His roar was tinged with deranged cruelty.
Gu Qingzhi seemed oblivious as she placed the censer lid aside. With one hand holding back her sleeve, she picked up the prepared tray with the other. On the gold-edged sandalwood tray sat a wine pot and two cups. Flipping the cups upright, she lifted the wine pot to pour.
"What are you doing?" Xiao Changqing strode forward, pressing down on her wine pot, his calm tone concealing a trace of panic.
"Your Highness need not worry." Gu Qingzhi gently brushed his hand away, filled both cups, then raised one toward Xiao Changqing. Gazing at him with a faint, ambiguous smile, she said, "Whether this wine contains poison, Your Highness knows better than I. This cup is to thank you."
Ever since the Gu family was imprisoned, he had exhausted all means to guard against any opportunity for her to take her own life. Hidden Guards filled the room, eyes watching everywhere. Every item that reached her hands underwent repeated inspections.
Xiao Changqing watched her silently, his penetrating gaze seeming to pierce through her very soul, yet he remained unmoving.
"What? Does Your Highness think I could still play some trick?" Gu Qingzhi smiled softly, tilting her head back to drain the cup. "This is Qingzhi wine I brewed with my own hands."
Xiao Changqing shifted, wanting to stop her, but found only an empty cup. His eyes swept over the other cup, and without hesitation, he picked it up and drank it down. "Even in death," he declared, "you shall not escape me."
With a brief laugh, Gu Qingzhi folded her hands on her lap, sitting upright as she regarded Xiao Changqing. "Your Highness possesses jade-like grace and immortal bearing. When I was still in my chambers, every banquet brought whispers of admiration for you from secluded boudoirs. I still remember first hearing your name five years ago—a fifteen-year-old youth who awed the great scholars of the Imperial Academy, stunning the world."
"Stunning the world," Xiao Changqing murmured with light self-mockery, gazing at her intently. "Yet I failed to stun even you."
An almost imperceptible frown touched her brow as Gu Qingzhi maintained her composure. "Your Highness is too persistent. Perhaps what cannot be obtained becomes harder to relinquish..."
Pausing, a fleeting daze crossed her indifferent eyes. "When I was nine, my mother held my hand by her sickbed and told me: in this life, you may do all things, but never lose your heart to a man. The moment my mother closed her eyes, my heart went with her. A woman without a heart is naturally without sentiment."
Drawing a soft breath, Gu Qingzhi kept a serene smile on her face. "Mother said that in this world, only by being heartless can a woman live joyfully and freely."
"Your Highness, see how deeply my father respected my mother? After her passing, he preferred having no legitimate heir to remarrying. Yet my mother still died of sorrow."
Gu Qingzhi shook her head gently with a smile. "That was because she grew greedy. As head of the Gu family, how could my father belong to her entirely in body and soul? My mother deeply loved and revered my father, yet could not receive equal devotion. Unwilling to become a jealous, unpleasant woman, she buried all her pain and discontent within her heart—that is why she died of sorrow. All this is the fault of giving one's heart."
"Qingqing..." Xiao Changqing seemed to begin understanding her meaning.He recalled the days when they were newlyweds, when he too had wanted to offer her the finest things in the world. To this day, his eyes and heart could see only her. Yet she had always remained aloof and self-possessed, decisive and rational in all matters, making him feel that his offerings—and even he himself—were worthless in her heart.
In the arrogance of youth, as heaven’s favored son, he resorted to extreme measures to provoke her jealousy and capture her attention.
As a prince, he stooped to the humblest of methods in hopes of winning her affection.
But he never once considered how, after winning her heart, he would protect it whole.
He never thought of it, and she never gave him the chance.
Now he couldn’t even speculate: if she had truly given him her whole heart, could he have withstood the coercion of his mother and father? Could he have altered the fate of the Gu family, sparing her even a single wound?
“If even my father met such an end, how much more so for you, Your Highness?” Gu Qingzhi gazed at Xiao Changqing. “Your Highness, from the day the imperial decree of marriage arrived at the Gu family, I knew this day would come. The Gu family was destined to crash and bleed, and our marriage was fated to end. How could I possibly have fallen for you?”
“Speaking of men in this world, you truly are exceptional—accomplished in both civil and martial arts, noble in character, a model of integrity and virtue. If there is any fault, it lies only in me, Gu Qingzhi, for I am not a woman whose eyes see only romantic love, nor am I shortsighted enough to confine my vision to the narrow confines of the inner chambers. Thus, Your Highness’s devoted heart was destined to be misplaced… Mm…”
Finally unable to endure the knife-like agony in her abdomen, she felt a warm, bloody wetness seeping downward.
“Qingqing!” Xiao Changqing rushed frantically around the table, gathering Gu Qingzhi into his arms. Seeing the large pool of blood beneath her, he stared at her weakened form in horror and disbelief, then roared toward the outside like a trapped beast, “The imperial physician! Fetch the imperial physician—now!”
The guards outside were too frightened to even enter and ask questions; they immediately sprinted away.
“Your Highness…” Gu Qingzhi’s voice finally carried a trace of frailty—the first time she lay in his arms like a delicate woman. She smiled at him, a smile like a blooming night-blooming cereus, serene in its beauty yet veiled in the chill of night. “I am not only a heartless and unfeeling woman but also a ruthless and venomous one. You see, I could even bring myself to harm my own flesh and blood…”
“Stop, stop! I beg you, stop talking!” Xiao Changqing had never felt such pain before—a torment as if ten thousand insects were gnawing at his entire body, his heart, liver, spleen, and lungs, even the gaps between his bones aching with a wrenching agony that made him want to scream madly.
“The Gu family is gone, and a daughter of the Gu family cannot live on. Her survival would only make it hard for the world to forget His Majesty’s iron-fisted ruthlessness and cruelty. And my pride as Gu Qingzhi does not allow me to live on, enduring humiliation… clinging to a wretched existence.”
After the overwhelming pain subsided, Gu Qingzhi regained her composure: “A child without a mother, living in the shadowy imperial family, would face too much hardship and misery. I am just that selfish—since I cannot protect him fully, nor grant him joy and carefreeness, I would rather not bring him into this world of complicated human hearts…”
Large teardrops fell from his pain-filled eyes. Xiao Changqing’s gaze was filled with heart-wrenching, bone-deep agony: “Gu Qingzhi, Gu Qingzhi, you are so cruel… you are truly so cruel…”At this moment, Gu Qingzhi could still offer Xiao Changqing a brilliant yet ethereal smile. Her increasingly blurred gaze fell upon the overturned tea table he had pushed over, with the incense burner toppled nearby.
If she wished not to live, no one could prevent it, no one could save her.
Gu Qingzhi, foremost among the Nine Unrivaled Talents of the Capital, excelled in qin, chess, calligraphy, painting, needlework, and culinary arts—the very model of an accomplished noble lady. Yet none knew, not even the man who had loved her for three years and shared her pillow, that her greatest mastery lay in the art of perfumery.
OpenNovel