CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 55 - MEI’S REALIZATION

’Running. Running. Running.’

The words pounded through Mei Ling’s mind in rhythm with her desperate footsteps as she stumbled through the dimensional portal, her newly enhanced Core Formation aura flickering wildly around her trembling form.

The golden light that had once been his—’his’ vitality, ’his’ life force—still coursed through her meridians like liquid fire, but it felt wrong, tainted with the bitter taste of abandonment.

’We left him. We left him. We left him.’

She crashed to her knees on the rocky ground of the research station, her pencil skirt torn and bloodied from their escape, the fabric clinging to her sweat-drenched skin.

Lin Yue landed beside her with warrior’s grace despite her own emotional devastation, while Elder Feng materialized last, her newly ascended Soul Formation cultivation crackling with unstable energy.

’Why did we leave him? Why did we run?’

"Mei Ling!" Lin Yue’s voice seemed to come from underwater, distorted and distant. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her. "Mei! Breathe!"

But breathing felt impossible. Every inhale brought the memory of his sacrifice—that final smile as he’d poured everything into saving them, his body withering to dust as he held the portal open.

The guilt crashed over her in waves, each one threatening to drown her completely.

’I should have stayed. I should have died with him.’

"He... he’s gone," she whispered, the words scraping her throat raw. "My husband... he’s..."

The word ’husband’ broke something inside her chest, and suddenly she was sobbing—great, wrenching sounds that seemed to tear her apart from the inside.

Because that’s what he’d been, hadn’t he? Not just her master, not just the emperor she’d served for fifteen years, but her husband in every way that mattered.

’Fifteen years. Fifteen years of watching him, loving him, betraying him...’

The memories came flooding back, triggered by trauma and grief, carrying her away from this moment of devastating loss to the beginning of everything.

’Age sixteen. Hungry. So desperately hungry.’

Mei Ling had been nothing then—a street orphan clutching her little brother Xiao’s hand as they huddled in an alley behind the palace kitchens, hoping for scraps.

Their parents had died in the border wars two years prior, leaving them with nothing but each other and the gnawing ache of empty bellies.

She’d tried everything—begging, stealing, even offering herself to the crude merchants who leered at her developing figure—but nothing had been enough. Winter was coming, and winter meant death for children like them.

That’s when the Emperor had found them.

She still remembered the shock of seeing him up close—not the distant figure on parade floats or ceremonial platforms, but the man himself. Tall, powerful, with eyes that held both kindness and steel.

He’d been walking through the servant quarters, inspecting conditions, when he’d noticed two small forms pressed against the kitchen’s back wall.

"What are your names?" he’d asked, his voice gentle despite the authority it carried.

"M-Mei Ling, Your Majesty," she’d stammered, pushing Xiao behind her protectively. "This is my brother Xiao. We’re not thieves, I swear! We were just—"

"Hungry," he’d finished, studying their hollow cheeks and too-thin frames. Without another word, he’d gestured to the head cook. "Feed them. Then find them quarters in the servant wing."

Just like that, their lives had changed. Not out of grand benevolence or political maneuvering, but simple human decency. The Emperor had seen two starving children and fed them.

It was such a small thing to him, probably forgotten within days, but to Mei Ling it had been everything.

’He saved us. He gave us life when we had nothing.’

She’d thrown herself into service with desperate gratitude, working twice as hard as the other servants, learning to read and write in stolen moments, cultivating in secret using techniques gleaned from discarded manuals.

By eighteen, she’d risen to personal attendant status—not through any scheming or seduction, but through sheer competence and unwavering loyalty.

That’s when she’d first seen him as a man rather than just her savior.

’The memory still burned, even now.’

She’d been bringing fresh linens to his private chambers when she’d heard the sounds—soft gasps, the rhythmic creak of furniture, a woman’s voice crying out in pleasure.

She should have left immediately, should have returned later, but something had rooted her feet to the spot.

Through the partially open door, she’d caught glimpses of him with his newest concubine—the legendary beauty Lily Qin, whose looks were said to drive men to madness.

Mei Ling had watched, transfixed, as the Emperor’s powerful body moved over the woman, his muscles rippling under sweat-slicked skin as he thrust into her with primal intensity.

"Yes, my Emperor!" Lily had cried, her perfect form arching beneath him. "Harder! Please!"

And he’d complied, his hands gripping her waist as he pounded into her with increasing desperation, as if trying to lose himself in her flesh.

The sounds they made—flesh slapping against flesh, breathless moans, the wet slide of bodies joining—had awakened something in Mei Ling that she’d never felt before.

’Want. Need. A desperate ache between her legs that she’d tried to ignore.’

She’d stood there like the other servants, head bowed, holding clean towels and trying to pretend she wasn’t burning alive with jealousy and desire. Because that’s all she was—a servant.

A piece of furniture to be used when needed and ignored otherwise. Whatever fantasies she might harbor, whatever feelings were growing in her heart, her place was at the edges of his life, not in his bed.

’I was nothing. Less than nothing.’

But the beautiful concubine had vanished one day, leaving behind only whispered rumors of betrayal and dark cultivation practices.

The Emperor had raged for days afterward, his voice echoing through the palace: "Used as a conduit! She drained my cultivation to fuel her ascension! Fifteen years of advancement, stolen!"

That’s when his decline had begun. Without his stolen cultivation base, age had crept back in, along with old injuries and the accumulated toll of decades of rule.

The other wives and concubines had slowly drifted away, seeking more promising attachments, until only Mei Ling remained.

’Everyone else abandoned him. But I stayed.’

She’d told herself it was gratitude—repaying the debt she owed for his kindness to two starving orphans. But in the quiet moments, when she’d helped him dress his increasingly frail form or brought him meals he could barely stomach, she’d known the truth.

Somewhere along the way, gratitude had transformed into something deeper and more dangerous.

Love.

’I loved him. Even when he was weak, even when he was broken, I loved him.’

It hadn’t been his power or his position that drew her—those were fading anyway. It had been the way he’d still asked about her brother, still remembered the servants’ names, still carried himself with dignity even as his body betrayed him.

The way he’d continued giving her books—cultivation manuals, poetry collections, philosophical treatises—tossing them to her with casual indifference as if they weren’t treasures beyond price.

"You might find this interesting," he’d say, never quite meeting her eyes, never acknowledging that he was nurturing her mind and spirit along with her body.

’He made me more than just a servant. He made me... me.’

For fifteen years, she’d watched over him as his health declined, as courtiers abandoned him, as his own family began plotting against him.

She’d been there through the worst of it, holding his head when he coughed up blood, changing sheets soaked with fever sweat, pretending not to notice the way he sometimes looked at her with something that might have been longing.

And then Prince Wuji had come to her with his ultimatum.

’"Poison him, or your brother dies screaming."’