Su Zhao’s mind went completely blank.
The cat’s body stiffened, and the two of them stared at each other. In a flash of inspiration, Su Zhao suddenly had an idea.
Acting as if she had learned her lesson the hard way and was throwing caution to the wind, she raised her head and said righteously, “I admit it, there really is Evelyn’s aura here, so what!”
Cynthia hadn’t expected her to be so bold, openly admitting to it without the slightest evasion. The strands of hair wrapped around her fingertips suddenly tightened, causing Su Zhao’s scalp to tingle fiercely. “Oh?”
That single word was profoundly meaningful.
And dripping with threat.
She wound Su Zhao’s loose locks a few more times around her knuckles, the red marks left by the strands of hair pressing tight against her skin.
She suddenly leaned in close. “Perhaps I’ve simply been too busy and neglected your upbringing. When it comes down to it, this is entirely my failure as an older sister.”
Pulled by her hair, Su Zhao was forced to tilt her chin upward. Cynthia exerted a heavy sense of oppression over her, and though she couldn’t help shrinking back slightly, she still stiffened her neck and passionately interrogated her.
“Yes, exactly because Sister is too busy!”
Cynthia didn’t seem to expect her to be so daring, and her fingers paused slightly.
Taking advantage of the moment, Su Zhao gave a hard yank, forcefully snapping those few strands of hair from her grasp and escaping her imprisonment.
“So, it’s precisely because I was busy that I provided the opportunity for you.”
Without realizing it, Cynthia straightened her back, her emerald eyes resembling a boundless, deep forest, dark, quiet, and gloomy. She slowly loosened her grip. Through the gaps between her fingers, several broken strands of hair drifted lazily downward, sinking lifelessly into the water like feathers.
The corners of Cynthia’s lips curled upward in a cold tone, “Little sister, is this your reason for sneaking around behind my back and hanging out with someone else on the bed we shared?”
At the same time, the crown prince’s scorching fingertips heavily ground over the suspicious red marks on Su Zhao’s neck.
Evelyn’s aura lingered around the bed.
With Cynthia’s cold, harsh words falling, the rose fragrance floating in the air stirred violently. The pendulum of the grandfather clock trembled slightly. Cynthia’s magical elements surged around them, and the crown prince’s breath carried shards of ice.
Cynthia had clearly misunderstood.
Before she could finish speaking, Su Zhao’s face flushed red. She tightened her arms around the little cat in her grasp and cut her off harshly.
“So Sister has no time all day and refuses to accompany me. When you get right down to it, isn’t this your own problem?”
Overwhelmed with guilt, Su Zhao’s fingertips subconsciously sank into the fluffy fur of the Persian cat as she stiffened her neck and argued loudly.
“I am empty, lonely, and intolerably desolate! Since you won’t keep me company, what’s wrong with me accepting a little cat sent by Evelyn for companionship?”
A cat, personally sent by Evelyn?
So that was why it was tainted with her aura; it made complete sense.
Cynthia: “…”
Cynthia’s expression froze solid.
Originally, this was just an excuse Su Zhao tossed out randomly to change the subject. However, the moment the words left her mouth, the long-suppressed emotions in her heart surged like a breached dam, entirely beyond her control.
A series of inverted, black-and-white claims naturally and smoothly poured out.
She forcefully shook off Cynthia’s hand, nearly sending the cat in her arms flying. “Sister, you should reflect on yourself first!”
The turbulent magical elements in the air came to an abrupt halt.
The crown prince’s normally steady chest heaved with slight fluctuations.
Cynthia lowered her gaze to look at her, her injured hand suspended in mid-air with a patch of crimson gradually blooming across the back of her hand. She repeated in a daze, “Me, reflect on yourself?”
Su Zhao’s emotions were far more agitated than hers, her knuckles subconsciously tightening around the cat’s scruff and drawing a protesting whimpered squeak from the little creature.
Staring straight into her face, a layer of mist gradually welled up in Su Zhao’s eyes. “The ball is about to start, Sister.”
Night seeped into the room through the thin gauze curtains without a sound.
Forcing down the cat’s struggle and rejection, Su Zhao buried her face directly into its fluffy fur.
A single teardrop landed with precision onto the back of Cynthia’s hand. Su Zhao’s lips involuntarily turned downward as her voice took on a complaining, weeping tone.
“Yet all these days, you come and go early and late every single day. I can barely even catch a glimpse of you. You left me all alone at home, as if I’m just here to look after your empty house.”
Cynthia opened her mouth, left completely speechless.
That single teardrop burned her fingertips with a slight tremor, and her meticulously manicured nails dug deeply into the velvet back of the chair. She silently watched the girl’s frail shoulders rise and fall in the night like rain-soaked butterfly wings.
Su Zhao heard her own voice trembling.
“I guard this empty palace all by myself, sitting on the balcony and staring blankly in the direction where you should return. Such a huge palace, with only me left, so vast it terrifies me.”
Cynthia’s throat felt as though it had been strangled by the trailing hemline of her skirt, and the words she wanted to say suddenly vanished entirely.
Those carefully prepared excuses instantly turned into sharp thorns, plunging viciously into her heart alongside the trembling tail-end of the girl’s voice.
Muffled against the cat’s forcibly spread belly, Su Zhao’s voice let out a soft whimper, suppressed by the thick layer of fur and unable to release her feelings freely.
“You always tell me how much you care about me, but Sister, why can’t I feel your care for me at all?”
Cynthia’s knuckles were stiff, her feet seemingly rooted and growing into the floor. There was only a single step between the two of them, yet for some reason, she was entirely unable to cross that chasm to brush away her tears.
The moonlight stone earrings swayed lightly, reflecting the reddened corners of Su Zhao’s eyes.
She hoarsely repeated, “You can’t feel my care for you?”
The stark white light from the crystal chandelier overhead cut obliquely across Cynthia’s profile, casting a trembling shadow beneath her eyelashes. The cat in her arms suddenly flared its tail, and Su Zhao jolted as she realized she had miscalculated the strength of her grip on its paws.
The small beast unsheathed its sharp claws from their soft pads, its spine arching as an angry glare shot straight at Cynthia.
“Look, Sister. Even it knows how to stand up for me.”
Su Zhao smiled faintly, though the smile couldn’t conceal her sorrow. She took the sharp cat’s paw and playfully swiped it a few times toward Cynthia in an aggrieved manner.
A childish venting action.
The arc cut through the air as if trying to tear apart the invisible barrier between them.
Cynthia met her tear-filled eyes, tasting a bitter, bloody iron rising in her throat. She had broken the skulls of countless enemies with her bare hands, yet here she was, burned to a trembling fingertip by her younger sister’s tears.
Su Zhao suddenly leaned forward, grabbing the corner of her cape. Cynthia’s whole body went rigid as she lowered her head to look at the tight wrinkles clenched in her grasp, heavy with accusations.
“You’re always like this, clearly saying you want to hold me in the palm of your hand.”
A sob choked her throat. Su Zhao lifted her face, exposing her fragile swan-like neck. Suppressing the cat’s struggles, tears slipped past her chin and stained two dark water marks onto Cynthia’s crimson cape.
“Why can’t I feel anything?”
Her final accusation faded into an airy sigh, dissolving into the twilight.
Dappled specs of light swirled within Su Zhao’s moist pupils. The person who had just been baring her claws was now curled up in a chair, holding a cat, looking utterly forlorn and lonely as her tone dropped.
“Sister, I watch and wait for you to return every single day. But you’re always coming and going like a ghost, leaving me all alone to spend empty nights by myself. I miss you so much it hurts, but your world is just so, so huge.”
“State affairs, socializing, power struggles, you look too high and too far, and you want too many things. You never spare even a shred of your gaze to pay attention to my emotions.”
Was playing the pity card useful?
Of course it was.
Su Zhao only had to shed two small pearls and purposefully turn her face away, pretending not to look at Cynthia. Cynthia immediately rushed forward in a panic, her calloused thumb gently rubbing the wet corners of her eyes.
“Little sister, thinking of me this way is very unfair to me.”
When she raised her tear-blurred head, Cynthia clearly saw her own shifting reflection in those tear-filled pupils.
Her face was slightly pale, a look of wretched distress no one had ever witnessed before.
“You’ve never granted me the right to explain. How can you say I don’t care about you?” The remaining words were sealed away by the taste of blood.
Cynthia suddenly grabbed her hand and pressed it against her left breast. Through the fabric, Su Zhao could clearly feel her rapid heartbeat.
Knowing how much it hurt Cynthia, Su Zhao intentionally provoked her further. “Do you?”
Drawing out the tail-end of her tone, Su Zhao melted her provocation straight into her moist pupils. Staring at her tear-damp eyelashes, Cynthia couldn’t even muster the energy to be angry.
“During this time, I’ve been tracking that fugitive. The No. 12 guest who harmed you at the auction.”
Cynthia couldn’t stand her skeptical tone, couldn’t stand her so straightforwardly and honestly needing her, couldn’t stand having to face her own absence and dereliction of duty, and couldn’t bear the thought of letting her shoulder the pain of disappointment.
She couldn’t stand being questioned like this.
“The succubus is still untraced, but that No. 12, traces of her have recently appeared inside the Imperial Capital.”
The proud crown prince lowered her head and lifted Su Zhao’s pale-knuckled hand. “These past two days, I’ve been busy tracking her down in secret.”
Faced with her tears,
Cynthia compromised, yielded, and collapsed in defeat.
“I wanted to take her as my trophy, treat her as your birthday gift, and present her to you with my own hands.”
The statement was so unexpected.
Su Zhao couldn’t help widening her eyes, tightening her grip on Cynthia’s hand. “No. 12?”
“Little sister, I want to make you happy.”
Cynthia untied her cape, which was tainted with the scent of graveyard soil. Beneath the crimson cape, the silver shoulder clasps on her military uniform gleamed with a faint light, clearly reflecting torn claw marks.
“I wanted to vent your anger for you.”
A storm seemed to brew within Cynthia’s eyes. She stared fixedly at her, as if she still had too many things left to say.
Countless words of sweet affection tangled in her heart. She couldn’t allow herself to expose weakness or fragility. Enduring until the very end, the proud crown prince ultimately minded her pride and felt too timid to bare her softest thoughts in front of others.
Her restrained, heavy emotions had nowhere to vent, churning restlessly deep in her chest. Cynthia rolled her throat and rasped, “I care about you very much.”
A confession of true feelings of this caliber
was already her absolute limit.
The moment the collar slipped downward, Su Zhao inadvertently caught sight of the unhealed bite marks exposed along the side of her neck beneath the collarbone.
Forgetting everything else, Su Zhao grabbed her lapel and pulled her close, gasping in alarm, “Sister, you’re hurt?”
Cynthia panted, holding down the hand reaching toward her wound. The burning pain radiating from there reminded her of the vampire’s mocking curse from the previous night.
“It’s nothing, it will heal soon.” Cynthia’s calm demeanor showed not a single trace of injury.
The tables had completely turned.
Instead, Su Zhao was left utterly speechless, transformed into the one with nothing to say.
“I caught her last night, but unfortunately she was too cunning and managed to escape in the end.”
While Su Zhao was dazed, the crown prince’s body heat radiated through her uniform. Taking advantage of the posture, Cynthia pulled her straight into her embrace.
“The Imperial Capital is our territory; we won’t allow them to run rampant. Those fellows who dared offend you…”
She kissed away the unshed tears lingering at the corner of Su Zhao’s eye, her soft words seeming to hold the firmest of promises: “Little sister, don’t worry, I will definitely drag them back and throw them right in front of you.”
She pressed her forehead against Su Zhao’s, letting Su Zhao feel the scorching heat that was nearly burning her up. Su Zhao instinctively braced herself against Cynthia’s chest, feeling the rapid heartbeat inside threatening to burst through.
Cynthia’s voice grew lower still: “Originally, I thought of capturing her as a birthday present for you to dispose of right before the midnight bell tolled for your birthday. What a pity.”
She sighed softly. The crown prince’s silver hair brushed against Su Zhao’s knees, her lips grazing over her pulsing veins as if trying to fill the hollow in her chest with this warmth.
“But she’s severely injured, and the tracking magic I left on her has already taken effect. She has to run for her life without a moment to rest, tasting what it’s like to flee like a stray dog.”
Cynthia’s low chuckle vibrated through her chest, her uniform’s silver buttons clicking softly against the chair back. “Once she stops, she’ll become fish on my chopping board.”
“Little sister, do you want to break her fangs with your own hands, or…”
Cynthia’s blood-stained thumb pressed against Su Zhao’s soft lips. Su Zhao looked up at her with a surprised expression.
Compared to speaking to her in a soft, gentle voice, Cynthia’s words right now could only be described as murderous: “Shall I watch her get nailed straight to your dressing table?”
What on earth did she want with those?
Turn that person into a taxidermied specimen?
She didn’t have such bizarre hobbies.
“No need for all that.”
Su Zhao was momentarily speechless, obediently nestling into her embrace. She had a vague suspicion regarding the identity of No. 12, but it had never been verified.
“Sister,” her thoughts drifting off, Su Zhao suddenly tugged at Cynthia’s collar, forcing her to lower her head as she curiously leaned to whisper in her ear, “Does Sister know what her identity is?”
“Whatever her identity is, it doesn’t matter.”
Cynthia gently stroked her long hair with a soothing touch.
“I will deliver her to you for your disposal. Little sister, any grievances you’ve suffered, I will help you take them back one by one.”
Why did these words sound so familiar?
The more Su Zhao listened, the more wrong it felt.
Her thoughts gradually pulling away from the joy of this immersive roleplay, Su Zhao belatedly realized that the direction of events was getting seriously weird. Her hand stopped mid-stroke over the cat’s back.
Her hand froze right over Evelyn’s flared tail fur.
At some point, the cat had stopped squirming and struggling.
Its ice-blue eyes were coated with a layer of frost, clear, detached, and chilling. Evelyn watched Cynthia’s emotional display with cold eyes, listening to Su Zhao pouring out her heart with tearful endearments and demanding promises.
The cat was as cold as ice.
From beginning to end, it hadn’t even looked at her once.
“I will help you take back the grievances you’ve suffered.”
Su Zhao seemed to vaguely recall that perhaps, possibly, maybe, Evelyn had once made her the exact same promise?
“I heard from the servants that you want to take back your moonlight flower.”
While Su Zhao sat on pins and needles, Cynthia suddenly changed the subject. The moment she mentioned something she cared about, Su Zhao immediately refocused her attention, eagerly grabbing her hemline with high expectations.
“The flower Sister gave me belongs to me! Give it back to me quickly, Sister!”
Acts of spoiled affection were useless.
Cynthia smiled imperceptibly.
“It’s not that I won’t give it to you, but only a mature moonlight flower can be used for medicine. This potted moonlight flower is currently still in its growth phase; it needs to absorb the moonlight of two more full moons before it can truly enter maturity.”
“A new moonlight flower takes about a year to reproduce. Until then, this sole remaining moonlight flower…”
At this point, Cynthia paused strangely, and Su Zhao followed her train of thought, recalling those ruined petals she had ravaged and used for soaking baths.
Her head drooped down in a guilty hunch.
“As for the other materials needed to lift the love spell, although they are rare, the Summer Palace’s treasury has them all stored. Only this moonlight flower is a bit tricky.”
Su Zhao wasn’t stupid; she naturally caught the subtext in her words. Overwhelmed with guilt, she silently leaned against Cynthia’s shoulder.
Cynthia suddenly let out a soft laugh and patted her head. “Little sister, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but just to be safe, I’ll temporarily keep it safe for you for a while.”
Very perfect and entirely reasonable.
Su Zhao couldn’t find a single excuse to refute her.
Yet the very next second, the fluffy, tickling sensation of fur brushed against her palm. Su Zhao slowly lowered her head, realizing another critical problem.
What was going to happen to the materials Evelyn had arranged for?
The cat in her arms sat there with cold detachment.
Its ice-blue pupils seemed to have floating shards of ice suspended within them.
Evelyn stared at her with icy coldness, seemingly waiting for her choice.