Sharing One Life with My Nemesis - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

On the day of the morning court session, the sky had not yet begun to brighten.

I changed into plain clothes, and by the time I entered the palace, my palms were slick with sweat.

In my last life, the final time I saw my father was at the execution ground.

His hair was disheveled at the temples, his prison garb stained with blood, yet he still smiled at me.

He said, “Tingyun, don’t be afraid.”

But I was afraid.

So afraid that even in death, I never managed to ask him if it hurt.

In this life, I saw him in the Golden Hall.

He had grown much thinner, but his back was still straight.

Mother and my little brother were waiting outside the hall. My elder brother was being supported by jailers, his face deathly pale.

The moment I saw them, tears fell from my eyes.

Father’s eyes reddened too.

“Tingyun.”

I dropped to my knees.

“Father.”

The entire hall of court officials fell silent.

Xie Huaiyan stood at my side, then knelt as well.

When Father saw him, his expression turned complicated.

Xie Huaiyan pressed his forehead to the floor.

“This student, Xie Huaiyan, betrayed the Jiang Family’s trust. I beg Your Lordship to punish me.”

Father was silent for a long time.

“Clear the case first.”

The moment those three words left his mouth, I nearly sobbed aloud.

Gu Heng presented the military report Draft Manuscript, the Crown Prince’s trusted aide, the Gu Manual, and Zhou Xuan’s testimony.

When Lu Xingzhou was escorted into the hall, there was already no color left in his face.

Even then, he tried to drag Xie Huaiyan down with him.

“Your Majesty, Xie Huaiyan and Jiang Tingyun are connected by Soulbound Gu. Everything he says is for the sake of protecting her.”

The emperor frowned.

“Soulbound Gu?”

An uproar swept through the hall.

Lu Xingzhou looked as if he had finally seized a lifeline.

“Yes. Xie Huaiyan has Gu in his body. He has long harbored improper feelings for Jiang Tingyun and deliberately forged evidence.”

Xie Huaiyan offered no defense.

He only loosened the front of his robe, revealing the crisscrossing red lines over his heart.

The Imperial Physician Director stepped forward to examine him, and his expression quickly changed.

“Reporting to Your Majesty, Lord Xie does indeed have Dual Gu within his body.”

The emperor asked, “What does that mean?”

The Imperial Physician Director said, “One master and one subordinate, two Gu in a single body. He drew the Gu poison that had originally fallen upon Miss Jiang into his own body.”

The hall went still.

Xie Huaiyan raised his head, his voice steady.

“If I intended to control Jiang Tingyun with Gu, there would have been no need for me to draw the Gu back into my own heart meridians.”

“I did this only to keep her alive long enough to enter this hall.”

I looked at him.

He did not look at me.

He looked toward the emperor.

“Your Majesty, if the Jiang Family had colluded with the enemy, they would not have left behind a Draft Manuscript capable of clearing their own name.”

“And if I had intended to harm the Jiang Family, I would not have waited in the death prison until today.”

Lu Xingzhou snapped furiously, “Stop pretending you’re innocent! Back then, the one who presented the evidence before His Majesty was you!”

Xie Huaiyan closed his eyes for a moment.

“Yes.”

He admitted it so readily that another wave of commotion passed through the officials.

My heart tightened with it.

Xie Huaiyan continued, “Because if I had not presented that evidence then, Lord Jiang would have been beaten to death on the spot, and the rest of the Jiang Family would have been silenced by the Crown Prince’s private soldiers.”

“I presented the evidence to take the case out of the Crown Prince’s hands and place it before Your Majesty.”

“I did not expect that my second memorial would fail to reach the throne.”

When he finished, he kowtowed to my father.

“But a wrong is still a wrong. I caused the Jiang Family to suffer injustice, and I caused Miss Jiang to die on the execution ground in the last life.”

The entire hall fell into dead silence.

The emperor abruptly rose to his feet.

“The last life?”

Xie Huaiyan lifted his eyes.

All at once, I understood what he meant to do.

He was going to take the burden of rebirth and the Soulbound Gu entirely onto himself.

He was going to turn every absurdity into his own crime.

I spoke before he could.

“Your Majesty.”

Xie Huaiyan looked at me.

I straightened where I knelt.

“This subject’s daughter remembers as well.”