Chapter 376 She Remembered Her Past Life!

Chapter 376: She Remembers Her Past Life's Circumstances!

Chancellor Jiang stopped her quickly.

"Zhen, look carefully! That is not your concubine! Your concubine died long ago! This is nothing more than a puppet controlled by evil arts!"

Jiang Yaozhen wasn't listening.

She struggled fiercely, her nails scratching bloody marks into her father's arm, her whole demeanor was hysterical.

"No! That's not true! Father, you're lying to me! Concubine isn't dead! How could she be dead? These past years, she's been with me, teaching me to ride, teaching me to dance, and telling me stories of Nanyue!"

"Concubine left for your sake—she was afraid of implicating you, of implicating our Jiang family... Father, please call the physician, save her, please? Father!"

Under the sunlight, Hua Lian's corpse looked especially gruesome.

From the sword wound in her abdomen, instead of blood, a blackish-brown mucus mixed with rotting flesh oozed out, emitting a nauseating stench.

As she collapsed, the carefully disguised skin on her face began to peel away, revealing blue-black death spots underneath.

It was no longer a face, but a blur of decay.

Chancellor Jiang looked at the broken corpse, a complex and hard-to-read emotion flickering in his eyes, before settling into sheer icy coldness.

He shook his head resolutely.

Her father's indifference and her concubine's "brutal death" wove together into an impenetrable web, shredding all of Jiang Yaozhen's hope and reason.

She let out a piercing wail that sounded almost inhuman, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed limply to the ground.

The Chancellor's mansion descended into utter chaos.

Even the household guards, accustomed to bloodshed, looked uneasy at the bizarre corpse and the pandemonium in the courtyard.

Amid the noise, a single laugh cut through, clear and jarring.

It was Jiang Tianze.

He stood there, watching the unconscious Jiang Yaozhen and the puppet he had personally manipulated onto the sword blade, laughing loudly.

He had finally taken his revenge on Jiang Yaozhen—on this viperous woman who, along with her concubine, had schemed to harm Jiang Shuning.

He made her watch how her most cherished "concubine" turned into a rotting pile of flesh, made her taste the bitter dregs of shattered hope.

At last, he had avenged his A Ning.

Even though he was now a trapped rat, seeing his enemy's collapse made it all worth it.

Xiao Lingchuan watched coldly, showing no emotion.

With a wave of his hand, several guards stepped forward, pinned down the still-laughing Jiang Tianze, and bound him tightly with chains.

In the dungeon of Prince Jing's residence, it was dark and damp, the air thick with the smell of rust and mold.

Jiang Tianze was chained to the wall, disheveled hair covering half his face, but his expression showed no sign of defeat—instead, it was as fierce as a wolf.

The heavy iron door creaked open, and a beam of light poured in.

Xiao Lingchuan, dressed in dark robes, walked in slowly, followed by two personal guards.

He stopped outside the cell, his gaze calm as it landed on Jiang Tianze.

"This prince never expected that, in your attempt to topple me, you would give up the chance to escape and set up such an elaborate scheme," Xiao Lingchuan's voice echoed clearly in the dungeon. "With a mind like yours, if you had used it for stabilizing the nation, you might have become a wise ruler. Isn't it a pity to waste it on these crooked paths?"

Jiang Tianze curled his lips into a sneer, a cold, mocking laugh. "Xiao Lingchuan, I've been outmatched and fallen into your hands—I accept that. Kill me or cut me to pieces, do as you please. Don't try to preach to me here. Do you really think of yourself as my brother?"

He lifted his head, his eyes cold as a viper's. "Xiao Lingchuan, you took A Ning away from me. I will be your enemy for life, to the death!"

"This prince simply doesn't understand one thing," Xiao Lingchuan's tone was utterly unruffled, as if stating an irrelevant fact. "Since you care so much about this prince 'taking' Shuning, why did you join forces with Xiao Huaijin? Xiao Huaijin escaped from the government prison using a pack of knockout powder. You gave him that powder, didn't you?"

"So what if I did?" Jiang Tianze made no attempt to deny it. "I joined forces with him to deal with you! As long as you're gone, A Ning will naturally return to me!"

At this, a clear, unmistakable sneer appeared on Xiao Lingchuan's face.

It was the look of someone watching a clown who thinks he's clever.

"Being so confident isn't necessarily a bad thing," he said slowly, his expression dark. "But this prince has to tell you something. Xiao Huaijin did not merely escape from the government prison—he also took the opportunity to... take away Shuning and Little Yejun."

He paused, savoring the dawning realization on Jiang Tianze's face, before leisurely delivering the final blow.

"Was that also part of your agreement?"

"...What?"

The color drained from Jiang Tianze's face in an instant.

His face twitched uncontrollably, and his pupils contracted sharply.

"He actually... Damn it! How dare he do that!"

At that moment, overwhelming regret crashed over him like a dam breaking.

He regretted agreeing to join forces with that hypocrite Xiao Huaijin!

Regretted being so foolish as to give him the knockout powder that could put an entire bureau of officials to sleep!

He had personally handed Xiao Huaijin the opportunity to take Jiang Shuning away!

Watching his frenzied, remorse-filled expression, Xiao Lingchuan's lips curled slightly, and he turned to leave.

The guard beside him leaned in and lowered his voice: "Your Highness, should we subject the Third Young Master Jiang to torture?"

"No need." His voice was as cold as frost, his words ruthless. "He is already being tortured."

"Regret—that thing cuts deeper than any blade and can rip a person's heart out."

Jiang Tianze was already in hell.

——

Qili Courtyard.

On the carved wooden bed, Jiang Yaozhen's eyes snapped open. Her chest heaved violently as she gasped for air, as if she had just escaped from a drowning nightmare.

Her eyes were hollow, fixed on the intricately embroidered lotus-pattern canopy above, motionless like a lost soul.

"Creak—"

The door opened, and Madam Jiang entered, carrying a bowl of medicinal soup.

Although Jiang Yaozhen was not her biological daughter, Madam Jiang had raised her for many years and still harbored some affection for her.

"Zhen'er, it's good that you're awake." She placed the bowl of soup on the small table by the bed, said with concern, "Here, drink some calming broth to ease your nerves. That bloody scene must've scared you."

Jiang Yaozhen stayed completely unresponsive, her gaze still vacant and unfocused.

Madam Jiang sighed, felt her forehead; it was ice cold.

"As for your aunt... ah, don't be too upset. The dead can't be brought back. Take good care of yourself and rest."

She rambled on a bit longer, but seeing that Jiang Yaozhen remained silent, she had no choice but to get up.

"Drink your medicine while it's hot. I'll check on you later."

Footsteps faded, the door clicked shut, and the room fell silent.

The moment the door shut, Jiang Yaozhen's eyes suddenly darted.

A flash of venomous resentment mixed with boundless terror burst from her hollow eyes.

She remembered.

Everything came back to her!

Memories of her past life flooded back like a broken dam, icy and bloody, washing away everything she knew in this life!

Her aunt Hua Lian was a spy planted by the Nanyue royal family in Daye.

Their goal was to prop up a puppet, weaken Daye from the inside, and help Nanyue swallow it up.

They picked Xiao Lingchuan—the seemingly abandoned and powerless Prince Jing.

To make him do their bidding, they even made up a lie that he had Nanyue royal blood.

And Xiao Lingchuan had indeed "taken the bait."

He listened to her every word, even acting deeply in love, as if he'd marry no one else.

In truth, he was using them. He pretended to go along to squeeze Nanyue's secrets out of them, paving a bloody road to supreme power.

At first, she had no idea. She thought he'd fallen for her and would do whatever she wanted.

It was only when she accidentally saw the barely concealed, blazing possessiveness in Xiao Lingchuan's eyes as he looked at her elder sister Jiang Shuning that she realized the truth.

The serpent of jealousy gnawed at her heart.

Why? In looks and personality, how was Jiang Shuning better than her? Why did she get Xiao Lingchuan's attention?

So she switched Xiao Lingchuan's birth control medicine for Jiang Shuning with a colorless, odorless slow poison that was hard to detect.

She watched Jiang Shuning waste away day by day, wither and die, and felt nothing but joy.

She thought that by getting rid of that thorn in her side, Xiao Lingchuan would be hers.

But after Jiang Shuning died, Xiao Lingchuan went completely mad.

He seized the throne with swift, iron-fisted tactics, then turned his army and crushed Nanyue with unstoppable force!

The motive for his invasion of Nanyue was puzzling—it wasn't driven by ambition, but by a search for the hidden mysteries of Mount Qiyue.

In the end, she and her aunt were thrown into the imperial prison, convicted of deceiving the emperor, and sentenced to death by a thousand cuts and ant bites.

The excruciating pain of those final moments, as if crossing life and death, spread through her limbs and bones again.

Jiang Yaozhen shook violently, her teeth chattering, as terror shot from the base of her spine to the top of her head.

Xiao Lingchuan!

He was a complete madman! A demon in human skin!

In this life, she couldn't just wait around like before and end up dead.

Since there's no backing down, she would... strike first!