Hating the High-Hanging Bright Moon

Shangguan Yunying slowly shook her head, choosing her words carefully. “There shouldn’t be.”

“I probed him. Gu Chengyin’s cultivation hasn’t changed much.”

“There’s no obvious decline either. For now, he’s still at the Great Perfection of the Foundation Establishment stage.”

Luo Zhao nodded, her voice turning even colder:

“That means this crackdown isn’t enough.”

“If we didn’t even bruise the flesh, breaking the bone is out of the question.”

A dark foreboding tightened in Shangguan Yunying’s chest.

She cautiously studied Luo Zhao’s expression, testing the waters.

“Your Highness… what are you planning?”

Luo Zhao didn’t answer right away. She rose and walked slowly to the window.

With her back to Shangguan Yunying, her voice carried forward, heavy with sovereign authority.

“An imperial edict from His Majesty.”

Shangguan Yunying’s heart jolted. She quickly stood and bowed her head in silent attention.

Luo Zhao turned around. The setting sun streamed in behind her, cloaking her face in shadow.

“With regard to Gu Chengyin’s usurpation of the position of the Qing Sword Sect’s Sect Master, this matter is to be placed under the Grand Secretariat’s coordination.”

“The Censorate, the Ministry of Rites, and the Ministry of Justice are ordered to hold a joint tribunal.”

“A deadline of three days is set. The truth must be uncovered without fail.”

The words fell, plunging the hall into dead silence.

Shangguan Yunying stood frozen, momentarily at a loss for words.

The Grand Secretariat’s coordination.

A joint tribunal of three ministries.

A deadline of three days.

She understood all too well what this meant.

The so-called usurpation of the Qing Sword Sect’s Sect Master was an old issue left over from when Gu Chengyin took over.

He had intervened with ruthless efficiency, and Jiang Qingshan had willingly stepped aside.

The outcome was clean—no bloodshed, not a single blade drawn, and the entire Qing Sword Sect secured.

But procedurally, there were indeed points open to criticism.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have been a major issue. But once it was brought to the public stage—

Once it became the subject of exaggerated scrutiny, before a joint tribunal—

It was no longer a question of procedure.

It was real suppression.

The previous imperial decree had merely cut off Gu Chengyin’s momentum, demoting him from head of the inspection team to a fugitive under imperial warrant.

It had been more of a posture, a warning—or perhaps a test.

But not this time.

The Grand Secretariat’s coordination and a joint tribunal meant they intended to take real action.

If found guilty, the lightest punishment would be stripping him of all titles and status. The worst…

Execution at the Meridian Gate.

And the three-day deadline left no time even to catch a breath.

Shangguan Yunying lifted her head to look at Luo Zhao in the dying sunlight.

Her face betrayed no emotion. But deep in her eyes burned a quiet, smoldering fire.

And then Shangguan Yunying understood.

Luo Zhao didn’t just want to suppress Gu Chengyin. She wanted to tear him down.

To drag him from the lofty height of the Crown Prince’s Grand Mentor into the dust.

Gu Chengyin had followed the previous decree by quietly confining himself to the Heavenly Master’s Residence, hoping to lie low.

But Luo Zhao wouldn’t allow it.

She intended to shatter his peace, to force him out of the Tower of Stillness.

To make him face this storm head-on, forcing him to act.

But…

“Your Highness.”

Shangguan Yunying spoke with difficulty. “If the joint tribunal does find him guilty…”

“And what if it does?”

Luo Zhao cut her off, her voice cold as a winter gale.

“You and I both know exactly who Gu Chengyin is.”

“If he can’t weather even a storm like this, then he doesn’t deserve my…”

Luo Zhao paused, leaving the sentence unfinished.

But Shangguan Yunying caught the unspoken meaning.

Deserve what?

Her concern?

Or her affection?

Luo Zhao turned back to gaze out the window.

“Yunying.”

Her voice suddenly dropped. “What do you think he will do?”

Shangguan Yunying opened her mouth, only to find she had no answer.

What would Gu Chengyin do?

Faced with this situation, what would he do?

Shangguan Yunying didn’t know. That man’s thoughts—she had never been able to fathom them.

So all she could do was answer truthfully:

“Your Highness, I do not know.”

Luo Zhao did not turn back, only uttered a soft “Mm.”

Silence settled once again over the hall.

After a long moment, Luo Zhao’s voice rose again, as light as a sigh:

“I don’t know either.”

She paused, then added:

“But I want to know.”

Shangguan Yunying looked at Luo Zhao’s solitary figure, and a pang of sadness stirred in her chest.

Her Highness, to the outside world, was always the image of aloof and untouchable pride.

But now, bathed in the dying light of the setting sun, she seemed merely an ordinary woman.

Tangled over a man. Tense over a gamble with an uncertain outcome.

Her Highness wanted to provoke Gu Chengyin into action, yet feared he might move too far.

She wanted to drag him down, yet feared she could not control him.

She wanted to prove that everything she had done was worth it, yet feared the proof would show it was not.

This contradiction—Shangguan Yunying knew it all too well.

Because she herself felt the same.

“Yunying.”

Luo Zhao spoke again, her tone reclaimed its usual calm:

“Go rest. You’ve traveled far, and you must be tired.”

Shangguan Yunying studied Luo Zhao, searching for some hint of emotion, but found none.

She could only bow and say, “As you command, Your Highness.”

The moment she stepped out of the hall, she glanced back inside.

Luo Zhao’s silhouette still stood motionless, carved like a statue.

Shangguan Yunying took a deep breath, then quickened her pace and disappeared into the distance.

Luo Zhao stood at the window, still and silent.

The setting sun sank inch by inch into the western hills, the last streak of gold and crimson clinging to the horizon,

yet at last it was swallowed by the creeping darkness of night.

And there, in the sky caught between light and dark, a bright moon had quietly appeared.

Cold, full, sovereign, looking down upon the world from high above.

Luo Zhao watched wordlessly.

Her gaze passed through the window lattice, across the courtyard, over the layered rooftops of the palace, and came to rest upon that moon.

If one peered closely into the depths of her eyes, they would see she was not looking at the moon at all.

But at a man. A man forever standing on a height, forever beyond her reach.

The silvery light fell like his gaze—indifferently covering all things in the world, yet never lingering on anyone.

Slowly, Luo Zhao raised her hand.

Her fingers spread open, reaching toward the moon in the sky, toward that distant, unreachable figure, grasping with all her might.

But only wind slipped through her fingers; her palm remained empty.

Once, twice, Luo Zhao grasped again. Her fingers closed uselessly in the air, seizing nothing.

In that moment, the calm in her eyes shattered.

Like dark currents finally bursting out from beneath a frozen surface. Like a lamp suddenly flickering to life in the deep of night.

Or like...

madness, finally tearing through its disguise.

Her ten fingers clenched violently. Her nails dug deep into her palms. Bones creaked until they became a fist bulging with veins.

Luo Zhao trembled all over—not from fear, not from sorrow.

But from a raging wildfire, long suppressed, finally erupting.

“Gu Chengyin.”

Her voice was soft, as if only to herself.

But within those whispered syllables was a razor-sharp coldness.

“I am the heir to Great Luo.”

Luo Zhao’s head lifted slightly. The moonlight fell upon her face, illuminating those eyes.

There was no trace left of that former calm—only a sick, consuming madness, burning to ashes.

“Why do you get to stand so high above?”

She clenched her teeth, as if crushing each word before swallowing it down.

“Why do you get to care so little about me?”

The corners of Luo Zhao’s mouth twisted into a smile that was not quite a smile—a crooked, eerie shape.

Her face, which should have been exquisitely beautiful, now bore a haunting, unnatural allure.

“Everything in Great Luo belongs to me.”

She paused, then her voice dropped to a whisper so soft it might have been a lover’s murmur.

But what that murmur harbored was far more dangerous than any scream.

“And that includes you.”

Then Luo Zhao smiled.

Like a child who had finally gotten the toy they craved.

Like a madwoman who had finally glimpsed the heart of her obsession.

“So.”

“I will surely drag you down.”