CHAPTER 80: CHAPTER 80; LET HER GO

She tightened her grip on Bai Zhi, her tear-filled eyes flicking back towards the gilded front doors.

"I want to leave," she whispered hoarsely, her voice trembling with exhausted finality. "Let me leave... or I will kill her... I will... I have nothing left to lose anymore..." her parents were gone, and the only family she ever had Shen Xuan no longer was her son, he had become someone else’s.

And as the guards shifted uneasily, as Bai Zhi sobbed helplessly against her grip, and as Shen Xuan curled into a silent ball of broken sobs on the marble floor...

Yueyao realised for the first time:

She truly didn’t care what happened to her anymore.

She just wanted it all to end.

Bai Zhi whimpered softly under her grip, her tears soaking the thin fabric of Yueyao’s sleeve. Her entire body trembled with terror as the blade pressed deeper against her throat, a thin line of blood dripping down her pale skin.

"Please... Yueyao... please don’t do this..."

Don’t do this... don’t do this...

The words echoed endlessly in her mind until they blurred into meaningless noise. Her thoughts were a tangled storm of grief, rage, betrayal, exhaustion, and an aching, desperate yearning for freedom.

I can’t stay here anymore...

I can’t breathe...

I want to leave... I want to leave... please... someone let me leave...

Her chest heaved with silent sobs as her blurred eyes locked onto the tall mahogany doors again.

But the guards didn’t move.

No one moved.

No one ever moved for her.

Suddenly, a shift in the tense silence rippled across the room. She felt it before she saw it, the subtle, collective intake of breath from the guards, the slight lowering of weapons as if in deference to an approaching storm.

Then she heard it.

The quiet, steady rhythm of polished shoes striking marble with precise, measured force. Each step echoed through the cavernous room like the toll of a funeral bell.

Yueyao’s blurred gaze lifted towards the grand entrance.

And there he was.

Shen Xiao.

Tall, cold, immaculately dressed in a charcoal suit that clung to his broad shoulders like sculpted steel.

His obsidian eyes burned with a silent, smoldering fury so intense that even the guards closest to him flinched and lowered their heads.

He walked with lethal calm, his gaze locked onto hers with a darkness so deep it felt like it swallowed the entire world around them.

For a moment, everything fell silent.

Be it the trembling guards, Bai Zhi’s sobs or Shen Xuan’s wails, everything became standstill.

All she could hear was the pounding of her own broken heart as his eyes pinned her in place, peeling back every fragile defense she’d tried so hard to build.

She felt her knees weaken under the weight of his gaze, her grip trembling violently around the knife.

Shen Xiao stopped a few paces away, his broad frame blocking the light from the doorway completely.

His eyes flicked over her bruised, tear-streaked face, the raw desperation and grief carved into her delicate features... and then down to the knife pressed against Bai Zhi’s throat.

His expression didn’t flicker.

His aura was calm, too calm. The deadly calm of a predator who had already calculated a thousand ways to kill and chose the one that would hurt the most.

"Yueyao," he said softly, his deep, low voice cutting through the silent tension like cold steel. "Put the knife down."

Her tears spilled over again as her lips trembled, her voice breaking into a ragged, desperate sob.

"No... no... I won’t... I can’t... let me go... please... let me leave... I can’t stay here anymore... I can’t... I just... I just want to go..."

His dark eyes narrowed slightly, the cold, bone-deep exhaustion hidden under his deadly calm gaze flickering into something darker.

Something that made her blood run cold.

But she didn’t lower the knife.

If anything, her grip tightened until her knuckles turned bone white.

"Let me go... or I swear I will kill her... I swear I will... I will..."

She didn’t even know if she was threatening him anymore.

Or begging him.

Or both.

But Shen Xiao only stood there, his tall frame casting her trembling form into shadow, his obsidian gaze locked onto hers with quiet, unreadable finality.

And in that heavy, suffocating silence, Yueyao realised:

Her world was about to end.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Shen Xiao stepped into the foyer, his tall, broad frame casting a long shadow across the marble floor.

His obsidian eyes narrowed sharply as he took in the scene before him, Bai Zhi trembling with blood trailing down her neck, Shen Xuan sobbing hysterically at her feet, and Yueyao, his wife, standing barefoot in her silk nightgown with wild, tear-streaked eyes and a knife pressed against Bai Zhi’s throat.

"Yueyao," he said quietly, his deep voice echoing coldly through the silent hall. "Put down the knife. We can talk it out..."

She flinched at his voice, her shoulders shaking violently as her tear-filled gaze darted to him. Her lips parted in a silent sob.

"Don’t come near me!" she screamed, pressing the blade tighter against Bai Zhi’s throat as fresh blood welled up along the sharp edge. "I swear, Shen Xiao... I will kill her... I will do it!"

His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking along his chiseled cheek as he stepped forward calmly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Yueyao," he repeated, his voice low and firm. "Let her go. You are not thinking clearly right now."

Bai Zhi whimpered softly, her knees buckling slightly as she leaned more heavily against Yueyao’s arm. Her pale face was streaked with tears, her voice barely audible as she gasped, "Please... please, Madam Shen... my neck... it hurts... please..."

Then, her body sagged completely, slipping from Yueyao’s grip. The sudden loss of weight threw Yueyao off balance. In that split second of weakness, her desperate eyes flickered around wildly before landing on Shen Xuan, who was frozen in shock beside Bai Zhi.