Empress Cheng, however, dodged the question.
"To hear that it was I who saved you must be a great disappointment. I actually rather admire you; I never expected Yu Changqing to betray you, yet you had made preparations so early on."
"You must have agreed with your grandmother that the moment anything happened to you, she was to flee immediately through the secret exit into the palace to seek help from Empress Tian. Yet clearly, you had no idea you were a descendant of the forbidden clan. With your grand wedding approaching, joyful events near at hand, and marrying the older brother who had cherished you as dearly as ever for ten years, you should have found something to rely on and let down your guard. Why, on the very eve of your wedding, did you seem to sense something? Could it truly be the mysterious instinct innate to your people?"
Yan Xiao'er did not follow her lead to offer any further explanation, but instead retorted, "I know nothing of the Wulian Clan, and no one in my family has ever mentioned it. Since we are a forbidden clan, why didn't you simply eradicate us root and branch?"
"Knowing too much now will do you no good. I can only tell you that this Empress is from the Split-Sparrow Tribe of the Eastern Wastelands. Hundreds of years ago, we were one of the four mysterious land clans alongside your Wulian Clan. The four clans share the same roots yet kill each other. The law of antiquity has always been survival of the fittest; if you are called a forbidden clan, you ought to be destroyed, and if you are called an auspicious omen, you ought to be revered. History is the memorandum of the victor—only by staying alive can one flip between being 'forbidden' and being 'blessed'."
Yan Xiao'er looked at the woman before her, this enemy of hers. To her surprise, the woman seemed genuinely intent on teaching her something. For some reason, what welled up inside her was not murderous intent, but bewilderment.
"What, still hating me?"
Yan Xiao'er thought to herself, you certainly have the nerve to say that.
Empress Cheng, however, gently stroked the scar on her neck and slowly said, "If you meet your parents again in the netherworld someday, they will tell you the answer."
Cursed thing—this remark should have made her even angrier, yet the hand wandering over that scar instead sent an inexplicable shudder through Yan Xiao'er.
Just as she wanted to press further, someone outside softly reported, "Your Majesty, we have arrived."
The curtains on all four sides of the ceremonial carriage rolled up at once, and Yan Xiao'er instantly felt a biting, bone-chilling cold. She looked ahead of the carriage: rows of nameless gray tombstones stood uniformly blocking the path right in front.
The Tombstone Array at the entrance of the Tianjian Abyss. The Emperor of the Li Kingdom did not permit the names of generals who died in battle to be inscribed, declaring that all are equal in death, and if descendants wish to pay respects, they should bow to the collective whole.
Among them, her great-grandfather's should be here.
Yan Xiao'er leaped down from the carriage as the sky grew almost completely dark.
She had only ever seen her great-grandfather's likeness in portraits. Until his dying day, there had been no rumors of anything unusual about Great-Grandfather Yan Qianshan; they were merely ordinary, meritorious nobles devoid of any bloodline enhancement, so much so that no one had ever harbored the slightest suspicion regarding the Yan Family's origins.
It was said that the bloodline awakening of the Wulian Clan was passed down through alternating generations, though there was no fixed rule whether it was passed through males or females. Yan Xiao'er herself looked no different from ordinary people.
If not her great-grandfather, could it be her grandfather?
She only remembered her grandmother telling her that an accidentally discovered family precept stated—for the single daughter of the Yan lineage in that generation, her choice of husband must be someone whose horoscope clashed completely with hers.
Because on the wedding night, only a completely conflicting destiny could neutralize the curse of the Yan Family. As for what the curse actually was, there was no continuation.
Her grandmother had accidentally let Yu Changqing learn of this before the wedding, merely because the grandmother wanted to verify it once more for peace of mind.
After all, it was a match arranged by Yan Xiao'er's parents, yet Yu Changqing had matched it against the information about the Wulian Clan recorded in the family's secret lore, ultimately sealing Yan Xiao'er's identity.
"Go on then, Yan Xiao'er. Remember, I am the one who saved your life, and I am the one who will make your days ahead worse than death. Hahaha."
Empress Cheng's smug laughter rekindled Yan Xiao'er's rage and hatred. This woman was truly a master at toying with people's hearts.
Facing the Tianjian Abyss entrance behind the boundless sea of tombstones, a piercing sense of grief rose in Yan Xiao'er's heart.
Gritting her teeth, she walked forward. As the sole descendant of the Yan Family, she was about to plunge into eternal sinking. Even so, she had to get as far away from this vicious woman as quickly as possible.
Yan Xiao'er suddenly felt a series of violent, binding forces wrap around her ankles. The scars once left by the iron foot shackles were rubbed against the sharp edges of wild grass as she walked, continuously oozing fresh blood.
Bloodthirsty plants from unknown origins wrapped around and swept over her wounds in layers. The more fresh blood was squeezed out, the more she could sense the excitement radiating from the cluster of vegetation.
Stumbling, Yan Xiao'er managed to support herself, determined not to fall within Empress Cheng's sight.
Amidst the boundless night, she walked step by halting step, her body growing heavier and heavier. Reaching the entrance, she discovered there was no road ahead.
There was only a deep well beneath the towering stone walls. Before she could even think, she was instantly bound by the frantically surging plants and tumbled down into the well.
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"Xiao'er, come eat fried New Year rice cake."
"Mother, Father, look at my new clothes—how pretty the flowers are."
"Won't you even thank your mother for altering it for you overnight? No, how lovely the peonies are—why must you insist on embroidering those wild roadside flowers on it?"
"Those aren't wild flowers, they are zedoary. Besides, I like them! Only clothes you like can be called new clothes; the ones you don't like can only be called clothes you wear. Thank you, Mother."
"Xiao'er, you're getting more and more glib-tongued as you grow up. After your coming-of-age ceremony, we'll have to discuss marriage with the Yu Family, so you mustn't be so unruly anymore."
"The Yu Family? Big Brother Yu Changqing?"
"Clever girl. And from now on, you'll have to change how you address him and call him husband."
"Husband? What an awkward name. I still prefer to call him Changqing Brother."
"My, this child still doesn't understand. She'll need to go through a few things first."
Yan Xiao'er opened her eyes, the corners of her eyelids already soaked with moisture. The more memories surfaced, the more her tears overflowed.
"She'll need to go through a few things first."
If life could start over, she would rather experience nothing at all.
Shortly after her coming-of-age ceremony, her parents were summoned into the palace and specifically commanded to accompany Empress Cheng to the hunting grounds to hunt birds. By the time the news of the Yan couple jumping into a lake to commit suicide was brought back to the Yan Family, everyone had kept it a secret from Yan Xiao'er.
Her grandmother only deceived her by saying that her parents had gone to the frontier and would rush back by the day of her wedding.
To see her parents sooner, Yan Xiao'er no longer cared whether she should call him "Changqing Brother" or "husband"; she was very much looking forward to the wedding, especially since in her heart, that simply meant gaining one more close and warm family member.
It wasn't until she was thrown into prison that, late one night, a jailer entrusted by unknown parties coldly told Yan Xiao'er that the one who had sent her to prison was her own fiancé, dealing her a crushing blow.
Oddly enough, the person who broke this news to her wore a chilling expression, as if deliberately using the harshest words to provoke her.
Yan Xiao'er's first reaction was naturally anger, but that anger could not escalate any further no matter what. To outsiders, faced with the betrayal of her future husband, her expression was unexpectedly calm.
That jailer did not know that ever since she was born, apart from smiling, she had never experienced any other drastic emotional changes. Who could possibly know how her inner feelings surged like raging waves?
When the family servants sent by her grandmother entered the prison to pass along messages later on, Yan Xiao'er already knew the backstabber was her "Changqing Brother," whom she had regarded as family, and once again showed no overreaction.
What Yan Xiao'er did not know was that after the secret agents of the West and East Palaces—whom the Empresses had sent to spy—reported back one by one, Empress Tian remained unmoved, whereas Empress Cheng's curiosity was piqued instead. She had acted coyly to get the Emperor's permission to personally visit the execution grounds, and sure enough, she did not see this young girl shed a single tear on the spot.
"She'll need to go through something first."
How could this offhand remark spoken by her father foresee the desolate path Yan Xiao'er would later walk?
Yet if Empress Cheng could see Yan Xiao'er weeping like a fountain at this moment, she would surely have to overturn her previous conclusion regarding the girl's aloof temperament.