The Empress Is About to Collapse

These words became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Wu Lingxiao's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinpricks.

Primal Yang...

Ye Xuan's most precious Primal Yang...

He... he actually gave it to that servant girl?

"Why..." Wu Lingxiao's voice was trembling, her nails digging into her flesh. "Young Master... your Primal Yang is the foundation of your cultivation... Why... why give it to a servant girl with such an unbearable and lowly past?"

"Other than her, you haven't touched any other woman..."

"This isn't fair... This isn't fair!"

She roared in her heart: I have remained pure for you for eight hundred years! I have gone mad for you for eight hundred years!

And in the end, you gave your first time to a wild girl you just picked up off the streets?

Ye Xuan turned his head and looked at the nearly maddened Wu Lingxiao.

He suddenly smiled.

His smile contained three parts vindictive delight, three parts bone-chilling coldness, and four parts mockery towards the Empress.

"Why?"

"Ling'er, do you really want to know?"

Ye Xuan looked down at the palm of his hand and said softly,

"Naturally, it was to take revenge on Her Imperial Majesty, the lofty Empress."

Wu Lingxiao's mind went completely blank.

Ye Xuan continued, his tone carrying a heartbreaking stubbornness,

"That Empress was particularly fond of male beauty. On her wedding night, after favoring her Empress, she spiraled out of control."

"She built a massive harem and captured countless beautiful men into her palace. Including me."

"She said she was the Emperor, that she had no choice."

"What a great 'had no choice'!"

Ye Xuan raised his head, a crazy light flashing in his eyes,

"Since she gave her first time to someone else."

"Then I will give my first time to the most lowly, despicable, and inconspicuous person in this world!"

"I want to use this method to tell her..."

"The chastity that is utterly worthless in her eyes is as heavy as Mount Tai in mine!"

"I want to let her know that even a beggar, in my heart, is ten thousand times cleaner than her, an Empress ridden by ten thousand men!!"

Pfft!

Unable to bear this massive blow any longer, Wu Lingxiao violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.

So that was it...

So that was it!

This was revenge.

This was the most vicious revenge from eight hundred years ago, spanning across life and death!

He gave his most precious thing to Ying'er not because he loved Ying'er, but to humiliate me!

To prove that I am not even as good as a beggar!

"Hahaha... hahahaha..."

Wu Lingxiao laughed while coughing up blood, her laughter shrill and desperate.

How ironic.

She had been jealous for seven full days and nights, wishing she could kill Ying'er.

But in the end, Ying'er was nothing more than a knife Ye Xuan used to stab into her heart.

And this knife was the one she had personally handed to Ye Xuan eight hundred years ago.

"Get lost."

Ye Xuan waved his hand, his expression returning to cold indifference.

"I'm tired."

Wu Lingxiao didn't know how she left that room.

She drifted down the corridor like a wandering ghost.

Ye Xuan's words continuously echoed in her mind:

"Even a beggar, in my heart, is ten thousand times cleaner than her, an Empress ridden by ten thousand men!"

At the end of the corridor.

Ying'er was humming a little tune as she walked over carrying a tray of spirit fruits.

Her face was flushed with happiness, and kiss marks from last night lingered on her neck.

"Sister Ling'er!"

Seeing the bloodstained and miserable Wu Lingxiao, Ying'er jumped in fright and hurriedly ran over,

"What's wrong? Why are you coughing up blood? Did Master scold you?"

"How about I go beg Master for you..."

Ying'er reached out her hand, wanting to support Wu Lingxiao.

In that very instant.

Wu Lingxiao abruptly raised her head.

In those eyes that were originally filled with despair, only one thing remained at this moment: pure, dark killing intent capable of devouring everything!

That was not a look a human should have.

It was the look of an evil ghost.

As long as she died...

As long as this living humiliation disappeared...

As long as this slut who stole Consort Xuan's Primal Yang was gone...

Consort Xuan would have no tool for revenge.

He would only be able to look at me.

Even if it was for revenge, he could only exact his revenge on me!

Kill her.

I must kill her.

Wu Lingxiao's fingers twitched slightly, and an invisible, venomous evil aura had already gathered at her fingertips.

I can't act directly, or Consort Xuan will hate me.

It needs to be an accident.

Yes, an accident.

For example... she suffers qi deviation during cultivation?

For example... the flying ship suddenly encounters turbulence, and she accidentally falls off?

Or... the spirit fruit she eats just happens to have an invisible poisonous insect inside?

A thousand ways to make Ying'er die without anyone noticing instantly formed in the mind of Wu Lingxiao, the Empress who once ruled over ten thousand demons.

"Sister Ying'er..."

Wu Lingxiao wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and revealed a smile uglier than crying. Her voice was so gentle it made one's hair stand on end,

"Sister is fine... I just had a slight mishap during cultivation just now."

"Come, let Sister take a look at you. Last night... you must have been exhausted, right?"

Her hand slowly reached toward Ying'er's slender neck.

Just a light squeeze.

She didn't even need to squeeze; as long as she injected this poisonous aura, Ying'er would die suddenly in her sleep tonight.

Completely unaware, Ying'er foolishly leaned closer, "I'm okay, Master is actually very gentle..."

Right at the instant Wu Lingxiao's fingertips were about to touch Ying'er.

"Ying'er."

A clear voice came from behind.

Wu Lingxiao's hand instantly froze. She forcefully forced the poisonous aura back into her body, the backlash causing severe pain in her meridians.

Ye Xuan walked over.

Without even glancing at Wu Lingxiao, he walked straight up to Ying'er, naturally wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her into his embrace.

"Master!" Ying'er rubbed against him happily.

Ye Xuan looked down at Ying'er with complex eyes—three parts pity, seven parts pain.

"How is your cultivation progressing?" Ye Xuan asked.

"Hehe, thanks to Master's pills, I'm already at the middle stage of Foundation Establishment!" Ying'er said as if claiming credit.

Ye Xuan, however, shook his head and sighed,

"Only the middle stage of Foundation Establishment?"

"That is truly too weak."

Ying'er lowered her head in disappointment, "Master... I can't help it, my talent isn't good..."

Ye Xuan reached out and gently stroked Ying'er's hair, but his gaze passed through Ying'er, faintly sweeping over the stiffly standing Wu Lingxiao beside them.

His eyes were sharp and piercing, having already seen through all of Wu Lingxiao's disguises and dark intentions.

"Silly girl."

Ye Xuan's voice suddenly became incomparably sorrowful,

"Do you know that you won't live for much longer?"

Ying'er was stunned, "Ah? Why? My body is perfectly fine..."

Ye Xuan let out a bitter laugh and hugged Ying'er tighter, as if trying to protect her from being devoured by the vicious wolves around them,

"Because you and I are too close."

"There are too many crazy women in this world."

"They hold high positions and power, they are narrow-minded, and they cannot tolerate anyone being by my side."

"They definitely won't just come at you with a sword to kill you directly, because that would make me hate them."

Ye Xuan's voice suddenly turned cold, every word like an ice pick stabbing fiercely into Wu Lingxiao's heart,

"But they will manufacture all sorts of accidents."

"For example, you might suddenly suffer from Qi deviation."

"For example, you might accidentally slip and fall to your death."

"For example, you might eat the wrong thing and drop dead."

Wu Lingxiao's entire body stiffened like a stone statue.

He knew...

He actually knew everything!

The plans I had just formulated in my mind, he actually spoke them out word for word!

"Master..." Ying'er felt her blood run cold. "Please don't scare me..."

"I am not trying to scare you."

Ye Xuan raised his head. His gaze left Ying'er and stared fixedly into the empty space, his voice carrying a desperate, maddening resolve to burn together with his enemies:

"But I, Ye Xuan, am making my stance clear right here and now."

"I will never consider it an accident."

"Even if you genuinely choke to death on water, or are truly struck down by heavenly lightning."

"As long as you die."

"I don't care who caused it, and I don't care if it was an accident."

"I will pin it all on those crazy women!"

The aura around Ye Xuan suddenly turned violent, like a wounded lone wolf:

"I will make them pay the price in blood."

"I will hate them for all my lifetimes."

"I will use this life of mine to be buried alongside a servant girl!"

Saying this, Ye Xuan lowered his head, looked at Ying'er who was weeping tears of profound emotion, and smiled:

"Because this is different."

"If they cannot even tolerate a lowly servant girl, if they must erase the only living thing by my side..."

"...then how could they possibly... truly tolerate me?"

"If you die, there will no longer be a place for me, Ye Xuan, in this world."

Deathly silence.

A long, deathly silence.

Ying'er was already in floods of tears. She hugged Ye Xuan, her eyes filled with boundless emotion. "Master... woo woo... I am not afraid of death... as long as I can stay by Master's side..."

As for Wu Lingxiao, who was standing to the side.

She lowered her head, biting her lip so hard that it dripped with blood.

Lost.

Lost again.

Utterly and completely lost.

For him to take his words to this extent, he was telling me:

Ying'er's life was the absolute last possibility between him and me.

If Ying'er dies, he dies.

If Ying'er dies, he will hate me for all eternity.

This was not about accidents; this was his judgment upon me.

The killing intent within Wu Lingxiao vanished into thin air in an instant.

It was replaced by an endless sense of powerlessness and desolation.

She could not kill Ying'er.

In fact... she even had to protect Ying'er.

Because if Ying'er truly met with an accident, she would definitely be the one forced to take the blame.

"Heh..."

Wu Lingxiao let out a bitter laugh in her heart.

Ye Xuan, oh Ye Xuan.

You really have me completely in the palm of your hand.

For the sake of a servant girl, you actually used your own life, used the last remaining leeway between us, to threaten me.

You win.

Wu Lingxiao slowly raised her head and looked at the embracing pair.

Forcing down the agonizing pain of her heart tearing apart, she hid the killing intent in her eyes into the deepest depths.

"Young Master..."

Wu Lingxiao spoke, her voice terrifyingly calm:

"Since it is so dangerous here... then from now on, this servant will closely protect Sister Ying'er."

"I will absolutely not let any 'accidents' happen."

Ye Xuan turned his head and looked at her.

The two locked eyes.

One gaze was cold and warning.

The other was pained and forbearing.

After a long while, the corners of Ye Xuan's mouth curled into a satisfied arc:

"That is good."

"I believe Ling'er will definitely be able to do it."