A Kingdom's Ruin - Chapter 3

He truly was blessed by fate—to survive even that and rise again from the brink of death.

What perfect luck. The young palace maid at his side turned out to be the legendary chosen maiden: the last descendant of the illustrious Ming clan, the Ziwei Star descended to earth, and the destined crown princess of the Yun dynasty.

And what wretched luck for me.

Yuwen Che’s late mother had never been a criminal slave. She was a princess of the previous dynasty, the most legitimate surviving blood of the old imperial house—more legitimate than the emperor himself.

The crown prince spent a day and a night explaining it all to me, one dramatic revelation after another, until my head hurt.

How could anyone be this unlucky? I had picked someone at random to torment and somehow landed on the hero of a storybook.

The crueler my words had been then, the more pathetic my position was now.

Of course he wanted revenge. He slaughtered every guard escorting me, shackled my hands and feet, and threw me into the imperial prison.

Ghostlike screams rang out day and night. Prisoners were tortured into shapes barely recognizable as human. A man might walk out whole in the morning and return as a corpse that afternoon.

Yuwen Che meant to break me slowly. He expected panic, pleas, perhaps an offer to reveal where the old emperor had fled.

He was wrong. Fear was not an emotion I possessed. And as a discarded Bo family pawn, I had never been told the true escape route.

I lived in the imperial prison for so many days that I lost count. For amusement, I tallied the dead, the badly wounded, and the newly maimed, then cast my own fortune to see when my turn would come.

Just when I thought I might spend the rest of my life there, a basin of cold water shocked me awake.

I coughed until I could see who stood before me—then laughed.

Of all people, it was her.

When the Chu emperor demanded a daughter of the Bo family for his harem, the choice should never have fallen on an exiled illegitimate girl. But Bo Wanyu was the darling of the Marquis of Dingyuan’s household and had adored the crown prince since childhood. Bo Yanxiu could not bear to marry his full sister to a tyrant thirty years her senior.

So he remembered the product of his father’s drunken indiscretion: his sickly younger half sister Funong, abandoned at a temple on Mount Yao.

He gave me the identity of the Bo family’s second daughter, healed my injuries, and personally trained me—all so I could serve as Bo Wanyu’s shield.

Even during the flight from the capital, Bo Yanxiu had protected Wanyu first.

And yet, after all his calculations, after abandoning the pawn he had spent years shaping because he could not bear for his sister to see a drop of blood, Bo Wanyu had crept back by herself.

“What are you laughing at?” My reaction displeased her. Then, as if recalling something, she broke into a triumphant smile. “Bo Funong, you shameless little fox. You bewitched our elder brother at home and seduced the crown prince in the palace. What did it gain you? I’m about to enter the palace as the new emperor’s Noble Consort—one rank higher than you ever were.”

“…”

She watched me smugly. “Regretting your choices now? If you’d chosen the right man, you would be empress dowager.”

“I did regret it a little. Now I don’t.” I answered in all seriousness. “The thought of a woman your age having to call me Mother gives me chills. Ah…”

Her whip struck before I finished. The barbed tip sliced across my cheek, and cold sweat soaked my back.

“Bitch! I’m only four years older than His Majesty. How dare you mock me? He’ll never spare you.”

The force was not even a tenth of what I had once used on Yuwen Che.

I believed her. When Yuwen Che wanted to treat someone well, there was truly nothing he would not do for her.

Head bowed, I took two breaths and kindly reminded her, “His father isn’t dead yet. He’s no emperor—just a rebel dreaming of spring and autumn.”

“You… you…”

Bo Wanyu reached for the whip again, but a guard stopped her. “His Majesty did not permit you to use torture.”

She was determined to vent her anger, not only because I had mocked her, but because she had always resented my past with her beloved, the deposed crown prince Yuwen Ce.

Denied the torture implements, she seized my throat with her bare hands. But she was a sheltered noblewoman—weak and wholly inexperienced at killing.

I tipped my head back and looked down at her. “Lower… lower. That’s… where you press if you want someone dead.”

The pressure vanished. Bo Wanyu was flung aside like rubbish.

She looked up and scrambled to her knees. “Y-Your Majesty.”

“Get out.”

Once I caught my breath, I tilted my head and watched her flee in disgrace.

“Che’er has acquired such refined tastes,” I observed with a smile. “You have carried your disregard for family propriety to its logical end.

“I brought you to meet her when you were little. You called her Aunt then.

“Did lacking a mother’s love make this sort of thing especially appealing? Urgh…”

A stronger hand closed around my bruised throat.

Yuwen Che stared without expression. After barely ten days apart, he seemed even less able to contain himself.

“If you truly want to die, I will grant your wish.”

The words hauled my dimming mind back. My brow slowly eased. My hands, which had clutched his arm, fell away.

Yet when I obediently surrendered to death, he released me as though he were the one who had been burned.

I sagged against the wall, gasping and coughing like a dying woman.

Someone else arrived outside.

The imperial prison was a remarkably popular destination for an outing.