Read Novel Full CHAPTER 60 PART1
CHAPTER 60 PART1
Xiao Yanfei and Ming Rui locked eyes, silently weighing and probing each other.
As for the scholars, they left grumbling under their breath, muttering clichés like “not worth quarreling with women” and “women only know how to argue shamelessly,” before slinking out of the stele forest.
Silence gradually settled over the grove, leaving only the two of them standing face to face.
“Princess Consort of Ning?” Xiao Yanfei called with a bright smile.
“My name is Ming Rui,” she corrected calmly. “My late father was General Ming He of the Zhaowu army. My husband’s name was Han Jingyu.”
“I am a daughter of the Ming family—and Han Jingyu’s widow.”
Her bearing was upright, her voice proud and unyielding, like a plum blossom defying frost and snow—resilient, austere, yet strikingly beautiful.
Though Prince Ning was named Tang Yu, Ming Rui had never regarded him as her husband. Yet she had been given to him in marriage.
A bitter, grief-filled smile touched her lips as she went on, “Last year, Lanshan City in the northern frontier was besieged by the Beidi army. My father led the city’s troops and held out for a full month. Later, Duke Cheng’en, Liu Chuan, opened the gates against orders to launch a surprise attack. He was swiftly defeated, and with only a few thousand remnants, he abandoned the city, leaving my father with just five thousand men to stand against the enemy.”
“Outnumbered many times over, with neither reinforcements nor supplies, my father endured for another half month. In the end, Lanshan City still fell.”
“When the city was breached, my father was beheaded and his head hung on the walls. My elder brother, Ming Shu, was trampled beneath enemy horses, his body never recovered. My husband, Han Jingyu, was torn apart by five horses—there was nothing left of him…”
“The army perished to the last man. The people of Lanshan were slaughtered to the last soul!”
Her voice grew hoarse, her chest tight with pain as images of her towering father and brother surged back before her eyes.
Sometimes she regretted it bitterly—why had she left Lanshan for the capital? She would rather have died with them than live on alone.
As she spoke, a breeze stirred, tugging at her wide sleeves, revealing wrists marred with scars. One fresh, blood-red gash ran deep beneath the fabric—jarring, raw.
She smoothed her sleeve, but when her fingers brushed against a half-healed wound on her left arm, her brows tightened ever so slightly.
The branches above swayed restlessly in the wind. Silence thickened around them, heavy and oppressive, the air steeped in a chill, murderous intent.
Ming Rui gave a low laugh, her gaze drifting northward—as though piercing through thousands of li to the distant frontier. Her eyes darkened, layer upon layer, like a deepening abyss.
“The Ming family once numbered over fifty. Now, only I remain.”
“Tell me, Second Miss Xiao—should I devote myself to mourning, for father and husband’s sake… or—” Her faint smile vanished as she turned her gaze back to Xiao Yanfei.
“—or should I seek vengeance for the soldiers and the people of Lanshan?”
Dappled sunlight filtered through the dense canopy above, scattering uneven shadows across her face, soft yet carrying an unmistakable chill.
The flickering light played upon her pale features, and in her ink-dark eyes, a sharp, cutting brilliance flared.
Her faith was solid as stone, immovable by mere words.
Xiao Yanfei found herself unable to look away from this woman’s blazing gaze.
Ning Shu had once said that Ming Rui was forced by her stepmother into marriage with Prince Ning during the mourning period, becoming his fourth consort.
But looking at her now, Xiao Yanfei thought—could anyone truly force a woman like this?
No, if she had married, it must have been by her own decision, flowing with the current.
Turning over Ming Rui’s earlier words—that she alone remained of her family—Xiao Yanfei quickly shifted her address. “Eldest Miss Ming.”
Ming Rui’s lips curved, and she stepped closer, reaching out to pinch the young girl’s soft cheek with surprising playfulness. “Good girl.”
Caught off guard, Xiao Yanfei blinked, startled.
Ming Rui held her gaze, unblinking.
She herself was like a bird with broken wings—robbed of freedom, always watched. Even if she got hold of something important, there was no way to pass it on.
She had no chance to meet the Duke of Wei’s household, and as for others—she didn’t know who could be trusted. She could not afford to gamble.
She had no stake to risk.
Until that day—
Ming Rui suddenly said, “The Son of Heaven guards the gates of the realm; a true king dies with his people.”
Those had been Prince Ning’s mocking words after returning from the Four Directions Teahouse.
He had sneered, “Outrageous! ‘A king dies with his people’? That’s calling for His Majesty to perish with the capital—utter nonsense!”
That day, Ming Rui had simply listened in silence.
She knew well—after he beat her, his mood would lift; he would always drink a few cups, half-drunk, and his tongue would loosen.
So that time, she had taken the blows deliberately—and managed to pry out a few words.
When she learned that the one who had spoken such words was none other than the Duke of Wei’s heir’s betrothed—the Second Miss Xiao—an idea took root in her heart.
After that, she seized every opportunity to go out, thinking it far easier to meet Second Miss Xiao than the Duke of Wei himself.
Again and again she tried.
And at last—today—she had finally crossed paths with the legendary Second Miss Xiao.
Echoes of Xiao Yanfei’s words to those scholars still rang in Ming Rui’s ears. Her gaze grew sharper, a shaft of sunlight filtering through the leaves and striking her eyes until they gleamed like blades.
Her stare fixed unwaveringly on Xiao Yanfei’s delicate face as she asked, calm and measured, “Second Miss Xiao, can I trust you?”
Her voice was unnervingly steady, without the slightest tremor.
Xiao Yanfei only smiled, offering no reply.
Still, Ming Rui did not look away. Xiao Yanfei met that nearly oppressive gaze head-on, composed and unflinching.
For a moment, time itself seemed to halt.
The stele forest lay in utter silence. The wind stirred restlessly among the trees; the branches longed for stillness, but the air refused them peace.
At length, Ming Rui’s lips curved into a smile.
She slipped a gold-and-jade bracelet from her wrist and handed it to Xiao Yanfei.
“Please deliver this to the Duke of Wei’s heir.”
“It is very important.”
“Tell him—Grand Marshal Xie is innocent.”
She enunciated each word clearly, her eyes flushed red, as though dyed with blood.
Xiao Yanfei accepted the bracelet, and for no reason she could name, her mind leapt to that single drop of blood which had once fallen onto a medical text in Xilin Temple’s library. Her chest tightened inexplicably.
She gave a slow nod, then glanced at Ming Rui’s battered wrist, her brows knitting. “Your injuries?”
“It’s nothing,” Ming Rui said flatly. She looked down at the welts, burns, lash marks, and knife wounds scattered across her skin, her expression utterly still. Only the faint curl of her lips, touched with bitter mockery, betrayed her.
“He’s already beaten three princess consorts to death. Every maiden in the capital trembles at the thought of marrying into Prince Ning’s household. He ‘can’t bear’ to kill me.”
Xiao Yanfei recalled Ning Shu’s chatter about the prince’s household—that Prince Ning and his mother prized appearances above all.
His so-called “can’t bear to kill her” had nothing to do with Ming Rui herself. If she died, he would be forced to wed daughters from lesser families, even illegitimate ones. That would be a disgrace to the prince’s house.
So Prince Ning could beat Ming Rui—but not to death.
Yet—
Xiao Yanfei’s gaze lingered on her ravaged wrists. Those were only the wounds she could see. Who knew how many more were hidden beneath her robes?
Just looking at them was enough to feel their pain.
Rumor said all three of Prince Ning’s previous consorts had met violent ends. The first, his original wife, was beaten until she fell from the second floor, her skull shattered. The second went to bed covered in bruises and never woke again. The third hanged herself. None of them had lived to see twenty.
Thinking of it, Xiao Yanfei nearly ground her teeth to powder. Prince Ning was truly a beast!
“Eldest Miss Ming…” She wanted to offer her medicine, but then remembered: everything in Ming Rui’s possession was under watch. Even passing on a bracelet required using her as a courier. Even if she gave her medicine, Ming Rui would not dare to take it—could not afford to use it.
Suddenly, Ming Rui lifted a hand to her lips and made a soft “shh.”
Before Xiao Yanfei could react, a clear, sweet voice drifted in from outside the stele grove. “Sister Ming Rui.”
Xiao Yanfei turned toward the sound. At some point Ning Shu had returned, only four or five zhang away, hurrying in their direction.
The little princess’s expression as she looked at Ming Rui was complicated, tinged with a pity she seemed reluctant to show.
In that instant, Ming Rui’s face shifted again. The vibrant spirit vanished, replaced by the dull, lifeless mask she had worn before—lips downturned, eyes dim and hollow, her whole bearing like an empty shell.
She gave Ning Shu a stiff nod, then turned to Xiao Yanfei with a shallow bow. “Thank you.”
Xiao Yanfei, of course, understood what she meant. She smiled faintly, her look promising that the bracelet would reach Gu Feichi.
Ming Rui hesitated, as if unused to speech after long silence. Her voice came dry and awkward: “…Thank you for helping me just now.”
“I… I’ll be going.”
With that, she left, her posture straight as a bamboo stalk.
The sunlight stretched her shadow long behind her, making her slender figure seem all the more solitary.
Ning Shu did not call her back. She only watched her until she disappeared from sight, wordless for a long, long time.
A light breeze lifted the little princess’s bangs and a few loose strands at her temples. The fine hair brushed against the corners of her lips and eyes, lending her face a touch of sorrow.
“Poor Sister Ming Rui,” Ning Shu murmured, clenching her tiny fists. “Everyone knows what kind of man Prince Ning is, yet the Empress insists on forcing her to stay and won’t allow her to divorce.”
When the Princess Consort of Prince Yi spoke of this matter to Ning Shu, she had held her tightly and warned her that if her future husband ever dared to mistreat her, she must never endure it in silence. She must tell her mother or her father—the Prince of Yi’s household would never bow to the Empress.
A daughter of the Tang family, a princess of noble rank, would never be made to suffer such humiliation!
The truth was simple enough: the Empress dared to act so brazenly in favor of Prince Ning’s household only because General Ming and his son had died in battle, leaving Ming Rui with no family to defend her.
Watching Ming Rui’s tall, slender figure disappear around the corner, Xiao Yanfei asked softly, “What is the relationship between Prince Ning and Her Majesty the Empress?”
After all, the Empress had even sent Zhu momo to Prince Ning’s estate to “train” people—thankless, troublesome work. Surely there had to be a reason. Otherwise, would the dignified Empress really have the time to meddle in another household’s affairs?
“Prince Ning’s mother, the Dowager Princess, was surnamed Liu,” Ning Shu replied, wrinkling her delicate nose. “My mother told me that when the Empress was young, she became acquainted with His Majesty—then still the Second Prince—at Prince Ning’s estate. He visited there constantly back then… though who he was really visiting, no one could say.”
“Later, word spread through the capital that His Majesty fell in love with the late Empress at first sight beneath the bodhi tree of Xilin Temple. Before long, the late emperor betrothed her to him.”
***