After His Partiality Led to My Death, My Corpse Disappeared - Chapter 1

I was the Crown Prince’s consort, and also the daughter of his father’s enemy. On our wedding night, he lifted my veil and sneered, “I will make your life a living hell.” Later, I shielded him from a poisoned arrow, but he held his crying ‘white moonlight’ and accused me of faking it. It wasn’t until his ‘white moonlight’ personally pushed me into the icy lake that he gently covered her eyes from the shore, “Don’t look, it’s dirty.” As the lake water filled my throat, I saw a faded peace charm fall from his sleeve—one I had prayed for him ten years ago at Huguo Temple. When I opened my eyes again, I had become the enemy nation’s most beloved young princess. At the palace banquet, he knelt at the foot of the steps, begging to see me. I smiled and threw the peace charm into the brazier, “Dirty thing, burn it.”

Cold.

A bone-chilling coldness snaked from the hard, icy bluestone beneath my knees, drilling into my bones like a serpent, spreading and gnawing at my limbs and internal organs.

This cold even surpassed the sharp, tearing pain from the unhealed arrow wound on my back.

The courtyard in front of Fengyi Palace was terrifyingly empty, covered with a thin layer of dirty fresh snow, like a vast, cold shroud.

All around, there was only the mournful wail of the wind scraping against the eaves bells on the palace corners, monotonous and desolate.

Footsteps sounded from behind me, neither fast nor slow, each step treading on the snow, producing a subtle, teeth-grinding crunch. The sound grew closer and closer, finally stopping beside me.

A corner of a dark robe embroidered with a rampant, five-clawed golden python entered the edge of my lowered vision. The python pattern was ferocious, its claws and teeth bared, just like its owner.

“Are you kneeling properly?” A voice came from above my head, deep, steady, betraying no emotion, yet colder than the winter wind, striking directly at my spiritual mind.

I struggled to lift my head. Crown Prince Xiao Heng stood silhouetted against the light, his tall figure casting a heavy shadow in the post-snow gray sky, completely enveloping me.

He looked down from above, that handsome face, once captivating to all the young ladies in the imperial capital, now only held a sharp, cold sternness and a barely perceptible, suffocating weariness.

Those deep phoenix eyes, which once reflected my image, were now like an ice-bound deep pool, utterly dark, reflecting my current pathetic state—disheveled hair, a face as pale as a ghost, lips frozen purple, and the congealed bloodstain on my forehead where it had been scratched by a golden hairpin, messy like a discarded rag doll.

That scar was the ‘masterpiece’ of Liu Ruyan. Just half an hour ago, this newly favored ‘Lady Liu,’ held in the palm of the Crown Prince’s hand, accidentally broke the white jade ruyi scepter gifted to her by the Empress.

She cried, her tears falling like rain, throwing herself into Xiao Heng’s arms. Her slender fingers trembled as she pointed at me, her voice filled with lingering fright, “Your Highness… Your Highness! It was Older Sister… Older Sister pushed concubine… that’s why concubine…”

Her words were like poisoned needles, accurately piercing Xiao Heng’s ears.

I didn’t even get a chance to utter a single word in defense. Xiao Heng’s gaze, the surging disgust and unquestionable coldness in his eyes, instantly nailed me to the spot.

He didn’t even glance at the shattered jade ruyi on the ground, nor did he ask why Liu Ruyan was in my bedchamber. He only looked at me, a faint, extremely cold curve on his lips, a curve infused with ice shards.

“I said,” his voice wasn’t loud, but each word was like an ice pick, striking my internal organs and freezing them, “Behave yourself. It seems my Crown Princess hasn’t taken my words to heart at all.”

And then, this decree—to kneel in front of Fengyi Palace, not to rise without a pardon.

My thoughts were abruptly cut off by a violent fit of coughing. A heavy, metallic sweetness surged up my throat. I instinctively covered my mouth with my hand, my body violently hunched over due to the severe coughing, which pulled at the wound on my back, tearing it with excruciating pain.

Warm, viscous liquid oozed through my fingers, carrying a rusty smell, blooming into a few startling dark red spots on my pale palm.

“Cough… cough cough…”

Drops of blood fell onto the thin, dirty fresh snow beneath me, quickly spreading a small patch of ominous dark stain, like a dying flower blooming on the snow.

My vision blurred due to the intense pain and choking. In the haze, I saw a pair of dark, cloud-patterned brocade boots move a step, coming closer to me.

My chin was suddenly seized with an irresistible force. Cold fingers, like iron tongs, gripped my jawbone tightly, forcing me to lift my head and meet Xiao Heng’s bottomless eyes.

“Pretending?” His thin lips parted, uttering a light, dismissive word, filled with heavy, undisguised mockery. His cold fingertips, calloused, roughly rubbed the still-wet bloodstain on my lips, the action as crude as if wiping a dirty object.

“When I saw you block the arrow, you were truly brave. What, you can’t endure it after kneeling for just a short while?” He leaned down, his warm breath brushing against my earlobe, but his words were sharper and more biting than icicles on a winter’s day, “If you can’t endure this little hardship, why did you scheme so painstakingly, using such despicable means, just to marry into this East Palace?”

Despicable means…

These four words, like poisoned needles, fiercely pricked the most vulnerable part of my heart.

An overwhelming coldness instantly seized me, a hundred times more intense than this icy world. It was as if that night of our grand wedding, with its dazzling red chamber, reappeared before my eyes.

The dragon and phoenix wedding candles flickered with warm yellow light, reflecting his impossibly handsome yet stone-cold face. He tore off my veil. In those phoenix eyes, which had haunted my dreams countless nights and stirred my heart, there was not a trace of joy, only icy disgust and bone-deep hatred, like a poisoned dagger, directly piercing all my hopes.

“Lin Wanyi,” he said then, each word slow and deliberate, his voice cold enough to freeze one’s marrow, “Remember, you are an ‘honor’ forced upon me by the Duke of Zhenguo’s Residence, and you are the daughter of my father’s enemy! I will keep you in this East Palace, watching, watching closely, how I will slowly, bit by bit, reclaim the blood debt owed by your Lin family, with interest! I will make you—wish you were dead!”

Father’s enemy… Duke of Zhenguo’s Residence…

This heavy shackles had never been removed since the day I stepped into the East Palace.

No matter what I did, no matter how carefully I suppressed all my edges, how I tried to approach that ice-sealed heart with meager warmth, what I received was always only deeper suspicion and more cutting humiliation.

“Your Highness…” My throat felt like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper, terribly dry and painful. Every breath pulled at the wound on my back. I struggled to move my cracked lips, my voice as faint as a flickering candle in the wind, “This concubine… didn’t push her… that jade ruyi…” Explanations tumbled on my tongue, but as they met the icy indifference in his eyes, they instantly froze, unable to be uttered further.

Explain? For him, Xiao Heng, my explanations were always pale and weak sophistry, despicable lies. My very existence was the original sin.

The vice on my chin suddenly loosened. Xiao Heng straightened up, as if touching me for another moment was unbearable to him. He took out a plain white silk handkerchief and meticulously wiped the fingers that had just touched my face, his movements elegant and cold, as if cleaning some disgusting filth.

That handkerchief, he casually tossed onto the snow stained with my blood, its pure white immediately soaked in crimson.

“I have no time to listen to your sophistry.” His voice returned to its high, calm tone, without a ripple, “Kneel. Kneel until you understand your place, until you learn what it means to be well-behaved and dutiful.” He turned around, the dark corner of his robe tracing a cold, sharp arc.

Just then, a rapid flurry of footsteps accompanied by soft, melodious calls approached from afar.

“Your Highness—!”

It was Liu Ruyan.

She wore a brand new, light pink palace dress, covered by a snow-white fox fur cloak, making her small face appear even more delicate and pitiful. She seemed not to have seen me kneeling in the icy snow at all, running directly to Xiao Heng’s side, extending her fair, slender hand, and with utmost naturalness, intertwined it with his arm, leaning her entire soft, delicate body against him.

“Your Highness, the wind is strong and the snow is cold outside, why are you still here? Be careful of your health.”

Her voice was sweet enough to drip honey, filled with undisguised worry and dependence. She slightly tilted her head, her gaze finally “accidentally” sweeping over me as I knelt, and her precisely drawn almond eyes instantly filled with fake, watery surprise and sympathy, mixed with a hint of undetectable, condescending triumph.

“Oh dear! Older Sister is still kneeling here?” She exclaimed, then furrowed her delicate brows, turning to Xiao Heng, her tone a perfectly pitched blend of reproach and impatience, “Your Highness, Older Sister’s health has always been delicate, and she blocked an arrow for Your Highness a while ago, her wound isn’t fully healed yet! Kneeling in the snow on such a cold day, what if she develops a chronic illness? Why don’t you… why don’t you forgive Older Sister this time? It’s all my fault, I just didn’t hold it steady…” As she spoke, her eyes actually reddened slightly, as if she had suffered a great grievance.

Xiao Heng looked down at her. The icy indifference he had shown towards me instantly melted away, and deep within his eyes, there was even a faint, almost indulgent warmth. He raised his hand, very naturally tucking away the strands of hair disheveled by the wind from her cheek, his movements gentle to the point of being meticulous.

“She brought it upon herself,” he said indifferently, his tone reflecting complete disregard for my fate. His gaze remained only on Liu Ruyan’s face, which was filled with “kindness” and “fragility,” “You are frail, so mind your own business and don’t stand in the wind here. I’ll see you back.”

“But Your Highness…” Liu Ruyan seemed to want to say more, hesitating, her gaze once again falling “worriedly” on me.

“Be good,” Xiao Heng’s tone carried an unquestionable indulgence. He slightly raised his arm, embracing Liu Ruyan’s slender waist, holding her closer to his side, using his broad shoulders and back to shield her from most of the wind and snow. He held her, turning to leave this cold courtyard.

Just as he turned, his sleeve slightly lifted.

A small, faded, worn object, without any warning, slipped from his dark sleeve, falling silently onto the bluestone stained with blood and dirty snow.

My gaze, as if pulled by an invisible thread, was fixed on that small object.

It was a peace charm.

A peace charm sewn from the most ordinary, cheapest coarse linen. The red silk threads on it had long faded, the edges were frayed, and the stitches were crooked, appearing extremely crude and shabby. On the charm, two words were clumsily written in ink—”Peace.”

Time, at this moment, abruptly froze, stretched, and twisted.

The fluttering fine snow, the howling cold wind, the tearing pain in my back, the bone-chilling cold beneath my knees… all sounds and sensations around me receded like a tide, disappearing without a trace. The entire world was left with only that peace charm, lying silently on the dirty snow, incredibly glaring.

Huguo Temple.

The grand hall filled with incense smoke, before the solemn Buddha statues.

The figure of a young girl, kneeling on a prayer mat, ignoring the mocking and disdainful glances of the noble ladies around her, clumsily and piously stitching the peace charm stitch by stitch, unexpectedly rushed into my mind.

“Brother Heng,” the girl’s clear voice, full of complete trust and joy, shoved the clumsily sewn charm into the boy’s hand. She tilted her small face upwards, her eyes sparkling, “I prayed to Buddha for this! If you carry it, you will surely be safe and victorious in every battle when you go to war in the future!”

The boy took the ugly charm. A hint of helplessness seemed to flash across his handsome brows, but the corners of his mouth curved into a very faint, very warm smile. He raised his hand, gently ruffled the girl’s hair, and responded in a low voice, “Hmm.”

That voice, the warmth in that gaze… seemed like a distant phantom dream from a past life.

“Hmph…”

A broken sob, like that of a dying small animal, uncontrollably escaped from deep within my throat. A coldness, even colder and sharper than this ice and snow, suddenly erupted from the deepest part of my heart, instantly freezing my limbs and internal organs. Even my blood seemed to stop flowing.

I thought I had long grown accustomed to his cold treatment, accustomed to his hatred, accustomed to clinging to life in this East Palace, burdened by the shackles of being the “enemy’s daughter.” I thought my heart had long become numb from repeated torment and would no longer ache.

It turns out it wasn’t that it wouldn’t ache.

It was that the pain had reached such an extreme that I even deceived myself.

So, he remembered.

He remembered the Lin Wanyi who prayed for a peace charm for him at Huguo Temple!

He remembered the foolish Lin Wanyi who offered her whole heart to him!

Yet, while he carefully kept this old object, which carried a meager warmth from the past, he unhesitatingly trampled the current Lin Wanyi deep into this dirty, cold mud, letting her suffer humiliation and be on the verge of death!

Ten years… a full ten years! This charm was like the most vicious mockery, silently lying in his sleeve, lying before my eyes, mocking my foolishness, my stupidity, this infatuation of mine, like a moth to a flame, bringing only self-inflicted humiliation!

So… so he wasn’t entirely heartless.

He just… stingily hid his heart, along with that tiny bit of meager, charitable old affection. He hid it so deeply, so deeply that it only belonged to the “Brother Heng” and “Wanwan” who had long faded into the years, so deeply that it was completely separated from the current Crown Princess Lin Wanyi, whom he hated and tormented!

“Ugh—!”

An indescribable surge of metallic sweetness, mixed with extreme sorrow, absurdity, and boundless hatred, violently rushed up my throat. I could no longer suppress it. My body convulsed violently, and a mouthful of scorching hot blood suddenly spurted from my mouth!

“Pfft—!”

Warm blood, like a desperate rain, completely splattered onto the snow-covered ground in front of me, staining the peace charm. The dazzling red instantly engulfed and covered the faded charm and the dirty snow. My vision was suddenly enveloped in a bloody crimson, followed by an overwhelming darkness.

My body softly slumped forward.

Before consciousness completely sank, I seemed to hear Liu Ruyan’s feigned, frightened scream: “Ah! Older Sister is spitting blood!” And Xiao Heng’s voice, still cold and unperturbed, even with a hint of impatience, rebuking:

“Ignore her! She’s just pretending to be dead. Don’t look, it will dirty your eyes.”

His voice was so close, yet so far, as if separated by a thousand mountains and rivers, finally completely swallowed by endless darkness.

…

Consciousness drifted in boundless cold and sharp pain.

It was as if I was submerged in the deepest part of a bottomless icy lake. The bone-chilling cold enveloped every inch of my skin. Every weak breath brought tearing pain, pulling at the huge, life-draining wound on my back. The darkness was as viscous as unmixed ink, pressing heavily on my eyelids.

After an unknown amount of time, a faint glimmer of light pierced through the heavy darkness.

My eyelids were as heavy as if filled with lead. I struggled, extremely slowly, to open a slit.

In my blurry vision, it was no longer the empty, cold courtyard in front of Fengyi Palace and the dirty snow.

Above me was an unfamiliar, slightly old ceiling, with a simple wooden beam structure covered with plain white hemp paper. The air was filled with a strong, bitter medicinal smell, and also a faint scent of old wood. Beneath me was a hard wooden bed, covered with a rough, slightly stiff thin quilt.

Where… was this?

The East Palace… did not have such a crude place.

My consciousness slowly and with difficulty gathered. The last fragmented memories were of the gushing blood, the dazzling peace charm on the snow, soaked in blood, and Xiao Heng’s chilling words, “Ignore her… it will dirty your eyes, don’t look.”

The position of my heart felt as if it had been fiercely clutched by an invisible hand, suddenly tightening. Intense pain accompanied by a sense of suffocation surged over me, a hundred times worse than the arrow wound on my back. A heavy, metallic sweetness again rose in my throat, and I couldn’t help but cough violently.

“Cough… cough cough cough…”

“Awake? Thank heavens! Miss, you’re finally awake!” A slightly aged female voice with a strong local accent sounded from beside me, filled with surprise and simple concern.

I painfully turned my eyes, following the sound.

By the bed stood an old woman with white hair, dressed in a coarse cotton padded jacket. Her face was kind, her weather-beaten wrinkles etched with the hardships of life. She was holding a crude pottery bowl, which contained steaming dark medicinal liquid. Seeing me cough, she quickly put down the bowl and deftly supported my shoulder with a not-so-light force, carrying the practical strength unique to a farmer’s wife.

“Miss, you were so badly injured! You lost so much blood, and then you were frozen in the snow for so long. It’s truly a blessing from Buddha that you could reclaim your life!” The old woman chattered on, carefully bringing the bowl of strong-smelling bitter medicine to my lips, “Quick, drink this medicine. This old woman worked so hard to brew it, drink it while it’s hot!”

The smell of medicine was pungent. I furrowed my brows. My throat was burning, and I was too weak to swallow. Every part of my body screamed with pain and weakness, especially my back, as if countless red-hot steel needles were repeatedly piercing it.

“Where… is… this?” I painstakingly squeezed out a few words from my cracked lips, my voice hoarse like a broken bellows.

“This is this old woman’s home,” the old woman sighed, her cloudy eyes full of pity, “It’s right at the foot of the Imperial City, in Willow Alley, on the westernmost side. Last night, the wind and snow were fierce. This old woman went to the woodshed in the backyard to get firewood, and saw you lying by the wall, covered in blood, frozen stiff like a block of ice! Tsk tsk, what a sin…”

She seemed to remember something, and a lingering fear appeared on her face: “You had no breath at all then! This old woman thought… thought I had picked up a corpse, and was scared out of my wits! But then I reached out and felt your heart, hey, there was still a trace of warmth! This old woman quickly dragged you into the house, boiled hot water to clean you, and then searched through every box and cabinet to find the wound medicine my old man left before and applied it to you… Amitabha, heaven has eyes, finally snatched you back from the King of Hell!”

At the foot of the Imperial City? Willow Alley?

How did I get here? Who… who got me out of that man-eating East Palace? Xiao Heng? No, absolutely not possible. His last icy rebuke still echoed in my ears. Liu Ruyan? She would probably wish me dead.

Countless questions churned in my chaotic mind, making my already aching head feel like it was about to burst. The wound on my back sent piercing pain with every faint breath, reminding me of my near-death experience. And the completely crushed, yet ice-sealed void in my heart continuously emitted a despairing coldness.

“Miss,” the old woman saw my eyes glazed and my expression blank, assuming I was overly frightened. She then lowered her voice, with a hint of mystery and nervousness, “Did you… did you offend some noble person? Look at the fabric of your clothes. Although they are dirty and torn, this old woman has lived for so many years, and I can tell at a glance that it’s not from an ordinary family! And that wound on your back, the large hole dug out by an arrowhead, new wounds on top of old ones… Tsk tsk, it’s scary! The person who brought you here…” She paused, seemingly weighing her words, “He was ferocious-looking, dressed all in black, his face covered, he just dropped you off and ran, like a ghost! He only stuffed a small silver ingot into this old woman’s hand, saying… saying I should pretend I hadn’t seen him, and… and hadn’t seen you! Otherwise… otherwise…” She didn’t finish, only shivered, her eyes revealing genuine fear.

Man in black? Masked? Dropped off silver and threatened…

This was definitely not an accident.

Who? Who exactly?

Consciousness blurred again amidst the intense pain and confusion. My heavy eyelids uncontrollably closed. The bowl of bitter medicine ultimately wasn’t drunk. Darkness once again embraced me, gently and coldly.

In the daze, those fragmented, blood-stained images uncontrollably surged up, like maggots to bone.

The peace charm on the snow. Faded, stained red with my blood.

Xiao Heng gently embracing Liu Ruyan, his broad back shielding her from the wind and snow.

His cold fingers, disgustedly wiping away the blood from my lips.

And those words, like a curse tempered with ice, echoing repeatedly in my silent sea of consciousness, with cruel echoes, each vibration expanding the void in my heart, the coldness bone-chilling—

“Ignore her! She’s just pretending to be dead. Don’t look, it will dirty your eyes.”

Dirty your eyes…

Heh…

Before consciousness completely sank into darkness, a thought, like a splash of icy water, emerged clearly and despairingly:

Lin Wanyi, your entire life has been a complete joke.