Chapter 70

Chapter 70

Returning to the capital…

Bit by bit, she clenched her fists with all her strength.

“With this great victory at the border, Prince Zhenbei will return to court in triumph. The Ministry of Rites should welcome him according to the highest protocol. Once the army’s date of return is settled, begin making preparations,” Wei Heng said.

It was not as though he was unaware of Prince Zhenbei and the others’ ambitions.

What needed guarding against naturally had to be guarded against. But what ought to be granted could not be withheld, either. Otherwise, it would only give people even more grounds to criticize him.

Gu Chengzhang understood this reasoning well and naturally raised no objection.

After discussing the various matters of the Ministry of Rites for a while longer, Gu Chengzhang rose and took his leave.

The room fell quiet once more.

The attendant refilled the teacup. Wei Heng drank half a cup, then looked toward Sheng Zhaoning again.

Only with that glance did he realize her face was frighteningly pale.

“Is Lord Sheng unwell?” Wei Heng frowned, staring at her face as he asked.

Sheng Zhaoning slowly lifted her eyes. The corners were red.

“Your Highness…” She staggered to her feet. She felt as if all the blood and qi in her body were churning violently, her mind buzzing, darkness pulsing before her eyes.

Why? Why was it that merely hearing news of him felt like being dragged into a nightmare that would never end?

She had begun to fear him.

To fear hearing his name. To fear hearing anything about him.

She did not want to see him. Even a single glance would be torture, as if her tendons were being pulled out and her bones flayed clean.

“This official… may I take my leave first?” Sheng Zhaoning forced out the words with difficulty.

Wei Heng walked to her side. Seeing her like this, his eyes filled with worry. “Do you… need me to summon an Imperial Physician?”

He did not know why Sheng Zhaoning had suddenly become like this. He only saw her face drained of color, as though she might collapse at any moment. His hand lifted, then lowered again, his heart growing increasingly anxious.

“No.” Sheng Zhaoning shook her head.

Her vision gradually blurred. She turned and walked toward the door, one step at a time.

Seeing that something was wrong, Wei Heng did not listen to her. He reached out and caught her swaying body, then hurriedly called someone over. “Go to the Imperial Stables Directorate and bring a carriage. Send Lord Sheng back to her residence. Also, send word to the Imperial Medical Institute for Imperial Physician Guo to go to the Sheng Residence and examine her!”

The attendant answered repeatedly and rushed off.

Sheng Zhaoning was sent back to the Sheng Mansion in a daze.

Her consciousness seemed to have sunk completely into that icy lake. Bone-chilling water surged at her from every direction, swallowing her whole. Her entire body trembled uncontrollably. Light and darkness flickered before her eyes, and in a haze, it seemed someone was pressing silver needles into the acupuncture points at her temples.

Sheng Zhaoning fell into a deep unconsciousness.

In the blur of fading awareness, overwhelming darkness pressed down on her.

Countless nightmare-like fragments kept flashing through her mind.

The lightless slaughter inside the Shadow Guard Camp.

The bone-deep cold night before Wujin Hall, and that phrase repeated again and again: “Greetings, Second Miss Chi.”

In the military prison, her leg bones being smashed apart inch by inch.

The cold water of Luochuan Lake flooding into her nose.

And those words…

“Just a dog. What makes you think you’re worthy of my affection?”

Sheng Zhaoning was trapped deep inside a nightmare named “Wei Yi,” unable to struggle free. Her consciousness seemed to plunge into an endless abyss, falling and falling without end.

She trembled, terrified, shuddering in horror.

Until, in the dimness, someone seemed to gently wipe the sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief.

Sheng Zhaoning’s lashes quivered. As her eyes slowly opened, a blurred face appeared before her, bringing a brief instant of clarity.

It was…

“Crown Prince…”

Looking at that face, Sheng Zhaoning called out unconsciously.

Then she sank completely into unconsciousness.

Moonlight spilled across the ground, and the night lay heavy and deep.

When Sheng Zhaoning woke again, the room was utterly dark.

Her entire body had been soaked through with cold sweat. Now she felt damp and clammy all over, deeply uncomfortable. A faint night breeze slipped in through the window, just enough to keep the air around her from growing too stifling.

“Oh? Awake, are you?”

Zhou Wei happened to be coming over with a lamp. The dim yellow candlelight cast a glow that was not too harsh on the eyes.

Sheng Zhaoning had only just woken. Her head throbbed terribly, and her mind had not yet fully clawed its way out of the nightmare. She looked drained, almost listless.

“What time is it?” Sheng Zhaoning asked hoarsely.

Zhou Wei said, “Just reached the hour of Hai.”

He set the lamp by the head of the bed, then turned and poured a cup of water for her.

The water was warm. Sheng Zhaoning drank the whole cup, and only then did her dry, scratchy throat feel a little better.

Zhou Wei sat down in front of her and stared at her without blinking.

Sheng Zhaoning frowned under his gaze. “What are you looking at me for?”

Zhou Wei kept staring at her. “Are you very close with the Crown Prince?”

As if she had not expected him to ask such a thing, Sheng Zhaoning said, baffled, “What do you mean?”

“Today, the Crown Prince personally brought you back to the manor, then hurried off to find an Imperial Physician to examine you. He stayed in your room watching over you the entire day. It was only late at night, when someone from the Eastern Palace came to ask him back, that he had no choice but to leave.”

“And what was even more unexpected…”

Zhou Wei paused there. His face slowly leaned closer as he looked into her eyes and said,

“While you were unconscious, you kept calling out, ‘Your Highness.'”

A teasing glint flickered in his eyes.

“When did you become so familiar with the Crown Prince?”

Faced with that rapid string of questions, Sheng Zhaoning’s eyes slowly went cold.

Her hands, resting at her sides, clenched hard. The edges of her fingernails turned bluish white.

The Crown Prince, he…

Sheng Zhaoning did not know why he would treat her so well for no reason.

She had always been someone utterly unworthy of trust.

Nor was she in any way a good person.

As for that cry of “Your Highness”…

It had not been Wei Heng.

Sheng Zhaoning closed her eyes. The muscles in her face trembled faintly from the force of her restraint.

The one who had given her the deepest nightmares, the one who stirred up all her fear, hatred, and unwillingness, the one she had loved to the extreme and suffered over to the extreme, had only ever been one person from beginning to end.

Wei Yi.

No matter how unwilling she was to admit it, she had no choice but to face the truth.

Sheng Zhaoning could not forget him.

So many memories that had seemed to fade into something shallow could be so easily stirred up again the moment she heard his name.

She had no way to hate him.

What had Wei Yi done wrong?

He simply did not love her.

It was only her own one-sided longing, unanswered, all her hopes shattered in an instant. She was the one who had given up.

Loving someone was too painful a process. As for the person she could not forget, she could only try to carve the love rotting in her heart out bit by bit with a knife.

That was why she was willing to leave Liangzhou.

If there were people to kill, she could kill them for him.

If there were a throne to seize, she could seize it for him too.

It had nothing to do with romance or love. It was only because, back then, the child abandoned in swaddling clothes would never have survived in this world if not for the Wei Clan saving her.

She had been born into the Wei Clan, raised by the Wei Clan, and so she had to be loyal to the Wei Clan.

The blood debt she owed would one day be demanded of her by this world.

Sheng Zhaoning only wished that from this day forward, neither of them would owe the other anything.