CHAPTER 556: CHAPTER 555: YOU, ARE THE ABYSS NOT THE REDEMPTION

Su Bai felt as if she were deep in an ocean, everything around suffocating her to the point where her chest was about to be emptied of its last breath. She violently opened her eyes.

She saw someone, indifferently choking her neck with their hand.

She struggled to speak, asking him to let go, and he complied.

His expression was detached, as if she were an inconsequential person or object.

In the next second, a feeling of suffocation completely enveloped her and tore through her body. Her eyes widened as a tear rolled down from the corner of her eye; it was as if she had realized something.

Her body had been overtaken by another powerful consciousness.

The sliver of Su Bai’s consciousness sank into a deep slumber.

Yan Wanqing lifted her hand and looked at her palm lines, clear and distinct; she could even feel the softness of the bedding against her skin.

And the pain in her throat was almost tearing apart.

The cold, almost life-threatening words still echoed in her ears.

Yan Wanqing opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, she found herself with nothing to say.

"Why don’t you speak? What are you pretending for?" Xiao Pingfeng saw her coughing without a word and his hostility intensified.

Yan Wanqing, with her head bowed and her hair falling over half of her face, said, "...I don’t know what to say."

Her words seemed to directly strike at Xiao Pingfeng’s raw nerve. He violently stepped forward, his hands pressing down on her slender shoulders, his face marked by sharp angles filled with fury, "Three years, Yan Wanqing, you haven’t said a word, just disappeared for three years. Do you know how I have suffered through these past three years? And you even let someone take away my child! Yan Wanqing, how vicious you are!"

He shook the person in front of him vigorously. Yan Wanqing, already injured, felt a sharp pain in her shoulder blades and her face went pale, devoid of any color.

She simply bit her lower lip, enduring the pain.

In front of him, she no longer had the right to speak of pain...even if she did, he might not feel sorry for her as he used to.

Better not to humiliate herself further.

Xiao Pingfeng, seeing her silent, let out a derisive laugh and released his grip, "In the past, you were the Commandery Princess Anping of Dawei, Yan Wanqing. Now, you are the murderous Su Bai, General of Chu Kingdom, and your Yan Family has even defected and moved to support Qin State. Yan Wanqing, oh Yan Wanqing, if your father, the Duke of Loyalty and Righteousness, were still alive to see you become a servant of three surnames, I wonder what he would think?"

The previously silent Yan Wanqing involuntarily clenched the bedding, blue veins popping out on the back of her hands.

Xiao Pingfeng’s gaze was full of mockery, "What? Did I hit a nerve? You can act as you please, but I cannot speak of it? Taking away my child to seek refuge with Qin Wu, making him live in exile from a young age, you committing treason and abducting the Dragon Heir. Yan Wanqing, your crimes should be severely punished! Your Yan Family should be exterminated!"

"Shut up." Yan Wanqing heard her own voice, hoarse and unpleasant.

She raised her head, for the first time after regaining consciousness, she faced the man squarely.

The air around him no longer resembled the pure moonlight of previous years; instead, it was filled with hostility and murderous intent.

His dark eyes were deep like an abyss, emotionless when they met hers.

Three years had passed, and the one she loved had changed beyond recognition.

Her eyes couldn’t help but redden, "What right do you have to speak of me?"

She threw off the covers, disregarding her bare feet, and stepped directly onto the cold floor.

Xiao Pingfeng’s eyelids twitched but he didn’t move an inch.

Yan Wanqing stepped forward with a scornful laugh, her face vulnerable but her peach blossom eyes unusually resolute.

No one knew how she had spent the last three years in a daze, how she could only watch everything happening from an outsider’s perspective, how she watched herself being used by Chu Qi and Song Huaxu, how she watched herself destroy the citizens of Dawei, whom her father and brothers once swore to protect even at the cost of their own lives. Who could understand the torment in her heart?

No one came to look for her... except for her own biological brother!

But her consciousness was suppressed once more by Song Huaxu, and she could only watch as that person named Su Bai wielded a long sword and wounded her brother!

"If you can do it, why can’t I speak it?" Xiao Pingfeng stood in place, cold as an icicle.

Upon hearing this, Yan Wanqing let out a scoff, the corners of her eyes turning bloodshot.

She chuckled until her throat felt painfully choked.

She couldn’t cry... not in front of this man.

She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms, causing pain, and she gritted her teeth to calm her emotions.

"You promised me that once we returned to the Capital, all I would need to do was enjoy your protection, those people would never appear before me, and you would protect me, our child, and my maternal family. But..." Yan Wanqing stared directly into Xiao Pingfeng’s eyes, "did you do it?"

"You didn’t." Yan Wanqing saw him frown and was about to speak, but she immediately cut in, "You allowed the Qin Family to attack me time and again until I gave birth prematurely. You just lost your temper and put on a show in front of the ministers and Qin Jun. Xiao Pingfeng, is this the foolproof protection that you promised me?"

She looked at Xiao Pingfeng, her eyes full of disappointment.

"Do you know why I gave birth prematurely?"

"Do you know what it was like for me at that time, how close I came to death during childbirth?"

"Do you know what Qin Erya said to me?"

Xiao Pingfeng remained silent.

Yan Wanqing raised her hand, gently wiping away the tears in the corner of her eyes, "You don’t know because none of this happened to you; you have no idea. For the sake of the bigger picture, for weighing pros and cons, for the stability of Dawei’s court, you chose to let me be wronged. You’re also very aware that I like you, love you, and am willing to endure these wrongs for you. But Xiao Pingfeng..."

There she stood, as the wind outside the tent carried in strands of rain, toying with her thin clothes and long hair.

She seemed as fragile as though she might shatter in the next moment.

Her voice, within the silence of the tent, was exceptionally clear.

"It was you who promised me a lifetime, a pair of people, that you would protect me thoroughly. I gave up my freedom willingly to go back into a cage with you, but if you could not fulfill the promises you made yourself, what right do you have now to accuse me? Everything I’ve done is merely what a mother, a child, an elder sister ought to consider and take action on in times of peril, isn’t it? If you can’t protect us, then by what right do you stand there, high and mighty, blaming me, Yan Wanqing, as deserving of death?"

"If my father were still alive, he would never agree to return to the Capital with you. Although he was the most loyal and righteous general of Dawei, he was also my father. He would never let his daughter suffer in the dog-eat-dog environment of the Capital!"

"Xiao Pingfeng, you say you love me, but your love has only caused me endless suffering. Always facing everything alone, this kind of love—I, Yan Wanqing, would rather not have it at all!"

She poured out all the suffocation from her chest.

Finally, she felt much more comfortable.

Xiao Pingfeng stood there, the veins on the back of his hands bulging: "Is this how you view me, view our relationship? Do you even know what you’re saying?"

"I know you’re of noble status, the Emperor of Dawei, but I, Yan Wanqing, am not inferior. I have my pride. I was never prepared to be a devoted wife and mother in this lifetime. You appeared when my father and brothers had just met with disaster at Governor’s Office Pass. I thought you were my salvation from the darkness, but if I were to be honest..." Yan Wanqing carefully recollected the past.

"In times of danger, the only thing I could do was to save myself. Reflecting on it now, you didn’t mean much to me."

"If holding onto your hand would only pull me towards another abyss, Xiao Pingfeng, I would rather have stayed in the darkness from the beginning, unredeemed by anyone."

The last word fell from her lips.

Yan Wanqing brushed away the previous gloom and felt a refreshing clarity.