At Liu Shiyao's order, the guards around Ye Zhiqiu drew their swords from their waists and slowly advanced towards him.
"Ye Zhiqiu, I didn't want to treat you like this. If you could answer me honestly, you could avoid this physical pain," Liu Shiyao said in a lower voice, looking in Ye Zhiqiu's direction. There was a hint of reluctance in her voice if one listened closely.
But Ye Zhiqiu had no choice from the beginning.
He didn't know where this ability came from, nor how to get rid of it. From the moment he discovered this ability until now,
He had only one wish all along.
He just wanted to live an ordinary life, experiencing birth, old age, sickness, and death.
That was all...
The stinging pain of the blade cutting through his skin pulled Ye Zhiqiu back from his memories. The guards didn't want to kill him with one blow. Instead, they cut his skin one knife at a time. This kind of pain was the most torturous.
And he was held down by the guards, with no chance to fight back.
"... I don't know."
It was only on the seventeenth knife that Ye Zhiqiu managed to squeeze out these words through his gritted teeth.
He suppressed the pain deep in his heart and endured the seventeen cuts without even a single groan.
Liu Shiyao watched as Ye Zhiqiu's white clothes were stained with blood again and again. Now, the original patterns on his clothes were no longer visible.
She looked down at her palm, her brows tightly furrowed.
"Kill him," Liu Shiyao said softly after a long silence.
She sat on the wooden chair, as if all her strength had been drained. She turned her head away, no longer looking at this scene.
She couldn't bear to watch this. If she did for too long, it would easily remind her of what she had experienced back then.
Ye Zhiqiu no longer felt the pain when the blade pierced his heart. His whole body was covered in bleeding wounds, and it seemed as if his entire body was in pain.
As he fell to the ground, he was still thinking.
Maybe... dying like this would be the best result for everyone.
He hoped so, but fate never gave him a choice from the start.
"Your Majesty the Imperial Concubine, what should we do next?" The guard who had carried out the task walked up to Liu Shiyao. There was still blood dripping from the blade in his hand as he calmly asked about the next task.
Liu Shiyao rubbed her temples and waved her hand gently. "Wait."
At her words, everyone stood in a row, their eyes fixed on Ye Zhiqiu in the middle.
The blood from his wounds stained the floor tiles beneath him. Along with the bloodstains that couldn't be washed away from the Cold Palace incident a few years ago, it seeped deeper into the ground.
Liu Shiyao watched as Ye Zhiqiu's breathing gradually faded away, but she still remained a cold onlooker.
She knew that Ye Zhiqiu would come back to life again.
She just didn't know how long she would have to wait.
The time waiting for his resurrection was long. Liu Shiyao stood up and looked at the deserted Cold Palace. It had been deserted for several years, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated on it. A light touch would leave a hand full of dust.
It was very quiet around. Everyone didn't dare to make a sound to break the silence. It was this silence that always made people think of the past.
Liu Shiyao closed her eyes slightly. She remembered something a long time ago.
It was the day she met Le Ning.
Thinking about it now, if she hadn't met Le Ning, maybe nothing that followed would have happened. But many things couldn't be simply summed up with an "if."
Liu Shiyao opened her eyes and looked at the dark bloodstains on the ground. There were sixty corpses in the Cold Palace back then. The blood beneath them seeped into the floor tiles. Even now, the bloodstains couldn't be completely washed away.
Sometimes, she would have dreams. Maybe one day, she would end up as one of these corpses.
She looked at the things in the Cold Palace. At night, she would always hear the screams of those people in her ears, which made it impossible for her to sleep peacefully.
But by now, she had already lost the right to choose. She could only be driven forward and couldn't stop for a single step.
Liu Shiyao looked back at Ye Zhiqiu lying on the ground. His body was stained with blood, and he lay there without a trace of vitality. She would always be in a daze and think of herself back then.
Sometimes, being able to die directly like this might not be a bad thing.
"Your Majesty the Imperial Concubine, the wounds on his body are healing," the guard's voice sounded in her ear, pulling Liu Shiyao's drifting thoughts back.
The hand she had clenched suddenly relaxed. She looked in Ye Zhiqiu's direction and sighed.
It was a pity... Fate never stood on anyone's side.
She walked up to Ye Zhiqiu, crouched down, and looked at him with his eyes closed. The wounds on his body that had been cut by the sharp blade had gradually begun to heal.
Liu Shiyao looked at the long scar on Ye Zhiqiu's neck. She knew at a glance who had done it.
It had been so long... and it still hadn't healed...
She lowered her eyes, hiding the thoughts in them.
When Ye Zhiqiu woke up, he met Liu Shiyao's gaze. She was crouching in front of him, her head lowered. When she saw that he had woken up, she even smiled in his direction.
Ye Zhiqiu didn't know how long he had been asleep. He only remembered that when he woke up, the pain all over his body was still there. The pain of the knife cuts made him can't help but frown.
And Liu Shiyao's gaze always made him feel uncomfortable.
"Reason. I only need this one answer," Liu Shiyao looked into Ye Zhiqiu's eyes and said these words one by one.
But Ye Zhiqiu simply couldn't answer this question, and his answer had always been the same.
"I don't know."
"Do it," Liu Shiyao took a few steps back, her hands tucked into her sleeves. As soon as she finished speaking, the sound of the blade cutting through the skin sounded in her ear.
And she still had a cold face, with neither sadness nor joy in her eyes.
After Ye Zhiqiu was killed, he had a dream. In the dream, it was a long - time ago, and it was also the first time he knew that he could be resurrected.
At that time, he was twelve years old and was thrown into the river as a sacrifice. That year, he thought he was surely going to die. But after the suffocating death, he found that he was still alive.
And he was washed to the shore downstream by the river. He thought it was the river god who had spared him. But when Ye Zhiqiu returned to the village, all he got was the villagers' fear.
They didn't think the river god would spare him. The river god had never spared any sacrifice.
They only thought that Ye Zhiqiu had escaped. To prevent the river god from bringing disaster to the village, they captured Ye Zhiqiu again.
Ye Zhiqiu probably didn't expect that when he happily returned, what awaited him was another sacrifice.
The villagers tied ropes around Ye Zhiqiu's body and tied a huge rock to him. This time, their decision was to make sure he couldn't escape.
"Why are you doing this?" Ye Zhiqiu looked at the villagers standing in front of him. Each of them had fear and... pity on their faces.
"You've never really been one of us. You're an abandoned person. It's your honor to be sacrificed to the river god this time. But not only have you not made any contribution to our village, you even dared to escape. What if the river god gets angry with the village!"
A villager was the first to speak these words. The surrounding villagers also began to chime in one after another. The more Ye Zhiqiu listened, the colder his heart became.
Back then, he was abandoned by his family and wandered until he came to this village. He didn't expect that after getting along day and night for so many years, in their hearts, he was still just an outsider.
An outsider who could be abandoned at any time.
The villagers pushed the rock down. Ye Zhiqiu fell into the river along with the rock. A large amount of water rushed into his mouth and nose. His vision gradually blurred. In the end, he didn't even have the strength to open his eyes.
The rock took him all the way to the deepest part of the riverbed. When the rock landed, he lost consciousness.
It was at this moment that he could feel that maybe he was really going to die.
But fate always liked to play jokes. After an unknown amount of time, Ye Zhiqiu felt a suffocating feeling in his chest. He looked at his hand. The rope on it had become a bit loose because it had been soaked in water.
Ye Zhiqiu clearly felt that he was already dead, but for some reason, after sleeping for a while, he was alive again.
This feeling was very strange, but now wasn't the time to think about these things. Since God didn't want him to die, he had to seize this opportunity.
Ye Zhiqiu broke free from the rope, but he wasn't good at swimming after all. Just untying the rope on his hand made him gradually feel his strength draining away.
He had died twice just trying to untie the rope in the water. Although the process was difficult, he finally managed to escape from underwater.
When he swam to the shore, he wrung the water out of his sleeves. His long black hair was sticking tightly to his face. Ye Zhiqiu didn't know where he could go in the future.
But one thing he was sure of now was that he couldn't go back to the village.
After that, Ye Zhiqiu had been on the road of looking for the reason why he could be resurrected. But over the years, he had never been able to find the answer.
One day, he received a letter. It said that he could find the reason for his resurrection in Yuling.
Ye Zhiqiu had spent more than a decade looking for the reason why he couldn't die. He was an outcast. People around him didn't dare to get too close to him. And this letter had become his only hope now.
He wanted to know why he could be resurrected, and then...
Kill himself.
He had been living alone for more than a decade, and he was tired. He didn't want to go on like this anymore. If he could never wake up again this time, maybe it would be a good thing.
It should have been like this...
Ye Zhiqiu recalled the past more than a decade in his heart. Countless darkness had enveloped him, but in the next second, a ray of light appeared in front of his eyes.
All the light gathered on one person, and that person was...
Song Yan.
Since he met Song Yan, there had been no more darkness around him. In his dreams at midnight, he was no longer haunted by the nightmare of being thrown into the river by the villagers.
Because of Song Yan, his desperate desire to die had also changed unconsciously.
He wanted to live, and he wanted to see Song Yan again.
So... he couldn't die.
Not yet, at least.
Liu Shiyao watched Ye Zhiqiu's slightly twitching fingertips, looking down at him. She didn't say a word, just quietly waited for him to open his eyes again.
After a while, Ye Zhiqiu slowly opened his eyes. As soon as he moved slightly, he could feel the cold blade against his neck.
Liu Shiyao stretched out her hand and looked at the red nail polish on her fingertips. She didn't really expect the other person to tell the reason for his resurrection. She said casually, "Well, can you tell me now?"
She didn't really expect the other person to be honest. If he was going to tell, he would have done so long ago. He wouldn't have had to die so many times.
Liu Shiyao was already prepared to order his death again, but unexpectedly, Ye Zhiqiu changed his tune.
"Okay, I'll tell you," Ye Zhiqiu's voice was very soft. He couldn't even remember how many times he had been killed. Even his bones were screaming in pain.
Every word he said was so light that it seemed as if it would be blown away by the wind.
"Oh? You really want to tell me the reason?" Liu Shiyao suddenly turned her head and looked at Ye Zhiqiu when she heard this. She lowered her eyes, and there was still a hint of suspicion in her voice.
Ye Zhiqiu struggled to raise his hand and waved in her direction. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, showing a forced smile. "Come closer, and I'll tell you the reason."
"Your Majesty the Imperial Concubine, there might be a trick in this," the guard stepped forward and blocked in front of Liu Shiyao when he heard this, seriously saying this.
Liu Shiyao frowned tightly. Before, no matter how the other person was asked, he was unwilling to say the reason. But now... would he really confess so honestly?
Ye Zhiqiu wasn't in a hurry. He just looked in Liu Shiyao's direction.
Although she was also skeptical about the credibility of the other person's words, the time left for her was running out.
If she delayed any longer, maybe she would be punished by the higher - ups...
She had no choice. It was better to take a gamble now.
Gamble that Ye Zhiqiu wouldn't cause any trouble.
"It's okay. I don't think he can do anything," Liu Shiyao reached out and took the short knife from the guard's hand, then stepped towards Ye Zhiqiu.
"But..." The guard still wanted to say something when he saw this, but was glared back by a look from Liu Shiyao.
She walked up to Ye Zhiqiu, crouched down, and raised the short knife in her hand to press against his neck. She said word by word, "Say, what's the reason!"
"First, dismiss these guards. If you don't do this, no matter how many times you kill me, I won't say," Ye Zhiqiu moved forward slightly. The tip of the knife cut through his neck, and blood dripped onto the back of the knife. There was no trace of emotion in his eyes.
He was almost too calm.
And this action also proved that the other person's words were no joke.
If Liu Shiyao didn't follow his words, she wouldn't be able to pry a single word of the answer she wanted from his mouth.
"..."
After a long silence, Liu Shiyao finally chose to compromise. "Okay, I'll do as you say."
Saying that, she waved her hand and dismissed the guards standing around. The guard wanted to say something, but Liu Shiyao slightly lifted her chin in his direction and said calmly, "I know what I'm doing."
After a while, only the two of them were left in the Cold Palace.
"Okay, now I've done everything you said. You should tell me the answer I want, right?" Liu Shiyao said with a smiling face. Although she was smiling, the short knife in her hand didn't move an inch.
The corner of Ye Zhiqiu's mouth twitched slightly. His voice was very low. "I'll tell you now..."
As soon as he finished speaking, he snatched the short knife from Liu Shiyao's hand. Maybe she didn't expect him to do this. She was completely defenseless and had the knife in her hand taken away.
She quickly took a few steps back and dodged the attack of the short knife in Ye Zhiqiu's hand.
"Ye Zhiqiu, what are you doing!" Liu Shiyao said calmly in his direction. She didn't even frown. She wasn't afraid of the blade in his hand at all.
Ye Zhiqiu didn't answer. He didn't stop his movements. He quickly took a few steps forward. The movement of his knife was fast, fierce, and accurate, always aiming at the vital parts.
Liu Shiyao couldn't dodge in time and was scratched on her arm. She covered her injured arm, and the next second, Ye Zhiqiu's short knife swiped across her neck.
Blood spurted out instantly. Liu Shiyao fell to the ground, looking in Ye Zhiqiu's direction. Her mouth opened, but she couldn't say a single word.
"I just want to live," Ye Zhiqiu threw away the short knife in his hand. Looking at Liu Shiyao's lifeless body, he covered his own hand.
This was the first time he had killed someone, and he hoped it would be the last.
"Ye Zhiqiu!"
Just then, a voice suddenly sounded. He turned his head and saw Song Yan rushing in through the door in a hurry.
The clothes on his body hadn't been changed. The blood on them had dried and turned dark red.
When he got closer, he saw a pool of still - wet blood in the middle of the ground and the imperial concubine lying not far away.
There was a fatal wound on her neck, and blood was still oozing out. Her eyes were closed, and there was no trace of pain or struggle on her face. Instead, there was a faint smile on her lips.
It was as if she wasn't killed but had just fallen asleep.
"Song Yan, why are you here? Where are the guards outside?" Ye Zhiqiu grabbed his still - shaking hand. Looking at Song Yan who suddenly appeared, he immediately calmed his mind and asked.
Song Yan looked at the blood on Ye Zhiqiu's body and his forced calmness. He knew what had happened during the time he was away. He had clearly promised that Ye Zhiqiu wouldn't have to suffer like this anymore...
He reached out and covered Ye Zhiqiu's shaking hand to calm him down. He patiently answered every question of his. "When I woke up, I was already at the palace gate. But I couldn't leave you alone, so I came back. As for those guards, I used the paralyzing powder. They'll be unconscious for a while."
"Then let's leave quickly. We can't stay here for long," Ye Zhiqiu calmed his mood and pulled Song Yan's hand, wanting to go outside.
He didn't want to stay in this place any longer. Every floor tile here was stained with blood. Staying here for too long would easily remind him of what he had just