Dread filled my heart as I took heavy steps toward the towering building wrapped in an ominous aura.

Dark clouds choked the sky, and relentless rain poured down, each cold drop striking my skin like needles. The chill seeped into my bones, yet I kept moving forward.

I looked around and my breath caught. Bodies. Servants. The same people who once ran through these halls with laughter, who had served this household with loyalty and warmth... now lay lifeless everywhere. The mansion had turned into a graveyard drowned in blood. My heart hammered violently in my chest.

Only one name echoed in my mind.

I inhaled deeply and walked toward the massive doors. Thunder roared, lightning split the sky, and for a moment the entire mansion looked like something dragged straight out of a nightmare. I climbed the steps slowly, my fists clenched, my eyes burning red. When I pushed the doors open, what I saw inside froze the blood in my veins.

More bodies lined the dim hall, forming a gruesome path toward the staircase. The patriarch... his wife... the eldest son... and then—

Him.

Standing in the center of the carnage, drenched in blood like a demon born from hell, breathing like a beast. He did not look human.

"Yi...bo." My voice echoed hollowly through the room.

His ragged breathing stopped. His entire body stilled, and the air itself turned cold. Slowly, he turned around.

I stumbled back.

There stood Wang Yibo my beloved covered in the blood of his own family. His father, his mother, his brother... all lay at his feet. He was wounded, bleeding, trembling... and yet it was him.

No. This couldn't be real.

"Yibo... what have you done?" My voice came out as a whisper.

"Zhan..." he breathed.

"You killed your own family! Yibo, what have you done?!" My voice rose, but he looked possessed. Blood trickled from his mouth, his nose, even the corners of his eyes. His gaze met mine, yet it was empty—like he didn't recognize me. A demon stood where my love once was.

"Why?" I asked.

He took a step forward, wincing in pain. "Order... I had to... the King's order... I had... to..." Blood spilled from his lips before he could finish.

It felt as if thunder had struck me from within. "So the King ordered you to kill your family... and you obeyed?" My hand moved to my sword, drawing it slowly. "If tomorrow he ordered you to wipe out an entire nation... you'd do that too, wouldn't you?"

I stepped closer, tears burning my eyes.

"My brother is dead, I know the emperor did it, after what he did to my sister, he came for my brother! Did you know he was going to kill him? Were you there when my brother died?"

He said, he just stared at me with empty eyes, blood slipped from his eyes, mouse and nose, and in the end he slowly said in a broken voice, "so...rry."

My heart broke when I heard that and I said in a broken voice, "I don't need an explanation anymore."

I stood before him, my sword trembling in my grip.
"Yibo... if the emperor ordered you to kill me... would you do it?"

He shook, bleeding, dying right in front of me. My heart ached—and burned with fury all at once.

"ANSWER ME!" I roared. "The great Wang Yibo, son of the Wang family, the crown's loyal guard dog... your devotion is remarkable. So tell me—would you kill me if he commanded it?"

He looked at me for a long moment... then raised his sword.

"I... would... have to."

A laugh tore out of me broken, hollow, burning.
"I see."

I lunged forward, attacking. He leapt back.

"Don't run, you traitor!" I shouted.

But instead of aiming his sword at me, he turned it toward himself. The blade pressed against his throat. He smiled.

"I love you."

"Liar!" I screamed. "Stop! What are you doing?!" I stepped forward; he stepped back. "STOP RIGHT NOW, YIBO! Even if you die, I will follow you to hell, drag you back, and make you watch the crown fall! I'll make you see the downfall of the very throne you serve!"

He only smiled cold, distant, heartbreaking. "I love you, Zhan."

My fists clenched as I moved closer, but I froze when I saw tears of blood streaming from his eyes. He was drowning in pain... yet he smiled as if he'd already accepted his fate. We held each other's gaze for a final, endless moment.

Then he moved his hand.

The blade sliced across his throat.

Blood sprayed across the air—across my face. My eyes widened as I watched the man I loved, my world, my soul... the one I had promised forever to... collapse to the ground before me.

~~

The sky was gloomy when they brought me to the stage. A crowd had gathered to witness my humiliation yet they did not look pleased. They looked broken. Defeated. As if my fall marked the end of their hope.

"Xiao Zhan, you are hereby sentenced to death for supporting the rebel group and attempting to assassinate the Emperor. For the massacre of the Wang family. You and your lineage are traitors to the crown."

A cold smile formed on my lips. Traitor to the crown—yes. But never to my people.

I looked at them starving, wounded, trembling. Too weak to cry, too afraid to fight, too helpless to flee. My family had always been loyal... not to a throne, but to the soil that gave us life.

I lifted my gaze and saw the Emperor smiling at me. Cold. Victorious. He had won.

I knelt, my head placed beneath the guillotine. I took one last look at the world, then closed my eyes and whispered a prayer to my goddess.

The executioner raised his blade.

I inhaled once.

And then—
there was nothing.