Even by dawn, Chu Hengchuan still could not accept that the charred corpse before him belonged to Duan Hongyu. How could someone so proud simply leave like this? Why did his heart ache so intensely? He had never wanted her dead; how could she have been so foolish?
When Duan Changhu, Duan Hongyu's father, received the letter delivered by her wet nurse, he felt a premonition of disaster. After questioning the nurse and learning what had happened, his anxiety only deepened. As a Commandant of the Imperial Guards holding real power of the second rank, Duan Changhu immediately mobilized a troop and, with his son, rushed without stopping toward the Third Prince's Estate, hoping that everything was not yet too late.
In Chenyang Pavilion at Xuan Manor, Chu Hengyuan had already received word of the farce in Chu Hengchuan's residence during the Hour of the Ox. Though he held no warm feelings for Duan Hongyu as a woman, he offered this appraisal: "She is a poisonous woman, and a ruthless one at that. Ruthless to others, and even more ruthless to herself." In their past life, this woman had stayed by Chu Hengchuan's side, fighting him to the very end.
Chapter 95