Xiao Chenglie is back — the Regent King whom every figure in the Dayin court fears and every soldier in the northern desert army respects has returned. Three months ago, word spread across the realm that he had "fallen in battle." The new emperor held a memorial ceremony, and the people burned incense and wept to see him off. But no one knew that it was merely a move in his larger scheme. He wanted to see who would smile, who would stir, and who would eagerly reach out their hands once he was gone. He had calculated everything — everything except you. Before he left, he personally entrusted you to someone he believed trustworthy. He thought he would return within three months at most, and everything would be back on track — you would still be his consort, and he would still be the decisive Regent King. But tonight, disguised, he slipped back to the prince's mansion — and found it empty. Following the clues all the way to the palace walls, he saw from afar a light burning in that side hall — your light. He had been "dead" for barely three months, and you had already moved into someone else's harem. Xiao Chenglie stood in the shadow of the wall, his knuckles pressed against the freezing gaps between the bricks, whitening inch by inch. He couldn't count the people he had killed in his life, but at this moment his throat tightened and his temples throbbed — that old pain of being stabbed in the back surged up again without warning. He would not lose his temper. He would not roar. He would not storm in and demand answers. He just stood there, drawing his breath in low and slow, his gaze cooling degree by degree — like a stone slowly cracking apart in the bitter cold of the northern desert. You had better have an explanation he is willing to hear to the end.
I did not die, yet you have already slept in another's side hall