Chapter 31 — Sacrificed by the Heir: Reborn as Yue Zhaoyue to Avenge Sixteen Years of Injustice

She shrieked, the sound raw and desperate.

“Things have reached this point, and yet you still want to wash your hands of it? You still want to distance yourself?”

The complexion of Xie Linchu drained to a ghostly pallor. He stared at the woman he had once defied the world to protect, and for the first time, she appeared profoundly alien to him. He had once believed her to be the purest pearl in existence. For her sake, he had doubted Yue Zhaoyue. For her sake, he had wounded the one person who had always been sincere toward him. Only now did he realize that the pearl he cherished had never truly existed. There had only ever been a woman who ceaselessly exploited his favoritism—a man who had personally turned that favoritism into a blade to plunge into the hearts of the innocent.

He slowly turned his gaze toward me, his eyes brimming with agony, but I did not look back. To me, repentance that arrives only after the truth has been laid bare is forever devoid of meaning. The Grand Court Magistrate closed the folder, his voice echoing sharply throughout the courtroom.

“Shen Yuntang, for conspiring with high-level criminals, repeatedly slandering the virtuous, plotting harm against others, and showing no remorse for these transgressions: your status as a member of the Shen family is stripped. Your name shall be stricken from the lineage records. You are to be sent to the Tranquil Heart Convent, never to step foot outside its walls for the rest of your life. You shall not see anyone save for the nuns who guard you, receive no letters, and be granted no visitors. This is the Imperial Decree.”

As the final words of the edict faded, Shen Yuntang spiraled into a frenzy. She thrashed, staring wildly at Xie Linchu.

“Brother Xie! Save me! I love you! Everything I did, I did for you!”

But this time, Xie Linchu stood perfectly still. He did not step forward. He did not speak. He did not reach out a hand as he had done countless times before. He simply watched as the guards dragged her out of the courtroom, step by agonizing step. Her wails grew fainter until they vanished entirely beyond the gates of the Grand Court. In that moment, both of them understood that the love they had once fought to preserve, ignoring all morality and right, had finally been torn to shreds by their own hands.

After Shen Yuntang was taken away, the Grand Court turned its inquiry toward Xie Linchu. He confessed to obstructing investigations, secretly relocating witnesses, destroying evidence, and repeatedly leveraging his title as the Heir to silence those who knew the truth. Although he had not directly participated in the former conspiracies of Noble Consort To, his actions had nearly cost me my life and had provided Shen Yuntang with the opportunity to continue her malice.

The Emperor, consumed by rage, stripped him of his title, revoked his inheritance rights to the Princely Estate, and sentenced him to thirty lashes. The Duke of Ding Mansion was also demoted in rank, with future heirs to be selected by the court from among the descendants of the Xie family. Ordinarily, the punishment for obstructing such a major case would have been far more severe, but at that moment, urgent reports arrived from the Northern Frontier. The remnants of Prince Ninh’s forces had conspired with tribes beyond the border, inciting rebellion by exploiting the disruption of military supply lines. Three small cities fell in succession, and thousands of civilians fled southward.

Xie Linchu volunteered to go to the frontier to earn merit and atone for his sins. The Emperor granted his request. On the day he departed the capital, he did not come to see me. Perhaps he understood that I would not bid him farewell, nor did I wish to hear any of his explanations.

That winter, the Northern Frontier was colder than any in memory. After three months of combat, the rebel forces were pushed back beyond the gates of Han Guan. On the eve of the final battle, the snow fell so thick that even standing upon the watchtower, one could not discern a torch a few paces away. Xie Linchu paced the wall alone. When he reached the western corner, he stopped abruptly.

There stood an old wooden post, its surface still bearing the deep, jagged indentations of rope. A soldier had told him that months prior, the rebels had captured the daughter of a garrison commander, binding her to that very post to force her father to open the gates. The commander did not yield. The girl was left suspended in the biting wind and snow for a full night; by the time the reinforcements arrived, the ropes had ground into her wrists until the bone was visible.

That night, Xie Linchu dreamt of the watchtower again. But in his dream, the person bound there was not a stranger; it was me. I was clad in red robes stained dark by blood and snow, my wrists tied tight behind my back. The wind on the tower whipped my hair into a frenzy, my face pale to the point of transparency. Below the tower, Shen Yuntang was weeping. She claimed she was afraid, whispering that if the enemy entered, everyone would die. She begged him not to forsake the entire city for the sake of one person.

And he stood before the ropes. With a single movement, he could have saved me. Instead, he turned toward Shen Yuntang. He told me that she was weaker and needed protection more, whereas I had always been resilient and could certainly endure a little longer. Then, the ropes were cut—not the ones binding my wrists, but the rope holding me to the tower.

Xie Linchu woke with a start. Outside his window, the snow continued to fall. His hands trembled violently, and no matter how tightly he clenched them, he could not stop the icy chill radiating from his fingertips to his very chest. From that night on, the dream recurred relentlessly. Each time he reached for me, I would plummet from the tower before his fingers could graze my skin. Each time he awoke, he was haunted by the memories of the capital. When I was slandered, he told me to endure. When I lost my voice, he believed I was performing a ruse to gain sympathy. When I was pushed to the brink of death, he still turned to shield the woman who had harmed me. He had once believed he had simply chosen the wrong person. Now, he finally understood: the true horror was not that he had misjudged Shen Yuntang, but that he had seen every injury I suffered and yet, in his arrogance, had believed I could always endure just a little bit more.