Fresh blood slowly slid down the Empress Dowager's snow-white neck.
Drop by drop, it fell onto her already faded phoenix robe, spreading into tiny, shocking blood flowers.
"Kneel down!!!"
Regent Xiao Yuan's hysterical roar, like the howl of a wounded beast, echoed through the empty Golden Palace, filled with madness and violence.
Everything seems to have been pushed to the brink of despair.
On one side was the life of his birth mother.
On the other hand, there is the dignity of the emperor and the face of the entire royal family.
This is an unsolvable deadlock.
Xiao Yuan's eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at Xiao Che. He was waiting, waiting to see this nephew who had destroyed everything for him, humiliatingly bow his noble knees before him! He wanted to savor the expression of pain, struggle, and yet, inevitable submission on the other's face!
This will be the only, final, and sweetest spoils he can seize in this crushing defeat!
However……
He was disappointed.
Xiao Che did not move.
He didn't even twitch his eyebrows.
He stood there quietly, holding a blood-dripping longsword, his posture as upright as a pine tree. His handsome face, stained with blood, held none of the expression Xiao Yuan had expected.
There was no anger, no struggle, no pain, not even... a trace of anxiety.
There was only a bottomless calm.
It was a calm, almost cold, stillness.
He just stared at him coldly, at the man sitting on the dragon throne, looking like a madman, his eyes as if he were looking at a... clown.
This calm, this indifference, this gaze that disregarded his final madness, was more hurtful than any angry rebuke!
It was like an invisible, red-hot branding iron, fiercely searing Xiao Yuan's already distorted self-esteem!
"Why...why aren't you kneeling?!"
Xiao Yuan's pupils constricted sharply! He gripped the Empress Dowager's arm, trembling violently with extreme rage. "Didn't you see?! Your mother! She's dying! You unfilial son! Don't you even care about your mother's life?!"
Xiao Che remained silent.
He simply looked at him quietly with that cold, slightly pitying gaze.
Finally, this silent contempt completely shattered Xiao Yuan's last shred of reason!
He was enraged! Utterly enraged!
"Why?! Why?!"
He began to roar hysterically, his distorted face filled with endless grief and resentment, as if questioning Xiao Che, or questioning this unjust fate!
"Where exactly do I fall short of you?!"
He excitedly stood up from the dragon throne, wildly waving the dagger he had been holding to the Empress Dowager's neck, spitting everywhere.
"Back when the late emperor was still an unknown prince, who was it? Who accompanied him in his campaigns, conquering the south and north, and pacifying the surrounding vassal kings? It was me! Xiao Yuan!"
"Who was it that, in the 'Battle of Xuanwu Gate,' was struck by seven arrows yet fought to the death, carrying him out of a pile of corpses? It was me! Xiao Yuan!"
"Who was it that, at the beginning of his reign, when the court was unstable and the national treasury was empty, guarded the northern frontier for him, keeping the menacing northern barbarians firmly at bay outside Yanmen Pass, allowing him to sit securely on this dragon throne? It was me! Xiao Yuan!"
His voice grew louder and more indignant with each note!
It was as if he was making an accusation, pouring out all the grievances and resentment that had been building up in his heart for more than a decade without reservation!
"This half of the country was won by me, with every sword and spear! He once promised me that, apart from the throne, everything in the world would be shared with me!"
"Later, he had no children for a long time, and he even told me personally that after his death, I would inherit the throne of the Great Liang!"
"I am the Crown Prince! I am the rightful Crown Prince!"
He roared, and two streams of murky tears, a mixture of resentment and pain, flowed from his eyes.
"But what was the result?!"
His tone suddenly shifted, and his crimson eyes, like sharp blades coated with deadly poison, pierced intently at Xiao Che!
"Just because I am not his biological brother! Just because of the so-called 'purity of the imperial bloodline'! He adopted you! Someone from a distant place! Someone from a collateral branch whose bloodline I have never even heard of! Someone who is weak and sickly and could die at any time!"
"For this ridiculous reason! He took everything that should have belonged to me! And gave it to you like a reward for a dog!"
"Why?! Tell me! Why?!"
He roared, his voice hoarse and distorted with extreme excitement.
"You sickly child, from the first day you came to this palace, everything you eat, wear, and use—wasn't it all taken care of by me? If it weren't for me, do you think you could have lived peacefully until today?!"
"I spared your life not because I am merciful! But because I need a puppet! An obedient puppet who allows me to rightfully reclaim what is rightfully mine!"
"Everything I have done! Everything I have done!"
He suddenly waved his hand, pointing the dagger at the magnificent yet devastated Golden Palace, at the dragon throne he was sitting on, and at the boundless land outside the palace!
"They're just taking back what rightfully belongs to me!"
"I, Xiao Yuan, am the one destined by Heaven! I am the true master of this Great Liang!"
"You! You're nothing but a thief! A shameless thief who stole my life!!!"
His monologue echoed in the empty hall.
That was the final, most obsessive roar of a soul uttered at the end of its rope, completely consumed by power and jealousy.
He was immersed in his own logic, which had long been distorted by desire, and he whitewashed all his rebellious and shameful acts as a righteous act of "reclaiming what rightfully belonged to him".
He never believed he was wrong until his death.
Xiao Che listened quietly to his accusations, and the pity in his cold eyes deepened.
Pitiful, and tragic.
He slowly raised the longsword in his hand, its tip pointing towards the man who was immersed in his grief and indignation.
He was ready to end it all.
However, just as he was about to make his move...
A cool, slightly mocking female voice suddenly drifted in from outside the dilapidated palace gate.
"Take back what is rightfully yours?"
"Uncle Wang, do you know that all this is because of those words you used, 'your things'..."
"...What did you sell this time?"
The words fell.
A slender figure dressed in a crimson phoenix robe slowly stepped into this bloody standoff.
It's Lin Wanwan.
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