The night was deep as water, and the bedchamber was brightly lit as usual.

“My Prince, I was wrong,” said Yu Lingxi.

Under the warm orange light, Yu Lingxi’s exquisitely painted face was as bright as a divine consort, with slight uneasiness concealed in her beautiful eyes.

Ning Yin leisurely wiped his knuckles, lowered his gaze to look at her, and said: “Tell me, where did you go wrong?”

If she would just say a few pleasing words as before and obediently remain by his side, Ning Yin wouldn’t be harsh about her private meeting with the Xue man today.

He always used threats to make her stay by his side.

Yet at that time, Ning Yin hadn’t realized that he had been afraid of losing her for so long.

He was as cold and dominant as ever, loftily waiting for her soft, gentle words.

However, Yu Lingxi bowed for a while, then softly said: “I was wrong to go out and reunite with my sworn brother without the Prince’s permission.”

She deliberately emphasized the words “sworn brother,” which only made things more suspicious.

Very well. Even at such a precarious moment, she was still pleading for Xue Cen.

Ning Yin’s smile deepened, though his eyes were completely cold, surging with indifferent darkness.

Yu Lingxi was fearful, yet persisted with trembling fingertips, stumbling as she reached for his belt, her long eyelashes fluttering like butterflies quivering in the wind.

Ning Yin watched her busy efforts with leisure.

He didn’t know who he should mock—he used nonchalant indolence to conceal the dark turmoil surging in his heart.

He thought Yu Lingxi was different; she had nowhere to go and could only stay by his side forever.

But Yu Lingxi was like that mad woman, saying with her lips that she would be good to him forever, while ready to abandon him at any moment.

Just as she now knelt before him, radiant with beauty, yet he felt he had never truly possessed her.

The old wound in his chest began to ache faintly. Ning Yin once again tasted the flavor of betrayal, worse than the knife to his chest in that broken temple years ago.

The more his blood boiled, the colder his eyes became. Since returning to the palace as Prince, he hadn’t lost control like this for a long time.

The closer he came to losing control, the more he wanted to prove he could control everything.

“Smile,” he said.

In the dim curtained light, Ning Yin pinched Yu Lingxi’s lips, forcibly pulling them into an awkward smile.

She could only smile at him, even if that smile was forced.

He reached out to smooth the blood beading on her lips, lazily reminding her of her current situation with the most despicable words.

He had said worse things before. When he went too far, Yu Lingxi would whimper and press close to him, stopping his wanton words…

He was a villain, and villains naturally loved to bully others.

Moreover, he liked Yu Lingxi’s appearance with reddened eyes yet helpless—it was extremely beautiful.

But this time, Yu Lingxi kicked him away.

She kicked the old wound on his left leg. The force wasn’t great, but enough to provoke his anger.

Lingxi had never been like this before; she always went along with him, gentle and considerate. But since seeing the Xue man, she was unwilling even to maintain a pretense.

Ning Yin didn’t even know if his anger stemmed from the humiliation of his old wound or Yu Lingxi’s resistance.

“Isn’t it a bit late to start detesting this Prince now?” Ning Yin asked, his face gloomy.

He was too angry, threatening her by grabbing her ankle, so much so that he failed to notice that beneath her fading lip rouge, her lip color had already paled to a sickly white.

By the time he realized something was wrong, it was too late.

Hot blood splattered on Ning Yin’s front, and his cold intimidation and mockery abruptly ceased.

The candlelight flickered, the curtains billowed, and he dazedly reached out to touch the corner of Yu Lingxi’s lips.

Yu Lingxi’s eyes were tightly closed, still vomiting blood in streams, with a striking line of dark red even seeping from her nostrils.

Ning Yin hurriedly pressed acupuncture points to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn’t stop… With so much blood, his clothes, and sleeves were all stained with an eerie dark red that couldn’t be wiped clean.

In an instant, her body quickly quieted, her fingertips sliding powerlessly from his arm.

Ning Yin’s eyelashes trembled, and he instinctively grabbed her hand, holding it tightly.

“Lingxi,” he called to her, but only endless silence answered him.

With a bang, the bedchamber door was kicked open from inside.

The guards on duty in the courtyard immediately drew their swords, but when they saw the Regent covered in black blood, they were shocked.

“Go to the Imperial Medical Academy,” Ning Yin said, carrying Yu Lingxi wrapped in a cloak, his face terrifyingly cold. “Call the Medicine Master.”

But the Regent was a cripple! Without his cane, how could his leg support the weight of carrying someone while walking quickly?

After a brief silence, someone carefully reminded him: “Prince, the Medicine Master left the capital to wander two years ago…”

Before the words were finished, the servant who spoke was sent flying, crashing into a corridor pillar before tumbling to the ground.

Ning Yin’s face was splattered with black blood, like an asura emerging from the night.

So everyone rushed off to make arrangements, no one daring to say another word.

Cold sweat soon appeared on Ning Yin’s pale face. His old leg injury couldn’t support the weight of two people, howling with heart-piercing pain.

He stumbled a step, quickly steadied himself, and carried Yu Lingxi into the carriage.

He carefully placed Yu Lingxi sitting beside him, wanting to brush away the hair stuck to the corner of her mouth with black blood, but paused when he saw his equally blood-stained hands, unable to touch her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, staring at Yu Lingxi’s tightly closed eyes with his customary composure and firmness. “Everything will be fine.”

All the experienced doctors from the Imperial Medical Academy were brought in, trembling as they knelt at Ning Yin’s feet, at a loss.

It wasn’t that their medical skills were lacking—even if Hua Tuo were alive, he couldn’t save a dead person!

“Observing the lady’s symptoms, it appears to be poison. However, the silver needle detects no abnormalities. It may have been an acute illness causing death…”

Some words angered Ning Yin, and the blade from beneath his cane shot out. That imperial physician immediately widened his eyes and fell, a pool of crimson spreading beneath his body.

“Quack,” Ning Yin calmly retracted the blade from the bottom of his cane.

“Prince, spare us! Please spare us!” The Imperial Medical Academy erupted in wails.

…

Before dawn, Ning Yin brought Yu Lingxi back to the Prince’s residence.

Her body had grown so cold, colder than his temperature when his old injury flared up.

Ning Yin carried her to the hot pool in the bathing chamber. Lingxi was so fond of cleanliness; that her body couldn’t remain blood-stained.

Steam rose, and the cold light where dawn met night shone through the high latticed windows into the pool water, diffusing ripples like silver scales.

He removed his clothes and carried Yu Lingxi slowly into the pool. The milky white mist gently rippled open, then softly enveloped the two of them.

Ning Yin took a soaked cloth and gradually washed away the blood from Yu Lingxi. Yet no matter how long she soaked or how thoroughly he washed, her body remained strangely pale, never again flushing completely red as it used to.

“Dawn is breaking,” Ning Yin said, setting her on the jade steps in the pool, pushing her tightly closed eyes with his finger, his voice deep and hoarse. “If you don’t wake up, this Prince will kill all your old acquaintances.”

“Did you hear me?” he asked, pinching Yu Lingxi’s cold jaw, threatening her as he always did.

Yu Lingxi leaned against the wet edge of the pool, her body losing support and sliding into the water.

Ning Yin’s expression changed, and he quickly pulled her up into his arms, steadying her again.

“So easily frightened,” he sneered, his black eyes looking at the motionless Yu Lingxi.

After a long while, he changed to a hoarse tone: “Wake up, and this Prince won’t frighten you anymore.”

Of course, Yu Lingxi could not respond.

Ning Yin remembered her weak constitution; every time in the bath, she would feel chest tightness and shortness of breath within a quarter hour, dizzily unable to stand.

Fearing she would suffocate, he would carry Yu Lingxi out of the bath every quarter hour.

But after about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Yu Lingxi’s body would grow cold again. So Ning Yin would tirelessly carry her back to the pool until she regained that once-captivating warmth.

The first ray of dawn shone through the window lattice, and Ning Yin knew it was time for Yu Lingxi to dress and apply makeup.

At this time every day, she would appear fresh and beautiful, gently and obediently coming to pay her respects, brewing him a cup of clear tea.

Ning Yin carried Yu Lingxi back to the bedchamber, opened the make up box on the dressing table, and took out rouge and eyebrow colors to paint and powder her.

The bright red lip rouge covered her paleness, illuminating her delicate beauty. Her black hair spread out like satin, quiet as if she were just asleep.

While dressing her, Ning Yin’s gaze fell on Yu Lingxi’s shoulder blade, where several small purple spots had appeared on her flawless white skin.

He pressed them with his finger, and his leisurely expression gradually became solemn.

Ning Yin rose and ordered craftsmen to quickly make an exquisite ice bed with cold jade and hard ice, which was delivered to a secret chamber.

The fully dressed Yu Lingxi lay on it, her form surrounded by a layer of pale blue cold mist, beautiful like a fairy born of ice and snow.

Ning Yin was very satisfied. His dark eyes reflected the deep blue frost of the ice as he spoke with casual gentleness: “I’ll come see you tonight.”

Even at this moment, he still didn’t feel much distress.

Whoever harmed Yu Lingxi, would kill them, and that would be that.

Within two days, his subordinates discovered that the tea cup Yu Lingxi had drunk from at the Zhao residence was problematic.

Even though the Zhao family had immediately destroyed the evidence, the Regent’s residence had ample connections and means to find traces.

On the third day, Ning Yin went to the Zhao residence.

The Zhao family was exterminated at his hands, instantly becoming a hell on earth.

He didn’t kill Zhao Yuming because the most hateful people were to be kept alive for slow torture, subjected to punishments worse than death.

On the fifth day, Ning Yin leisurely visited the Court of Judicial Review and broke two of Xue Cen’s fingers.

He had promised that if Lingxi refused to wake up, he would kill all her old acquaintances.

By the sixth day, Yu Lingxi still hadn’t awakened.

The sky was gloomy, and his old injury began to ache again, but there was no one to come close with gentle relief for his pain.

Ning Yin soaked in the hot pool for half an hour and drank an entire jar of wine.

Strangely, he was not an indulgent person and never drank excessively, yet today he had one cup after another with great interest, as if only alcohol could fill a bottomless void somewhere within him.

Catalyzed by the wine, things he had deliberately suppressed gradually floated to the surface of his heart, filling his mind.

By the time he realized it, Ning Yin had already entered the secret chamber and was standing before Yu Lingxi’s ice bed.

Lying for too long, the makeup on her face had become somewhat patchy.

She was naturally fond of beauty. Back when she drank the Nine Abyss Fragrance and thought she was going to die, she still dragged her heavy body to apply eyebrow powder and makeup, making herself beautiful before facing death.

Thinking of this, Ning Yin took the unused powder box nearby and began to leisurely touch up her eyebrows and makeup.

His hand suddenly trembled, and the lip rouge smudged beyond her lip line. Ning Yin patiently raised his finger to wipe away the excess.

He looked at her for a moment, then pressed his finger to the corner of her mouth and pushed it up, saying lazily: “Smile.”

Yu Lingxi’s mouth was rigid, colder than his fingers, and would never again open those wet red eyes to look at him with helpless pitiful gazes.

Lingxi would never smile at him again.

She wasn’t being stubborn or vengeful, nor was she sleeping particularly long—she was dead.

The word “dead” rose in his mind, slightly painful.

He didn’t want to acknowledge that moment of panic.

“It’s better this way,” Ning Yin said, his thin lips parting slightly, his face covered with a layer of frost.

He laughed again. Yes, it’s better this way.

Like that hunting dog, preserved after death, not much different from when it was alive.

Yes, there would be no difference. He consoled himself.

On the seventh day, Ning Yin locked all of Yu Lingxi’s belongings in the secret chamber.

Those were items Yu Lingxi frequently used and should remain by her side.

Hu Tao cried for seven days, kneeling in the courtyard burning paper money, with red swollen eyes kowtowing to Ning Yin, again and again until her forehead was broken and swollen.

She said: “I beg the Prince to show mercy and let this servant arrange a burial for the young lady. She cannot become a wandering ghost without a tombstone or tablet!”

Ning Yin nearly strangled this maid.

To bury Lingxi in the dark ground, allowing her to rot and breed maggots, would be the greatest desecration.

Lingxi should stay forever in the Prince’s residence, by his side.

From then on, Ning Yin forbade anyone to mention Yu Lingxi’s name; violators would die.

These inferior, mediocre people were not worthy of uttering Lingxi’s name. Moreover, he couldn’t face the oppressive, dull pain that frequently arose in his chest.

Ning Yin thought this sudden pain originated from the “Hundred Flowers Kill” deadly poison in Yu Lingxi’s body.

Though his constitution was special, he was not invulnerable. He didn’t know how long he could live.

But before he died, he would certainly kill everyone.

The poison in the Zhao residence’s teacup had come from Xue Song.

He told Zhao Yuming: Only with Yu Lingxi gone would Xue Cen give up. And only with Xue Cen’s resignation would Zhao Yuming have an opportunity.

So she colluded with Xue Song, deceiving Xue Cen under the pretext of saving someone.

Poor Xue Cen, this fool, even until the end didn’t know he had become an accomplice in killing Yu Lingxi. He didn’t even know that his “second sister” was no longer in this world.

Ning Yin spent two days uprooting the Xue family along with his advisors and partisan followers, wiping them out completely.

Corpses fell before him one after another, blood splashing, yet he felt not a shred of satisfaction.

He went to the prison to torture Xue Cen because he was jealous.

Xue Cen thought Yu Lingxi was still suffering in the Prince’s residence and cursed Ning Yin vehemently.

After cursing enough, he would describe how he and Yu Lingxi were childhood sweethearts, how they had boated on the lake together as youths, how they had recited poetry together under the flowers…

Between Xue Cen and Yu Lingxi, there were so many beautiful memories, while between Ning Yin and Yu Lingxi, there were only threats and intimidation.

But Ning Yin would not kill Xue Cen.

At least the Yu Lingxi in Xue Cen’s mouth was vivid and real, so real it was as if she were still present. Occasionally listening to her stories was quite nice.

Leaving the prison, a cool breeze brushed his cheek, as if someone had angrily run past him.

He reached out and closed his fingers, but grasped only emptiness.

Returning to the hall, Ning Yin placed his cane beside the bed and instinctively called out: “Lingxi…”

He suddenly paused, followed by a long, deathly silence.

Yu Lingxi’s scent was everywhere in the air, yet Yu Lingxi was nowhere to be seen.

The second month without Lingxi.

Another rainy night, and no amount of wine could warm the chill that had penetrated his marrow.

Ning Yin returned to his bedchamber slightly drunk, opened the drawer of the low cabinet, and his gaze fell on that crookedly stitched sachet.

He held it in his hand, looked at it against the light for a long time, then chuckled: “Still so ugly.”

A moment later, his dark eyes grew heavy, and the curve of his mouth gradually faded.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the head of the bed, his teeth chattering, then slowly, slowly curled up his body.

“Lingxi, this Prince is cold…” he said.

Then he suddenly awoke, looked at the space beside his pillow, and stayed awake until dawn.

The third month without Lingxi.

Ning Yin changed his taste preferences and began to eat the pepper tea soup she had liked. He added spoonful after spoonful of pepper powder as she had done, making his eyes red from the spice, his stomach burning with pain, yet he laughed ever more frantically.

In the fifth month without Lingxi, Ning Yin kicked the young Emperor off the dragon throne, turning the court upside down.

He stood atop mountains of corpses and seas of blood, calmly accepting everyone’s fear and curses, looking down on all living beings.

It was deep autumn. He remembered that when Yu Lingxi was sent to the Prince’s residence, it was also a desolate autumn night.

At the beginning of the year, Yu Lingxi had begged him to let her go to the streets to look around and get some fresh air. At that time, he was busy dealing with the restless Third Prince and had not agreed.

Remembering this unfulfilled wish, Ning Yin was in a rare good mood and decided to take a walk on the streets.

As soon as people saw his noble deep purple princely robe, they fearfully circled him, and some vendors even abandoned their stalls, pulling children playing by the roadside into alleys.

Ning Yin didn’t care at all. He leisurely walked around with his cane, then picked up a white jade hairpin of good quality from a jade shop and instinctively turned around: “Lingxi, this jade…”

Beside him was emptiness, with no sign of that graceful, gentle figure.

The guard, seeing his gaze darken, dutifully asked: “Prince, do you have any instructions?”

Ning Yin said nothing, tossed the hairpin back into the brocade box, and left.

He bought the candy that Yu Lingxi often ate, stuffing one piece after another into his mouth, crunching and swallowing them. Yet no matter how many pieces he ate, he could never again taste the sweetness of that candy passed from her cherry lips…

A solitary wild goose crossed the sky, its cry mournful.

Ning Yin stopped in his tracks.

No one would feed him candy anymore, no one would sew him new leather boots.

It had indeed taken him half a year to understand, through day after day of blunt-knife memories, that his Lingxi was truly gone.

The swelling pain again swept through his chest, suppressed to the extreme until his internal organs felt as if they would split open. Ning Yin, along with the not-yet-dissolved candy, vomited a large mouthful of fresh blood.

The blood splashed on the ground like a flower, startling the nearby candy vendor and guards.

But before they could approach, Ning Yin, expressionless, immediately vomited an even larger mouthful of blood.

With a knife at his throat, the candy vendor was so frightened that his legs gave way and he knelt: Heaven and Earth be his witness! The Regent’s vomiting blood had nothing to do with him; there was no poison in his candy!

Ning Yin indifferently raised his finger and touched the blood on his lips.

The bright red color was not from the residual poison of the Hundred Flowers Kill, but truly from his internal organs—it was his heart’s blood, half a year delayed.

Ning Yin began to laugh, his shoulders shaking, the dripping red staining through his thin lips, making his pale, sharply handsome face as terrifying as a ghost.

He would not cry, but the fresh blood in his mouth had already surged forth in place of tears.

“Who shall I kill for entertainment today?” Ning Yin asked, taking the handkerchief tremblingly handed over by the servant, pressing the corner of his mouth as he coughed and laughed.

In these six months, he had killed countless people, both innocent and guilty, beyond distinction.

In the end, he discovered that the one who most deserved death was himself.

After the Lantern Festival two years ago, he knew he was surrounded by danger, with many people wanting him dead, which would inevitably implicate Yu Lingxi. Yet he had arrogantly believed his residence was impregnable, that no accidents would occur.

That day returning from the Zhao residence, he had seen Yu Lingxi’s pale face early on, yet allowed jealousy to cloud his judgment, missing the best time to save her…

Lingxi must have hated him to the extreme.

Let her hate him—Ning Yin dreamed of Lingxi returning to take revenge.

Hadn’t she said it? If she died, she would certainly become a ghost and return to claim his life.

But why had she not yet appeared?

Ning Yin coughed up another mouthful of blood, clutching the damp handkerchief, his dark cold eyes tinged with resentment.

The winter night was bitterly cold, and the first snow fell unexpectedly.

Xue Cen stood in the prison with disheveled hair and a dirty face, gazing absently at the snow’s light through the narrow prison window.

Even now, he still didn’t know that Yu Lingxi was dead, surviving on chaff and drinking bitter water. He firmly believed that one day he would be able to take his second sister away from this sea of suffering, toward a utopia…

That would indeed be a beautiful scene. Xue Cen’s lips bore a hopeful smile as he waited day after day.

Meanwhile, at the Regent’s residence, a great fire reddened half the sky.

Ning Yin, dragging his blood-soaked body, staggered into the secret passage that he had not dared to enter for half a year.

The ice bed remained the red clothes like fire.

“This Prince has waited for you for eight months and nine days,” Ning Yin said, placing his bloodstained cane gently to the side, bending down in the cold light of the ice bed, lazily complaining. “You broke your promise, Lingxi.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” he quickly continued, his tone becoming light, insane yet affectionate. “This time, this Prince will come find you.”

The door of the secret chamber slowly closed behind him, locking in death.

Ning Yin, with a satisfied smile, embraced Yu Lingxi in a side-lying position.

Until eternity.