I’ve returned.
This single sentence struck like a massive stone thrown into the calm center of a lake, creating ripples that spread outward in circles, reflecting Wen Chang’s current state of shock.
She stood frozen in place, her vision darkening.
She thought she had fainted from surprise or joy, but after steadying herself, she realized it was Qin Chang Ge adjusting the candle wick.
Leaning forward slightly, Qin Chang Ge picked up the golden wick trimmer and gently adjusted the candle flame. The dim yellow light cast directly onto her face, making her features even more hazy and unclear, while large, diffused spots of light projected onto the wall behind her. Within these light spots, human shadows became ethereal and ghostly, adding several degrees of profound mystery.
Holding the golden trimmer before her eyes and studying it for a long moment, Qin Chang Ge smiled slightly: “I don’t know how people today view the death of Empress Ruiyi. In their imagination, it was merely the nation’s mother enjoying supreme honor and dying of natural causes. Only I know that on that night, the so-called supremely strategic founding empress died quite ridiculously under a small golden wick trimmer used for adjusting candle flames.”
Her entire body trembling violently, Wen Chang’s voice came out hoarse before she could speak: “Your Majesty…”
“A small golden wick trimmer, installed in a mechanism beside her beloved child—Xiao Rong, who was only one year old and had just been invested as Crown Prince. The mechanism’s spring was positioned under Xiao Rong’s body. It was a chain reaction device. When the Crown Prince woke crying and the Empress naturally picked him up to soothe him, the spring that had been pressed down by the prince’s body immediately released, triggering the adjacent mechanism. From an extremely close distance, with precise angle, it shot directly into the throat of the Empress who was bending toward her precious child and toward the spring.”
Her tone was detached, as if speaking of someone else’s affairs, as if that sinister killing method and death’s outcome had nothing to do with her. Yet Wen Chang had already collapsed weakly.
She struggled to support herself, gripping the window frame tightly with fingers showing bone and sinew, listening in horror to palace secrets that could shake the entire realm, hearing the truth about the death of Empress Ruiyi that had always been shrouded in absolute mystery.
She had imagined many possible endings for the Empress, always wondering what person or method could have killed such a woman. She had always felt that with such a person’s death, this was destined to remain an unsolvable mystery. Yet she had never imagined that today, under these inconceivable circumstances, she would hear the victim herself personally describe that sinister and terrifying scene.
“…She was always astute, someone who had survived countless bloody storms over many years. How could she easily fall prey to others? But any loving mother facing her precious child would inevitably soften her heart and lower her guard. When the golden trimmer shot forward, it aimed first at the child’s head, and behind the head was her throat. She had no choice but to first push the child away, then her throat felt cold, and everything was too late.”
“…She was struck and immediately retreated. At that time she wasn’t yet dead and was still trying to counterattack and save herself, but unexpectedly, sharp blades suddenly shot out from the dressing table behind her, piercing from her back and emerging through her abdomen.”
Wen Chang’s tears were already streaming down. Unmoved, Qin Chang Ge continued indifferently: “She knew then that she must die and that she had fallen into someone’s carefully planned ambush. In desperation, instead of retreating, she advanced, desperately lunging toward the bed and striking her son with one palm—the child who didn’t know his mother was dying and was still grinning and smiling, stretching out his hands and kicking his feet, waiting for her to hold him!”
“Ah!” Wen Chang cried out, “Xiao Rong… Xiao Rong…”
Qin Chang Ge’s expression, which had been as calm as a mask, finally showed a tiny crack—an emotion that flickered like water ripples and instantly vanished. She continued: “She threw her motionless son aside and used her last strength to collapse beside the bed. In her final consciousness, she saw someone approach quietly and use the golden trimmer to gouge out both her eyes.”
She slowly reached out to lightly touch her own eyelids, as if trying to relive through this cross-temporal touch that heart-stopping, incomparably tragic scene from memory—a crimson world, a robe hem that seemed more vivid than blood yet whose color could no longer be discerned, gently extending fingers, sharp objects probing into eye sockets, eyeballs being bloodily extracted, permanent darkness descending.
Wen Chang clenched her fingers tightly, her eyes wide, yet tears no longer flowed. She looked at Qin Chang Ge and after a long moment said softly: “Chang Ge, I don’t know how you returned, but I know you are her… These past few years, everyone in the palace has said you had a dispute with His Majesty and left on your own. Only I knew you must have died, but I didn’t know, I truly didn’t know, that you died so… tragically…”