The Villainess Begins in the Imperial Prison - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Life in the Imperial Prison was far from easy. I was tortured again and again, healed just enough to survive, then tortured all over again.

Several times, I truly thought I wouldn’t make it.

The only small comfort was that Qin Yao, in the cell across from mine, would look at me a little more often now. Sometimes, he even watched me with worry in his eyes.

Of course he was worried. After all, if I died, there would be no one left to drug him.

Every time I saw that black-clad figure, my body trembled beyond my control.

When a person was driven to the brink, strange thoughts would pop into their head. I really wanted to ask him, Don’t you get weekends off from work?

Naturally, I couldn’t say that out loud. All I could do was try to make my voice sound as normal as possible, as if I were chatting with the boy next door.

“Hey, handsome, can we not carve out flesh and pick at tendons today?”

He did not answer me. I had long since grown used to that.

When he put down the small knife in his hand and turned to pick up the bamboo clamps instead, I let out a breath of relief.

My mangled fingers were placed into the clamps one by one. The pain of all ten fingers was tied straight to the heart. I forced down my fear and calmly finished speaking.

“Actually, I’m terribly afraid of pain. But I’m not afraid of death.”

“I’m only afraid of living a life worse than death.”

“Is it day or night outside? Is it raining, or…”

My voice stopped abruptly. I was in agony, yet his eyes held a conflicted mix of pleasure and pain.

I did my best to remain rational. Unlike the others, I did not curse him with the most vicious words I could think of.

Because I understood one truth very well: the more twisted a person was, the more they wanted others to treat them like a normal person.

Aside from crying, I was often in too much pain to speak, yet somehow, I made this cold-blooded executioner feel pity.

He would not understand why such an emotion had arisen in him, but that was enough for him to indulge in it with madness.

He would begin to look forward to it. To my arrival. To my careful pleas for mercy. To the way I bargained with him.

He would soften. He would show me some restraint, all so I could stay alive and keep him company a little longer.

And it was precisely that pity that meant I would not be left here with only one breath remaining, lingering miserably as I waited to die.

Qin Yao was waiting for an opportunity. So was I.

We had an unspoken understanding. Neither of us pried into who the other truly was or how many secrets the other carried.

We had only one shared goal: to leave this place.

He needed my medicine. I needed his protection.

The woman in a bright red palace dress was radiant, forcibly bringing a streak of color into the gloom of the cell.

From her lofty position, she condescended to bestow a few words upon me. “Lin Qingyao, seeing yourself like this now, did you ever imagine this back then?”

I was covered in wounds, filthy with blood, and curled up in a dark corner, yet I smiled.

I smiled with absolute innocence and bewitching charm. I wished I could show her the proudest smile of my life.

Lin Yingxue made no attempt to hide her hatred and disgust for me.

“I should have dug out your eyes first.”

She had always done what she said she would. Even though she was now the empress, she preferred to personally handle such satisfying matters as gouging out my eyes.

Just as she lowered her noble self and bent down to do it, her body went weak. Beyond her control, she collapsed onto me.

The vermilion hairpin in my hand pressed firmly against her snow-white neck. I murmured softly beside her ear, like the most intimate of lovers, “Elder sister, I have truly been waiting for you for so long.”

Qin Yao was indeed an excellent ally. His martial arts were exceptional, and every few days, someone would come to drug him.

Without the medicine he gave me, I would never have been able to hold Lin Yingxue hostage. As for the medicine Qin Yao used to heal his injuries, it was Lin Yingxue who had given it to me. How that tasted, perhaps only she herself knew.

I pulled a hairpin from Lin Yingxue’s hair and tossed it to Qin Yao.

He quickly unlocked his shackles and came out of his cell, then very naturally took Her Majesty the Empress, who was being held hostage, from my hands.

The person dearest to His Majesty the Emperor’s heart was truly useful. When we left the Imperial Prison, no one dared stop us.

I gripped the vital pulse at her wrist tightly. “Elder sister, you don’t want to die, do you?”

I was a weak woman and knew nothing of martial arts, but Qin Yao did. Right now, he was following a few steps behind me.

Lin Yingxue looked at me coldly and said nothing.

Her personal maid, Zhuyu, watched the two of us standing so close together and clearly had doubts, but she did not move.

In the book, Lin Yingxue had the bearing of a general. Her word was law. If she did not give an order, who would dare step forward?

Inside Changchun Palace.

With a wave of Lin Yingxue’s hand, everyone immediately withdrew outside the hall to wait.

She sat upright on the high seat and looked down at me, saying with disdain, “You think you and he can escape?”

“How would we know if we don’t try?”

My tone was somewhat cold and hard. Perhaps it also carried a trace of grievance.

Because I truly had only been made to take the blame, but no one would believe me even if I said so.

Qin Yao walked over and pressed a finger to one of her fatal acupoints. “Should I kill her?”

Lin Yingxue was a little nervous. So was I, because he had asked with complete seriousness.

I shook my head. “No need.”

For one, I truly didn’t have the nerve to kill anyone. For another, I was afraid that if she died, it would provoke the male lead’s insane revenge.

It was a dead end.

Lin Yingxue lay on the couch, her breathing even. I wolfed down a few bites of food, and Qin Yao handed me a cup of tea.

Even in a situation like this, he remained calm and unhurried.

“Aren’t you going to ask why I walked right into the trap and came to Changchun Palace?”

I quickly pulled a set of clean clothes over myself and looked at Qin Yao beside me.

“You wouldn’t do something you weren’t sure of.”

Two months was enough time for two people with no one else to rely on to build an unshakable trust in certain moments.

That was right. If the imperial palace was as secure as an iron barrel, then Changchun Palace was its only weak point.

Qin Yao wrapped an arm around my waist and dropped out through the rear window. Keeping to the shadows the whole way, we reached the side hall.

Beneath a century-old apricot tree was a well.

Qin Yao braced his hands and feet against the sides and climbed down. I clung to his back like an octopus.

Neither of us felt the slightest bit awkward. Our expressions were deadly serious.

“Watch the walls. There should be a secret passage here leading out of the imperial palace.”

The emperor knew about it. Lin Yingxue knew about it. What the two of them didn’t know was that I, who had transmigrated here, knew about it too.

Qin Yao didn’t waste time questioning it. With a hard push, a hidden door in the well wall swung open.

“Hold on tight.”

I wrapped my arms firmly around his neck. With a light leap, he landed inside the hidden doorway.

This was exactly why I had to have Qin Yao with me.

With my powerless, delicate little body, escaping on my own would have been nothing but a fool’s dream.

We ran nonstop through the pitch-black tunnel. I tried my best not to fall too far behind him, but the tendons in my ankles that had been cut before began to ache faintly.

Qin Yao noticed something was wrong. He reached out to support me, then lifted me into his arms.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

When I heard dogs barking outside, excitement surged through me, but I was also unusually calm.

Qin Yao’s expression turned even graver. “We must have been discovered.”

All of this was within expectations.

Xiao Yu ruled with an iron fist. Once an imperial decree arrived, the city gates would be sealed.

Outside, the sky had already darkened. The night market that was usually bustling and prosperous was now completely deserted.

The people in Changchun Palace had likely discovered something was wrong with Lin Yingxue. Now, the imperial palace was under heavy guard, and the capital was locked down, with no one allowed in or out.

Countless torches moved through the darkness as soldiers searched from door to door. Everyone in Capital Jing was on edge.

What I was gambling on was speed-and my understanding of Lin Yingxue.

Qin Yao led me all the way to the waterways, avoiding the search parties, then tied a hemp rope around my waist.

“I’ll go first. Follow me.”

I nodded.

If we tried to break through the city gates at night, Qin Yao might be able to do it alone. But with me in tow, success would be absolutely impossible.

The waterways of the capital were complex. Every river ultimately led to the same place, connecting with the moat outside the city.

Most women of Capital Jing were not good swimmers, including the original owner of this body.

Lin Yingxue knew that, so she would not think so quickly of how someone who could not swim might choose to court death.

Before she realized that she had lost something, Qin Yao and I had to get out of the city as fast as possible.

Taking the waterways was something I had decided back in the Imperial Prison. It was just that this body was too pampered and frail. Without Qin Yao, I never could have made it this far.

I was deeply grateful.

Beneath the city wall, a grating of reinforced iron separated the inside of the city from the outside. Only the rushing current could pass through.

Qin Yao reached it first and tried to pry open a gap, but with less than thirty percent of his internal force remaining, there was no way he could do it.

Unease stirred in his heart. Compared to his own safety, for some reason, he was more worried about the person beside him.

He had once seen that cold-blooded, ruthless man holding her unconscious body with such unmistakable tenderness. Now, Qin Yao could not help mocking himself. Hadn’t he, who had already given up on himself, also started acting as though bewitched?

For a moment, countless thoughts ran through Qin Yao’s mind.

When I saw the rust-speckled iron bars, joy surged in my heart. I took out a black dagger and handed it to Qin Yao.

Lin Yingxue owned a dagger forged from meteoric iron, incomparably sharp and capable of cutting through any weapon under heaven.

I choked on water in the river. Downstream of the moat, Qin Yao dragged me onto the bank. “Wake up.”

I gave no response. Left with no choice, Qin Yao bent down and breathed air into my mouth.

I coughed up several mouthfuls of water and opened my eyes with difficulty.

Looking at the woods not far away, I covered my face with my hand, my voice catching slightly. “Finally…”

We had escaped.

The emotion came quickly and left just as quickly. I immediately pulled myself together. I had to cling tightly to Qin Yao’s thigh, or being captured again would only be a matter of time.

“I have nowhere to go.”

The words were very direct, carrying no particular emotion, yet they struck Qin Yao straight in the heart.

“Then come with me.”

“All right.”

Carrying me on his back, Qin Yao ran toward the mountains and forest not far away.

Our path of flight had only just begun.

Under all heaven, every land belonged to the king; to the borders of the land, every subject served the king.