Chapter 13: The State Preceptor Scheming to Overthrow the Court

The moon shone sparsely among the stars, draping the entire Imperial Palace in a desolate veil of silvery light.

In Yuming Hall, the Female Sovereign’s eyes were slightly closed, as if she had already fallen asleep.

A soft breath gradually drew near, carrying the icy fragrance of winter plum blossoms unique to its owner—cold and solitary. After a long while, warm breath approached her cheek.

Xu Zhaosu kept her eyes tightly shut, but her heart pounded like a drum.

The warm breath neared her lips, only to veer away at the last moment from the place it initially seemed to seek, landing instead in a restrained and innocent kiss on the woman’s forehead.

Light as a feather, yet infinitely precious.

Only after a very long time did a sigh of regret and loss drift into the long wind: “I want to go with you. It would be a dream come true, but I…”

The words cut off abruptly, twisting into an unexpected turn: “Your Majesty deserves someone better…”

Xu Zhaosu vaguely sensed something was off and wanted to open her eyes, but a wave of drowsiness washed over her. That kiss parted as quickly as it came, and exhaustion surged. The Female Sovereign struggled to extend one hand, trying to grasp at someone in the wind.

Someone took her palm and gave it a gentle squeeze before placing it back under the brocade quilt and tucking in the corners. That person murmured softly by her ear: “Your Majesty, sleep. When you wake from this sleep, everything will be fine…”

Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Xu Zhaosu vaguely felt that something uncontrollable was happening, yet she couldn’t even manage to open her eyes and demand the person stay.

Something was wrong. Something was wrong…

Shi Qingyi had no access to her food or drink, so how could she have drugged her? Everything that came near her had to pass through the Medicine Apprentice’s hands.

So how could this be…

What jolted her from her hazy slumber was a massive boom. She laboriously lifted her heavy eyelids. Darkness surrounded her; she was in a cramped carriage. Outside came only the sound of wheels grinding over bluestone and repeated enormous blasts, as if something exploded in the sky.

“Your Majesty, you’re awake.” A hand from beside her steadied her firmly.

“Where… is this place?”

The Medicine Apprentice lowered his voice and whispered: “We’re on the road out of the palace. Today is the State Preceptor’s birthday. Performers from outside the palace have entered to offer arts, and the Eldest Princess has arranged everything. We’ve already passed the West Six Palaces. Once we exit Mingde Gate—”

Before he finished, the Female Sovereign’s face changed drastically: “Who gave you permission to act on your own?!”

Something was wrong—the timing didn’t match.

The Medicine Apprentice fell instantly silent, steeling himself to look up at the Female Sovereign. In the narrow carriage, her face was bloodless, radiating an inscrutable malice.

“Go back—”

The Medicine Apprentice jerked his head up, voicing his shocked disbelief: “Your Majesty, do you really intend to—”

Really go back and bring that person along?

“Have you forgotten how she treated you?”

Plotting to overthrow the dynasty and usurp the throne, imprisoning her like livestock—wasn’t that enough for the sovereign to see her true nature? How could she soften because of a moment of obedience?

Fireworks burst outside the window; the earlier booms came from them. The flickering light seeped into the carriage, illuminating the Female Sovereign’s obscured face. She spoke word by word, her tone chilling: “I said, go back.”

Xu Zhaosu had ascended the throne young and held power for years, her authority immense. The only exception in the world was named Shi Qingyi. To everyone else, she was no benevolent ruler, let alone mild. The Medicine Apprentice’s teeth clenched under her oppressive aura, his breath catching for an instant.

He dared not disobey.

The carriage whipped around and raced madly back the way it came.

The Female Sovereign rubbed at the absent signet ring on her finger, suppressing the inexplicable unease in her heart with all her might.

She had promised—she would go with her. How could she break her word!

In the darkness, the Female Sovereign squeezed her eyes shut tight. Before the loyalist army entered the city, there was still a slim chance if she took Shi Qingyi away. From then on, the State Preceptor would cease to exist; the only one left in the world would be Attendant A Yi by the Female Sovereign’s side.

She would keep her like a pampered plaything, ensure she lived well, but never let her touch power or freedom again. She would be a caged bird in her hands, atoning for her sins for life.

The future stretched so long ahead, but she hadn’t had time to think it through when the Medicine Apprentice lifted the carriage curtain.

The moonlight was cool as water. With a whoosh, it poured through the carriage into her eyes. Under the moonlight, Yuming Hall stood vast and eerily desolate, with only the long call of a bird echoing softly in the dark night.

The Medicine Apprentice didn’t dare delay, swiftly pushing open the doors of every side hall one by one.

Empty. Still empty. Nothing. Still nothing—

Door after door, the light in the Female Sovereign’s eyes finally extinguished inch by inch.

The Medicine Apprentice dropped to his knees with a thud, his eyes red: “Your Majesty, she’s not here—really not here!”

“We truly can’t delay any longer. The palace gates lock in a quarter-hour. This is the only chance—Your Majesty!”

There would be no other opportunities to escape today.

All the hall doors stood wide open, as if mocking her wishful thinking in the empty night.

The Female Sovereign leaned against the carriage window. Her neatly manicured, rounded fingertips dug inch by inch into her pale palm, knuckles whitening from the force. Her eyelids slowly closed, lips parting, and finally she uttered one word: “Go…”

Shi Qingyi had deceived her again. She never wanted to go with her—not from the beginning…

It was like a basin of cold water dumped over her head. The Female Sovereign’s hands trembled uncontrollably beneath her sleeves, a violent surge of malice nearly bursting from her chest.

She was still deceiving her.

The carriage rocked as the Medicine Apprentice’s whip cracked relentlessly through the desolate palace alleys. The chestnut horse reared and galloped wildly, bursting out of the cage just before the palace gates closed.

They had escaped…

It felt as if something was slowly peeling away from her life. On instinct, Xu Zhaosu reached out and lifted the carriage curtain.

Outside, the moon spanned a thousand li, countless gorgeous fireworks exploding in the sky only to vanish into darkness in an instant. Atop the Myriad Blades Palace Wall, tens of thousands of arrows were drawn to full under the chill moonlight.

Ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Xu Zhaosu’s hand on the carriage rail tightened in an instant, her heart contracting sharply, as if an iron grip choked her throat, making even breathing agonizingly suffocating.

In the chaos, her eyes still locked precisely on that person atop the palace wall.

A figure in white robes whipped and cracked in the cold wind, raven-black hair cascading over her shoulders. Without any makeup, she was already a peerless beauty, her brows and eyes coldly aloof, as if all the world’s fireworks and rivers and mountains couldn’t coax a smile from her.

One glance topples a city; a second topples a nation—that described her perfectly.

At her side stood Jing E in plain robes, her aged features sharp and radiant like a drawn sword. In her hands was a longbow forged of refined iron, gleaming with eerie chill under the moonlight.

“Fire—”

With one command, ten thousand arrows rained down.

“Your Majesty, watch out—” The Medicine Apprentice lunged forward, slashing a stray arrow with his blade and shoving the Female Sovereign, who seemed rooted to the spot.

Two fists couldn’t beat four hands. The Medicine Apprentice cleaved the foremost arrows, but the rest seemed endless. A long arrow with blazing fletching tore through the night sky, suddenly piercing the Female Sovereign’s heart.

When ten thousand arrows fired together, how could one possibly escape unscathed?

The immense impact nearly hurled Xu Zhaosu from the carriage. The Medicine Apprentice caught her, while the welcoming shadow guards flanked the vehicle. Pain throbbed numbly in her chest, burrowing inch by inch into her bones. Crimson blood instantly stained her robes.

Xu Zhaosu lifted her head bit by bit. Atop the palace wall, the woman in white gripped the battlements. Amid the smoke and fire, her expression was indiscernible.

Only the long wind howled, murder thick in the air.

Under everyone’s stunned gazes, the Female Sovereign suddenly snatched a long saber from a shadow guard at her side. Enduring the agony, she slashed the arrow embedded in her heart in two, then severed the ropes tethering the carriage. Freed from its drag, the chestnut horse neighed and bolted forward on its hind legs.

She pressed her hand to her chest and glanced back one final time. The person atop the palace wall remained in pristine white, as if blood and affection had never touched her skirts from start to finish—merely insignificant dust at her feet.

All those recent events felt like a dream, revealed upon waking as nothing but a joke.

She should have known from the first glance in her youth what a cold-hearted person Shi Qingyi was.

“Go—” This time, without hesitation.

Hot blood seeped from between her fingers, her throat flooding with cloying sweetness. This time, she never looked back. Only madness bled into her eyes, like the inferno blazing behind her.

Shi Qingyi—

She ground the name in her heart, letter by letter, each one laced with bloodthirsty hatred.

—

Atop the palace wall, the long wind whipped fiercely. Jing E tossed aside the longbow and said coldly: “A year has passed. Back then, you refused to kill her, saying you wanted her to suffer torment unto death. Now it seems you simply couldn’t bear to. This time you even tried to stop me? You can’t make the decision, so as your master, I’ll do it for you!”

With that, she turned and hurried down the wall. Once out of the Imperial Palace and the Imperial City, with the gates closed and Xu Zhaosu gravely wounded, there was still a chance—

Behind her, the State Preceptor merely gazed remotely in the direction the Female Sovereign had fled, clutching her chest. After a long moment, she closed her eyes and murmured to herself: “She’s gone…”

The System replied coldly and mercilessly: “And then you’ll be done for.”

The next time she returned, it would be a fight to the death.