Proofreader: Nie Qiao
Feeling her withered hair with louses, Li Wanrou recalls it is Zhaohe Year 5. Since she was framed out of the empress' chair by her own sister and fell into cold palace, it has already been four years during which Li lies paralyzed on the clammy bed.
Icy coldness of the winter stings her whole body like pricking needles, which makes her breathe hard.
Suddenly, the dark room brightens. The luxuriant shoes which set off the comer's nobleness, with embroidered gold phoenix and interspersed pearl, come into her view.
The coming woman in flammulated light dress, has a pale, cute face but upward canthus. Her long lovely eyelashes like feather fan flutter tenderly and her voice is soft.
However, the words are inexorable and sinister.
"Sister, I'm always beside the emperor, worrying you are solitary in the inaccessible palace, with no one around but merely snakes and worms." Li Wanrou in a surge of irritation, frowns but spreads her brows soon, squeezes a flattering smile, and says, "Is Moer all right?"
"He…"
Li Shifu stretches tune deliberately, appears indifferent and fleers, "…is nothing but son of a bitch. The emperor disgusts him, how could he get through? He died in that winter when you were locked."
He died?
How did he die?
Why should they cheat me!
Li Wanrou's heart tightens. Her head buzzes as if to explode. She fabulously yells, "Is Rongji crazy? Moer is his first prince! His son!"
Had she lost her last value, should she be kicked off? Even the innocent baby? Was she certainly blocked, blinded and she misplaced her love?
After being married to the then third prince Nangong Rongji, she has fended off the poisonous wine and the sword for him, but none of them can compare with a smile of Li Shifu in his eyes?
She has been forced to vacate the throne of empress for Li Shifu, and now even Moer needs to give the throne of crown prince to her children! Why?!
A surge of coolness rises in her mind, but she still harbors a glimmer of hope. "I want to see the emperor!" says she word by word, with her eyes cold and hard.
"The emperor occupies himself with countless affairs. How can he squeeze time to listen to you, a dying person? You are nothing but a humble life, and the stain that I come from the same family as you have made me sick for years!" The light smile of Li Shifu slowly shows a hint of darkness, and her glittering eyes condescendingly spurn at Wanrou. She feels a sense of deep satisfaction in her mind.
She is the only trueborn in the Hou Mansion, and the first one to know Rongji, but failed to marry him because his status was not high. Instead, Li Wanrou, the bastardy, took the most advantage and even robbed the throne of empress which should have belonged to her!
With the pointed fingernails penetrated into palm, Li Shifu sneers and says, "You are just a bastardy, and Father keeps you just to pave the way for me. But you trample my road and replace my position. You should have died! It's already my mercy to leave you alive till now!"
Li Wanrou only thinks it incredible: it was at a time of crisis when she married Rongji-simply the ambushes set by various royal families often made her almost never come out alive and she narrowly escaped from the gate of hell for many times. It's rather funny that she has all the benefits in the eyes of others.
Catching sight of the rage in Li Shifu's eyes, Li Wanrou has to believe that even if it is Rongji, he would also laugh at her wishful thinking. It is an impasse to ascend the throne of empress.
She has paved the way for the bitch couple, and her destiny is to die. Not for a moment should their good future be delayed!
She has vomited a mouthful of heart blood, and her eyes grow dark. She raises her middle finger in a tearing pain. The fingers twisting with purple veins have been half rotten.
But Li Shifu, gently with a smile, shouts, "Bearer, take the instrument of torture!"
Hardly has her voice faded away when several palace attendants came out of the darkness, carrying an iron plate covered with numerous spindly barbs and hung with a hemp rope.
Dragging Li Wanrou, they put the hemp rope around her neck and set the charcoal fire under the iron plate with the fire licking at Li's soft ankle with its red tongues at once.
Li Wanrou is burned so much that she can't help stamping her feet. But her whole body is paralyzed, only to be tortured with her hair pulled by the palace attendants, swaying back and forth, as if dancing in the fire.
The big fire burns out her clothes and the ground is covered with blood.
Li Wanrou is hung by hemp rope, out of breath, but somehow thinks of the spring breeze that stirred her heart that year. At the party she only cast one sight on Rongji but felt it like a glimpse of a passing beauty, and almost indulged in it. But now it is to put herself on the road to death, step by step.
The pain is unbearable from head to feet, and Li Wanrou's five facial features vehemently twist together. Through the big fire, she sees Li Shifu's rampant laugh, and the original harmonious sisterhood has vanished through her minds. If there is an afterlife, she must make the bitch couple suffer sorrowfully rather than die peacefully. Get them a perfect nuisance!
"The emperor issues a decree, that the slut should be thrown into the disorderly funeral hillock, and can't reincarnate as a human being this life, the next and the next life!"
Some palace attendants already stepped forward to put out the big fire, randomly rolled Li Wanrou up with a broken mat, and threw it into the disorderly funeral hillock where littered with corpses.