"Your highness!" Xu Zhengming rushed inside the hall.
He's heading straight to where the empress is. But before he could even step on the circumference of the array, a hand pulled him back. It's the princess being cautious of what the array may do to them once they stepped upon it.
On the other hand, the empress lifts her hand, about to reach it to Xu Zhengming but she stopped halfway the moment she sees the crimson red blood streaming across her arms, and the bruises on it. She looks at him again for some time, and then put her hand back down. There's no way Xu Zhengming would reach for her filthy hand. Too late, she can't be saved now... or rather no one will save her now.
The weakened empress can only whisper in the thin air. "Why are you here of all times? I don't want you to see me like this." Even though she wants these words to reach Xu Zhengming, she can't say them any louder.
Maybe there are really some things that are better left unsaid.
"Don't rush into the spiritual array. You don't know what it may do to you if you step on it." She pulled Xu Zhengming too hard which made him lose his balance and ended up falling ass first. "Aiyah, this is the very reason I don't want to bring you along."
"Could you please be gentle, your highness? My butt hurts." Xu Zhengming gets up rubbing where it hurts.
That was a bad fall and he was caught off-guard. He didn't manage to somehow prevent this, partly because his attention was on the empress and partly because of his clumsiness.
"Save that line for my brother." The princess' fierce facial expression slowly fades and got replaced with a wicked grin. "Mwehehehe."
"..."
Xu Zhengming doesn't know whether he'll be surprised or afraid of her. This is the first time he saw the princess grin like that. She looks like a witch, or maybe a villainess that has an evil intention. It's scary, and it sends a chill on his spine. Is this the smile that captured the heart of the late Lieutenant General Liu Chen? Perhaps, no.
This silly bride to be actually isn't sure what she meant by that but he got the feeling that he doesn't want to know. He has the idea but it only gave him goosebumps.
The child pulled Princess Yin Xiulan's robes and looks up at her with teary eyes. "My jiejie... she looks very weak and tired. Please save her."
"Wait, wait. We'll save her, that's why we're here right?" She crouches down to level her gaze with the child. Her highness then taps his shoulder lightly, trying to calm him down and at the same time, make him aware of the dangers. "But we should observe first or else, no one of us here can be saved."
Princess Yin Xiulan turns her head to the entrance of the hall as she speaks in a loud voice. "Hey, what exactly is this..." She paused when she noticed that the empress dowager's personal servants had all fled away. "... array for?"
She rolls her eyes. "Never mind." They are most probably heading towards the Union Hall now to report what happened here to the empress dowager.
The only one left that knows about this spell is the empress herself. And so, Princess Yin Xiulan gives her full attention to her. "Your highness, what is the meaning of this? Anyway, please deactivate this array first."
"No." The empress slowly shakes her head. "I don't want to."
Starting to get annoyed again, the princess gritted her teeth. "Your highness!"
Knowing Princess Yin Xiulan, she doesn't have much patience, unlike her brother.
The empress' pale lips parted once more. Her voice is almost like she's whispering but it's enough for everyone else in the hall to hear her. "If I stop now, she'll kill my brother too."
"You mean this kid? Don't worry about him, he's under my care now." Princess Yin Xiulan put her hand on the child's head. To her surprise, she almost jumped when the empress' biological brother suddenly screamed.
"What?" Like she got electrocuted, her highness immediately took her hand off his head. She's sure she didn't hurt him so why is he screaming?
When she recovered from the shock, she tried so hard not to hit this kid. She hates the fact that she lost her composure, and this kid is the only one to blame. "What's with you?!"
"Mother... father..." The kid falls to his knees, and tears start to form streams across his cheeks. He looks so shocked that it took him some time to wail.
"Your highness, look." Xu Zhengming points at the barrier-prison that the empress dowager made to isolate the empress' biological parents.
It's filled with water and their parents' inflated corpses float within the barrier. Their mouths are still open as if they're trying to breathe until the last second of their life. At a glance, one can say that they really struggled before they died.
It's a sight that people generally wouldn't last staring for too long.
"What the--- that's so cruel." It's the only thing that the princess managed to say.
Well, yes, that's cruel but not as cruel as what he did to the traitor, Song Li.
After General Yin Xiulan gave Song Li several deep wounds that almost drained his blood out of his body, he actually survived until the princess gets back on him.
Still unsatisfied, she pulled him out of the Department of Justice, called everyone in the imperial army, and humiliated him until his last breath. The general revealed his shamelessness before the honorable soldiers, and that's not all. She also drowned him into a drum of water, causing his miserable death.
Just as promised, the princess general let him be buried with his body whole since he stayed alive as long as he can.
"I'm sorry, didi. I couldn't save them." Just as the empress thought she couldn't shed a tear anymore, droplets of warm liquid flow out of her eyes. "I'm sorry, it's jiejie's fault. I'm sorry."
In their last moments, their parents resisted the empress dowager. They told their daughter not to commit murder. Since the empress dowager doesn't find them useful anymore and doesn't have much patience, and so she drowned them inside that barrier.
She then threatened the empress that if she won't do what she wants her to do, she'll also kill her younger brother. Even though these siblings didn't spend much time with each other, she still cares for her and wants to protect him at all costs. She already lost her parents, she can't afford to lose her brother too.
Actually, the empress dowager could activate the spell herself but it would consume a great amount of her spiritual energy, and even could threaten her life because the whole formation is extended all throughout the entire imperial palace.
And since the grand empress dowager passed her lifetime worth of prowess to the empress, there's a bigger possibility that the empress can survive the tribulation than herself. Of course, the empress has their combined spiritual powers, so she's more powerful than the empress dowager.
Princess Yin Xiulan is running out of patience. She stamps her feet that made the wooden floor somehow vibrate. "Your highness! Just what are you doing?! Are you in cahoots with the empress dowager? Do we really need to save you? Just what is this array for? Stop this at once!"
Obviously, the princess doesn't have any idea what this array is for. She may be a former cultivator but she never encountered such a strange array before. Whatever this is, she's having a feeling that it wouldn't cause any good.
"Even if I stop now, the formation is already activated. It can't be stopped now." The empress has long drowned in the stream of helplessness and lack of hope. If there's another life that's waiting for her on the other side, she could only hope that she'll be able to do what she wants to do without anyone controlling her.
She closes her eyes. She's feeling tired more than ever. Not that she used up all her spiritual energy, or due to physical exhaustion. She's tired mentally and emotionally. She thought, ever since she turned her back to Xu Zhengming many years ago, nothing seemed to be right. She slowly falls into the pit of darkness.
"I just want to die. Please leave me." Her voice broke. She doesn't want to sound pitiful. Not in the last moments in her life. Not in front of this beau.
"Jiejie! Jiejie!" Her little brother yells. His tears, sweat, and snot are all mixed upon his face but not that it matters this moment.
"Didi, I'm so sorry. I don't deserve to live anymore. Please take care of yourself." Even if she managed to live after this, her conscience will not let her live peacefully for the rest of her life.
"Jiejie! No! Come to us now, please? She will save you!" The child still begged for his hopeless older sister to live.
Their parents are dead. Their other siblings already have a family on their own. If she'll die too, he'll be all alone. But even if she'll live, she's still the empress and she belongs here in the imperial palace. That's the fact that this child hasn't realized.
He is destined to be alone until he forms his own family.
Then what Xu Zhengming did next surprised everyone else in the hall. For the second time, he rushes to the empress in the middle of the array.
"Xu Zhengming!" The princess tried to catch him again but failed this time.
"Get the hell back here!"
Princess Yin Xiulan got anxious. That's his brother's bride! What if something happens to him? She'll be the one who'll most likely be questioned. Who knows what it's like when Emperor Yin Wenyan got really angry? The princess can't imagine it and would never dare to anger him.
"Your highness. Please stop this." He holds the empress on her shoulders, trying to get her attention. "You look like you're passing out any time soon!"
He succeeded in getting her attention. She opens her eyes again and lifts her head to meet his gaze. A lazy smile forms on her pale and cracking lips. "You're telling me that first? Are you not going to ask me what is this for? What I am doing? Are you really sure you're more concerned about my condition than what this array may cause?"
"That can wait... I guess?"
Actually, Xu Zhengming isn't much wary about this array as much as the princess does. Whether it's because of his lack of experience in cultivation or he just trusts the empress that much, no one can tell. However, there's one thing in his mind: he wishes for her highness' well-being, and fast recovery.
"We can talk about it later. If this will cause a bad effect, then we will resolve this together."
"I wish things are as simple as that."
The empress coughed a mouthful of blood, staining her dress and Xu Zhengming bridal robes. She's overusing her spiritual powers and she can feel that her core got a crack. Eventually, the spiritual core she tried so hard to form will break into smaller pieces.
"Your highness!" The empress was about to collapse. Good thing, Xu Zhengming caught her in his arms in time.
The glow of the array underneath them slowly losses its light. The empress just drained the spiritual energy within her, which causes her core to finally break. Blood still gushes out from her mouth, making her pale face go even paler.
"Jiejie!" The child runs towards his sister and kneels in front of her. "Jiejie, don't die, please. Don't leave me. I'm sorry, it took me so long to ask for help."
"It's never your fault, didi. You did a great job." Even though the empress is losing her strength, she still forced herself to reach for her brother's cheek to comfort him even it's just a little.
After some time, she moved her hand towards his nape and tapped a certain spot on it which made her brother lose his consciousness. He'll be awakened after an hour or two.
"Sleep well, didi. You'll be taking a long and rough road when you wake up. I'm sorry, jiejie won't be accompanying you along the way."
"Your highness, don't say something like that. Your brother needs you." Xu Zhengming said in a low and soothing voice.
Her hands clutch on his robes, not wanting to let go of this man. She already got over him and then, later on, she'll find out that he's back in the imperial palace as her husband's personal eunuch. It's such a bad joke from destiny itself.
Her heart is feeling so many emotions to the point it hurts so bad that she just wants to grab it out and throw it somewhere. Guilt, melancholy, grief, the feeling of being reunited after a long time of separation... it's killing her.
Suddenly, screams and cries echo as the sun stopped giving any light rays. The twilight just ended, the darkness covers the skies.
"What is happening outside?!" The princess got her guards up again. Her hand holds her holy weapon tighter, ready to unleash an attack any time.
"It already started... and no one can stop it now." The empress mumbled.
Xu Zhengming can hear her somehow but he's not so sure if the princess heard her.
"I'm going to check what's happening out there. Don't leave." Princess Yin Xiulan walks towards the door. Before she leaves, she turns her head again and glares at Xu Zhengming. "I repeat, don't leave! You hear me?"
She didn't wait for Xu Zhengming to respond and fled right away.
Now that the princess left them, the empress' little brother is unconscious, only Xu Zhengming can help her now. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any background in medicine or anything about first aid so he's a little anxious at the moment.
"Your highness? Can you stand?" He's about to support her highness to rise on her feet but he saw the bruises and blood streaming over her body. "Or maybe we should tend your wounds first? I'm so sorry, I don't know what to do."
There's so much blood on her that it's hard for Xu Zhengming to find where her wound is. The truth is, she has multiple wounds. She all got it from the empress dowager while forcing her to do such an inhuman thing.
Xu Zhengming holds his hems and is about to rip it, and use it as a bandage but the empress stopped her.
"Don't." She holds his hands with her cold ones. She's slightly trembling and Xu Zhengming can feel it too. Although she's feeling so weak, she still managed to put a smile on her lips just like how she used to. "Don't rip your robes. You look good on that."
Hearing this, Xu Zhengming doesn't know whether he'll take it as a compliment or a sarcastic joke. He's clearly wearing a bridal robe! In the end, Xu Zhengming just ignored her. Her injuries are more urgent. "Your highness, please don't be like this. Come on, let me tend your wounds."
Seeing those eyes full of sincerity and pure concern, the empress can't help but remember the old times. If she got injured like this back then, he'll most probably be this worried. Her eyes are still filled with tears but she chuckles, confusing the other. "Oh, Ming'er... I really messed up my life ever since I turned my back on you."
"Ming'er?" This made Xu Zhengming even more puzzled.
There are several people who call him like that. First, his deceased parents. Second, the sect leader of Wan Moli Hua, Zhao Yangguang. And lastly...
The thought he has in mind sends chills on his spine. Subconsciously, he stares at her eyes. Now that he had a better look at her eyes, it's the same as the ones that his acquaintance in the past had.
"Maiden Murong?"
"That's right. Before the Xue Clan officially adopted me, my name is Murong Chi." The empress confirmed.
Maiden Murong attended the imperial academy at the same time as Xu Zhengming did. Back then, she's wearing a veil that concealed the lower part of the face, only revealing her pair of eyes.
"I'm sorry for leaving you without a word. It must be very confusing for you. I was selfish." She very much regretted the decision that she once made. She chased her false dreams and never looked back at the one her heart truly desires.
"If there's one thing I could change in the past, it would be the time I turned my back on you. I know it's too late but I want you to know that there's no other man I look at the way I do to you. Not even the emperor."
Truth to be told, her highness never felt the feeling that a wife should have towards her husband. She tried to work on it, even asking the eunuch that 'captured his majesty's heart' for help. She never expected that this Eunuch Xu, is actually the Xu Zhengming she knows. It surprised her but she thought it's too late.
Mixed emotions are building up within Xu Zhengming. This is too much of a coincidence. Why, of all people... "Maiden Murong, why..."
Xu Zhengming sighs. He chose to drop the confusion first and consoled her. "Never mind. Don't speak anymore. Conserve as much energy as you can. We'll talk about it later, okay? So don't give your life up yet."
"Okay." Empress Xue Chi buried his face on Xu Zhengming's shoulder. "Just let me feel your warmth a little longer. That would be more than enough."
"Mn." Just as the empress asked of him, Xu Zhengming embraced her. He wants her to know that she's not alone now.
However, the empress is a liar. She's not holding on to her dear life for much longer.