Granny Wang collapsed onto the snow with a piercing shriek.
Beside her, the scorched bloody hole hissed, emitting white steam as azure poison powder mingled with crimson blood, forming grotesque ice crystals.
Shen Taotao kicked aside a bloodstained snow chunk with her boot tip, leaning down to stare at the emaciated figure clutching a severed, bloody arm.
“Why?” Her voice grated like sandpaper, “What kind of staggering wealth could drive you to sacrifice everyone’s lives?”
A gurgling, unnatural laugh erupted from the dying woman’s throat. Granny Wang’s ashen pupils suddenly dilated, starkly reflecting the blizzard-ravaged landscape: “Wealth? Hahaha… I did it to reach Jingcheng… by killing the Imperial Concubine.”
Blood-flecked spittle sprayed from her torn lips, each word sounding like a broken bellows straining: “She promised… if I sowed chaos in Ningguta… my son would get… the Official scribe of the Ministry of War sixth rank position…”
Blood gushed relentlessly from her severed arm: “But last month… the grain convoy from Jingcheng carried a secret message… My son… my son—” She suddenly screamed, her body arching half an inch like a fish out of water, “He became Third Prince’s horse groom… That beast… blamed him for pulling the reins too slowly… whipped his throat… until it snapped.”
Wind whipped bloody ice particles against Shen Taotao’s face.
Granny Wang’s eyes blazed with feral ferocity: “That Imperial Concubine’s bastard! Killed my son, so I’ll make them pay in blood.”
Her broken body trembled with absolute hatred, “Ningguta must fall into chaos, must become a graveyard. Only then, when spring comes and the Imperial Concubine summons me…” Her throat produced a horrific sucking sound, as if chewing invisible flesh and bone, “…that’s when I’ll bite through her throat.”
“Fool!” Shen Taotao stomped on her snow-clawing hand, “If Ningguta truly becomes hell on earth, do you think the Imperial Concubine would keep a blood-drenched tool like you until spring?” She unfolded the secret letter Xie Er had handed her—retrieved from Zhao Laosi’s inner garment—its edges damp with bloody fingerprints, “See? Not just your son, even your husband’s starvation was orchestrated by the Imperial Concubine’s agents, all to drive you mad enough to poison everyone.”
The characters on the letter remained starkly clear.
“Aaaaaah—!” Granny Wang’s piercing wail tore through the night sky, bloody tears streaming from her ruptured eye sockets, clinging to gaunt cheekbones.
“Pfft!” A torrent of black blood erupted, splattering against Shen Taotao’s wolf-fur boot tops with scalding heat, but the woman had already gone cold.
The blizzard intensified, stinging their faces with icy needles.
Shen Taotao turned from the corpse, lifting her gaze to Xie Yunjing’s frost-crusted face:
“You—who are you, really?”
Her voice whirled in the wind, “Worth the Imperial Concubine’s fear, sending so many agents openly and covertly to Ningguta, determined to bury you here forever?”
Xie Yunjing reached out, drawing Shen Taotao closer, his fingertips brushing away a speck of frozen mud from her cheek.
The smudge cleared, revealing skin so pale it gleamed painfully under the snow-light.
The ice in his eyes fractured: “Before coming to Ningguta, I was called Li Yunjing.”
The name crashed into the blizzard, heavy with the metallic scent of blood.
Li!
The imperial surname!
Shen Taotao’s breath caught in her throat.
“My mother was the late Empress Xiaoyi Duanmin.” His voice was flat as a frozen river. “On the emperor’s birthday, dozens of voodoo wooden puppets were discovered in Jingren Palace. My mother was executed on the spot.” His boot soles crushed frozen blood clots. “My grandfather Xie Wei rushed back to Jingcheng overnight, knelt until he broke two steps of the Danbi Stone, and wrote in blood offering his military authority in exchange for my life – for me to abandon the Li surname and be exiled to Ningguta under my maternal family name Xie.”
The wind and snow wailed like weeping ghosts.
“The Imperial Concubine isn’t afraid of me.” Xie Yunjing’s voice sank like freezing ice. “She fears the three hundred thousand armored border troops under the Xie family’s remaining influence that I command.”
He suddenly leaned in, his nose almost touching Shen Taotao’s frozen forehead, his warm breath scalding her tightly sealed lips: “Now that you know all my secrets, if…” Each word scraped her nerves like a poisoned dagger, “you dare speak of this…”
Shen Taotao gasped sharply, the cold air stabbing her lungs like needles. Seeing the raging fury in Xie Yunjing’s eyes, she declared: “If she dares to fill Ningguta with corpses from coal mining and iron forging, our blades will dare to slaughter every imperial descendant behind her high walls and deep palaces.”
The first rule of survival was to show loyalty immediately. Jingcheng was far away – shouting “death to the Imperial Concubine” wouldn’t kill her right now, but offending this living demon before her would guarantee instant death.
Xie Yunjing’s knuckles suddenly clenched tight. Though killing intent still burned in his muscles, his heart felt like it had been branded with a red-hot iron.
Through ten years of bloodshed, Xie Yunjing had seen noble ladies’ bashful fans and border dancers’ enchanting performances, but never had he seen a face so vivid – stained with blood, smeared with mud, yet burning with wildfire in its eyes.
The wind and snow filled her wolf-fur coat, just as they filled the gaps in Xie Yunjing’s black cloak.
Two discarded pieces from Jingcheng’s high stakes heard the thunder of their hearts breaking over blood-soaked frozen ground.
Beneath the Xie remnant’s icy surface, the molten lava of revenge had already eroded the palace’s towering foundations.