Chapter 97
Chapter 97
“It was only then that I learned Linglong’s ghost had truly been by my side all along…”
“Only, she never had any intention of harming me. Instead…”
“She had been protecting me in silence.”
As Tang Yuelang spoke, tears streamed down her face.
Beside her, Steward Wang’s expression grew even more complicated as he listened.
So this was the truth?
If the murderous Vengeful Spirit was not Linglong, then what was it?
Xia Ximo looked at the master and servant-or more accurately, at the human and the ghost.
A flicker of complexity seemed to pass through her usually cool, distant eyes as well.
Lantern Spirit Wuyou clicked his tongue in wonder, then analyzed from the side, “The ‘pearl’ they mentioned should be Mount Yunhe’s Soul-Nurturing Pearl.”
“Before this, that ghostly thing was most likely being nurtured inside the pearl…”
“It kills people and gouges out their hearts, taking blood from the very tip of the heart. Its victims must have died with overwhelming resentment, enough to turn into a Vengeful Spirit or an Evil Spirit.”
“But throughout the entire Eastern Palace, aside from the Yin-Sha Qi permeating this garden, there isn’t any trace of ghostly presence. It’s as if…”
At this point in his analysis, Wuyou could not help shuddering. He quickly shrank back into the lamp and said to Xia Ximo, “There must be something even more sinister and evil in this garden!”
Xia Ximo swept her gaze over their surroundings, then asked Tang Yuelang, “You said that thing wanted to seize your body. What happened afterward?”
Hearing this, Tang Yuelang raised a hand to wipe the tears from her face and lifted her head slightly.
But Linglong spoke before she could, her voice faint and distant.
“With my abilities, I was not strong enough to kill that ghostly thing. I could only interfere and stop it.”
“Although it failed, it would still continue using Miss’s body.”
“I knew that the appearance of that ghostly thing had to be part of the Crown Prince’s scheme.”
“And so, I wanted to kill the Crown Prince…”
Because Linglong, as a Vengeful Spirit, kept interfering, the Evil Entity never managed to completely occupy Tang Yuelang’s body. Even so, it could still attach itself to her from behind, following her like a shadow.
Under the Evil Entity’s control, she would often lose her own consciousness, becoming nothing more than a tool for murder…
So every time news of another death came from the Eastern Palace, Tang Yuelang’s heart would be tormented by a complicated mix of terror, guilt, and self-reproach.
On top of Linglong’s death, her relationship with the Crown Prince deteriorated by the day, and her temperament gradually became unusually gloomy and vicious.
She even began to defy every rule and convention…
Though Linglong could protect her in spirit form, the living and the dead were ultimately separated by yin and yang. She could not stop Tang Yuelang from hurting herself.
When word spread through the palace that a sixth victim had been claimed by Linglong’s ghost, Tang Yuelang lost control and tried to destroy herself.
She jumped into Yanbo Lake and swallowed a bellyful of water, but she did not die.
When the guards fished her out, she was barely clinging to life.
The Crown Prince finally came to Chenghua Hall to see her, but his attitude was icy, without the slightest tenderness or concern for her.
In that moment, it was as if she were looking at a stranger.
Unable to stop herself, she reached out and seized his sleeve, questioning him in a hoarse voice, “Who exactly are you? You aren’t Zhao Li. You aren’t him at all!”
A smile played at the Crown Prince’s lips, but his eyes were unmistakably cold and distant. “What nonsense is the Crown Princess spouting? If I am not Zhao Li, then who else could I be?”
Tang Yuelang bit her lower lip and shook her head desperately.
“Zhao Li would never treat me like this… He said he would love and protect me for the rest of our lives, that he would never let me suffer even the slightest grievance. He would never let me be in such pain.”
“Then the Crown Princess should ask herself why.”
The Crown Prince pulled the corner of his sleeve from her grasp, his voice cold. “As Crown Princess, your duties are to assist the Crown Prince, manage the inner court, and bear heirs for the royal family. Tell me, which of these have you fulfilled?”
Hearing those words, Tang Yuelang felt as though she had been plunged into an ice cellar.
Assist the Crown Prince. Manage the inner court. Bear children and extend the imperial line…
Every word struck like thunder, deafening and soul-shaking.
Yet all she could think of was the night of their wedding several months ago, when that young man with smiling eyes had drunk the nuptial wine and murmured beside her ear, “All I want is for little Lang to stay by my side forever.”
Placed side by side with this moment, how bitterly ironic it was.
“Keep watch over the Crown Princess. If anything like this happens again, you may bring me your heads.”
Seeing that she remained silent, the Crown Prince gave the cold order to those around them, then swept his sleeves and left.
Tang Yuelang’s heart turned to ash. She no longer wanted to care about anything.
Family glory? A lifetime together?
She wanted none of it. She only wanted to return to the Commandery Duke’s Mansion and be the daughter her parents cherished in the palms of their hands once more.
The palace servants stopped her, and the news was sealed within the Eastern Palace, unable to spread…
Helpless, she cried out, “Linglong! Linglong, I want to go home!”
“I don’t want to be the Crown Princess! I don’t want to marry Zhao Li anymore!”
Rumors soon began circulating through the Eastern Palace again, saying the Crown Princess had gone mad.
And she truly did seem to have gone mad.
The Crown Prince spent every night carousing with beauties in his arms.
She, meanwhile, took advantage of her drunkenness to summon the Eastern Palace guards on night duty into Chenghua Hall.
When she stripped off her clothes, shocking whip marks crisscrossed her back, each one a mark of self-destruction.
Linglong was heartbroken at the sight. Her resentment grew heavier, and the hatred in her heart deepened.
So she used her soul power to possess a dancing girl and slipped into Weiyang Hall, intending to kill the Crown Prince.
It was also that night that she finally realized the “Crown Prince” before her was no longer the Crown Prince of the past.
A Vengeful Ghost had already burrowed into his body.
And that Vengeful Ghost had not only performed Body Snatching on Zhao Li, it was also trying to have another Vengeful Ghost replace her mistress.
“At the time, I possessed a beautiful dancing girl and followed the others into Weiyang Hall.
“But the moment I stepped inside, I realized the Crown Prince’s gaze kept drifting toward me, deliberately or otherwise.
“I was naive enough to think he was only lusting after beauty. After getting him to drink a few cups of wine, I quietly tightened my grip on the dagger hidden in my sleeve.
“But just as I thought I could kill him with one strike, the Crown Prince raised his hand and restrained me with ease…”
The Crown Prince’s hand was cold and powerful. Even when choking a dancing girl possessed by a ghost, it was effortless for him.
“Do you want to die a second time?”
When he spoke, that was what he asked.
Only then, as a ghost herself, did Linglong sense the Yin-Sha Qi radiating from him. It almost swallowed her whole.
So he was not human?
The moment that thought surfaced in Linglong’s mind, she did not hesitate for even an instant. She fled at once.
After that incident, she discovered that the Baleful Qi within Qianqiu Garden was growing thicker and thicker. The ghosts of those who had once died after having their hearts carved out began to linger in the garden.
But they seemed to have no awareness at all, as though something had trapped them there.
Their resentment towered to the heavens. They could neither reincarnate nor pass on, nor could they remember anything from when they were alive.
Linglong gradually realized that her own soul was also becoming bound by the Baleful Qi in the garden. Once she left, her soul power would weaken, and over time, she would be unable to take form. She could only attach herself to the pearl hairpin through her resentment.
In order to stay by Tang Yuelang’s side, she appeared in her dreams and told her that she had to keep the pearl hairpin with her at all times.
But Tang Yuelang could not control her own body at every moment. The reason she had appeared in the garden now was to search for the pearl hairpin that had inexplicably been left behind last night.
After hearing this, Xia Ximo carefully studied Tang Yuelang. There was no trace of any Yin Soul aura on her, which was enough to show that the “thing” had not followed her here.
She wasted no more words and ordered directly, “Take me to Chenghua Hall.”