“Princess Zhaohua, for impersonating royalty, deceiving the monarch, and throwing the imperial court into chaos, your crimes are unforgivable. You are hereby sentenced to dismemberment by five horses, to be carried out immediately!”
Lu Mingtang was dragged out of the inner prison. The blinding sunlight forced her eyes, which had grown accustomed to the darkness, to shut instinctively.
Amidst the searing glare, her gaze locked onto the high platform where Jiang Chaosheng was reading the imperial decree with an indifferent expression.
Seven days ago, she was still Princess Zhaohua, the one who had supported the new emperor and held supreme power over the court. He was a rising star in the government, a promising and powerful official, and more importantly, her Prince Consort.
But on their wedding night, he led troops to bathe the Princess’s Manor in blood, poisoned her to cripple her martial arts, and imprisoned her in the pitch-black inner prison. He even used the secret that she was not a royal princess to destroy her final chance at survival!
“Jiang Chaosheng, I only ask you one thing: of all the vows of eternal love you once swore to me, was there even a shred of sincerity?”
Jiang Chaosheng looked at her and, in the voice most familiar to her, spoke the coldest words: “Never.”
Lu Mingtang threw her head back and laughed towards the sky, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
“Jiang Chaosheng, I, Lu Mingtang, have spent my life on the battlefield. I have done good and evil, and I have never regretted a thing. But the greatest regret of my life is meeting you, knowing you, and loving you. If there is a next life, I will sever all ties to love. I shall eat your flesh and drink your blood until death ends us!”
Iron shackles were placed on her limbs and neck. As five horses galloped in different directions and her body was torn apart, Lu Mingtang never stopped laughing.
Heavy rain poured down, blood and water mingling together…
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
She felt so dizzy; her head felt like it was about to explode, and she had no strength left in her body.
A voice, cold as frost and spectral as a ghost, echoed continuously in her ears.
Was she in hell?
Yes, she had killed countless people in her life; perhaps even the King of Hell would be afraid to take her.
Lu Mingtang struggled to open her eyelids. What met her eyes was the dim light of a candle flickering in the wind.
Was this hell?
No, the carved beams and painted rafters before her gave Lu Mingtang a strange sense of familiarity.
“Lu Mingtang, he’s coming! Fire the arrows quickly! If he finds us, we’re all dead!”
Beside her, the heavy breathing of the fat, big-eared Prince Yong urged her anxiously. Lu Mingtang looked down to see a repeating crossbow in her hands.
Her fractured memories reconnected in that instant. This was five years ago. Before she helped Prince Yong ascend the throne, the debauched Emperor Chengde had died in a concubine’s bed from excessive indulgence.
Several princes killed each other in a scramble for the throne. Finally, Chancellor Wei won over the court officials and enthroned the long-forgotten eleventh prince, Lu Yan, as the new emperor.
And right now, Lu Yan was playing a game of “hide and seek” with the few remaining princes and princesses from the succession struggle.
It was called a game, but in reality, it was a hunt. If they weren’t well-hidden…
The corpses strewn haphazardly across the floor were their ultimate end.
She had been reborn! Reborn to five years ago, the starting point of everything!
Lu Mingtang had rarely shed tears since she could remember. Even when she suffered severe injuries on the battlefield, she had never uttered a single groan.
But now, realizing she had been reborn, hot tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes, making her tortured heart burn once again!
Everything would start anew. In this life, she would no longer care for love. She wanted supreme power; she would climb to the highest peak and make everyone bow down before her.
And most importantly, she would make Jiang Chaosheng pay his debt in blood!
Lu Mingtang slowly tightened her grip on the repeating crossbow. In her past life, she had been blinded by love. Believing Jiang Chaosheng’s words, she wanted to kill Lu Yan and help Prince Yong onto the throne.
In her previous life, she had used this very crossbow to shoot Lu Yan. Although he didn’t die on the spot, the short arrow had been coated with an incurable, lethal poison.
Within two days, Lu Yan had died from the poison, becoming the shortest-lived emperor in history.
The tragedy, meticulously orchestrated by Jiang Chaosheng to lure her into a trap that eventually cost her life, had begun with Lu Yan’s death!
Clang, clang, clang…
A long sword gleaming with cold light dragged along the ground, creating sparks. One end of the hilt was held in a pale, slender hand.
The Young Emperor, wearing high boots and a black robe embroidered with dragon patterns that swayed as he moved, took each step accompanied by a cold, ghostly countdown.
“Two.”
Seeing him draw closer to the cabinet where she was hiding, Prince Yong was nearly wetting himself with fear. His pudgy hand gripped her arm tightly.
“Lu Mingtang, why are you spacing out? Hurry up and—ah!”
Before he could finish his threat, Lu Mingtang suddenly pulled a wooden hairpin from her hair and stabbed it into the back of Prince Yong’s hand!
The wooden pin pierced straight through, blood splattering. Prince Yong let out a sharp cry of pain, but he forced himself to swallow it for fear of attracting Lu Yan.
“No one tells me what to do.”
Lu Mingtang’s gaze was cold, carrying the lethal disdain of someone who had long occupied a high position. It terrified Prince Yong so much that he forgot the pain in his hand. At this moment, he felt she was even more frightening than the tyrannical Young Emperor!
“One.”
With the final count, a pair of eyes, black as ink yet shot through with blood vessels, suddenly appeared in her sight through the narrow gap!
Simultaneously, Lu Mingtang expressionlessly triggered the mechanism. The short arrow flew out, following the same arc as in her previous life, but this time, it grazed Lu Yan’s cheek.
It severed a lock of his black hair and headed towards the rafters, followed by a muffled thud.
An assassin hiding on the rafters was struck by the arrow and fell straight down. With a loud crash, he slammed into the floor, blood splattering everywhere. His eyes remained wide open in death.
Seeing this, the Palace Guards standing by drew their swords and shouted, “Assassin! Protect the Emperor!”
Because this one assassin was exposed, the others who had been hiding on the rafters waiting to deal Lu Yan a fatal blow were all revealed.
“Kill the dog emperor!”
These assassins were suicide warriors, lunging at Lu Yan with no regard for their own lives.
Facing this group of assassins intent on taking his life, Lu Yan showed no panic. On the contrary, the smile on his lips deepened, and more blood vessels crept into his dark eyes.
As his smile grew, so did the number of assassins falling to his sword.
His movements were incredibly elegant; his robes fluttered, and his high boots stepped over one corpse after another. Blood splattered on his brows, his eyes, the corners of his mouth…
At this moment, he looked like a malevolent spirit climbed out of purgatory, slaughtering gods and ghosts alike.
Suddenly, a blood-drenched assassin on the ground grabbed one of his legs. At the same time, another assassin behind him seized the opportunity and thrust his sword towards Lu Yan’s vitals!
“Fool,” Lu Yan’s thin lips uttered. With a flick of his long sword, he skewered the assassin in front of him!
But this move also made him a step too slow to avoid the attack from behind. Just as he was about to catch it with his bare hands, a graceful figure flew out from the cabinet directly in front of him.
Lu Mingtang pulled a long sword from a corpse and charged forward, sword in hand, right before Lu Yan’s eyes.
Amidst her waist-length black hair fluttering in the air, her gaze met Lu Yan’s. The long sword simultaneously swept past Lu Yan’s neck and pierced the heart of the assassin behind him!
The candlelight flickered, accompanied by a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Lu Yan’s face—intensely beautiful yet pale—magnified in her vision.
But this exceptionally handsome face was stained with blood droplets from the slaughter. A single drop of crimson blood rolled down from the tear mole at the corner of his eye, making him look insane, eerie, yet bewitching.
Lu Mingtang felt hot all over; this strike had used up all her strength.
Clang. The long sword fell. She collapsed into Lu Yan’s broad yet cold embrace, clutching his collar with the last shred of her consciousness.
“I saved you. You cannot kill me.”