Chapter 171

Chapter 171

The setting sun was red as blood, and the autumn wind blew bleak and cold. Crimson light struck the black armor of the Imperial Guard, reflecting a ghostly sheen steeped in killing intent.

Sheng Zhaoning stared at the impenetrable wall of men before her. Her hands and feet went rigid with cold, and her soles seemed rooted to the ground, leaving her unable to move an inch.

For a moment, she even lost the ability to think.

Everything in Capital City seemed to belong to another lifetime, a past she had deliberately buried.

Five years had passed. Just when she thought her life would remain peaceful and continue getting better, these people had appeared once again to tell her that everything she had done was futile.

She would never escape that cage.

A figure slowly emerged from the courtyard.

Sheng Zhaoning clenched her fists. As though sensing something, she turned and watched the figure come closer, growing clearer with every step.

Bloodshot eyes gazed at her, heavy with exhaustion. The instant they recognized her, they brimmed with tears, their rims turning dark red. Countless tangled emotions trembled within them: shock, hurt, and wild joy.

Only the familiar darkness and possessiveness were absent.

Wei Yi stared at the woman before him with almost ravenous intensity.

Even his breathing trembled.

She was standing before him again, alive and whole.

She was not a cold, mutilated corpse buried beneath the earth, forever beyond his reach.

His trembling gaze swept over her loosely pinned black hair, held in place by nothing more than a simple wooden hairpin. A few soft strands had fallen over her shoulders. Her plain robes fluttered in the wind, and she stood with her back straight, possessing a gentle warmth he had never seen in her before.

Sheng Zhaoning truly seemed to be living well. She was no longer as thin as she had been in Capital City. Even her pointed chin had grown softer and fuller. Her skin was fair and delicate, glowing with the healthy color that came only from careful nourishment.

But the instant she recognized Wei Yi, every trace of that color drained from her face.

Pain flashed through his eyes, and an agony so intense it nearly suffocated him crushed down upon his heart.

She really was alive.

She had faked her death and left Capital City, while he had spent five years keeping vigil over a cold tombstone.

He had imagined their reunion countless times. He had wondered what he would say and how he would bring her back.

Wei Yi was accustomed to using threats.

But that would only drive Sheng Zhaoning farther away.

He was afraid now.

And so, after seeing with his own eyes that she was truly alive, he did not even dare to be angry. He merely approached her slowly, stopped in front of her, and said in a trembling voice, “Sheng Zhaoning, come home with me.”

His voice was so subdued that it was almost a plea.

His tall shadow stretched across the ground beneath the setting sun and enveloped her.

Standing within that shadow, Sheng Zhaoning felt cold seep through her entire body.

“Get lost,” she said, her eyes bloodred.

The fierce, icy hatred in her eyes nearly made Wei Yi collapse.

He gasped for breath as though he were suffering death by a thousand cuts, every inch of his flesh carved apart until there was nothing left but unbearable agony.

The wind swept across the stinging ache in his eyes, making the tears gather even more thickly.

It did not matter.

She could curse him. She could hate him.

The only things Wei Yi could not accept were her death and her departure.

He raised his eyes to her again. Afraid to press her too hard, he could only stand before her and plead humbly, “Come on. Let’s go back, all right?”

Back to Capital City. Back to his side.

Never leave again.

He truly could not endure the pain of losing her a second time.

It felt as though his heart had been ripped open, leaving behind a gaping void. The freezing wind lashed endlessly at the wound, making it fester until it could never heal again.

Sheng Zhaoning’s vision slowly cleared from the haze.

Through the tears shimmering in her eyes, she looked at the man before her. She saw the dark circles beneath his eyes, the white strands at his temples, and the haggard exhaustion that seeped from his very bones, impossible to conceal.

The blood throughout her body seemed to freeze and turn cold. Sheng Zhaoning swallowed back her tears as her emotions slowly drained the strength from her.

She seemed to be asking Wei Yi, yet it also felt as though she were asking fate, “Why must you keep haunting my world like a ghost that refuses to leave?”

Even after she had “died” and hidden every trace of herself, he had still managed to find her again and again, time after time.

He was like a shadow she could never escape, forever clinging to her and refusing to let go until death.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes red.

He was a favored son of Heaven, born to a noble station and endowed with power enough to command the winds and clouds. He had fought his way from the borderlands to the Dragon Throne, rising above the clouds to look down upon the mortal world.

This was the only apology Wei Yi had ever made in his life.

And he offered it in the humblest, most abject tone.

Everyone gathered outside the courtyard stared at him in shock, then immediately lowered their heads and pretended they had heard nothing at all.

The emperor’s humiliation was not something they dared hear or witness.

Sheng Zhaoning had never imagined that one day she would hear those three words from his lips.

She staggered backward, the thunderous beating of her heart nearly swallowing her whole.

It was the most ordinary apology imaginable, yet Sheng Zhaoning had waited far too many years to hear it.

“Too late.”

She closed her eyes. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, her face pale and wan.

He could have said those words in Liangzhou. He could have said them before she fell in love with Wei Heng.

But he could not say them now.

A cold, bitter smile tugged at Sheng Zhaoning’s lips. She raised her head and looked at him calmly. “There is far too much between us. What makes you think a single apology can erase all our hatred and grievances, wipe away the divide between us, and make it as though nothing ever happened?”

That was a blood debt built upon layer after layer of corpses, a life severed by a single stroke of a sword.

Even though she knew that this realm had originally belonged to Prince Zhenbei, to Wei Yi, her Ah Heng had died such a tragic death. How could she possibly not hate him?

No one could threaten the empire Wei Yi had reclaimed. He could have sat securely upon the throne without a worry.

Yet she had never wronged him in the slightest.

His tyrannical plundering and cruel possessiveness had become indelible memories of all the suffering he had inflicted upon her.

He did owe her this apology.

But not every apology could ultimately be forgiven.

“Get out of Suizhou. Go back to your Capital City, and stop disturbing my life.”

Do not keep haunting her. Do not try to drag her back into that cold prison again.

Wei Yi’s lips suddenly went pale.

Suizhou. The Capital City…

One had slowly nurtured her back to life. The other had held her firmly captive.

How could he fail to see how well Sheng Zhaoning was doing here?

After Wei Heng’s death, hatred had been the only thing sustaining her. She killed every treacherous minister who had taken part in that Palace Coup.

Afterward, even that last breath of strength could no longer sustain her and gradually faded away.

That was, until Zhou Lingsheng appeared.

It had been nothing more than a burial place and a cold, blank gravestone, yet that alone had somehow given her the will to live again.

If she left this place and returned beneath those towering walls, would she still be standing alive before him as she was now?

Wei Yi did not know the answer.

For the first time, he wavered in his relentless obsession.