Jing Hengbo stared at her. In the hazy darkness, her slightly upturned eyes were distinctly black and white, fierce as a malevolent spirit.

Ming Cheng didn’t even look at her, simply rolling over to face away with complete confidence.

The next moment, with a bang, her body slid violently across the ground, her back slamming hard against the iron bars.

This collision aggravated wounds all over her body. She screamed, but a clump of rotten straw flew over and was stuffed forcefully into her mouth. The putrid smell of straw mixed with blood instantly turned her screams into retching. She tried to make a gesture of biting her tongue, but the tightly packed straw made her tongue completely immobile.

She struggled, reaching for the chains binding her hands and feet. The chains were long—she began wrapping them around her neck.

Jing Hengbo watched motionlessly.

The chain wrapped once around her neck. Ming Cheng’s trembling arms tried to throw it over the iron bars, but the chain was heavy and failed twice.

Jing Hengbo continued watching coldly as Ming Cheng silently went through the motions of suicide.

Ming Cheng seemed truly without will to live. Unable to throw the chain, she simply thrust her head between the bars. The bars were only palm-width apart—squeezing through would likely strangle her.

A hand suddenly reached over. Ming Cheng’s heart leaped with joy, but she didn’t change her movements. That hand grabbed her throat and yanked her violently against the bars. Bang—her back slammed against the bars again. Before she could scream, the chain rattled over, wrapping around her neck once more, pinning her to the bars.

Behind her, Jing Hengbo said nothing, gripping both ends of the chain with her hands, leaning back with one foot braced against the bars. The chain tightened. Ming Cheng’s eyes bulged as her limbs began uncontrollable spasms.

The iron chain tightened without hesitation. Her throat was compressed with great force, her windpipe deformed, air forced from her body. Her chest felt suffocatingly tight, as if about to explode. Suffocation, pain, darkness… like a great tide, suddenly dragging her into the deep abyss…

For the first time, Ming Cheng experienced the taste of suffocation and the feeling of approaching death—true approaching death, without any hesitation or testing. The person behind her breathed steadily with an iron-like posture. Even in such extreme agony, she could feel Jing Hengbo’s fingers were ice-cold, her heart ice-cold too, could feel that even her breathing carried murderous intent and hatred, her eyes in the darkness shining with blood-red light.

She even vaguely heard Jing Hengbo counting, her voice calm as if playing a game.

“…one hundred twenty-one, one hundred twenty-two…”

This mechanical, indifferent counting was like death knells before life’s end, destroying her last courage.

Hazily, she could only think: wrong… wrong… too clever by half… I’m really going to die…

So death was this painful, this terrifying. She suddenly realized that before absolute dominance, all bluffing and false bravado only brought suffering—this incomparable agony that seemed to tear one apart.

“…one hundred seventy-nine, one hundred eighty!”

The iron chain suddenly loosened.

Air rushing into her throat actually made it burn. For a moment she couldn’t react at all. Only when the chain around her neck clattered down, crashing heavily onto her feet, did she collapse limply, gasping… coughing… tears and snot flowing… a complete mess.

That near-death experience felt like an instant nightmare. She lay on the ground, too weak to get up, no longer wanting to face anything.

She didn’t want to face it, but Jing Hengbo wouldn’t let her escape. Without letting her taste death, she wouldn’t know what fear meant!

With a lift of her hand, slap—Ming Cheng was flipped over, panting on the ground like a dead dog.

Jing Hengbo slowly crouched down, staring at her face streaming with tears and muddy water.

“People who threaten others with death are those who have never truly tasted death,” she said. “How was it? How do you feel now? Still want to make demands?”

Ming Cheng’s eyes widened, the dirt on both sides of her eyes washed away more rapidly by some liquid. She didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to show weakness before Jing Hengbo, but her body’s reactions were uncontrollable. She bit her teeth and turned her head away fiercely.

With a wave of Jing Hengbo’s hand, her head turned back, banging against the ground.

“You torture me like this… don’t you really want to know… about the antidote…”

“No.”

Ming Cheng stared in shock, even forgetting to cry.

“Would a wretch like you really confess properly?” Jing Hengbo lifted one corner of her mouth, looking at her coldly. “Rather than being randomly told about some poison by you, wasting manpower and energy with no results, possibly even getting poisoned again in the process, it’s more convenient to find ways to detoxify on my own.”

“That poison… you can’t cure it yourselves…”

Jing Hengbo chuckled.

“Whatever secrets, mysteries, past affairs—take them to your grave. I’m not interested. I’ve always only looked to the future, never mind the past. Even if Gong Yin had nothing to do with you, even if he had once married you, I would only feel more sorry for his misfortune in being deceived.” She let out a long breath. “I really feel sick just hearing your voice. To redeem my mood, you might as well die immediately.”

With a flip of her palm, Ming Cheng stared in terror as a dagger suspended in mid-air, pointing directly at her heart.

“Don’t—”

“Yes.” Jing Hengbo said with a smile. “Weren’t you very tough? Didn’t you want to die? Dared to make conditions with me? Have the ability to negotiate with me as a ghost.”

Amid laughter, the dagger slowly descended.

“They say waiting to die is worse than death itself. You just died once—now let me give you a more delicate experience. Don’t thank me.”

Ming Cheng’s eyes widened, watching that dagger descend extremely slowly but extremely accurately toward her heart, sweat uncontrollably rolling down her forehead.

Just that short distance—however slowly, it would arrive quickly. Soon she felt the sharp pain of the knife point piercing the skin of her chest, the iron coldness and chill like a handful of snow suddenly stuffed into her blood vessels.

What was worse, the knife point had already entered flesh, yet Jing Hengbo showed no sign of hesitation to stop, nor any intention to speed up. Like when strangling her earlier—calm, steady, almost cruelly unhurried.

Only those with firm resolve, truly prepared to kill, could maintain such steadiness.

Sweat rolled down Ming Cheng’s forehead, gleaming in the darkness.

She had nothing left, could only threaten with her life and secrets. But when life was treated as worthless as dust, secrets as used toilet paper, how could she escape?

The severe pain in her chest was driving her mad. A single stab through the heart would be but a moment’s agony, but this bit-by-bit penetration, death creeping in fraction by fraction, magnified the pain infinitely. Her vision darkened, sweat poured, she wanted to scream and struggle, yet feared her struggles would make the dagger sink faster, killing her quicker.

Jing Hengbo was counting again.

“One centimeter…”

Ming Cheng’s whole body trembled.

“Two centimeters…”

The straw and muddy water beneath Ming Cheng were already soaked through.

“Three centimeters, four centimeters…”

Ming Cheng tried to open her mouth, but inch-by-inch approaching terror gripped her throat. Having experienced that earlier death-counting, this counting quickly brought her back to that previous near-death despair.

“Almost reached the heart…”

“Kill me! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”

The shriek seemed to burst from her chest and flesh, so loud it even startled Jing Hengbo. The guards outside all shivered, looking up at that pale moon ringed with red in the sky.

Before Jing Hengbo could look up, Ming Cheng was already shouting torrentially.

“Gong Yin! Gong Yin was originally my enemy! He first knew me, I introduced him to my father. My father was the State Preceptor then. Because of his outstanding abilities, he became my father’s most trusted subordinate. My father even once indicated he would marry me to him… But later, he had conflicts with my father, then my whole family… my whole family died at his hands. I escaped alone and swore revenge. Who knew that years later, he found me. I thought I was dead for sure, but he said he would compensate me. Then I became the reborn Queen, brought back to Di Ge as a puppet Queen… That poison wasn’t mine—it appeared mysteriously in my chambers with instructions for use. I used it for a very long time, tried many methods, including exploiting his obsessive cleanliness and his cultivation habits, before finally succeeding in poisoning him…”

“After succeeding, you knew you couldn’t hide it from him, so you instigated the Huangjin Tribe rebellion?” Jing Hengbo stared at her, sneering. “Pei Shu seems to have grievances with you. Is it related to this rebellion?”

Ming Cheng turned her head, saying weakly, “I didn’t have the ability to plan a rebellion. What happened after was just as I said in the palace hall last time—I didn’t assassinate Gong Yin, but was secretly given a new face and smuggled out, reduced to living among common folk… Perhaps that assassination and rebellion were just a conspiracy by Gong Yin to eliminate me, draw out the already rebellious Huangjin Tribe and take the opportunity to punish them, thereby consolidating his power… He was always skilled at such things…”

“You’re too modest.” Jing Hengbo sneered.

Ming Cheng’s words couldn’t be entirely trusted—she spoke vaguely about the poisoning. But one thing was certain: there must have been a mastermind behind this. With Gong Yin’s intelligence, bringing a Queen who had a grudge against him back to the palace—how could he not guard against her? How could he still let her have the opportunity to encounter such poison? To say no one helped her, Jing Hengbo wouldn’t believe it even unto death.

“When you originally swore revenge, how could you agree to go back with Gong Yin? How did you dare go back with him?”

“Could I disobey him? He was the State Preceptor who held power over the realm, while I was just a weak woman…” Ming Cheng panted slightly.

Jing Hengbo chuckled, too lazy to argue with her. This wretch was lying again.

Said she would confess honestly, but after talking so long, she’d essentially said nothing. What the poison was—didn’t know. Who gave it—didn’t know. Next she’d probably say how to cure it—didn’t know?

“How to cure it?”

“Don’t know…” Ming Cheng said two words, saw Jing Hengbo’s expression, and hastily continued, “The person who gave me the poison never showed themselves—how could they give me an antidote? But later, fearing I might be poisoned too, I consulted many famous poison-curing experts, studied that poison’s properties, and gained some insights…”

“Where?”

“Hidden in the underground palace beneath the Queen’s chambers… That place is so secret only I know about it… I’ll take you there…” Ming Cheng secretly glanced at Jing Hengbo’s expression from beneath her eyelashes.

Jing Hengbo’s lips curved as she stood up.

Ming Cheng’s eyes flashed with hopeful light.

Jing Hengbo watched her with interest.

Ming Cheng’s gaze grew increasingly panicked.

“You… won’t you take me there… His poison, though suppressed by his power, will grow heavier the more it’s suppressed. If not cured soon, perhaps…” She crawled up on her knees, gripping the bars, staring tensely at Jing Hengbo.

“I know the underground palace myself. Take you along to give you a chance to escape?” One sentence from Jing Hengbo made Ming Cheng’s vision go black, while the next sentence nearly drained her of even the strength to grip the bars.

“I don’t believe a single word you’ve said. Forcing you to talk was just to find an opportunity to play with you.” Jing Hengbo said with a smile. “Regarding the antidote, I’ve already thought it through. Haven’t you already described the poisoning symptoms? I have medical and poison experts here. I’ll have them study poisons to find the kind that can make someone after poisoning experience ‘half the body strangely cold, half scorchingly hot, the blood vessels and organs inside the body seeming about to be frozen then burned, dissolving inch by inch into ash’—that wonderful sensation. Oh, and it must change with the poisoned person’s internal energy, growing stronger when encountering strength. I’ll have them experiment slowly on you. If you say half hot and half cold, it absolutely cannot be one side cold and one side hot—wrong, start over. If you say stronger when encountering strength, weaker when encountering weakness, it cannot be weaker when encountering strength, stronger when encountering weakness—wrong, start over. If you say first frozen then burned, it absolutely cannot be first burned then frozen—wrong, start over. There are so many poisons in the world, with countless combinations. We can try them slowly on you—we’ll always find the one that perfectly matches the conditions.”

Before she finished speaking, Ming Cheng’s body had already collapsed limply. Jing Hengbo laughed, “Oh, actually fainted?”

With a kick, Ming Cheng fell like overcooked noodles, splashing bloody muddy water.

Jing Hengbo looked at her lazily. A spent force, a prisoner—and she dared negotiate conditions with her? Did she still think she was the Jing Hengbo who had been driven from Di Ge?

Staring at Ming Cheng’s ceaselessly trembling back, a strange expression gradually appeared in her eyes. After a long while, she murmured, “…Actually, you really are quite a good lead…”