After Li Ying and Yu Fuwei hastened back to Chang’an, Li Ying was consumed with worry and desperately wanted to visit Cui Xun in the Dali Temple prison. However, due to the numerous deaths there, the prison was filled with objects that repelled evil spirits. Li Ying’s soul was now extremely weak, making it impossible for her to enter. She said to Yu Fuwei, “Perhaps there is someone who can help.”

That person was Lu Huai, the upright and forthright Deputy Director of the Dali Temple.

Lu Huai was at home awaiting punishment. Yu Fuwei sought him out, and Lu Huai asked who he was. Yu Fuwei thought for a moment, then said: “I am Cui Xun’s friend.”

He had once utterly despised Cui Xun’s character and had repeatedly advised Li Ying to stay away from him. But now, he voluntarily brought Li Ying back to Chang’an to save Cui Xun, and even claimed to be Cui Xun’s friend.

He said, “When Cui Xun was implicated in Jin Ni’s case, he entrusted me to go to Feiyun Relay Station to thwart Pei Guanyue’s plot. He also asked me to look after He Shisan and other Tianwei Army dependents. I was fortunate enough to witness how he trudged forward alone on the path to clear the Tianwei Army’s name, disregarding his own life. Cui Xun appears crafty, but in reality, he is extremely proud. He might not consider me his friend, but I consider him mine.”

Lu Huai nodded: “What do you want me to do?”

“If it’s convenient, could you remove the evil-repelling objects from the Dali Temple?”

Lu Huai agreed readily without even asking why. Yu Fuwei was somewhat stunned: “Doesn’t Deputy Director Lu want to know the reason?”

He had been hesitant about how to answer if Lu Huai asked for a reason. If he said a ghost wanted to visit Cui Xun, would Lu Huai think he was insane and throw him out?

But Lu Huai didn’t ask at all. He simply said, “Why ask for a reason? You are Cui Xun’s friend—that reason is enough.”

Lu Huai probably recalled his past humiliations of Cui Xun. His face showed a trace of shame: “You claim to be Cui Xun’s friend, but I dare not claim the same. I have always looked down on him, but now I realize I am not his equal.”

As he finished speaking, the shame on his face gradually disappeared, replaced by a kind of resolute determination to face death: “However, though I am not his equal, I won’t be distressed by this fact. People with his tenacity are extremely rare in this world. I cannot do what he has done, but there are things I can do. I, Lu Huai, may not be Cui Xun’s friend, but I can be a loyal subject of the Great Zhou.”

Although Lu Huai was awaiting punishment at home, during his tenure as Deputy Director of the Dali Temple, he had been good at appointing the right people and fair in rewards and punishments, far better than his predecessor. Therefore, all the officials at the Dali Temple respected him wholeheartedly. When he ordered them to remove the evil-repelling objects from the prison, they tacitly complied without question, taking away all talismans, peach wood, and other such items.

Li Ying thus entered the Dali Temple prison smoothly. She hurried along the corridor where braziers burned, but when she reached Cui Xun’s cell, her steps inexplicably slowed.

She was afraid.

Yu Fuwei had told her that all ten of Cui Xun’s fingers had been mutilated. When she heard this, her heart felt as if it were being cut by a knife. She knew this was the doing of her brother, her closest blood relative.

She had once been very grateful to her brother because his arrival had helped ease her mother’s pain of losing a daughter. She had countless times imagined what her brother might look like. He probably resembled their mother more, since commoners said he was as elegant as jade, like an immortal. Her father had a more heroic appearance, so her brother likely took after their mother more. Or perhaps he had some resemblance to her?

In this way, Li Ying had developed sibling affection for the brother she had never met. In this world, her brother and mother were her closest blood relatives. So when Cui Xun suspected her brother, she defended him, saying her brother would not betray the country. But who could have imagined that the brother she trusted so much could do something so inhuman?

He had deliberately instructed the Three Departments to use female torture instruments to humiliate Cui Xun. He was the Emperor—he could have killed Cui Xun, but he should not have humiliated him like this. Behaving this way, was he fit to be Emperor? He wasn’t even fit to be a human!

Li Ying bit her lip, feeling both angry and disappointed. Her steps grew slower and slower. She was afraid to see Cui Xun, partly because she dreaded seeing his injuries, and partly because she was ashamed of the beastly acts committed by her brother.

Her pace slowed, but when she reached Cui Xun’s cell, she unconsciously quickened her steps, rushing forward. Her form passed through the iron-chained prison door into the cell.

As soon as she entered, the scene before her made her vision darken. Cui Xun was lying unconscious, curled up on the cold floor. His prison clothes were unrecognizable, covered with blood stains. His ten fingers had lost skin and flesh, with broken white bones faintly visible. Li Ying felt as if her heart was being twisted by a knife. She struggled to maintain her composure as she moved to Cui Xun’s side, then could no longer hold herself up and fell to her knees.

Tears streamed down. With trembling hands, she touched Cui Xun’s mangled fingers. She had once loved to lie on his lap, take his hand, and play with his fingers. He had asked what was so interesting about fingers, and she had smiled, saying: “Because your fingers are beautiful.”

But those beautiful fingers that could write cursive script, play the bamboo flute, and fold grasshoppers, were now completely ruined—ruined by her brother.

The pain in her heart was indescribable. Her throat choked with sobs, and her tears fell continuously like pearls from a broken string. One teardrop accidentally landed on his wound, causing him to awaken in pain.

Cui Xun was in a daze. He struggled to open his eyes: “Mingyue… Zhu?”

Li Ying cried even harder: “It’s me… It’s me…”

Seeing her cry like this, his instinct was to raise his hand to wipe away her tears. But as soon as he lifted his hand, excruciating pain shot through him. Despite gritting his teeth to endure the pain, the beads of sweat on his forehead betrayed his suffering.

Li Ying cried: “Don’t move…”

Cui Xun stared at her, then suddenly heaved a long sigh. In a hoarse voice, he said: “Mingyue Zhu, why… did you come back?”

Li Ying sobbed: “Why shouldn’t I come back? I should ask you, why did you send me to the City of Wrongful Deaths?”

Why had he sent her to the City of Wrongful Deaths?

Because he didn’t want to face the current situation.

He couldn’t bear to see her tears.

He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he struggled to sit up, but as soon as he moved, his wounds pained him, causing him to furrow his brow. Seeing this, Li Ying quickly helped him up and leaned him against the wall. Cui Xun breathed slightly heavily. With his eyes closed, he said, “Mingyue Zhu, you should go. Go anywhere, just not here…”

Li Ying bit her lip, her voice choked with tears: “Cui Xun, how can you still try to drive me away even now?”

He had too many wounds; she wanted to embrace him, but didn’t dare. Her heart ached with both pain and grievance as she sobbed: “I won’t leave. No matter how you try to drive me away, I won’t leave.”

Perhaps because she was crying so sorrowfully, Cui Xun’s eyes also gradually moistened. He murmured, “Mingyue Zhu, why are you so foolish? I beat the petition drum, accused His Majesty and the Empress Dowager—I’m destined to die. Why accompany someone certain to die?”

Li Ying just shook her head. Through tears, she said, “Who says you will certainly die? I’ve returned, and I won’t let you die.”

Cui Xun smiled bitterly. He had little strength, so his voice was very soft: “Mingyue Zhu, no emperor can tolerate a subject who wants to expose his crimes, and no mother can tolerate an outsider who wants to kill her son. I am both a subject and an outsider. I will certainly die… Don’t waste your efforts. Go to the City of Wrongful Deaths, be reincarnated, and forget about me…”

Li Ying bit her lip and shook her head desperately: “I don’t want to forget you…”

With tears in her eyes, she asked: “Since you know you are a subject, an outsider, and that you will certainly die, why did you beat the petition drum? Why accuse Mother and Brother?”

There was a distant look in Cui Xun’s eyes: “Some things must be done by someone.”

He couldn’t avoid doing something just because it meant certain death.

Li Ying looked at his emaciated, pale face. His once lotus-like, beautiful face now bore many small scars. From the moment Wang Xuan wrote “Emperor killed six prefectures” in his palm, he had known his fate. The Great Zhou ruled by filial piety, and this time he was opposing not officials like Lu Yumin or Pei Guanyue, but the sovereign father of the Great Zhou.

A subject accusing the emperor, a son accusing his father—he could not gain the support of civil officials or common people. After the sovereign father vented his jealousy and anger on him, he would be gagged with hemp, bound, and taken to the execution ground to be slowly sliced to death. Like Jin Ni, his flesh and blood would be eaten by commoners, leaving no remains.

But even knowing his fate, he had still resolutely gone ahead with his actions.

Li Ying tugged at the corners of her mouth, smiling bitterly. She reached out to gently stroke his brow bone, pronounced, with slightly raised ends. People with such brow bones were always very stubborn. Li Ying said, “Yu Fuwei said that on the night you seized the Buddha’s Top Relic, he suggested sending us both out of Chang’an to the Western Regions, but you refused. You said you had unfinished business, so you couldn’t leave Chang’an.”

She looked at Cui Xun and said: “And I, too, have unfinished business, so I won’t go to the City of Wrongful Deaths.”

She continued: “Your unfinished business was to walk a path of certain death alone. My unfinished business is to defy fate and turn your path of certain death into one of certain survival.”

Her eyes were filled with tears: “Don’t look down on me. If you can go against the world to accuse the sovereign father, I can also violate the natural laws of heaven and overturn the order of things.”

Cui Xun’s eyes grew hot. He whispered: “Why bother?”

Why sacrifice her life and abandon her family for him?

What virtue or ability did he possess to deserve such a sacrifice from her?

Li Ying’s eyes were red and swollen. She lowered her gaze to look at his fleshless fingers, feeling unspeakable sadness. Biting her lip, she said: “I know that this time you’re seeking to bring my brother to justice. You knew I would certainly choose you, and you didn’t want me to be upset. But, Seventeen, this time, I’m not choosing you because of you. I’m not choosing love; I’m choosing principle and righteousness. My brother has betrayed justice and abandoned morality. He is not worthy to be my brother.”

Before her eyes appeared the 220 souls of Niu Family Village. She had told them then that she hoped they would still be willing to be citizens of the Great Zhou in their next life. But would these souls become citizens of the six prefectures still under the iron hooves of the Turks in their next life? They would be disappointed.

Enduring the tearing pain in her heart, she said word by word: “The Great Zhou doesn’t belong to my brother alone. The Great Zhou doesn’t belong to the noble clans, nor the humble families, but to its people. An emperor who betrays his people is not worthy to be the sovereign father of the Great Zhou.”

Finally, she said, “Seventeen, don’t try to persuade me to leave anymore. I’m not just saving you; I’m saving the Great Zhou.”

Cui Xun no longer tried to persuade her.

He couldn’t persuade the Princess of the Great Zhou.

Li Ying knelt beside him, raising her head to use a handkerchief to gently wipe the blood stains from his face. After cleaning his face, she moved to the wounds on his neck. These two areas had the fewest injuries on his body. With red-rimmed eyes, she murmured: “You’re in such a state that I dare not embrace you. After your wounds heal, I’ll embrace you. At that time, you must not avoid me anymore.”

Cui Xun shook his head. He gazed steadily at Li Ying and said softly: “I won’t avoid you anymore.”

He continued: “That day at Famen Temple, I made a promise before the Buddha’s Top Relic.”

Li Ying looked up at him.

He didn’t say what the promise was, but she knew.

He had promised that after death, he would not enter the cycle of rebirth but would vanish completely, soul and spirit scattered. In exchange, those who had been defeated in power struggles with him would quickly reach ultimate bliss and be reborn in the Pure Land.

With this, his karma was cleansed, his sins dissipated, and all that remained in this body was pure blood and a loyal heart.

Tears slid from Cui Xun’s pitch-black eyes. The self-deprecation he had always shown in her presence finally turned to acceptance. Tears streamed down his pale face, falling to the ground like crystal pearls. Looking at her, he seemed to be crying, yet not crying: “Mingyue Zhu, do I now have the right to kiss you?”

Li Ying bit her lip as tears fell like rain. Smiling through her tears, she nodded: “You do. You always have.”

Cui Xun’s lips curled up with a bittersweet smile. He gazed steadily at her bright, pure face, then, almost reverently, bent down and lowered his head to press his cracked, injured lips against her soft ones.