Chapter 155: End of Volume Two.

Chapter 155: End of Book Two.

"Kong Yi!" Huo Shiming's eyes blazed with fury. "On the brink of death, you still dare to stir up trouble! Do you truly not fear bringing calamity upon your parents, wife, and children?"

His shout clashed with another cold, calm voice.

"You are correct."

Huo Shiming froze mid-motion.

A tidal wave of disbelief crashed over him like a tsunami, his heart plummeting as a ringing filled his ears. For a second, he wondered if he’d imagined it.

Yet Kong Yi's wild laughter and the subsequent coughing fit from his wounds were unmistakably real.

Slowly, stiffly, he turned to see Huo Ling standing by the candlelit corner table, clad in a silver-gray cloak stitched with gold.

The Empress Dowager famously hated palace banquets, so her early departure went unnoticed.

After leaving the feast, she returned to her chambers, calmly switched to simpler clothes, and left Wu Mo behind to cover for her before sneaking off to the cold palace.

Huo Ling picked up a wine jug from the table with a quick motion.

Slender-necked and round-bodied, decorated with blue glaze and beast designs—it was as refined as it was... familiar.

Huo Shiming recognized it.

After finishing the wine at the banquet, the servant who’d helped him freshen up before knocking him out had brought him a new jug.

This exact one.

Bringing this plain wine jug here said everything.

The wine—not the jug—was poisoned.

Kong Yi, wheezing from his coughing fit, managed to speak again. "What’s the matter, General? Did you truly believe only you could harbor murderous intent toward Her Majesty, and not the other way around?"

Rage and fear exploded out of him.

"You!" Huo Shiming bellowed at Kong Yi. "It was you who poisoned the food and killed that stray cat, wasn’t it?! You tricked me into thinking Her Majesty wanted me dead—that’s why I... why I acted so rashly!"

Kong Yi smirked. "If you fell for such an obvious trick, General, it proves not my skill but your own long-held intentions."

Huo Ling's voice was icy. "You talk too much about the wrong things and too little about the right ones."

Kong Yi countered, "I was just speaking up for Her Majesty. Surely she must feel wronged?"

Huo Ling remained unmoved, her focus unshaken by his psychological warfare. "You’re running out of time. Spit out your secrets."

"What else does Your Majesty wish to know?"

"You’re smart. Don’t waste my time."

Kong Yi pressed his lips together, as if steeling himself, then met her gaze. "I do possess a list.

"It contains not only every Great Mu spy embedded in Great Yan’s capital and palace but also those stationed in Cangyang and Yanxi—even a portrait and detailed intelligence on the deputy leader of the spy network.

"It’s stashed away somewhere safe. I will hand it over to Your Majesty... on one condition."

Kong Yi clenched his teeth, his tone seething with hatred.

"Send everyone on that list, especially the deputy leader of the spies, to hell to keep me company in death."

He understood the internal justice of the spy organization better than anyone.

By wiping out all the spies Great Mu had planted in the capital and palace of Great Yan in a single stroke—and with himself already captured and of no further use—the deputy leader would surely sacrifice his family as scapegoats to vent their rage.

Since that was the case, there was nothing left to hold back.

He felt no loyalty for Great Yan, nor any sense of belonging to Great Mu. The only reason he had worked for Great Mu before was that he knew all too well: if he wanted to make something of himself and achieve something great, this was the only path available to him.

He had given in to the deputy leader’s carrot and stick, but that didn’t mean he was free of hatred.

Since neither he nor his family would survive anyway, why should he care about the chaos left in his wake?

Kong Yi’s pupils had already begun to grow dim.

In truth, there was one thing Empress Dowager Huo had guessed wrong.

He had never planned for his family to stage their deaths and escape to live in the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun.

But as he grew more and more relied upon by Huo Shiming, the deputy leader also came to value his usefulness more. Only by keeping his family under their thumb could the deputy leader trust that he was truly loyal to Great Mu and confidently use him.

So, during his family’s journey to visit him in Yanxi, the deputy leader had sent men disguised as bandits to abduct them, then had them taken to the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun.

By the time he learned of this, it was already too late.

To cover up the truth, he had ordered someone to set fire to the records of his family’s murder.

One wrong move begat another. From the moment he given in to the deputy leader’s coercion and wormed his way into Duke Chengen's circle as a spy, there had been no turning back.

"If..."

Kong Yi forced out the words.

He tilted his head back, gazing up at Huo Ling from below.

His vision could no longer focus—everything before him was a blur—but he still kept up the pretense of seeing.

"If I hadn’t been used by Great Mu, but had instead pledged myself to Your Majesty... after learning of my parents’ identities, would Your Majesty still have dared to trust me?"

When Kong Yi asked this question, even he himself didn’t know what answer he hoped to hear.

"A reformed sinner serves better than a saint. In this world, there is no one this Dowager dares not use."

Kong Yi suddenly laughed, a mix of relief and liberation in his voice.

Had anyone else spoken these words, he wouldn’t have believed them.

But if it was Empress Dowager Huo who said them, he did.

Looking back at the path this Empress Dowager had taken to power, only someone of such unshakable will could have reached where she stood today.

Kong Yi freely gave an address.

Huo Ling lifted the wine flask, wading through the bloodstains that had already frozen into thin ice, and slowly approached Kong Yi. She shoved the flask into his grip: "This flask of wine—may it speed you on your journey to the underworld."

Kong Yi sniffed the aroma of the wine and suddenly said, "Empress Dowager had already seen through the plot between me and the Duke of Chengen, so naturally, you wouldn’t drink from that poisoned jar. This flask—is this from that very same poisoned wine?"

Huo Ling replied, "Why waste good wine on a dying man?"

"Empress Dowager has quite the wit," Kong Yi couldn’t help but chuckle with a sigh. "Ah well, a condemned man like me, having a flask of wine to accompany me in death is already a blessing. Why should I fuss over whether it’s fine wine or poison?"

Kong Yi lifted the flask, tilted his head back, and let the cold wine burn down his throat, mingling with his blood and tears.

He closed his eyes, let the darkness take him.

The blue-glazed wine flask fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.

In the midst of the piercing cold, warmth suddenly began to spread from his feet, creeping through his entire body.

Kong Yi felt as though he had returned to the early summer of Cangyang.

The scorching sun hung high, the cicadas chirped softly, and everything around him was bathed in a dreamlike beauty.

He sat by the window in the schoolhouse, listening to the teacher’s voice chanting the classics.

Back then, he had believed his future was bright—not necessarily one for the history books, but certainly a seat at court.

His life, it turned out, had been wasted.

***

Kong Yi was dead.

Not from the wine, but from blood loss.

Outside, the wind howled, and snow swirled endlessly, the world roared.

Yet within the hall, a dead silence prevailed.

The peculiar aroma of wine mixed with the thick stench of blood, lingering in the sealed chamber, inducing nausea.

The interrupted silence stretched on once more.

Kong Yi’s arrival and confession seemed like mere brief interruption in this silent battle.

With his death, he had laid bare the truth—a truth once murky and unutterable.

The first to break the silence was Huo Shiming: "Kong Yi said the wine was poisoned, didn’t he?"

Huo Ling replied, "Whether the wine was poisoned or not, the Duke would know better than this widow."

"I only gave this order to the servants:"

"After I drank the wine offered by my uncle, they were to serve the wine meant for me by the Duke of Chengen—to the Duke himself."

Huo Shiming’s lips trembled slightly, his face contorted in dawning horror.

No one understood the effects of Lichou Powder better than he.

Within two months at most, those who ingested it would waste away beyond cure.

Even if he escaped the palace today, he wouldn’t live much longer.

Huo Ling gazed down at him, studying his expression, turning the knife: "You drank most of that jar yourself, Duke of Chengen, leaving only the last flask for Kong Yi."

"Clearly, the poison you so carefully prepared was indeed tasteless, dissolving seamlessly into the wine without affecting its flavor—allowing you to drink so freely."

Huo Shiming suddenly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes seething with rage: "You knew all along.

"You knew Kong Yi was a spy planted by Great Mu by my side, but to flush out the snake and uncover Great Mu's agents in the capital and the palace, you didn’t arrest him immediately. You even watched as he...

"Watched as he incited me to poison you."

Huo Ling lowered her gaze, meeting Huo Shiming’s eyes.

In those bloodshot, savage eyes, Huo Ling saw her own reflection.

She was calm, composed.

But in those blood-filled eyes, she seemed shrouded in an inescapable aura of bloodshed.

"Are you afraid to admit it?"

"Exposing Great Mu’s spies was secondary. What I truly waited for was the choice you would make under Kong Yi’s persuasion."

Huo Shiming’s fury and resentment stalled for a moment, leaving him momentarily speechless: "...You—did you have to push me to the edge?"

"You’re wrong again, Duke," Huo Ling said. "I never pushed you—you did this to yourself. I merely did not intervene to stop it."

Her father’s life and death rested entirely on his own decision.

Her father had made his choice, and his fate was sealed.

"You are truly terrifying."

Huo Shiming stared at Huo Ling, who had remained unnervingly calm throughout, and couldn’t help but say: "To commit such an unthinkable crime of killing your own father, yet remain so calm—even daring to admit it openly. Do you not fear what people will say?"

Huo Ling not only remained calm, she even gave a faint smile, as if puzzled by Huo Shiming’s audacity in condemning her.

"How soon you forget, Duke. Empress Dowager drank that cup of wine—it was you—"

Huo Ling emphasized: "You stood there and watched me drink it with your own eyes."

She knew the wine she drank was not poisoned.

But Duke of Chengen did not.

Over a decade of wealth and power, reaching the top of the court—as his child, she had repaid every ounce of his nurturing.

That cup of wine repaid the debt of my life, the last shred of daughter’s duty she owed him.

With neither the debt of life nor nurture left, and no bond left between us, why should she show mercy to a subject who dared plot regicide? Why hold back?

In this world, there was never a rule that only one person could raise a blade.

If only one could, it would have to be her.

"As the saying goes, punishing without warning is tyranny.

"Every official in this court gets one mistake before Empress Dowager. Should they dare repeat their mistakes, Empress Dowager will show no mercy—and they’re done.

"Let the world call me heartless and ruthless, but Duke of Chengen alone has no right to say so.

"How many times did I warn you? Why did you never heed them, instead took my warnings as threats, feeding your hatred?

"When you decided to kill me, did you not consider this day would come? I gave you every chance. Had you chosen to stop, to turn back even once, you wouldn’t be here now."

That lengthy ten-thousand-word letter of apology was nothing but feigned remorse to lower her guard.

Did the Duke of Chengen dare act so recklessly simply because he relied on the "Empress Dowager's father" as his unassailable shield?

But a father's identity was never an unassailable shield.

The moment he began exploiting his paternal status, letting his desires and ambitions spiral out of control, their relationship was bound to collapse.

Because a kinsman’s betrayal is infinitely more devastating than the schemes of an enemy.

"Does the Duke of Chengen wish to know my punishment for you?"

Huo Ling's punishment for Huo Shiming was simple: revoking his noble rank and burying him in Yong'an County, Yanxi, after his death.

"After your death, Huo Ze will bear your coffin back to your hometown. Then he will remain in Yong'an County, serving as the Sixth Rank Captain—the same position you once held.

"However, it will be a titular post without authority, let alone military command. For the rest of his life, without imperial decree, he shall not set foot beyond Yong'an County.

"His sons, his grandsons—none shall hold office, nor shall they ever leave Yong'an County."

Huo Shiming's life’s fixation had been to leave Yanxi, to escape Yong'an County, and to bring his entire family back to the capital.

After achieving all this and attaining fame, Huo Ling needed only one edict to nullify his life’s work.

Or worse.

With three generations barred from official service, what future could the Huo family possibly have?

Trapped within Yong'an County, forbidden to take even a single step beyond it—Yong'an County would become a gilded cage.

This was not just killing a man but also crushing his legacy.

An iron tang rose in Huo Shiming's throat. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a mouthful of blood gushed forth.

A single drop splattered onto the back of Huo Ling's hand.

Hot, clinging, vile.

"No matter."

He spoke as if comforting himself—or perhaps provoking Huo Ling.

"There's still you. You can punish A Ze, punish A Xing, but what about yourself? You cannot deny your lineage, nor can you change your bloodline. The Empress Dowager Regent of the Great Yan Dynasty is my daughter, and every future emperor of this dynasty will bear my bloodline in their veins."

Huo Ling lowered her gaze and gently wiped away the blood with a handkerchief. "When I was young, I often wondered why Father never chose me to restore the Huo clan’s glory.

"Now I finally understand—the power of choice has always belonged to the one with greater authority.

"If Father wouldn't choose me, then I could deny him the choice.

"The *New Penal Code* enacted in the eighth year of the Tianshou era includes a provision allowing women to establish matrilineal households and inherit family estates. Unfortunately, in the year since its implementation, few have gone to the authorities to register such households.

"As Empress Dowager, I will set the precedent and become one of those who benefit from this law.

"After establishing a matrilineal household, I will convene a clan assembly as the head of the Huo family, striking you, Huo Ze, and Huo Xing from the family registry. I will then be adopted under the name of my uncle, who died young at the age of three, becoming his daughter to perpetuate his line and ancestral rites.

"From this day forward, you shall no longer bear the name of the Huo family. Only I can represent the Huo family—only I am Huo Yingshao’s true heir."

"It was I who restored the glory of the Huo family. I will carry on the legacy of our ancestors, and one day reclaim the lost lands of Yan and Yun, unify the realm, to comfort the spirits of our forebears in heaven."

Huo Shiming looked at Huo Ling as if she were an unforgivable monster.

Not only did she want his life, but she also sought to reduce him to nothing, even expel him from the ancestral records, leaving him a forsaken ghost abandoned by his own kin.

At this moment, Huo Shiming loathed Huo Ling’s ice-calm demeanor, as if nothing in the world could unsettle her.

Just as Huo Ling knew how to punish him most cruelly, Huo Shiming also knew how to curse her in a way that would cut her to the core.

"When your mother gave birth to you, she suffered a hemorrhage and died before she could even recover from childbirth. I honored her wish and named you 'Ling.' Later, when I had your fortune told, the diviner said your name carried too martial a tone, and combined with your birth chart, it foretold a fate of being a curse upon your parents. At the time, I thought the man was a charlatan and nearly had him beaten out of the county. Now it seems you truly fulfilled that prophecy."

With the most venomous, cutting words he could muster, Huo Shiming cursed, "I regret ever indulging and loving you. Someone as cold-hearted and false as you—I should have drowned you in the washing basin at birth."

Huo Ling abruptly clenched the handkerchief in her hand. "The Duke of Chengen claims his love for me was genuine, yet now he wishes me dead. Because I raise my sword against him today, he questions my sincerity from the past. Between the two of us, who is truly the false and heartless one?"

The night deepened, nearing midnight.

When kin turn their blades upon each other, the wounds cut deepest.

"Let this be the end of our father-daughter bond."

Huo Ling spoke with world-weariness.

She gazed at Huo Shiming one last time, then turned decisively, picked up the lantern from the desk, and swung open the chamber doors.

Starlight poured like liquid silver, and snow rushed into her arms. The lantern swayed gently as she pulled up her hood once more.

The wide brim obscured most of her face as she beckoned to the two dark guards stationed in the distance.

Her voice, slightly muffled by the hood, carried forward.

"The Duke of Chengen still refuses to bow and admit his guilt to the Empress Dowager. Inside, on the wall, hangs a bow—a gift he prepared for my sixteenth birthday. All these years, I have treasured it carefully. When you go in to clean up, lift it down and show it to him. Then ask him if he understands his crime now."

The two dark guards exchanged a glance. The leader cupped his hands in salute, then carefully stepped past Huo Ling and entered the hall.

Huo Ling stood at the threshold, her back to the great hall. She lifted her head, studying the sickle moon above.

On star-bright nights, the moon always seemed dim.

Cold moonlight, solitary and distant. For millennia, its glow has remained unchanged.

One dark guard lifted down the bow and stood behind Huo Shiming, notching the string to half-draw with a firm wrist.

The other restrained Huo Shiming.

The cold steel wire slid over his head, settling against his neck, tightening inch by inch.

Suffocation came, but first—sharp pain.

Struggles, howls, curses.

A familiar voice, now shrill and ghastly, pierced through the joyous lights of countless reunited families, echoing through the silent night like a curse that would haunt her bloodline.

"Killing your mother in childbirth, slaying your father—bloody-handed and cruel. Huo Ling, you deserve to be betrayed by your own kin in this life."

Huo Ling’s fingers jerked minutely, but the movement was so faint it was drowned by the lantern's dance.

One look. One look was all it would take.

She neither turned back nor left. She stood there with her back to the door, listening to everything happening inside the hall.

Amid the struggle, the table toppled, and a candlestick rolled to the side of the screen. A draft made the flame sputter.

"Huo Ling..."

"Your life..."

Huo Shiming collapsed to the ground. His gaze instinctively chased the flickering light, but in the dim glow, he caught sight of the edge of a shoe peeking out from beneath the screen.

With his last ounce of strength, he struggled to lift his head, meeting a pair of terrified, tear-filled eyes behind the screen.

Ji Xianshan hid behind the screen, his hands pressed tightly over his mouth, his face already drenched in tears.

When their eyes met, he instinctively tried to shrink back, but Huo Shiming’s twisted, manic gaze pinned him in place.

"You deserve...to be betrayed..."

By your closest kin.

Huo Shiming’s lips twitched upward.

As if he had smiled.

A smile at once eerie, agonized, smug, and deranged—it seared itself into Ji Xianshan’s mind with just one glance.

The candlelight dimmed completely, plunging everything into eternal darkness and silence.

Behind the screen, outside the door—just a wall between them.

"Your Majesty."

The shadow guard returned to Huo Ling’s side, kneeling on one knee and offering up the bow with both hands.

"This subordinate asked the Duke of Chengen if he admitted his guilt. He nodded and even gestured for this servant to untie his restraints. But as soon as they were loosened, the Duke... he..."

The guard lowered his head. "He grabbed the bow and used the bowstring to take his own life in atonement."

Huo Ling lowered her gaze and only then noticed that the bowstring had snapped at some point.

Under the moonlight, a dark crimson sheen glistened along the broken string.

She reached out and grasped the bow, dragging her finger along the broken end of the string, letting the sharp edge slice open a cut on her skin.

Blood welled up, dripping onto the string, blending perfectly with the blood already there.

"Did the Duke of Chengen die peacefully?"

The guard’s eyes flicked sideways at the Duke’s wide, staring eyes and the eerie smile fixed on his lips. His voice was low. "The Duke got what he wanted. He died as he meant to."

Huo Ling took out the bloodstained handkerchief, wiped the blood from her fingers, and casually handed it to the guard. "Use this to cover his face."

The moon remained the same as it had always been, but the bloodied string could never be mended.

Father and daughter—like bow and string—

Were now cleanly severed.

*Volume Two, End*

Volume Three: Between Mother and Son