After deceiving the villain, I was forced to love him.

At the same time, the Ministry of War's Council also sent a letter.

"Where is the messenger?" Upon seeing the words "To be opened by Consort Xuan" clearly written on the envelope, He Yao immediately became suspicious.

Li Tong shook his head. "When I returned to my residence, this letter was already on the table. I don't know who sent it."

Strange, if it's a letter for Consort Xuan, why is it on the desk of a commander of the Imperial Guards?

For a moment, everyone looked at each other, and various speculations arose.

Seeing that the relationship was not unbreakable to begin with, and that new cracks were about to appear, He Yao quickly took the letter.

"Your Majesty, be careful!" Qian Li stood up to block her, but He Yao stopped him.

"It's alright" If the person writing the letter wanted to hide poison in the letter, it wouldn't have passed through Li Tong's hands.

But to everyone's surprise, He Yao was completely stunned the moment she opened the letter!

"Your Majesty?!" Qian Li and the others were so frightened that they immediately gathered around.

"..." Baili Ming, being a woman, went straight up to help her, but no matter how many times she called out, the woman didn't hear her.

In his haste, Cui Yuanshu didn't care about anything else and snatched the letter from He Yao's hand to read it.

There was nothing there except a very strange monkey.

Qian Li and Qian Li, who had also seen the content, exchanged a glance, both filled with doubt.

Is Consort Xuan so afraid of monkeys that she's become like this?

wrong!

"Your Majesty?" Using a bit of force, Baili Ming forced He Yao to sit down. Looking at her face, which was completely devoid of color, he couldn't help but feel a little scared.

"..." Coming to her senses, He Yao looked at Baili Ming and repeated something in a low voice over and over again.

Seeing this, Li Tong quickly called out loudly, "Someone, summon them!"

Suddenly grabbed by her, Baili Ming quickly stopped her, "No!"

"But Consort Xuan..." Seeing Baili Ming's unusual panic, Li Tong was also at a loss.

Qian Li then whispered a reminder to Baili Ming, "Patriarch Baili, if anything happens to Her Majesty, no one can bear the responsibility."

"..." The latter thought about it and realized that it made sense.

But when he looked at He Yao, she just kept shaking her head.

His expression became even more dazed...

That's it.

"Your Majesty's current condition is not suitable for being pressured too much. Why don't I take Your Majesty back to Chenyue Pavilion to rest first, and then ask the imperial physician to wait outside Chenyue Pavilion so that if anything happens, there will be time to treat her."

"That's the only way." Seeing that He Yao was so confused that she couldn't even sit still, the others had no choice but to agree.

On the way back to Chenyue Pavilion, He Yao was practically carried by Baili Ming and the palace maids.

Aside from being extremely resistant to seeing the imperial physician, she wouldn't answer any questions at all.

In the end, Baili Ming had no choice but to take it upon himself to knock her unconscious before daring to let the imperial physician approach and treat her.

"Please rest assured, Your Excellencies, Consort Xuan is just temporarily over frightened and is fine. She will be alright after taking some calming medicine and getting some sleep."

Upon hearing this, the people guarding outside Chen Yuege breathed a sigh of relief in unison.

Then they all looked at Baili Ming.

They are men, so they should avoid any appearance of impropriety.

"Since Her Majesty is alright, please go back and rest well. You will be busy from now on. I will take care of things here."

"Sigh...yes, it looks like we're in for a tough battle." Everyone knows He Yao isn't the type of woman who can't handle things.

Her loss of composure today suggests that the painting must have some special significance.

And it is highly likely to influence the outcome of the next match.

"Then I'll have to trouble Patriarch Baili."

"Thank you all for your hard work."

......

"Squeak..."

After the final sound of the door closing faded into the distance, the bedroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

He Yao, who had been awake for a long time, kept her eyes tightly shut in the darkness, not daring to think about anything.

But the more she tried not to think about it, the clearer her mind became.

It was so clear that she suddenly "saw" again how she had been hoping every day for someone to come and rescue her when she first arrived here.

I long for it day and night.

I long for it even when I'm sleeping, and I long for it even when I'm being beaten or killed.

At that time, she really, really hoped that someone could save her.

To be precise, she was longing for that girl from long, long ago who always talked about being "sisters with different fathers and mothers" and who even gave her egg whites to eat.

later......

Later she stopped hoping for it, fearing that if she really did come, how could she endure such a terrible environment?

This is hell on earth.

Moreover, as time went by, she and many others began to drift into a daze.

They can't remember where they came from, their families, or even who they are.

This made her increasingly afraid, afraid that she would become unlike herself, afraid that she would just rot away in that place.

So she repeated it over and over again—

Her story.

Her own story was too short and too bad; He Yao never liked it.

dislike it very much.

Well, she's a social media tyrant. Every story that happens to her can make a random passerby laugh to death.

How can someone be so frivolous, always late for class and forced to stand as punishment, and still be able to grin and laugh?

At the same time, every story represents a glimmer of hope.

In this hope, she struggled, suffered, and persevered... until she finally went mad talking to herself.

From morning till night, I can recite it backwards.

Of course, she also hoped to be pitied and let go.

But they are all people living in hell; where is their humanity?

Pity? Ha...

As the one who is naturally weaker, He Yao often faces humiliation that is more cruel than fighting wild beasts.

However, after she miraculously survived the battles time and time again, the voice that used to annoy her constant muttering to herself disappeared.

However, once she actually left that place that only made people stink and rot, she found that the outside world was even more disgusting.

She didn't know when it started, but she discovered that there was always an invisible force controlling her destiny.

Everything bad seemed to have eyes, constantly falling on her.

She...killed many people.

They treated us like pigs, dogs, cattle, and sheep, showing no mercy whatsoever.

She didn't stop until that power suddenly disappeared.

She seemed to have contracted a "strange illness," and her urge to kill grew stronger and stronger, and she couldn't stop.

Kill if you can't stand it, kill even if you look at it too long...

His martial arts skills also became increasingly bizarre and insidious, becoming more and more uncontrollable.

From initially deserving of death, to later indiscriminate killing of innocent people, becoming bloodthirsty...

For a long time, she thought that this was all there was to life.

He was guilty of a heinous crime but did not want to die.

The most ridiculous thing is that the "strange disease" has kept her looking like she's in her early twenties.

Ha, how funny?

She was already small in stature, which actually gave her an advantage when she committed the murder.

As for "her"...

Let's not see each other again.

Her life is too bad; it's the same no matter where she goes, so why should she hope for anyone?

It's best to let it rot away silently.

But I don't know if it's a stroke of good luck or just someone else's bad luck.

In the year she was about to completely lose consciousness, she met a little girl who was getting medicine for her mother.

He was about twelve or thirteen years old, covered in bruises and whip marks, and his clothes were tattered from being whipped.

Despite the pain, she pleaded from one end of the street to the other, hoping a kind doctor could help her.

Those were not good times; the emperor was incompetent, the court was corrupt, and powerful families were everywhere.

Only a few people can afford medical treatment, so who would give medicine to a young girl for free?

He Yao was, of course, just watching the show.

She even made a bet with herself, a bet that if no one helped the girl after the whole street was begged for help, she would kill everyone on the street.

For her at that time, killing was pure bliss.

She watched as the little girl, tears streaming down her face, kept kowtowing... until her head bled.

See? Nobody saves you for nothing.

With that thought in mind, she raised the knife.

but--

"Ugh......"

"Seeing how filial you are, I'll go with you."

The little girl was so happy that she cried and laughed, and kowtowed repeatedly.

Unexpectedly, a shout came from the pharmacy across the street: "You old geezer, you still dare to do good deeds in this world?!"

Despite his foul language, the man opened the door, picked up his medicine box, and came out. "Alright, alright, I'm so unlucky to have met you. I'll go with you!"

That was the first time He Yao remembered "her" words after she "fell in love" with killing.

If you can't find a way back, just find the nearest way to get ashore!

A few months later, she met the little girl again.

However, it was in a mass grave.

The little girl came to dig for wild vegetables, and she was seriously injured and on the verge of death.

At first, she thought that a mere little girl would be terrified to death seeing her covered in injuries and looking fierce.

And that was indeed the case; the little girl was so frightened that she wet herself and ran away as fast as she could.

But He Yao didn't expect that she would come back and even bring her mother.

They carried her home, cleaned her wounds, and cooked for her...

“Child, you…” Qiu Niang’s eyes reddened as she washed, and she clumsily made up an excuse that the room was too dark and her eyes hurt.

Halfway through washing, she gritted her teeth and called out, "Yao'er, boil some water."

"It's burning right now, it'll be here shortly."

Yes, for most people in that era, taking a hot bath was a luxury.

The mother and daughter clearly had no source of income; the firewood they used to heat water for bathing must have taken them a long time to gather.

so......

In her entire life, He Yao had only felt that she could be so pure twice.

The first time was when she was kicked out of her home and "she" took her back and gave her a hot bath.

Later, she lived with the mother and daughter.

She began to try to control herself again, desperately suppressing her "strange illness" and striving to be a normal person like them.

But she had too many enemies, so many that they dragged the little girl down with her.

She quickly avenged the little girl, but was stopped by Qiu Niang when she attempted suicide.

She couldn't understand how anyone could dare to stop her after witnessing her commit murder...

In short, the knife that stabbed herself cut Qiu Niang's hands so badly that they bled profusely and she couldn't get them wet for a very long time.

"Be my daughter."

"......good"

Like someone who is about to drown but is finally rescued.

He Yao couldn't find a way back, but in the end, in order to "compensate" Qiu Niang with a daughter, she knelt down and begged the two doctors for a whole day and night.

They used every extreme method imaginable to minimize the impact of the "strange disease" on her and even changed her appearance.

Later, she took her mother to the border, where He Shoufeng cried and begged to take her back, forcing Qiu Niang to be controlled by the He family. She was then forced to plot her encounter with Lu Jian...

Ha, would He Shoufeng, who would beat a young girl to death for asking for two hundred coins to get medicine, suddenly have a change of heart?

It's just that they feel their "daughter" has grown up and can be bought and sold.

Unfortunately, He Shoufeng couldn't even remember how old his daughter was or what she looked like.

So why didn't she completely eradicate the He family?

There are far too many rotten people like her in this world; it would be best if they all died together.

But Lu Jian said, "Then let's work together to make this world a better place."

"We're fine as long as we're doing well," she said when she took her home.

So when Lu Jian really fell in love with her, He Yao often thought that if it were "her", she wouldn't have made such a mess of her life.

If it were "her," the real He Yao and Qiu Niang would never have died.

If it were "her", she would definitely make many, many friends in a very open and generous manner.

If it were "her," Lu Jian... would definitely like it even more.

He Yao never dared to let Lu Jian know that she really had a past.

In his eyes, He Yao could be a lover he met when he was still a nobody, an ally who supported him all the way, and a comrade-in-arms with shared ideals.

But it absolutely cannot be another "Wang Qingyan".

She was a scoundrel, even more murderous than Wang Qingyan.

Once exposed to the public, it would not only bring Lu Jian fatal destruction, but also—

Looking at the painting of the Monkey King, He Yao burst into tears.

She would never accept it.

......