The countdown to death: one day and six hours remaining.
Prince Han wiped the white powder from his face and pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was still beating, yet he felt with chilling clarity that he was already dead. He could still feel the phantom agony of that death lingering on his skin. His illness had come on mysteriously; labeled a heart condition, it was often accompanied by lung pain so severe that he would struggle for breath, teetering on the edge of suffocation. In just half a year, his body had been hollowed out, eventually leading him to this precipice.
The sickness was invisible to outsiders, and even the imperial physicians could not cure it. From the moment it began, Prince Han knew his time was limited, though he had not expected to survive this long. Yesterday’s assassination attempt confirmed that Prince Jing had likely been suspicious of him for some time. He wondered how long he had been acting as a mole beside Prince Jing—five years? Or four?
Chapter 16