Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Aside from cutting his hair short, Xiao Xu hadn’t changed at all.

He was tall and lean, but his frame was solid. Beneath his cool, distant right eye was a pale red mole.

Like a tear of blood.

Back then, I had been bewitched by that face. I brought him back to the princess’s estate, and in the end, I invited the wolf into my home.

I lowered my eyes and answered, “Gu Yu. My name is Gu Yu.”

“Is that what you called yourself on the phone?”

“Mm.”

“It sounded like another name to me.”

I pretended not to understand. “Senior, are you sure you weren’t hearing things? My name is Gu Yu. If you don’t believe me, you can ask anyone else.”

Xiao Xu fell silent.

He couldn’t be certain he hadn’t misheard.

Thinking I’d gotten away with it, I calmly walked past him.

“But I heard Lan Ting,” he suddenly said.

The famous figure on campus lowered his head in front of me.

I said nothing.

Just then, Shen Yuan came out. “Xiao Xu, there are a few questions I don’t understand. Could you come in for a moment?”

She looked at me with open hostility.

Then she looked at Xiao Xu and gave him a fawning smile.

I really wanted to remind her that acting like that made her nothing like me at all.

A dignified princess would never curry favor with anyone.

Even when I was thrown into the cold palace and left there until my death, I never once lowered my head to Xiao Xu.

Inside the laboratory, Xiao Xu and Shen Yuan sat side by side. The scene was peaceful, harmonious. They looked well matched.

But I badly wanted to laugh.

If Xiao Xu knew that Shen Yuan wasn’t Xiao Lanting, but the fake empress he had nearly enthroned a thousand years ago-

What kind of expression would he make?

To be fair, after I died, my soul drifted through the imperial palace.

I witnessed many things.

For example, Xiao Xu’s true identity.

He was an orphan of the former dynasty. His entire family had died at my imperial father’s hands.

After becoming my prince consort, he had been planning all along to avenge his family.

In the end, he succeeded. He wiped out the entire Xiao clan and left only me alive.

He even deluded himself into thinking we could remain husband and wife.

But those stubborn old ministers would not allow it.

He had only just seized power, and his hold on the dragon throne was unstable. He didn’t dare openly defy the wishes of the senior officials.

So he decided to first make a show of crowning Shen Qingyuan as empress.

Shen Qingyuan was a female general under Xiao Xu’s command. She had rebelled alongside him and was fiercely loyal to him.

Making her empress would silence the masses.

Once the situation stabilized, he would return Shen Qingyuan’s freedom to her and make me empress instead.

But he didn’t know that Shen Qingyuan truly loved him.

He wanted to set her free, but he never bothered to see whether she actually wanted to leave.

Before the enthronement ceremony, Xiao Xu came to the cold palace, hoping I would soften and give in to him.

But what awaited him was only my corpse.

Xiao Xu broke down on the spot and went mad for a very long time.

Shen Qingyuan failed to become empress, so she offered herself to him instead.

In the end, he nearly strangled her to death on the spot.

I watched that female general cry as she begged him.

“After all these years, has Your Majesty truly never loved me?”

Xiao Xu was brutally cruel. “Never.”

After that, Xiao Xu never married for the rest of his life. Every night, he slept in the place where I had died, crying and laughing by turns, utterly deranged.

“Lan Ting, look. Someone tried to assassinate me today. This is all retribution…”

“Lan Ting, have you seen our daughter?”

“When Little Jade Peach died, I wasn’t able to see her one last time. Do you think she won’t acknowledge me as her father?”

“I wronged you both, mother and daughter.”

His obsession was too deep. It turned into madness.

After Xiao Xu ended that absurd life, he came to the present with his memories intact.

And Shen Qingyuan, though she remembered nothing, had also turned into my likeness because of her obsession.

Unfortunately, she was still missing one pair of eyes.

That evening, I went to the cafeteria for dinner and ran into them again.

I silently walked past the two of them.

Shen Yuan was acting spoiled with Xiao Xu.

Just then, a classmate sprinting at full speed crashed into me from behind.

I stumbled and fell to the ground. My glasses flew off.

I looked up.

Xiao Xu was standing right in front of me.

Staring at me in shock.