Li Xiuze, in the end, couldn't hold on.
Huo Linyuan's methods were too cruel. He didn't grant him a quick death but employed every means to crush a man's dignity, pride, even the will to live, making existence worse than death itself.
When Ling Chen emotionlessly informed me that Li Xiuze had "passed away from illness" in a side room of the West Courtyard, my heart, as if frozen by arctic ice, completely died.
The last thread holding me to life snapped with his departure.
I became like a walking corpse, unresponsive to everything around me. No tears, no protests, no words, like a soulless jade statue.
Huo Linyuan seemed satisfied with this "obedient" state of mine, or perhaps, he savored the sense of control derived from utterly destroying me.
He no longer monitored my every move as before, even... granting me some "freedom." He allowed me to leave the Plum Blossom Courtyard, allowed me... to offer incense at Li Xiuze's "cenotaph."
It was a cold, rainy day. The sky was a dreary grey, mirroring the state of my heart.
Holding a paper umbrella, I walked alone to that desolate corner of the West Courtyard. There was no gravestone, only a small earthen mound, standing forlornly in the bleak wind and rain.
I knelt before the mound, looking at the cold earth, my heart numb, terrifyingly empty.
Brother Xiuze...
I'm sorry...
It was I who harmed you... It was I who was too naive, too foolish, believing again and again, dragging you into the abyss...
If there is an afterlife, I will surely... stay far away from you all... never meet again...
I didn't cry, nor did I speak. I just knelt quietly, letting the cold rain soak my clothes, seep into my bones. As if only this could slightly alleviate the gnawing pain and guilt in my heart.
I don't know how long I knelt, until my legs were numb, my body so cold I almost lost consciousness, before I slowly rose.
I walked to the mound, reached out, and gently touched the damp earth, as if stroking his cold cheek.
"Brother Xiuze, wait for me..."
I whispered softly, my eyes devoid of any light, only a deathly emptiness remaining.
Returning to the Plum Blossom Courtyard, I dismissed everyone, including Qiu Cao who had been watching over me constantly.
From the deepest corner of my dressing case, I took out something.
It was a packet of... Crane's Crest Red, prepared long ago.
It was the poison I had bribed Qiu Cao's contact, Ah Si, to procure for me at the risk of execution.
Originally, I intended to use it on Huo Linyuan, to perish together with him.
But now... I had changed my mind.
I looked at my reflection in the bronze mirror – pale, haggard, like a ghost. A desolate, liberating smile touched my lips.
Huo Linyuan, you've won.
You destroyed everything I had, pushed me to the brink.
You possessed my body, but you will never have my heart.
You thought you controlled my fate, but you didn't know, death is my ultimate, and only, freedom.
I poured the entire packet of red powder into the prepared clear tea, stirring it gently with a silver hairpin.
The tea remained clear, emitting a faint fragrance, yet concealing a poison potent enough to kill instantly.
I lifted the teacup, looking at my blurred reflection within, my eyes showing no hesitation or fear, only a... near-calm resolution.
Without a second thought, I drank the poisoned tea in one gulp.
A pungent, burning sensation instantly spread from my throat through my organs, like a consuming fire.
But this pain, compared to the millionth part of the despair and hatred in my heart, what did it matter?
A violent cramp seized my abdomen. Darkness swam before my eyes, the world spinning.
I clutched the table, trying to stand steady, but my body uncontrollably crumpled to the floor.
Consciousness... gradually faded...
Before sinking completely into darkness, I thought I saw...
Saw my parents' loving smiles...
Saw my brother's cheerful figure...
Saw Brother Xiuze's gentle eyes...
And...
And Huo Linyuan... his devastatingly handsome yet ice-cold face...
He seemed... to be rushing towards me frantically? His eyes... why were they filled with despair and... boundless regret?
Heh... how could it be possible...
A man like him, how could he... for me...
Never mind...
It's all... over...
My fate... ultimately... is death...
This time, it's truly... liberation...
...
When Huo Linyuan, having finished urgent military affairs, rushed back to the Plum Blossom Courtyard with dust on his clothes and... a strange sense of panic in his heart, what he saw was Shen Wanmei lying in a pool of blood, already lifeless.
Beneath her was a shocking expanse of red, like desperate winter plum blossoms blooming on snow. On her lips, lingered a faint smile... of liberation, almost mocking?
That smile, like the sharpest dagger, pierced through his heart, frozen for years.
"No—!"
He let out a heart-wrenching roar, like a wounded beast, stumbling forward, clutching her cold, stiff body tightly in his arms.
"Tang'er... Tang'er! Wake up! Look at me! Don't sleep!"
He shook her incessantly, trying to wake her, but the figure in his arms would never respond again. Those eyes, once full of starlight, were closed forever.
"Why... why..."
He knelt on the floor, holding her cold corpse, wailing in despair like a lost child.
Tears, like broken strings of pearls, streamed from those eyes that had always been cold and indifferent, surveying the world. They mingled with the blood beneath her, staining his black brocade robe, dyeing his entire grey, desolate world red.
He had always thought he controlled everything about her – her body, her fate, even her emotions. He thought that by keeping her trapped by his side, she would belong to him forever.
Only at this moment, looking at her pale, peaceful sleeping face, at the liberating smile on her lips, did he finally, devastatingly realize.
He had never truly possessed her.
All he had done was push her, step by step, into the abyss of death.
What he thought was possession, was destruction.
What he thought was protection, was imprisonment.
What he thought was love... he realized, he didn't understand love at all. He only knew how to use the cruelest methods to hurt the one person he secretly yearned to be close to.
"Tang'er... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
He repeated these two words over and over, his voice hoarse, filled with endless remorse and... heart-wrenching despair.
But it was too late. Too late.
He had personally broken the proud winter plum blossom, personally extinguished the faint light that had illuminated his dark world, a light he had never cherished.
From then on, his world was left with only boundless darkness and... eternal, bone-chilling cold.
He held her body, sitting numbly through the night, and the next, as if wanting to turn himself into a cold stone statue.
Later, he ordered Shen Tang to be buried with grand honors, with the rites befitting a General's principal wife, in the most scenic spot in the Peach Blossom Forest near the capital.
He dismissed all the concubines in the rear court, including the ever-"loyal" Qingxue.
He shut himself in the Plum Blossom Courtyard, the place that once imprisoned her, now becoming his own cage.
Day after day, he sat by the window where she used to sit, gazing at the long-withered plum tree outside, watching... for a lifetime.
He would often take out the kingfisher feather hairpin she had never worn, stroking it again and again, his fingertips cold, like her body temperature.
He would talk to the empty air, calling her name over and over: "Tang'er... Tang'er..." His voice hoarse, filled with despair and endless longing.
He became the most feared existence in the capital, wielding immense power, yet utterly alone, like a lonely soul trapped in purgatory. He possessed the world within his grasp, yet lost... the only one he ever wanted, the one he had destroyed with his own hands.
Some said the General of the North Pacification had gone mad, completely mad.
Some said he was spending the rest of his life atoning for the unforgivable sins he had committed.
But only he knew.
His fate, from the moment she chose her resolute death, had also become...
Waiting for death.
Waiting for a reunion that would never come.
(End)