Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Xiao Yun stepped over the threshold.

He was nothing like he had been before.

His black brocade robe made him look noble and aloof.

When he was not smiling, he carried a sharp, oppressive authority, his brows and eyes cold as frost.

Shuyue’s eyes lit up at once, and the corners of her lips curved upward beyond her control.

“Sister has been here for quite a while. Why are you only back now?”

That completely undisguised joy and dependence was exactly like Shuyue’s.

The slight crease between Xiao Yun’s brows smoothed out in an instant.

“I was worried you would care only about your sister and neglect your own health, so I came back earlier than planned. And you still blame me?”

Their hands clasped together naturally. Their intimacy and tenderness ignored everyone around them. Every glance, every expression was filled with a softness and infatuation that belonged only to each other.

It was all exactly the same as before.

I did not understand. Where had I gone wrong?

Then Xiao Yun looked at me and began to explain.

“It was Mother’s favor that raised her up, yet she turned out to be a vicious woman with evil intentions. While Shuyue was pregnant, she drugged her in secret and nearly killed both mother and child.”

“I took half her life and left her with one breath, locked in a side courtyard to linger on. That much was already out of consideration for Mother.”

Shuyue’s eyes reddened. She pointed at the bowl of blood-nest soup that had gone cold and said pitifully,

“My body was injured, and there are many things I can’t remember. I forgot Sister doesn’t like bird’s nest, so Sister used Shuyue’s toothache to test me.”

“In Sister’s eyes, am I some little liar?”

The two of them played off each other perfectly, even glossing over the bowl of bird’s nest I had never once picked up.

But Xiao Yun could not fool me. He had lied.

I had seen that woman before.

She had stood beneath the crabapple tree, drenched in blood, staring straight at me without moving…

She had come with Xiao Yun.

Even though I had never met this Side Consort of the Eastern Palace before, I recognized her at a glance.

Her father was a great general, brave and battle-hardened.

When Shuyue married Xiao Yun, who was still Prince Ning then, I had seen him from afar at the wedding banquet.

The index finger he curled around his wine cup was like that of the red-clad female ghost beneath the crabapple tree whose face had been peeled away-shorter than an ordinary person’s by one segment.

It was a trait he had been born with. It could not be faked.

The Side Consort of the Eastern Palace was dead!

She had died a terrible death. Blood soaked through her dress, turning her entire body a horrifying crimson.

Her eyes were hollow, hung with bloody tears of resentment.

After death, her mouth and nose had been sealed, her corpse suppressed, leaving her a lonely ghost with no way to seek help.

My fingertips went cold.

If the real Side Consort was already dead, then who was the sick woman supposedly clinging to life in the side courtyard?

And where was my sister, Shuyue?

“Sister?”

Fake Shuyue’s startled cry dragged my thoughts back.

In the faint curve of Xiao Yun’s smile, killing intent was already hidden.

He had begun to suspect me.

I was nothing but a headless ghost. Even if I fought him to the death and forced my way out of the Eastern Palace, it would not be impossible.

If this skin was ruined, I could simply change into another.

But once I left the Eastern Palace, where would I find any trace of Shuyue?

She had only me.

If I gave up on her, then the whole world would have abandoned her.

I could not.

So…

I suddenly flung off Fake Shuyue’s hand that was hugging my arm. While she was still stunned, I snapped,

“Done pretending? Treating me with such false affection-I almost thought your skin had been taken over by someone else and your heart was long gone.”

At those words, both of their expressions changed almost imperceptibly.

The faint sound of hidden guards drawing blades even carried in on the wind from the courtyard.

But I pretended to know nothing and kept talking without pause.

“Ten months of pregnancy, and childbirth itself is a walk through the gates of hell. You wrote me several letters home and never mentioned a single word of it. Did you ever truly regard me as your family?”

“I am your sister, yet I was the last to know that you gave birth and were poisoned. You hid it from me so tightly-were you afraid I would storm into the Eastern Palace to vent your anger, or afraid I would make things difficult for your precious Crown Prince?”

“In your heart, is he more important than your sister? More important than your own life?”

“You know I remembered your headaches and toothaches wrong, and that made you so angry. Then do you know how furious and terrified I was when I learned you had hidden everything from me so completely?”

I shouted hysterically, my voice even trembling with sobs.

My reddened eyes and the choked sound I could not quite suppress all performed my deep love and fierce reproach to perfection.

When my eyes met Xiao Yun’s stunned gaze, I even struck him coldly with my words.

“If this grand Eastern Palace cannot protect you and your child, then I will take you back to Qingzhou.”

“The Ning family has a great estate. We are not so poor that we cannot feed two more mouths.”

It was rude and arrogant, but it was enough to prove my sincerity toward Shuyue.

Xiao Yun let out an almost imperceptible breath of relief.

“All of this is my fault. If Sister wishes to blame someone, blame me.”

“Shuyue is still in her confinement month. She must not shed tears.”

He tenderly wiped Shuyue’s tears away, looking as if he cherished her to the bone.

Fake Shuyue walked over timidly and tugged at my wide sleeve.

“Sister, I was wrong.”

“I was only afraid you would worry. His Highness treats me very well, and Sister is my closest kin. Shuyue did not want a rift to form between my dearest family and the man I love.”

On that face so much like Shuyue’s, tears fell from reddened eyes.

It was as if I saw my Shuyue, wronged beyond endurance, and my heart softened with her.

I wiped the tears from her cheeks and gently scolded her.

“You’re already a mother, yet you still cry at the drop of a hat. Do you want your child to laugh at you one day and call you a little crybaby?”

Shuyue burst out laughing and burrowed into my arms. From an angle I could not see, she quietly exchanged a glance with Xiao Yun.

For the rest of the day, whenever I brought up events from the past, Shuyue could answer fluently.

She understood Shuyue and me this well.

Until she began to test me.

“Sister, my teeth always hurt for no reason. Did I fall ill with something when I was little?”

That was the agony of dead skin growing flesh and blood.

Shuyue had always feared I would expose my identity in front of others, so she never once mentioned even a word about the ruined temple.

As for the pain of flesh wildly growing, she had deliberately called it a toothache.

Fake Shuyue did not know about Shuyue’s dead skin.

Naturally, she also did not know about this headless corpse of mine.

From beginning to end, my Shuyue had kept her promise, guarding my secret so tightly.

But inside the Eastern Palace, where I could not enter, what exactly had she gone through?

Was she alive now, or dead?