Chapter 96

Proofreader: Mim

The fragile warmth that once lingered, elusive and untethered, was utterly shattered tonight.

What remained was only the scattered ashes of a broken affection.

Li Zhi stared straight into Xie Lanxu’s eyes, refusing to yield even an inch. The stubbornness and rebellion buried deep within her heart surged forth, taking control of her body. Everything else had been a façade—she had never been truly submissive, not even for a moment.

Xie Lanxu, caught off guard by the defiance in her gaze, froze for a brief instant.

Li Zhi seized the opportunity to break free from his grip.

She recoiled, unwilling to maintain even the slightest physical contact with him. To her, every touch from a heartless man like him was chilling, even nauseating.

“Yes, I went there,” she said, standing up. “As the last princess of the fallen dynasty, the former Crown Princess of this dynasty, she was buried unmarked beneath a solitary willow tree, without a name or a gravestone. When Consort Lu suddenly ordered me to the Eastern Palace to find a cat, I didn’t have time to consult you. My intention was to retrieve her remains and discuss with you how to properly rebury her afterward—”

Xie Lanxu sneered. “So I should be thanking you, then?”

At this point, any attempts to soften the conversation would be a waste of time.

Li Zhi no longer wished to waste another moment on Xie Lanxu.

“Tell me the truth—how did your mother really die?” she asked bluntly.

“She took her own life,” Xie Lanxu replied.

“Her remains were blackened—clearly, she was poisoned to death.”

“She poisoned herself.”

“Her shinbone was missing.”

“Who knows? Maybe the ants carried it away.”

Li Zhi no longer cared whether her lies could deceive Xie Lanxu, nor did Xie Lanxu care if his weak excuses could fool her.

He seemed to deliberately throw out absurd explanations, provoking her anger as if it were a twisted form of retribution.

Fury swelled in Li Zhi’s chest, so intense she could barely speak. She felt as though she might explode from the inside out at any moment. Her breath came in short, rapid gasps as she glared at Xie Lanxu with eyes full of rage.

“You’re so desperate to know?” Xie Lanxu said, locking eyes with her. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

Even though she had imagined countless possibilities, Li Zhi still wasn’t prepared for Xie Lanxu’s casual, indifferent tone when he finally said,

“My mother—I killed her.”

The utter indifference on Xie Lanxu’s face sent a chill down Li Zhi’s spine.

The man standing before her seemed like a stranger.

Had she ever truly understood Xie Lanxu?

Had she ever come close to touching this man’s heart?

“…Why?”

The pale moonlight streamed in through the lattice windows, casting a silver glow between them. It felt like a galaxy dividing the two of them, so close yet infinitely far apart.

“Because she was going to kill me,” Xie Lanxu said.

There wasn’t a hint of guilt in his voice.

To him, it all seemed perfectly justified.

“Why would she want to kill you?”

Her question was like a sharp axe, heavy and unrelenting, aimed directly at Xie Lanxu.

For a moment, Xie Lanxu was silent.

That axe didn’t seem to injure him but rather left him dazed, as if it had struck something buried deep within him. For a fleeting moment, his face showed a glimmer of bewilderment, a trace of something long forgotten.

“She didn’t want me to suffer,” Xie Lanxu finally said.

That night, it had been a moonlit evening much like this one.

His mother, the Crown Princess, had fewer and fewer moments of clarity as time passed. Princess Cui, her alternate personality, appeared more frequently. His mother’s injured leg grew worse by the day—she could hardly set foot on the ground anymore. On rainy days, the pain was so unbearable that she would roll on the floor, banging her head in agony. And in those moments, Princess Cui would become even more violent.

Xie Lanxu had learned to distinguish between the two as quickly as possible, deciding whether to flee or stay depending on which personality had surfaced.

That night, it had been his mother—the Crown Princess—who appeared.

As the Crown Princess, she remembered she had married, remembered she had a son while Princess Cui did not.

When Princess Cui beat him black and blue, the Crown Princess would appear with red-rimmed eyes to apply medicine to his bruises.

The Crown Princess thought the injuries came from exorcism rituals or secret abuse by the palace servants.

Xie Lanxu had never told her the truth about Princess Cui.

Even if he had, it would have only added to her sorrow.

Her grief was already overwhelming; adding even a sliver more would have broken her completely.

“My mother was gravely ill by the time I was eleven. When she was lucid, she would struggle out of bed to wash my clothes, cook meals, and teach me to read and write. My father called palace doctors to treat her several times, but she always refused their help.”

The moonlight grew colder as Xie Lanxu spoke, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, as though recounting someone else’s story.

Xie Lanxu remained silent for a long while before finally speaking.

“She probably stopped wanting to live a long time ago.”

The Crown Princess knew her days were numbered, and at that time, he was not yet even eleven years old.

To the Crown Princess, she was the only person who could and would take care of him. But she also knew that she herself was dying, and soon.

“She likely didn’t want to leave me behind, all alone to suffer. So she decided to take me with her.”

That night, the Crown Princess handed him a cup of calming tea and insisted he drink it all.

He knew what was in the tea, but he obediently complied.

After the Crown Princess drank her own cup of calming tea, Xie Lanxu left her room and spat out the tea he had kept in his mouth beneath a tree outside.

It was an ancient, nameless tree, one that had withstood countless storms and remained unbowed.

Before the sun rose, he returned to her room to find that her body still held a faint trace of warmth.

He climbed into bed beside her, and for the first time in his memory, he embraced his mother.

“So warm,” he thought.

Even after her body had turned cold, he left her in the bed, treating her as if she were still alive. He brought meals and necessities to her room every day, only to take the empty plates away the next morning.

Pretending she was still there.

That once unyielding tree began to wither not long afterward, as if her death had drained the life from it as well.

Xie Lanxu told no one about the Crown Princess’s death.

The two servants who came ashore daily to deliver water and food never questioned him. He didn’t speak, and they didn’t ask.

“I simply freed her,” Xie Lanxu said, his expression calm. “I did nothing wrong.”

In this vast, complex world, who truly determined right from wrong?

Who had the right to judge?

To Xie Lanxu, it had been nothing more than a choice—a choice that he believed was best for everyone involved.

As for that hollow, aching feeling he’d felt while resting in his mother’s cold embrace… it no longer mattered to him.

“I’ve answered your question,” he said, his tone turning sharp. “Now it’s your turn. When you dug up Crown Princess’s grave, what were you looking for?”

Li Zhi instinctively averted her gaze.

“Is this what you were searching for?”

From somewhere unseen, Xie Lanxu produced a small, square bundle of folded oiled paper.

He unfolded it.

On the oiled paper was a treasure map, marked with intricate lines and complex landmarks. Li Zhi’s eyes widened in shock, unable to look away.

“This,” Xie Lanxu said, “is a rubbing of the treasure map carved into Crown Princess’s shinbone. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it?” he asked again.

The answer was already clear.

“When the emperor of the previous dynasty realized his empire was doomed and his death was imminent, he had to ensure the treasure map was preserved for the Cui Dynasty descendants to one day rise again.”

“He chose the Third Princess, who had been childhood friends with Xie Songzhao. He knew that Xie Songzhao would surely plead for her life.”

“With Xie Shencong’s suspicious nature, even if the Third Princess’s life was spared, she would still be thoroughly searched. It wasn’t uncommon for secret messages to be hidden within flesh. But to be even more secure, the previous emperor came up with an even more covert method.”

“That method was to inscribe the map directly onto human bone.”

How the treasure map had been etched into the Crown Princess’s shinbone, whether she had been conscious or drugged, whether her shinbone had been removed entirely or merely exposed for engraving—all of these questions had been buried with her death.

The details of how it happened no longer mattered.

What Xie Lanxu remembered was the agony-filled screams of his mother on rainy nights.

After the Crown Princess passed, her body began to decay, and the markings on the shinbone gradually became visible.

He had taken the shinbone, the source of his mother’s lifelong suffering, and wrapped the rest of her remains in sheets before burying her beneath a willow tree by the lake.

That willow tree often reminded him of his mother.

At times, it seemed fragile and delicate; at others, it appeared strong and unyielding.

How could a tree remind him of a person? How ridiculous.

He mocked his own foolishness.

How could he ever believe that anyone would stay by his side simply because of who he was?

Xie Lanxu walked to the oil lamp and, without hesitation, dropped the oiled paper into the flame.

The red fire flared, licking the edges of the paper, burning furiously as it leapt out from the lamp’s opening.

“No!”

Li Zhi’s eyes widened in horror. Her heart felt like it had been torn apart. Without thinking, she lunged toward the table, knocking the lantern over.

The flaming map flew out of the lantern. Just as Li Zhi was about to throw herself at it, Xie Lanxu grabbed her from behind and forced her to the ground.

She struggled desperately, but Xie Lanxu held her firmly in place.

How he wished she would look at him, truly look at him—just once. How he wished she would soften, even a little, as she had in the past, and coax him with sweet words, treating him like a treasure.

If it were her, he wouldn’t have minded being deceived.

But from beginning to end, her eyes held nothing but that treasure map.

The harder she fought for the map, the deeper his heart ached.

The pain turned into bitterness, then into a twisted sense of injustice.

The difference in strength between a man and a woman was stark in moments like this.

No matter how much she kicked, punched, or bit, Xie Lanxu didn’t retaliate, nor did he loosen his grip.

Expressionless, he forced her to watch as the treasure map burned to ashes right before her eyes.

The hope in Li Zhi’s heart burned to ashes alongside the treasure map.

In the midst of the struggle, the already fragile red string she wore snapped apart. Eight dull, lifeless shells, like pearls from a broken necklace, scattered and fell to the ground.

The fire was out.

The flames that had devoured the treasure map, the light from the lantern, and even the fire in her heart—everything had been extinguished.

Her eyes remained fixed on the ashes of the treasure map and the scattered shells on the ground.

When Xie Lanxu finally released her, she climbed to her knees. Slowly, she began picking up the shells, one by one, placing them in her trembling palms.

Tears fell like rain onto the shells.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the gentle smile of the twin sister.

When she was alive, she shielded her from every storm.

Now that she was gone, she suddenly realized how cold the world truly was.

Too cold. Too unbearably cold.

“Have you ever… even for a moment… been sincere with me?”

Xie Lanxu didn’t notice it himself, but a trace of sorrow flickered in his eyes.

Li Zhi looked up at him as if she had just heard the most ridiculous joke.

She laughed through her tears, staring up at him from her position on the ground.

“Never,” she said with a smile.

Xie Lanxu’s expression instantly twisted with rage.

Before he even realized it, his hands were wrapped around her neck.

Like lightning tearing apart a dark cloud, his fury seemed intent on ripping Li Zhi to pieces. The calm, elegant face he usually wore was now utterly distorted by a tangled web of love and hatred. His lips trembled and turned pale, his breathing harsh and ragged, as if he were a beast gnawing at his own pain.

“Say that again,” he hissed, his teeth clenched.

He hated her.

Li Zhi could see it clearly.

Just as she hated him.

“I never…”

Before she could finish, Xie Lanxu’s hands tightened around her neck, cutting off her words.

The people who had died—Li Xiang, Li Huizhi, and even the dog—they were nothing but stepping stones to him, like weeds on the side of the road, trampled without a second thought, plucked and discarded at will.

But to her, they were her friends, her family, her lifelines.

He had indirectly taken away the lives of the people she held dearest, and yet he felt no remorse.

Even if he had his reasons, even if he had no choice, even if all he wanted was to survive—

Li Zhi could never forgive him for life.

She couldn’t breathe. Her chest tightened, her vision blurred.

She thought Xie Lanxu might actually kill her, as casually as he described the lives and deaths of others.

But just as suddenly, he released her.

Her limp body collapsed onto the ground, and Xie Lanxu straddled her, pinning her beneath him.

“You’re lying,” he said, his face close to hers. His voice was a low murmur in her ear. “I know you’re lying again.”

“I’m not… lying…”

“Banban belongs to Ah-Li. Ah-Li belongs to Banban,” he whispered, rubbing his face against hers, his voice almost pleading. “We made a promise.”

Li Zhi closed her mouth, refusing to speak.

She shut her eyes, unwilling to look at him any longer.

She willed herself to become a corpse—because that’s what she was, a corpse, a nameless wandering ghost among the living.

Silent, she let him take whatever he wanted from her.

Take it all. Let him take everything she had left.

Though she was alive, she wished she were dead.

“Do you love me?” Xie Lanxu asked, his voice like a child’s, repeating the question over and over.

“Banban… do you love me? Tell me…”

“Tell me you love me…”

His voice cracked with sobs.

How strange it was, to hear him cry.

But Li Zhi didn’t have the strength to open her eyes.

She prayed desperately to sink into a darkness where nothing could hurt her. She prayed for the moonlight outside the window to carry her away, just as it carried the drifting dust.

She felt as though she were on a boat, swaying and drifting endlessly, until finally, she was cast into an infinite void.

At last, she sank into the darkness she had longed for.