As Murong Wan begged for her life, Xia Wuyang simply watched her performance. He let her plead, wail, and play the victim... all while remaining completely expressionless, his eyes fixed upon her.
Murong Wan’s performance continued. Tears streamed down her face as she tried to move him with her pitiable state. "And Prince Zhenxi’s Mansion... It was my father, my brother, and my mother... They wanted the treasures of the Luo River Secret Realm, so they sent men to ambush and kill the members of the Luo Clan. I... I’m just a woman of the Deep Palace. How could I possibly manage affairs outside? I didn’t do any of this. If Your Highness would spare my life, I... I’ll do anything. Anything at all. I can help you deal with Your Majesty. I can make Prince Zhenxi’s Mansion support you. I... I can also..."
Suddenly, she gritted her teeth and ripped open her already flimsy nightgown, revealing a large expanse of pale skin. "I can also serve Your Highness. Although I am older, I know the art of preserving my youth. My skills in bed are a hundred times better than those of any young girl; I will absolutely not disappoint you. Your Highness has had to endure for so many years. You must be lonely. I... I can let Your Highness have your fill..."
"Enough!" Xia Wuyang’s voice was so cold it brought her words to an abrupt halt.
He walked to the couch and looked down at the disheveled, tear- and snot-stained Empress. There wasn’t a shred of desire in his eyes—only pure disgust and a towering hatred. "Murong Wan, you truly make me sick."
"My mother, Empress Luo Jin... before she died, did she beg for her life like you? Did she try to seduce her enemies with her body? Did she weep and wail as you are now? No. Until her final moment, she held her head high, preserving her dignity as an Empress and a mother. Even Xia Shengming couldn’t make her bow her head."
"But you... so many years have passed, and you still haven’t learned a thing." Xia Wuyang sneered. "Decades as Empress, and this is the vile nature you’ve cultivated. You’ve become even more wretched than before."
Murong Wan’s face went from deathly pale to ashen grey. She knew her pleas were useless; Xia Wuyang had no intention of letting her go.
"You... you’re going to kill me?" she rasped, her once picture-perfect face now twisted with venomous hatred.
"Kill you?" Xia Wuyang shook his head. "Just killing you would be letting you off far too easily."
He reached out, his fingers spread, and pressed his palm against Murong Wan’s lower abdomen.
Murong Wan tried to pull away, but found she couldn’t move a muscle. She was completely at Xia Wuyang’s mercy.
"You played your part in my deposal all those years ago."
Xia Wuyang’s Qi and Blood Power shot into Murong Wan’s body, feeling like a thousand needles piercing her. In an instant, it punctured her Dantian and shredded her meridians. "Today, I’ll let you taste what it’s truly like to be crippled. You will experience the taste I once endured, but tenfold—no, a hundredfold."
"Ah—"
A shrill, uncontrollable scream echoed through the hall.
Murong Wan’s body convulsed violently. She could clearly feel the Qi Blood she had painstakingly cultivated for nearly a century draining away. Her Dantian shriveled like a punctured ball, and her meridians shattered inch by inch, with almost no hope of recovery.
Her First Grade Perfection Cultivation was as fragile as paper before Xia Wuyang. In the span of a few breaths, it was completely obliterated, not a single trace left behind.
She collapsed onto the couch, gasping for breath. Sweat soaked her nightgown, and she looked as if she’d been dragged from the water—an utter mess, yet possessing a strange, disheveled beauty.
But it wasn’t over. This was only the beginning.
Xia Wuyang formed a sword with his fingers and jabbed through the air four times.
"CRACK... CRACK... CRACK... CRACK!"
Four crisp snaps echoed in succession as the joints in Murong Wan’s four limbs were simultaneously pulverized.
Not broken. Pulverized.
The Qi Blood had penetrated her bones, vibrating them into dust. Even with a Miracle Elixir, she could never recover. Only a treasure that transcended all Spirit Elixir and Medicine might offer a sliver of hope.
"Ah... ah..." Murong Wan could no longer scream, only manage hoarse, guttural gasps.
Her tears and snot mingled together. The face that was once beautiful enough to topple kingdoms was now twisted like a ghoul’s, devoid of any semblance of its former beauty.
"Does it hurt?"
Xia Wuyang asked softly, a look of faux concern on his face that only terrified Murong Wan more. "But this pain... it’s not one-ten-thousandth of the pain my mother felt when her time came. It’s not one-ten-thousandth of the pain her nanny felt when an arrow pierced her throat. It’s not one-ten-thousandth of the pain I felt in my heart when I was deposed... It doesn’t compare. It truly doesn’t."
Finally, he raised a hand and pressed it to the center of Murong Wan’s forehead.
This time, he didn’t channel destructive Qi Blood, but a strand of pure and bizarre Spiritual Power.
It bored into Murong Wan’s Sea of Consciousness, spreading like a spiderweb and entangling her Soul. It did not damage her consciousness, but merely... severed her Soul’s control over her body.
Soon, to her horror, Murong Wan discovered she could no longer feel her limbs!
No, not just her limbs—she couldn’t feel her entire body.
She was like a prisoner trapped in her own body. She could see, hear, and feel the pain, yet she couldn’t move so much as an eyelash. The terrifying sensation was a living nightmare.
Xia Wuyang had turned her into a conscious statue, a living mannequin. The feeling of a fate worse than death was suffocating.
She wanted to commit suicide, but even that was impossible.
"Rest assured, I won’t let you die." Xia Wuyang withdrew his hand, looking at the living statue on the couch, whose eyes could still move. "You will live. You might live for a very long time. Every day, you will lie here, watching the lights of Kunning Palace, listening to the gossip of the Palace Attendants, feeling your own body decay, and you will be able to do nothing."
Xia Wuyang continued, "You will hear how your Jiu’Er fights for the title of Crown Prince, how he fails, and how he is crushed beneath the heel of the other Princes. You will hear how Prince Zhenxi’s Mansion falls into ruin and how your family is destroyed. You will hear the whispers as the old are replaced by the new in this palace, and you will hear of the new Empress who moves into Kunning Palace..."
He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "And you will be able to do nothing. You can only watch, and listen, and endure each day in endless regret and agony. This is the debt you owe my mother. The debt you owe certain people in the Luo Family. And the debt you owe me... You’re going to pay it all back."
Murong Wan’s eyes could no longer even move. Their depths were filled with despair, terror, regret, and pleas for mercy... but no one could see it.
By then, Xia Wuyang had already turned away, no longer sparing her a glance.
He walked to the Phoenix Couch, lifted the Jade Pillow, and just as he’d expected, found a key forged from Pure Gold.
Following the clues provided by Zheng Zhicang, along with the information he had gleaned from Murong Wan using the Soul Enchantment Technique, he located the mechanism behind a screen in the hall.
It was the Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix Painting. He pressed the eye of the phoenix, and the wall slid open without a sound, revealing a dark secret chamber behind it.

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