But Shuyin wasn’t listening anymore. She had already shifted her full attention to her mother, activating her jade eyes, those ancient irises that could see beyond flesh into the very essence of a being. The world took on different hues as she examined her mother’s condition, reading the flows of energy and life force.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
Then boil.
"Damn you!"
The words exploded from her as she spun around, closing the distance to i in an instant. Her fist connected with devastating force, enhanced by celestial power. i’s body flew backward like a rag doll, smashing into the wall on the far side of the living room with a sickening crack before sliding down to the floor.
Lu Yuze’s n, Ah Ling and Ah Ying, had been awakened by the commotion and now stood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide with shock just watching what they were seeing.
They already knew Lin Shuyin was kind of a different person, but why did she feel like a celestial being?
"How dare you poison her!" Shuyin’s voice shook the very foundations of the house.
"How could you do such a thing i!" Her footsteps were heavy as she stalked toward the crumpled form of i, murder radiating from every line of her body. Today she would end this. Today i would pay with her life for attacking her mother.
But before she could reach her target, Lu Yuze intercepted her, positioning himself between Shuyin and the bleeding servant.
"Wait. Think about this rationally." His voice was calm but firm. "It’s probably not her, don’t act before you know it."
He glanced at i, who was coughing up blood, her face twisted in pain but showing no sign of fighting back. She hadn’t even attempted to defend herself, hadn’t raised a hand against the Princess despite the lethal assault. "Look at her. She didn’t try to fight you. She can’t fight you, she knows it, and more than that, she wouldn’t dare. If she wanted to poison your mother, why would she bring her here to you?"
"If it’s not her, then it’s Father." Shuyin’s voice dripped with venom, her eyes burning with barely contained fury. "Only two people ever get close enough to my mother to poison her to this extent, her and Father. I will destroy you all! n are terrible, treacherous creatures..."
"I can’t believe he is this kind of person! How dare he? How can he do that to a woman he loves?" She couldn’t fathom, no wonder she didn’t like this thing called love. It was insidious.
She roughly shoved Lu Yuze’s restraining hands away, and he stumbled back a step.
In that mont, Lu Yuze realized with sinking certainty that winning her trust would be far more difficult than he’d imagined. Whatever had happened in her past, whatever betrayals she’d endured, had left scars that ran deeper than flesh.
He didn’t know from where, but he could tell she had a prejudice against n.
i couldn’t understand how her Mistress could have been poisoned. Can that man do it?
Shuyin sat down heavily on the sofa beside her unconscious mother, her fury transforming into focused determination. She placed both hands on her mother’s abdon and closed her eyes, channeling her own life energy directly into her mother’s failing body. The transfer made her own face pale, but she didn’t stop.
Then she began the extraction.
Her hands moved in complex patterns, pulling and drawing with invisible forces. Slowly, horrifyingly, things began erging from her mother’s body, huge, writhing maggots, each one as thick as a finger and pulsing with malevolent energy. They weren’t natural creatures but condensed poison given parasitic form.
Lu Yuze felt his stomach turn. Ah Ling and Ah Ying gasped in horror, clutching each other. Even i, who had managed to pull herself up and stumble closer, stared in absolute shock.
"I vow on my life and soul.... I have never poisoned her!" i’s voice was raw, desperate with the truth of her words. She fell to her knees, hands clasped before her. "I swear by the celestial court itself. My lady, I have served faithfully. I would die before harming her."
Seeing the extent of the poisoning, the calculated cruelty required to inflict such suffering, i finally understood why her mistress’s condition had deteriorated so rapidly. This wasn’t a simple illness. This was an assassination, slow, agonizing, and deliberate.
Shuyin said nothing, her entire focus on extracting every last trace of poison from her mother’s body, her jaw clenched with determination and rage that burned cold as winter stars.
Soone would pay for this.
Soone would suffer as her mother had suffered.
But first, she had to save her.
As the last of the writhing maggots dissolved into black smoke in Shuyin’s palm, she felt i’s vow settle into the air around them, a binding oath that resonated with celestial law. When nothing happened, no divine retribution struck i down for false swearing, Shuyin’s eyes flickered toward the trembling servant for just a mont.
Not her, then.
Which ant...
Shuyin’s hands trembled with a fury that threatened to crack the world itself, but she forced herself to breathe, to focus. Rage could wait. Vengeance could wait. Her mother was dying, and every second mattered.
She pressed her palms against her mother’s chest once more, jade eyes blazing brighter as she looked deeper, past flesh and bone, into the very essence of her mother’s being. What she saw made her heart stutter in her chest.
"No... no, no, no..." The words fell from her lips like tears.
"What is it?" Lu Yuze moved closer, one hand hovering near her shoulder but not quite touching, sensing she was balanced on a knife’s edge.
"The maggots were just the beginning." Shuyin’s voice cracked, raw and broken. "There are three afflictions. Three separate thods designed to ensure she wouldn’t survive."
She could see them now, layered like death sentences written across her mother’s life force:
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