The Empress and Ying'er

From the shadows of the covered corridor, Wu Lingxiao’s figure slowly emerged.

She stepped into the sunlight, clad in black-and-gold imperial robes, her bearing lofty and supreme.

Forcing herself to maintain the dignity of an emperor, she walked toward Ying’er step by step, looking down from above at the young girl seated on the bench.

“There is something I have never been able to understand.”

Wu Lingxiao’s voice held undisguised jealousy. “The strength you displayed that day was far beyond mine.”

She leaned forward, bracing both hands against the stone table as she moved closer to Ying’er’s face.

“You are so powerful. Why, then, do you insist on humbling yourself before Ye Xuan—even willingly lowering yourself to serve as nothing more than a maid?”

“With cultivation that reaches the heavens, you could have imprisoned Ye Xuan just as I did! Break his legs, cripple his cultivation, and lock him inside your bedchamber with the strongest chains. Make it so he could never go anywhere, so that for the rest of his life he would be able to look only at you and belong to you alone!”

“Why won’t you do that?” Wu Lingxiao’s breathing grew rapid, and a feverish, almost deranged fervor flickered in her eyes. “As long as you are willing, no one in this world—or any other—could snatch him away from you!”

Ying’er looked at her. There was no fear in her eyes, only deep compassion and tranquility.

She gently set down her teacup. The porcelain struck the stone tabletop with a crisp sound, forcibly interrupting Wu Lingxiao’s frenzy.

“Because he is not a bird in my cage.”

Ying’er’s voice remained as calm as a still, ancient well. “He is a kunpeng soaring through the Nine Heavens. He is the one in my heart, my husband.”

She raised her head and met Wu Lingxiao’s clear gaze directly. In Ying’er’s eyes was an openness Wu Lingxiao could never understand.

“I love him, so I respect him. I want him to pursue his own path freely—to laugh, to make merry, and to settle his grudges as he pleases. If loving someone means breaking his wings and turning him into a cripple kept solely for one’s own amusement…”

Ying’er tilted her head slightly. There was no mockery in her tone, only the purest rejection.

“Then that is not love. That is cruelty. I would never do such a thing.”

Wu Lingxiao straightened as though she had just heard the most absurd joke in the world, then let out a harsh, grating laugh.

“Respect him? Not imprison him? Don’t forget—Ye Xuan is no saint devoted to a single woman! How many women across the myriad worlds has he provoked? You are far from being his only woman!”

“I know.”

Ying’er’s expression remained calm; even her eyelashes did not tremble.

It was as if Wu Lingxiao had punched a wad of cotton. Her frustration at being unable to provoke Ying’er only made her angrier.

“Since you know, don’t you feel wronged? You are a peerless powerhouse, yet you willingly share one man with other women. Don’t you feel that it is unfair?!”

“It is indeed profoundly unfair.”

Before Ying’er could answer, Wu Lingxiao had already clenched her teeth and answered her own question. Fury blazed in her eyes as she swept her wide sleeve through the air.

“Why is it that in this world, men alone are allowed to take multiple wives and build harems?”

“Why can men have countless women in their arms, while a woman is branded a wanton flirt merely for looking at another man?”

“I am the Sovereign of the Great Xia Immortal Dynasty, the supreme ruler under heaven! I am the common sovereign of all beneath the skies! Why shouldn’t I, just like those male emperors, take countless consorts and enjoy the blessings of having many women? All I seek is the most basic fairness in this world!”

“Fairness?”

At last, Ying’er showed a change in expression upon hearing those two words.

The corners of her lips curled slightly, revealing undisguised contempt from a position of lofty superiority.

She looked at Wu Lingxiao as though she were looking at a clown making a fool of herself. “You keep shouting about seeking fairness, but what have you gained?”

Wu Lingxiao suddenly froze.

What had she gained?

She had gained eight hundred years of emptiness, a cultivation bottleneck, and an indescribable sense of disgust and self-loathing.

More importantly, she had gained Ye Xuan’s hatred for her through countless lifetimes—and one single, casually uttered word that had been enough to drive her mad:

“Whore.”

Wu Lingxiao opened her mouth, wanting to argue, but no words came out.

Seeing her dazed and dispirited appearance, the contempt in Ying’er’s eyes deepened.

She leaned forward slightly and spoke one word at a time, striking directly at the deepest wound in Wu Lingxiao’s soul:

“You keep saying that the world is unfair, but back then, in Elysian Heaven, when my husband placed all his sincerity before you, when all he wanted was to spend ‘one lifetime, one love’ with you…”

Ying’er paused, her voice as sharp as a blade.

“Weren’t you the one who cheated on him?”

“He deceived me!”

Wu Lingxiao had been stabbed in her most sensitive spot. Her voice rose sharply, nearly hysterical with anger, while panic and self-deception battled in her eyes.

“He never truly loved me! It was all false affection! He only wanted to use me!”

“Oh?”

The mockery in Ying’er’s expression nearly overflowed. Without the slightest mercy, she tore away the last scrap of Wu Lingxiao’s dignity.

“Even if he was deceiving you, weren’t you the one who took the initiative to cheat on him?”

“Did he force you into the beds of other men? Did he hold your head down and make you open a harem? Wasn’t it because you couldn’t control your own base desires, because you became addicted to those shallow pleasures of the flesh, that you willingly undressed yourself?”

Every question from Ying’er struck Wu Lingxiao’s face like a heavy hammer.

Wu Lingxiao trembled violently. Her lips quivered, and her mind went completely blank.

She had always used the claim that “Ye Xuan deceived her” as a shield for her betrayal. But today, Ying’er had torn that shield to pieces right in front of her.

Once again, Wu Lingxiao was left speechless. Like a dying beast, she could only gasp for breath while glaring fixedly at the ground.

“Sister, you’re just overthinking things.”

Ying’er leaned back against the chair, her eyes once again filled with bored contempt.

She looked at the Empress of Great Xia and found only pity in her. “If you love someone, then love them. Why make everything so complicated? Why cling to all those excuses and lofty-sounding words born of suspicion and fear?”

“But I am the emperor of Great Xia!”

Wu Lingxiao abruptly raised her head, a final trace of unwillingness gleaming in her eyes.

She tried to use the most exalted identity in the world to salvage the shreds of her shattered pride.

“I am the Emperor. I bear the destiny of the nation. I cannot be like those ignorant village women who stake everything on a single man!”

Yet the response that greeted her was still Ying’er’s despairingly disdainful gaze.

Ying’er looked at her in silence, her eyes fixed on Wu Lingxiao as though she were nothing more than an ant struggling in a muddy pit.

“An emperor?”

Ying’er let out a soft laugh. Though it was barely audible, it carried an unmistakable air of arrogance.

“Sister, my status is countless times—no, billions of times—higher than that of a mere emperor of an Immortal Dynasty in the lower realm.”

She casually toyed with the tassels hanging from her skirt, her tone utterly calm.

“And yet, am I not still willingly here, serving my husband as a maid, bringing him tea, pouring his water, and preparing his meals?”

Wu Lingxiao suddenly held her breath, rendered completely speechless.

She had no idea who Ying’er truly was, nor how terrifying her background might be.

But in the world of cultivation, there was one truth both cruel and simple:

With strength, one possessed everything.

The young woman before her possessed overwhelming power—power so absolute that even Wu Lingxiao’s peak Mahayana cultivation and Temporal Dao Physique could not possibly stand against it.

That meant Ying’er’s status was an exalted existence so far beyond Wu Lingxiao’s reach that she could crane her neck until it broke and still never glimpse its summit.

And yet, a woman with such heaven-defying cultivation and incomparably noble status was willing, for Ye Xuan’s sake, to cast aside all her worldly splendor and willingly humble herself down to the dust, becoming nothing more than a maid.