The violence in Xiao Li’s wolf-like eyes nearly surged out. The wine jar in his hand was crushed by him with brute force, and the remaining half jar of wine spilled beneath the throne, making the alcohol smell in the air even stronger.

His five fingers were also cut with bloody marks by the shattered pottery shards, yet his entire person seemed completely unaware of the pain. His eyes contained a murderous aura as he looked at Wen Yu, his cold voice unable to conceal its deep hoarseness: “What are you doing here?”

Wen Yu gazed at his bleeding fingers, her brow unconsciously furrowing even tighter, though her voice remained cold and indifferent: “Wasn’t it Lord Xiao who summoned this Palace for discussion?”

Recalling the strange appearance of that bearded general before entering the hall and roughly understanding what was going on, Wen Yu turned to leave: “Since there’s no matter, this Palace won’t disturb Lord Xiao.”

“Stop.”

The voice from behind was hoarse with urgent, heavy enunciation, as if harboring great hatred.

Wen Yu stopped in her tracks with her back turned.

The person behind said: “Pour wine for this lordship.”

Wen Yu didn’t move, only saying: “If Lord Xiao lacks a servant to serve tea and pour water, this Palace will pass on the message for Lord Xiao.”

Various emotions collided in Xiao Li’s heart, nearly bursting his entire chest. He suddenly said coldly: “Don’t you want to know what people this lordship interrogated in the heavenly prison?”

Wen Yu’s steps that were about to move stopped right there. She turned back to look at Xiao Li and said: “The court ministers who knelt to welcome you at the palace city that day, you may interrogate at will. The other ministers in the heavenly prison, don’t touch them.”

Xiao Li slightly raised his face, a cold smile floating on his gloomy expression: “Because among them is the Princess’s lover, is that it?”

Wen Yu looked at Xiao Li for a long time without speaking. Finally, as if exhausted, she calmly asked: “Xiao Li, have you forgotten that I’m married?”

“When I left the pass years ago to journey to Southern Chen, didn’t you know I was going to marry and bear children?”

“At our Northern frontier reunion, that night at the mountain hermitage was mutually willing between us. I don’t believe I owe you anything.”

“Now you have confidantes by your side, and your pillow is never lacking beauties. Why must you concern yourself so much with the bedchamber affairs of this former acquaintance? Moreover, Pei Song isn’t dead, the alliance between the Liang and Xiao camps hasn’t been abandoned. If word spreads that you turned to surround my royal court, your reputation won’t sound very good.”

She raised her eyes, looking without joy or sorrow at the person seated in the high position, changing her form of address: “Even to this day, this Palace is still willing to negotiate peace with Lord Xiao.”

Xiao Li laughed mockingly. The back of his hand clenched into a fist showed bulging veins, sticky fresh blood overflowing from between his fingers. Both the whites of his eyes had already been burned to a cooked red by hatred and jealousy as he looked at Wen Yu: “What the Princess says… is absolutely correct.”

“It’s just that the Princess should understand the principle of victors and vanquished, shouldn’t she?”

Wen Yu met his eerily violent gaze that carried a hint of madness for two breaths, then finally stepped up onto the imperial platform.

The royal desk had been overturned by King Chen during the day and hadn’t been replaced yet. Fortunately, the low tables on both sides of the throne could also hold tea, snacks, wine, and water.

Wen Yu saw a brass wine goblet on one side table, but there was no wine pot beside it, only wine jars the size of honeydew melons. After unsealing a jar, she filled the goblet to the brim.

Xiao Li took the wine goblet and tilted his head back to pour it down, then immediately extended his hand toward Wen Yu, his scarlet eyes full of self-destructive madness: “Continue.”

Wen Yu saw the bloodstains dripping from between the fingers of the hand gripping the wine goblet. The bloody smell and rich alcohol mixed together, becoming a taste she couldn’t quite describe. Her heart suddenly felt painfully blocked.

She put down the wine jar and didn’t continue pouring. When Xiao Li turned to speak with slight mockery, she took out a handkerchief from her sleeve, removed the wine goblet from his hand, and wrapped it around the constantly bleeding wound.

Xiao Li’s eyes instantly became even more intensely red. He slightly turned his head to the side, forcefully suppressing the waves gathering in his eyes.

After quite a while, he forcefully suppressed the hoarseness in his throat and asked coldly and harshly: “Want to plead for those lovers of yours in prison?”

Wen Yu’s hand movements paused slightly. After tying the knot, she straightened up and said: “Lord Xiao may consider it so.”

After speaking, she was about to turn and leave, but was tightly gripped by the wrist by his injured hand.

The handkerchief had already been soaked by the blood seeping from the wound. Because of the force with which he gripped it, the sticky wetness pressed tightly against both their skin.

Several layers of silk couldn’t block the scorching temperature of his palm. After gripping for not long, Wen Yu felt as if her wrist had been wrapped with a circle of branding iron.

She turned her head slightly back, waiting for him to speak.

Cold wind rushed in from the unclosed hall door, causing the row of long-necked palace lamps in front to flicker uncertainly.

Xiao Li’s five fingers gripped extremely tightly, his voice extremely deep and extremely hoarse, as if clearly knowing it was laughable yet still handing over that trump card that had supported him until now: “You said you liked me.”

Wen Yu’s heart felt even more painfully blocked. Recalling the various rumors about him in the Northern frontier, she pressed her lips tightly and closed her eyes, saying: “But people always change, don’t they? What I liked before, now I can also not…”

Before the last few words were spoken, she was suddenly yanked by a tremendous force into that embrace full of alcohol.

The armor on his body was ice-cold and uncomfortably hard. Wen Yu’s elbow joint was painfully struck. Before a muffled groan could escape, her chin was already clamped by him.

That exquisitely beautiful face with deep features was just inches above her, the skin pulled deathly tight, eyes so fierce as if wishing he could tear her apart piece by piece and devour her raw. His emotions had completely lost control as he viciously threatened her: “Continue speaking. I guarantee, if I hear one more word I don’t like from your mouth, I’ll find both your lover and daughter and chop them into minced meat to feed the dogs!”

Wen Yu glared angrily and laughed mockingly: “What is Your Lordship doing? Only the magistrate is allowed to set fires, but the common people aren’t allowed to light lamps?”

Xiao Li’s entire person had been completely consumed by rage. Even though he heard that Wen Yu had truly misunderstood that he had someone by his side, at this moment he also couldn’t speak words of explanation.

The sourness and painful anger in his heart tore at him together. He struggled to control his breathing: “Don’t think I’m speaking false words.”

Hearing this, Wen Yu only took it as his tacit admission. Her eyes reflecting the flickering candlelight seemed tempered with ice. Suddenly using particular force to pry away Xiao Li’s hand clamping her chin, she wore a cold smile on her face: “Go ahead.”

“I’m telling you, Xiao Li, if you kill one I can find a second. There are plenty of good men in the world. Can you kill them all… mmph…”

Her hand was still desperately prying at Xiao Li’s five fingers clamping her chin, but the back of her neck was suddenly pressed down hard. Then her lips felt sudden pain. By the time she reacted, her breath had already been stolen.

That wasn’t a kiss—it was pure biting.

Savage, furious, insane.

Wen Yu couldn’t push him away and couldn’t break free. She raised her foot to kick, but both legs were quickly restrained. The moisture in her eyes—whether from some emotion called grievance or from pain—rolled down and mixed into their kiss. She was hysterically angry, cursing him viciously.

The salty taste of tears dissolved between lips and teeth. The person pressing down to kiss her had obviously also tasted it, but only paused for a breath before nearly decisively forcing open her teeth when she cursed him again—entangling, sweeping, as if to invade her everything.

Wen Yu tasted even more saltiness. That pain and grievance seemed to come not only from her.

It was just that he was so forceful and insistent, as if he had already decided to use this savage method to conquer and defend something.

This kiss was almost a fight.

Wen Yu’s lips were ground and bitten to numbness and pain, her hair disheveled from struggling, her body covered with a layer of sweat, her breathing heavy and urgent.

The person forcefully restraining her wasn’t much better off. When he followed her loosened garment collar and kissed down from her snow-white neck, Wen Yu closed her eyes and said: “Xiao Li, don’t make me hate you.”

Xiao Li’s lips still pressed against that warm, frost-white skin. Hearing this, he almost laughed mockingly. He slightly raised his head, and when looking at Wen Yu, the murderous color in his eyes nearly overflowed: “Who started it a year ago?”

He held her face with one hand, his eyes so hateful yet so pained: “You wanted to go down the mountain—I didn’t stop you. It was you who came back. It was you who provoked me!”

“You call that repayment, call that settling accounts between us?”

He suddenly bit viciously at Wen Yu’s shoulder. This time Wen Yu couldn’t hold back and cried out in pain. On the patch of frost-white skin supported by delicate bones, a circle of bloody teeth marks appeared.

When Xiao Li released his mouth, the waves heavily gathered in his eyes also turned to moisture and fell.

His expression was still so fierce as he said: “Wen Yu, this is what you owe me.”

Wen Yu trembled slightly from pain. The ties of her cloak had long since been loosened in the struggle. It was only because Xiao Li imprisoned her waist that the large fabric didn’t slide down.

Disheveled strands of hair stuck to Wen Yu’s sweat-dampened neck. Her distinctly concave collarbone rose and fell slightly with her breathing, right next to that teeth mark seeping with blood.

After Wen Yu recovered her strength, she grabbed Xiao Li’s shoulder armor and bit down on the side of his neck, returning the favor with a bloody teeth mark without yielding an inch.

Xiao Li also let out a muffled groan, but had absolutely no intention of stopping her.

After Wen Yu released her bite, before her breathing had even steadied, she was kissed again by him pinching her chin.

He wore full armor—she had nowhere to bite, which is why she viciously bit the side of his neck.

Who could have expected that like a madman, after she bit him back, he started kissing her frantically again.

Different from that previous kiss mixed with anger, this kiss, though still hysterical, carried something else along with the bloody taste.

Outside, lightning flashed and thunder roared, cold rain poured down. Wen Yu broke out in another layer of sweat.

The cold hard armor and her cloak and outer skirt tangled together were thrown to the ground.

The silk skirt underneath was torn. She trembled continuously on his unbloodied fingertips. When pressed against, she still couldn’t advance an inch.

Xiao Li’s body was scorching hot, the muscles of his shoulders, back and arms tightened like rock.

Wen Yu’s hands were twisted behind her back, easily captured by his one hand, freeing his other hand to grip her waist.

Kissing from her neck all the way to that teeth mark on her shoulder, when continuing to kiss downward, she trembled violently, almost unable to sit still, relying entirely on his scorching hand to stabilize her waist.

In the chaos, when he finally sank into the depths through the mud, Wen Yu trembled uncontrollably in her dazed state, but suddenly felt coldness at her neck.

When her chaotic eyes cleared, she saw that he had somehow released the hand imprisoning both her wrists, and a pure gold collar with a smooth polished interior had been fastened around her neck. The collar connected to a gold chain, the other end of which piled long down to the throne.

When Xiao Li embraced her with slight movement, the chains rubbed and clinked.

Wen Yu only felt a surge of anger rush straight to her head. She raised her hand to pull the hairpin from her head and pressed it against Xiao Li’s neck, saying coldly: “What do you think you’re doing? Remove it.”

Xiao Li easily gripped that wrist, using skillful force to make her wrist numb with pain. The hairpin fell to the ground. He again twisted both her hands behind her back to grip them, looking at her with eyes fierce and eerily violent: “I know why you chose those useless men.”

“Isn’t it because King Chen is a useless coward, and you want to sit firmly on this throne?”

“Aren’t I stronger than those useless men you chose?”

With one hand gripping her waist, his movements below extremely fierce, the chains shaking incessantly: “Everything you want, I can give you now. You also have no need to see others anymore or deal falsely with them.”

“As for those lovers of yours…”

Beads of sweat fell from his eyelids. His force was so fierce, his gritted words so heavy: “I do what I say—I will definitely find them one by one and chop them into minced meat to feed the dogs!”

Wen Yu, restrained by him, was too angry and struggled toward him with all her might, biting countless teeth marks on his shoulders and arms. When he clamped her chin, she laughed coldly and asked in return: “Then what about your beauties?”

Xiao Li’s movements suddenly stopped. The fermentation of alcohol made his brain slow in thinking through problems. He stared at Wen Yu for a long time, as if finding it hard to believe, and as if uncertain, asked: “Wen Yu, are you jealous?”

Sweat hung on Wen Yu’s forehead, her expression cold and hard as before: “Lord Xiao overthinks. This Palace merely feels it’s somewhat unfair. Lord Xiao wants to kill all this Palace’s bedside people, yet your own bedside people… mmm…”

His movements suddenly became extremely fierce and heavy. Wen Yu couldn’t bear it and couldn’t speak for a moment.

He pressed down the back of her neck, pressing her tightly toward himself. Because drunkenness was slowly coming on, it defeated his usual steady composure. Moisture from those extremely scarlet eyes fell silently as he said hatefully: “You think everyone is like you, Wen Yu?”

His roughness sent her to that extreme, leaving himself also in disarray. When he bowed down to kiss her, not knowing whether speaking to Wen Yu or to himself: “It doesn’t matter. Soon I’ll kill everyone around you until only I remain.”

Wen Yu was enveloped by the alcohol smell on his body. In this extreme suffocating tide, her head also felt somewhat dizzy. Feeling the wet traces on his face brush across her own cheek, then recalling that answer she heard, her whole body’s thorns slightly retracted. In her exhaustion she raised her hand to touch Xiao Li’s head.

Xiao Li raised a pair of bloodshot eyes to look at her. Before Wen Yu could speak, the sound of chains rang out first again.

The direction of events became particularly terrible.

The aftereffects of that alcohol came on. Xiao Li was completely drunk.

Candles burned high until dawn. Wen Yu was also trapped on that throne for the entire night.

When dawn broke, the clothes on her body were completely soaked with sweat. After the gold chain around her neck clanked for the last time, the person who had put the chains on her lowered his head, pressed his forehead against hers as she nearly half-fainted, looked at her flushed face, murderous color rolling in his eyes, still murmuring hoarsely like a trapped beast: “Wen Yu, I have troops, I have power now. Will you marry me?”

—

When Wen Yu woke again, it was evening.

Her throat hurt, her bitten lips hurt, her body hurt—even more than when she used to flee outside in the past.

There was no one in the sleeping chamber. She climbed up wanting to pour herself a cup of water. Only upon moving did she discover the sound of chains was still there. Looking down, she saw the other end of the chain was tied to the bedpost.

Memories of last night returned. Wen Yu was stunned with anger for a moment. How dare he?

In this momentary distraction, the hall door was opened from outside. Xiao Li came in carrying a bowl of congee. Seeing her sitting at the bedside, he said as naturally as could be: “You’re awake? You slept for a day. Eat something first.”

Wen Yu forcefully restrained herself from losing composure and throwing things, only staring at him with fire-tempered eyes: “Remove it!”

Xiao Li automatically ignored this sentence. He walked over, dragged over a stool to sit in front of Wen Yu, stirred the congee in the bowl, scooped up a spoonful to feed her: “It’s lily and pearl barley congee that you like.”

The teeth marks on his neck were in a conspicuous position. His collar simply couldn’t cover them, just brazenly exposed outside, silently proclaiming everything that happened last night.

Wen Yu thought of how in the latter half of last night she kept calling to him, trying to make him stop, but after getting drunk he simply couldn’t hear human speech. She felt even more furious.

After she fainted, she didn’t even know how she got back to the sleeping chamber.

That she could still climb up now was entirely due to the fact that after giving birth to A’Li, once her body recovered sufficiently, she still took time out daily to practice martial arts to strengthen her body.

She closed her eyes and forcefully suppressed her anger: “The Council Hall…”

Xiao Li said: “I cleaned everything up. No one saw me bring you back either.”

Wen Yu completely didn’t want to open her eyes. She never expected things would turn out this way.

After a moment she continued: “The thing you fastened on me, remove it.”

Xiao Li didn’t speak.

Wen Yu raised her eyes and forcefully yanked the chain he had locked to the bedpost with a padlock, coldly questioning: “Last night you were drunk. What about today?”

Xiao Li said slowly: “When I decided to come to Chen Kingdom to find you, I already ordered the best craftsmen in the military camp to forge this chain.”

The look in his eyes that came over made even Wen Yu herself feel frightened.

Then what rose from the bottom of her heart was thick anger: “What do you take me for?”

Xiao Li unexpectedly asked in return: “What am I to you then, Wen Yu?”

“Back then, driving me away from Pingzhou was your single sentence. After our Northern frontier mountain hermitage parting, not even another word—it was you who said over and over you liked me! Is this your idea of liking?”

Wen Yu pressed her lips tightly, finally saying: “I’m sorry.”

In Pingzhou, she trampled on his feelings. At the mountain hermitage, she also wasn’t certain of his attitude, didn’t know if he would ultimately let her go. For the sake of the greater situation, she chose to leave without saying goodbye.

She looked at him: “Using that method to force you to leave Pingzhou—I said it was my presumption, my fault. But the mountain hermitage parting, I never promised you I would stay. If you bear a grudge, I can also apologize to you.”

An evil energy churned in Xiao Li’s chest. Back then… he had already prepared to leave with her. They had done such things—why could she still be so unmoved?

Because she only treated it as a means to repay his feelings?

If there hadn’t been that parting, if he had followed her back, would she not have sought someone else?

Unfortunately there are no “ifs” in the world. What still troubled him to this day was that she said she liked him, yet divided everything like interests on a chessboard so clearly, more like a transactional exchange of you-come-I-go.

So she didn’t feel she owed him.

Only under his relentless pursuit did she give him another apology that seemed to settle accounts.

After Xiao Li lowered his head for a moment, when he raised it again, he only laughed: “Wen Yu, I didn’t forge this chain wrongly.”

Outside the hall, a Wolf Rider knocked cautiously and reported: “Your Lordship, Chen Kingdom’s border reinforcements have arrived at the royal court.”

Xiao Li put down the congee bowl. Before leaving, he turned his head to say to Wen Yu: “Both you and King Chen are in my hands. That bunch of trash can’t make waves. Even surrounding the royal court, they only dare make a show of it. If I were you, I definitely wouldn’t threaten with a hunger strike during this period and drag down my own body.”

Wen Yu picked up the bowl of congee he put down. Angry enough to want to throw it directly at him, she looked through the half-opened window and saw the green rice that had formed grains in the courtyard, and forcefully held back.

After the room door closed again, she aggrievedly finished the congee and heavily placed the bowl on the low table beside the bed, then began studying the chain around her neck.

The part tied to the bedpost was easy to handle—she could chop down the bedpost and be free to move.

But the collar around her neck was as wide as a little finger’s thickness, the same as the iron shackles used to restrain prisoners in jails. It needed a key to open. Otherwise, even using a hard object to smash it—because it fit close to the neck leaving only a few fingers’ gap—there was no way to smash it.

The chain clinked when moved. Wen Yu recalled last night’s embarrassment. Not finding any sharp implements in the hall, she moved over a stool trying to smash it apart.

But the craftsman must have added something when forging that chain. Wen Yu smashed until the stool cracked open, but still hadn’t smashed even a gap in the chain.

She rarely had such a vexed moment. She threw the stool far away and exhaustedly lay back on the bed. Probably because she was tired enough last night, she actually closed her eyes and fell asleep again.

Later, half-dreaming and half-awake, she felt extreme heat behind her, her nape even somewhat wet. She drowsily opened her eyes. By the time she realized something, she was already being kissed.

Wen Yu was so angry she opened her mouth to bite. Though his lips were broken without a single good piece of flesh, he also had no intention of stopping.

Just like the chaos in the Council Hall the previous night.

He let her scratch and bite until she didn’t even have the strength to raise her hand. Only then did he bite and hold a piece of tender flesh at her neck and ask: “Have your lovers ever made you like this?”

That night at the Council Hall, Wen Yu had originally still wanted to speak thoroughly clearly with him. Now she only closed her eyes and said nothing.

When he carried her to the bathing pool to clean, the chains continued to sound. Only then did she spit out two words: “Remove it.”

Xiao Li kissed her cheek, already having learned to ignore those two words.

Wen Yu then no longer spoke.

When he went too far in the bathing pool, she unceremoniously delivered another teeth mark on his arm.

The following days were all like this. Wen Yu no longer made a fuss with him. She ate her meals and in her leisure time found books to read on her own.

Only suddenly one day, her body broke out in large patches of rash without warning, especially at the neck area, which she herself scratched and injured in many places.

After Xiao Li saw it, he stared at her fixedly, his whole person seeming to suppress some anger. Then he removed the collar from her neck and ordered an imperial physician to come examine her.

The imperial physician said it was perhaps heat rash caused by hot weather, prescribed both internal and external medicines. Xiao Li personally applied medicine for her. After she showed resistance, he changed to having a young palace maid come to Zhaohua Palace daily to change her medicine at regular times.

However, even though Wen Yu broke out in a body full of rash, Xiao Li had no intention of moving out of Zhaohua Palace.

At night, sharing the bed with Wen Yu again, he liked to hold Wen Yu. Wen Yu used the reason that his body was too hot and made her uncomfortable to try to drive him elsewhere. Without saying much, he made a floor bed beside the bed.

Seeing she couldn’t drive him away, Wen Yu simply let him be. Occasionally when Wolf Riders came to report something, she could also learn some information about the outside situation.

This day, tired from reading, she prepared to rest briefly at the low table. But upon raising her head, she saw Xiao Li, who had been handling military affairs by the window, was looking at her with profound eyes that seemed to suppress some emotion. Obviously he had been watching her for a while. In his gaze was a hidden pain that made one unable to breathe.

Wen Yu’s heart felt stifled. She said sarcastically: “With this Palace’s current appearance, does it still give Your Lordship some ideas?”

That very night, Wen Yu regretted the words she spoke during the day.

She was pressed between the bedding, the sweat on her body almost never drying. Xiao Li kissed her cheek where rash marks hadn’t yet faded, kissing particularly meticulously.

He had the candles in the hall lit so brightly. When he folded back Wen Yu’s hands and pressed them over her head, her face was even more completely exposed. Wen Yu herself couldn’t stand facing him with such a face with unfaded rash marks. She turned her face away, but was pinched at the chin and turned back by him, continuing to drop kisses in fragments on her face.

When his lips wandered to the side of her neck, touching the light scabs formed where she had previously scratched herself, he suddenly covered it with sharp teeth.

Given the fierceness of his movements, just when Wen Yu thought her neck would be bitten with a teeth mark, he only held that piece of flesh and ground lightly, then mercifully released.

Wen Yu broke out in much sweat. When she couldn’t bear it, she cursed him as a beast.

In the sweat-drenched sultry heat, Xiao Li gripped her chin and continued deep kissing. Only during gasping breaths did he say to her: “The curse is correct. When you wore such a face in Yongzhou, I already wanted to do such things to you.”

He didn’t know her appearance, didn’t know her identity, but from that time on, he already liked her.

Wen Yu became somewhat dazed because of this sentence.

His movements were so fierce. At the moment of ending, when the medicine’s effect took hold and he collapsed, he only said one sentence to Wen Yu: “Wen Yu, remember to kill me.”

Fine sweat covered Wen Yu’s forehead. Her eyes under the candlelight were clear as a lake.