“Your Highness…” Feng Qingyin was still struggling, but no one paid her any attention at all.

The physician walked over, his gaze landing on the totem on Feng Qingyin’s lower back.

At first glance, he too thought it matched the one he had seen in the Sacred Scripture — only…

“This totem…”

The physician couldn’t help reaching out his hand, though he hesitated somewhat — after all, she was an unmarried young lady.

But in the end, his long fingers settled on the pattern on Feng Qingyin’s lower back.

With just a light touch, the physician’s expression changed drastically: “Your Highness, this Phoenix Mark is fake!”

The Phoenix Mark on Feng Qingyin’s lower back was, in fact, fake!

Nanmen Rong was so shocked she nearly fainted: “Why… why?”

How could it be fake? But even the physician was saying so — and the more she looked at it herself, the more fake it seemed!

Feng Qingyin, meanwhile, sank into utter despair, her face drained of all color.

“Physician…”

“Your Highness, the Sacred Scripture records that the Phoenix Mark surfaces upon the skin yet hides beneath it — at times its true form can be seen, at times it vanishes without trace. When the phoenix spreads its wings, the Phoenix Maiden descends; the ancient formation opens, and the winds and clouds shift. He who obtains the Phoenix Maiden obtains the realm!”

The physician studied the totem on Feng Qingyin’s lower back, his expression growing graver by the moment. At last, he gave a cold snort: “This totem was branded on with needlework!”

Hearing this, Feng Qingyin seemed to deflate entirely, collapsing to her knees with no strength left, as though her very being had been hollowed out.

It was over. Everything was over!

She had so carefully arranged this for all these years, and now, it had been exposed just like that!

The needlework was so skillfully done — how had it been seen through? “Surfaces upon the skin yet hides beneath it” — what did that even mean?

No one had ever told her this. She simply hadn’t known!

Besides, what kind of mark was this anyway, visible one moment and hidden the next? How… how was she supposed to recreate something like that?

“Feng Qingyin! You actually deceived me! You… you damned creature! You… cough…”

Nanmen Rong’s fury surged through her, sending her into a fit of violent coughing, nearly leaving her unable to catch her breath.

The physician immediately applied acupuncture to settle her breathing. Feng Qingyin, left lying on the ground, scrambled in a panic to pick up her clothes and put them back on.

Looking back at Nanmen Rong, even as she struggled to breathe, her eyes still bore into Feng Qingyin with pure hatred.

Cold sweat trickled down Feng Qingyin’s temples; she was already frightened out of her wits.

While everyone’s attention was on the Empress, she hurriedly tried to flee, and fortunately, no one stopped her.

But her relief came too soon — the moment she ran out of the bedchamber door, a guard blocked her path, seized her, and flung her back down onto the floor.

Looking up, she saw Nanmen Rong sitting at the head of the bed, pale-faced, her icy gaze fixed directly on her.

“Where did you see this totem? Who told you about it?”

Aside from the Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Relic, where else could this ancient totem possibly be seen — something even she and her father didn’t know of?

Although quite a few people knew of the matter of the Phoenix Maiden, Nanmen Rong believed that those who had actually seen the totem itself were certainly very few.

Feng Qingyin was nothing more than a minor official’s daughter, and so young besides — there was no way she could have learned of this on her own.

Just who stood behind her? What forces were involved?

“I… I don’t know! I… I really am the Phoenix Maiden! Your Highness, I don’t know how my totem came to be this way, but wasn’t it you yourself who said I was the Phoenix Maiden in the first place?”

Feng Qingyin glared at Nanmen Rong with reddened eyes, filled entirely with terror and fear.

Yet she clung stubbornly to this point: “I never said anything of the sort to begin with. It was you, Your Highness, who saw the totem on my lower back and declared on your own that I was the Phoenix Maiden, deciding to raise me up.”

In truth, the fact that Feng Qingyin had grown to be this beautiful really did have a great deal to do with Nanmen Rong.

At first, Feng Qingyin’s standing within Feng Manor had been quite ordinary — she was, after all, merely an illegitimate daughter.

But later, because she had supposedly “done a favor” for the Empress, she immediately gained the attention of the Feng family’s patriarch, Feng Junzhuo.

After that, the Empress would send rewards from time to time, and who in the manor didn’t know that the Eighth Miss Feng had essentially been raised by Her Highness the Empress?

Whether food, clothing, or daily necessities, most of it came from the Empress’s own hand. With such careful upkeep combined with training in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, it was hardly surprising that she had been groomed into the capital’s foremost talented beauty.

In this world, girls naturally as beautiful as Feng Jiu’er were truly rare — far more common were beauties cultivated through careful nurture.

As the saying went, there were no ugly women in this world, only lazy ones. Starting from roughly the same foundation, with the finest beauty tonics lavished on her daily, how could she not turn out lovely?

Nanmen Rong was momentarily at a loss for words — she truly couldn’t recall, but it was indeed true that the claim of Feng Qingyin being the Phoenix Maiden had only ever come from her own mouth.

Feng Qingyin had never actually claimed anything herself — she had gained all of this merely on the strength of a totem on her lower back!

But as the Empress reconsidered, her expression suddenly darkened: “Don’t think you can confuse the truth and fool me so easily! If this totem was deliberately branded on, then it must be because you had seen the real one!”

At the Empress’s outburst of rage, Qinxue immediately stomped Feng Qingyin down with her foot.

It turned out Qinxue herself was a hidden expert! Naturally, none of those raised by the Empress were ordinary people. Her earlier appearance of knowing nothing while serving by Feng Qingyin’s side had all been an act!

The stomp nearly made Feng Qingyin cough up blood. She wanted to beg for mercy, but she barely had the strength left even for that.

Nanmen Rong had lost nearly all patience by now, staring fixedly at Feng Qingyin with fire burning in her eyes.

“Speak! Where exactly did you see this totem? If you don’t tell me now, I’ll have you skinned alive!”

“Your Highness, this totem was already on Qingyin’s body from the moment she was born. Your Highness, Qingyin doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

Feng Qingyin was still making one last desperate attempt — if she admitted to deliberately deceiving Nanmen Rong, she would surely meet a horrible death.

Did she not know exactly what this woman was capable of?

Even someone as tenacious as Feng Jiu’er had nearly died at this woman’s hands — how could her own fragile life possibly survive in her grasp?

She was truly terrified now, utterly terrified!

She didn’t want to die yet!

“It seems you truly won’t shed a tear until you see the coffin yourself!”

Qinxue now felt not the slightest pity for her. Back when she had served by her side, she had suffered no small amount of mistreatment from this hypocritical, vicious Eighth Miss.

Now that the girl had fallen into her hands, wouldn’t she deserve a proper round of suffering?

From somewhere, Qinxue produced a whip, and with a sharp crack, brought it down directly on Feng Qingyin’s body.

Feng Qingyin let out an agonized scream, rolling on the floor as the whip tore open a gash through the back of her clothing, the wound on her back appearing instantly as blood gushed out.

“Ah… Your Highness, spare me, please spare me…” Feng Qingyin still wouldn’t talk, and the whip continued to crack down upon her body again and again.

This Eighth Miss, who had been pampered and spoiled since the age of six or seven, was in no way able to endure such suffering.

After more than a dozen lashes, she could bear it no longer: “Your Highness, I’ll talk, I’ll talk…”