He had calculated everything, but in the end, he had still miscalculated this woman’s ruthlessness.

That incense…

He had thought she was being kind in helping him refresh his spirits, but instead she was taking his life!

Jing Xuan lowered her eyes to look at his shocked expression, slowly crouched down, and said with the same calm demeanor, “Now the Prince’s body is filled with poisonous vapors. The more anxious you are, the more angry you become, the faster the poison will spread.”

“You… you vicious woman.”

“However vicious I may be, it cannot match the Prince’s cruelty.”

Na Tuo didn’t understand. “Why? Why couldn’t the imperial physicians detect it?”

Jing Xuan slightly raised her brows. “Back then, even the imperial physicians of my Da Lin couldn’t detect that my mother consort had been poisoned with a deadly toxin. Do you think your Huyi’s mediocre doctors could detect it?”

Ugh!

Na Tuo thought he had heard wrong. “What?”

Jing Xuan smiled. “I have a secret that no one knows to this day, but before the Prince dies, I can tell you.”

As she spoke, she reached out and grabbed Na Tuo’s chin, forcefully lifting it up. “Back then, my mother consort committed heinous crimes, her hands stained with countless lives. In order to gain power, to help my imperial brother ascend to the throne, she was even willing to sacrifice me! Such a person had long lost any mercy or conscience in her heart! When a person commits wrongs, they must eventually pay for them. So I placed the poisonous incense I had prepared myself in the incense burner in her room, making her breathe it day and night. Do you know? She praised me for being sensible, said I finally understood what it meant to put filial piety first among all virtues. But even until the very last moment, she never knew the truth! She still knelt on the ground begging me desperately to forgive her.”

Ugh!

Na Tuo couldn’t imagine that such a delicate woman would use such deadly poison against her own mother consort.

He had truly underestimated her. “I originally thought that after marrying into Huyi, I could still live out my life! But things didn’t go as hoped. The moment Young Lord Gong died, my heart died completely as well. But you shouldn’t have, absolutely shouldn’t have—you shouldn’t have smashed that jade pendant he left me. Everything today was caused by yourself.”

She was nearly roaring.

Na Tuo’s face was deathly pale, his chest uncomfortable.

Gritting his teeth, he cursed, “Poisonous woman!”

Jing Xuan’s expression turned severe as she swung her arm.

She pushed Na Tuo to the ground.

Na Tuo tried to prop himself up, but his body was powerless. Lying on the ground, he simply couldn’t get up.

“Someone! Someone!” He could only shout toward the outside.

But his voice was low and extremely weak.

As if it were rolling in his throat.

After a few attempts, he spat out a mouthful of blood!

Fresh blood stained his ochre-yellow dragon robe.

Dyeing red the two golden dragons on it.

Particularly striking.

Jing Xuan looked at him coldly, slowly rising as she said, “Rest assured, you won’t die too ugly a death. At least you’ll have an intact corpse.”

“You…”

“I told you, I came to see the Prince off, so you can depart in peace.”

“Ugh… pffft!” Na Tuo vomited blood again.

A surge of energy rushed to his head.

Flushing his face red.

Veins bulging.

Yet he would rather exhaust his last breath than try to crawl toward the outside of the room. But his ten fingers spasmed, his whole body convulsed, not only did fresh blood overflow from his mouth, but white foam also emerged. Because of his crawling, he dragged an extremely gruesome trail of blood across the floor.

His dragon robe was covered in fresh blood.

A shocking sight.

But in the end, he still couldn’t cross that threshold!

He couldn’t draw that last breath.

His body convulsed!

His feet kicked!

“Ugh…”

His head collapsed onto the ground.

No more movement whatsoever.

The once arrogant and haughty Third Prince had now fallen to such a wretched state.

In the end, he ultimately could not obtain the throne.

Everything was just a dream.

A nightmare!

Jing Xuan looked calmly and indifferently at Na Tuo lying dead on the ground.

Her heart had no ripples whatsoever.

No happiness!

No satisfaction!

Even less any sense of release!

She only turned around and silently lit another piece of incense in the incense burner she had brought in.

The fragrance in the room grew even stronger…

It slowly drifted outside with the cold wind from the window.

She raised her chin, carrying what remained of her pride and dignity, and walked out step by step.

With each step she took, her body felt as if it had been pierced by a sword.

Growing weaker and weaker.

Growing heavier and heavier.

Her complexion also extremely pale…

When she reached the courtyard, the Marquis of Pingyang’s soldiers burst in.

“The Marquis has ordered—leave no one in the Prince’s manor alive, and bring the Third Prince’s corpse into the palace.”

“Yes.”

Jing Xuan ignored all of this.

Under the moonlight, she stood in the courtyard, raising her head to look at the snow filling the sky.

The guards surrounded her in the middle, about to kill her.

Suddenly—

Several sharp arrows shot from the surrounding rooftops.

Killing all those people.

Ji Yunshu arrived in time with reinforcements!

Upon entering, she saw Jing Xuan standing in the center of a pile of corpses.

The moment she saw Ji Yunshu, Jing Xuan could no longer hold on.

A wave of weakness overcame her, and her body tilted forward.

“Jing Xuan!”

Ji Yunshu rushed over and caught her in her arms.

Both their bodies slowly descended to the ground!

Jing Xuan lay in her embrace, blood flowing from the corner of her mouth. “I never thought that before dying, I would see you one more time.”

Ji Yunshu’s eyes reddened. “Why were you so foolish?”

“For me, this is release!”

“You’ll be fine.” Ji Yunshu held tightly the trembling figure in her arms. “Jingrong promised you, he promised to take you away from here. You can’t die, you can’t…”

“It’s useless. I’m already… already beyond saving. Tell… tell my imperial brother for me that this… was my own choice.”

Ji Yunshu choked with emotion, tears streaming down like rain.

“Yunshu, can you… promise me one thing?” She grasped Ji Yunshu’s hand. “After I die, take me… take me back to Da Lin! It turns out… when a person is about to die, they truly wish to return to their roots.”

“Jing Xuan…”

“This time, I can finally make my own decision for once. I don’t have to… don’t have to live like a puppet anymore. How wonderful, how wonderful…”

She looked up at the falling snow with upturned eyes.

As if she saw a beam of light!

Gently spilling over her body.

She smiled.

A beautiful smile!

More beautiful than the stars in the sky!

As clean and pure as white snow.

No matter how much time passed, she was still that simple, lovable Da Lin princess who lived without a care in the world from years ago.

Her ice-cold hand gradually slipped from Ji Yunshu’s hand, bit by bit.

Gently falling into the snow.

In her palm lay a fragment of a jade pendant.

The small white flower on her head also fell to the ground.

Suddenly, wind arose around them…

The dancing snowflakes fell on her head, face, body…

That white mourning garment seemed to merge as one with the white snow!

This time, she would never have to wake from her dreams again. In her dream, she lightly lifted her thin robe and kept running forward. Peach blossoms bloomed splendidly on every tree, pink petals brushing lightly past her body. She seemed to see a young man standing beneath the peach blossom tree, dressed in plain-colored garments, his gaze profound, looking at her with deep emotion. At this moment, she cast aside everything and rushed toward him regardless of all else…

Never again would she be alone!

Ji Yunshu held her gradually stiffening body and wept in anguished sobs. “I promise you—I’ll take you back to Da Lin!”