced to the side, knocking over a row of antique porcelain vases, scattering shards and making a piercing noise.
Blood suddenly streamed down his forehead.
The guards outside were alerted, and footsteps rushed to the door in an instant.
"Your Highness?!"
"roll!"
Xiao Chengyan didn't turn his head. He let out a low roar, and the area outside the door fell silent instantly.
Looking at the mess on the ground, Gu Jinghong felt as if all her strength had been drained. She slid down the window frame, curled up on the ground, buried her face in her knees, and let out suppressed, broken sobs.
Her cries were filled with grievance and exhaustion.
Xiao Chengyan walked step by step to her, squatted down, and listened to her heartbroken cries. His heart felt like it was being slowly tortured.
After a while, he reached out and pulled Gu Jinghong into his arms.
The unexpected silence only made Xiao Chengyan feel more and more heartbroken.
After a moment, he raised his eyes and gazed intently at her tear-filled face.
He seemed to sigh, "Ah Hong, there are many eligible young ladies in the capital, but only you will be able to enter the Prince Jin's mansion alive. If I don't agree, whoever dares to marry you will die."
After thinking for a moment, he added, "Unless... I die."
Gu Jinghong's tears flowed silently, soaking Xiao Chengyan's clothes.
After a moment, Gu Jinghong slowly raised her head.
The once-powerful Prince Jin, with his sharply defined features, had a streak of blood running down his handsome nose.
She slowly reached out as if to touch the bloodstains on Xiao Chengyan's forehead, but withdrew her hand just before touching him, muttering something unintelligible.
Xiao Chengyan had never seen Gu Jinghong so broken. On the rooftop that day, her emotions were outwardly expressed, but today, the most painful part of her was restrained.
After she withdrew her hand, she hugged her knees tightly with both hands and said softly, "Let me be alone... for a while."
This is the first time since the two confessed their feelings to each other that Gu Jinghong has pushed Xiao Chengyan away and is processing her emotions alone.
Xiao Chengyan naturally understood what she meant, his expression filled with sorrow: "Ah Hong, I... I won't bother you."
Gu Jinghong did not reply, nor did she change her posture in the slightest.
Xiao Chengyan wisely left.
Everyone in the mansion, seeing Xiao Chengyan's "fierce and menacing" appearance, wisely gave way.
He stood at the doorway, exuding a menacing aura: "Changfeng."
"Your subordinate is here."
"Bring that man to me."
Changfeng glanced towards the door, then pondered for a moment: "Yes!"
...
Gu Jinghong never imagined that she would begin to have nightmares.
She saw a little girl kneeling on the cold ground. She was wearing thin, coarse cloth clothes whose original color was indistinguishable, stained with mud and dark bloodstains.
Standing before her was Guo Da, his face blurred but his aura sinister. His eyes held no warmth, only the harsh scrutiny of someone examining goods.
"Useless trash!" The icy rebuke struck like a whip. "You can't even endure this little pain, you can't even learn this simple skill, how will you ever amount to anything? Who do you think you're doing this to?!"
She trembled, her small hands clutching the hem of her clothes tightly, her knuckles white. Tears welled in her eyes, but she bit her lower lip hard, refusing to let them fall. Crying would only bring harsher punishment.
She desperately wanted to escape.
She didn't want to learn those underhanded, despicable methods. She wanted to escape, to escape this dark and hopeless dungeon, to escape the endless training and beatings.
She remembered two people—one was an "uncle" who had brought her here, and the other was vaguely known as a "brother."
"I want to find my uncle, and... and my brother..." A faint, tearful thought grew wildly in her heart.
This thought ultimately overcame the fear.
On a night when the guards were lax, she actually escaped.
She used all the clumsy stealth skills she had learned to evade several patrols and ran desperately toward the direction her uncle had led her in, the direction she remembered him taking her in.
Freedom seems to be right before my eyes.
However, a cold, large hand, like an iron clamp, attacked from behind, and Guo Da easily grabbed her by the neck and pulled her back.
What followed was fragmented, bloodstained, and filled with excruciating pain.
She was dragged back to the stone chamber, and Guo Da became furious. His originally hawk-like eyes seemed to ignite with raging flames, almost burning her to ashes.
"Run away? You ungrateful wretch! You think you can skip your studies just because you ran away?!" The roar made her eardrums ring.
Punches and kicks rained down on her small body, causing her bones to groan under the strain.
She was in so much pain that she curled up in a ball, too weak to even cry out, only murmuring, "Uncle, brother..."
Just as her consciousness was fading, Guo Da seemed to feel that it wasn't enough.
He casually picked up a short hardwood stick that was used to prop the door open.
"It seems I've been too lenient with you all this time! Today I'll make you remember the consequences of betrayal and weakness!"
"Bang!"
A heavy, muffled thud exploded above her head.
In an instant, the world lost its sound and color, leaving only boundless, tearing pain and buzzing.
—Brother, I'm sorry, I might... not be able to hold on anymore, I'm going to... turn bad.
Warm liquid streamed down her forehead, blurring her vision.
"Bang!"
Another one.
Her vision began to waver, and darkness surged in from all around her like a tide.
Before she completely lost consciousness, at the edge of her blurred vision, she saw a similarly small figure rush over and tightly hug the arm of Guo Da who was holding up a short stick.
It was a little boy, his face streaked with tears, his voice shrill and desperate: "Godfather! Please! She's going to die! Please save her! Please! I will, I will do as you say..."
Yes... Xie Yan.
"ah!"
Gu Jinghong was jolted awake from her nightmare, sitting up abruptly. Cold sweat soaked through her undergarments, and her heart pounded wildly in her chest, almost leaping out of her chest.
She instinctively covered her forehead, where the sharp pain from being struck by the hard wood still seemed to linger. In reality, the blood on Xiao Chengyan's forehead and the warm liquid flowing down her head in her memory eerily overlapped at this moment.
She gasped for breath, looking around the magnificent yet cold interior of the palace, the despair and fear from her dream still clinging to her.
It turns out... that feeling of being abandoned, punished, and rejected to the point of near destruction was already deeply ingrained in her bones. Today's unease was merely tearing open this old wound.
The boy who cried for her and pleaded for her in despair.
...It was Xie Yan.
When Xiao Chengyan returned to the main courtyard, it was already late at night.
Zhi Xin, who was waiting in the courtyard, quickly stepped forward and whispered, "Your Highness, Miss Gu... just developed a high fever."
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