Chapter 44

Qixue had read the original work, which had briefly mentioned Helan Ji’s past when he was young, but only in a few strokes, without even touching on the opportunity for him to learn witchcraft. Thus, even now, he still knew very little about Helan Ji’s past.

The book had focused more on depicting Helan Ji’s cruelty and coldness, lavishly describing how he slaughtered the common people and persecuted the loyal ministers after losing his sanity. In truth, Qixue had never believed that Helan Ji would commit such heinous acts. His Majesty was pure by nature; even if he went mad, he would not completely turn into another person. There must have been some other hidden story behind it.

Qixue gazed at Helan Ji expectantly, waiting for him to tell his story. Faced with Qixue’s bright, sparkling eyes, Helan Ji did not refuse him.

“Each time, it was a different feeling,” Helan Ji said. “This jade bracelet is not the first gift I prepared for you, but the previous ones had all been lost.”

“Lost? How could that happen?” Qixue found it strange; he did not think Helan Ji was the careless type.

Helan Ji said, “At six years old, I was sent to the Imperial Mausoleum. My luggage contained the gifts I had prepared for you, but midway, we encountered an attack from demons. The carriage plunged off a cliff, and all the luggage was swept into the river. I had no way to retrieve them.”

Qixue’s heart tightened upon hearing this. “It’s fine. I understand Your Majesty’s feelings for me. Missing a few gifts doesn’t matter. Your Majesty’s safety and health are the most important things.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

Helan Ji squeezed his hand, soothing his emotions. “The first time I thought of preparing a gift for you was because I saw this jade bracelet and thought it suited you perfectly. After that, I missed you more and more, wanting to make gifts for you with my own hands, so I followed the craftsmen at the Imperial Mausoleum to learn carving.”

Qixue’s heart softened and ached. He gently caressed Helan Ji’s cheek. “But Your Majesty… the late Emperor treated you so poorly. You were so young then—how could he banish you to the Imperial Mausoleum?”

“So I killed him,” Helan Ji said coldly. “The thing I could not forgive him for most was not banishing me to the Imperial Mausoleum, but conspiring with the Rong Consort to murder my mother and my brother.”

“What?”

Qixue’s pupils shrank in shock. “Didn’t the Empress and the Crown Prince die of illness?”

“My mother and brother had always been in good health. How could they both suddenly die of illness within a few short days?”

Helan Ji said, “I saw with my own eyes the Rong Consort pouring poison into my mother’s mouth. And under my father’s indulgence, the Third Prince shot my brother dead with an arrow. To destroy the corpse, he threw my brother’s bones into the Demon Beast Garden.”

Before the age of six, those were the happiest days of Helan Ji’s life.

Back then, he had his loving mother and his close Crown Prince brother. Though his father did not favor him excessively, he still cherished him somewhat. Helan Ji was raised innocently and purely, even unwilling to see a little rabbit hurt. That was why he rescued Qixue from the Third Prince’s hands, even though he knew his father doted on this Third Imperial Brother the most.

After releasing Qixue that year, the three-year-old Ninth Prince grieved for a long time. Only when his Crown Prince brother promised to help him find Qixue again in the future did he cheer up and begin preparing gifts for his reunion with the little rabbit.

Little golden rabbit, little jade rabbit, rabbit lanterns, a rabbit nest woven from gold and silver threads… The little prince prepared many things, all packed into a box, waiting only to give them all to his Yuan Yuan upon seeing him.

Until that night, when the Rong Consort poisoned his mother to death right before his eyes.

The Rong Consort had always harbored deep jealousy toward the Empress. She fancied herself the Emperor’s most beloved woman, but due to her lowly origins, she faced opposition from the ministers when the Emperor was establishing his empress, preventing her from ascending to the phoenix throne. Thus, she grew insanely envious of the Empress and was determined to kill her.

The Rong Consort had started as merely a Rong Pin and only advanced in rank after giving birth to the Third Prince. The Emperor doted excessively on both the Rong Consort and the Third Prince, and she was domineering and arrogant by nature, raising her son to be stubborn, narrow-minded, and vicious-hearted like herself.

The Emperor was vainglorious and incompetent, yet he favored treacherous ministers. When the Empress and Crown Prince offered gentle remonstrations, it incurred the Emperor’s displeasure. Gradually, he began considering abolishing the Crown Prince and replacing him with the Third Prince as heir.

Finally, when Helan Ji was six, with the Emperor’s tacit approval, the Rong Consort and the Third Prince killed the Empress and the Crown Prince, then banished the young Helan Ji to the Imperial Mausoleum.

They had originally intended to eradicate the roots entirely by killing Helan Ji as well, but the Emperor did not permit it. He still held a final thread of paternal affection for Helan Ji, sparing him from dying directly in the palace.

“But the Rong Consort and the Third Prince did not give up.”

Helan Ji said, “On my way to the Imperial Mausoleum, they sent many assassins and even lured man-eating demons, all to ensure my death.”

He survived because he received protection from the Cloud Moon Temple. At that time, Xie Shu divined that he was closely tied to Great Yong’s national fortune and that his fate was not meant to end there. Thus, he sent two disciples to escort Helan Ji to the Imperial Mausoleum and set up a formation at his residence to ward off assassins and demons.

Yet Helan Ji was only six then. Even if the Rong Consort could not send assassins directly, killing him would have been effortless.

The palace had assigned two eunuchs to tend to Helan Ji’s daily needs. Though they were not the Rong Consort’s people, they were carefully selected by her—greedy, profit-driven scoundrels.

Only when Helan Ji offered them money would they bring him food. But all the money he had brought from the palace had fallen with the carriage into the cliff; he was nearly penniless, with only a jade pendant he carried on him.

In desperation, Helan Ji handed over the jade pendant, but it only bought him a few meals. Two or three days later, the eunuchs claimed his money was spent and refused to buy food, forcing him to forage wild fruits, catch fish in the water, or even dig worms from the dirt to eat.

Fortunately, Xu Taifei, who was still a consort at the time, thought of Helan Ji and guessed he must be suffering in the Imperial Mausoleum. Every so often, she sent people with silver and food, and sternly warned the two eunuchs. They finally restrained themselves somewhat. Though they still embezzled Xu Taifei’s silver, Helan Ji no longer went hungry.

By this point, Qixue’s eyes brimmed with tears of heartache. He sniffled, pulled Helan Ji into his arms, and gently kissed his face and forehead.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. It’s all my fault for coming so late. I had no idea you suffered so much back then. I should have gone to the Imperial Mausoleum earlier to keep you company…”

He was not one to cry easily, yet he always shed tears for Helan Ji.

He ached for how much his Majesty had suffered, how difficult and lonely it had been. He vaguely guessed the reason Helan Ji had learned witchcraft: to return to the palace, he must have sacrificed himself to practice it.

Helan Ji stroked the top of his head and gently wiped away his tears. “I didn’t want to tell you my past precisely because I knew Yuan Yuan would grieve for me. It’s all in the past; you don’t need to feel guilty or heartbroken for me.”

“But I can’t help but ache for Your Majesty.”

Qixue rubbed his cheek sadly against Helan Ji’s palm. “Why couldn’t I have taken human form sooner? If I had been in the Imperial Mausoleum too, I would have desperately protected Your Majesty and kept you from any grievances.”

“But I feel Yuan Yuan came at just the right time.”

Helan Ji said, “You ache for me, and I ache for you just as much. If I needed your protection, if I asked you to share my hardships, I would only feel incompetent, unworthy of your affection.”

“Yuan Yuan, you’re just a little rabbit. A little rabbit should live carefree and unburdened. It’s precisely because I can shield you from wind and rain that I want you by my side.”

“Your Majesty…”

Qixue’s heart felt sweet yet sour. His Majesty doted on him to the bone, the best person in the world to him—how could he not love His Majesty?

Helan Ji lowered his phoenix eyes. “Besides, you weren’t absent from my side. While guarding the Imperial Mausoleum, I always thought of you, and that brought warmth to my heart.”

His life in the Imperial Mausoleum was far from good—frugal days where he barely avoided starvation. There was endless work: wiping the stone walls of the tombs, sweeping fallen leaves and dust from the grounds, all under the watch of the mausoleum guards.

As he grew older and stronger, cleaning the tombs became easier, and the guards grew lax, barely supervising him anymore. He found free time to learn carving from the craftsmen building the mausoleum, passing the idle hours.

When the craftsmen asked what he wanted to carve, the first thing that came to mind was a little rabbit. His initial attempt was a wooden carving; clumsily wielding the knife, he slowly carved out an ugly little rabbit, accidentally lopping off one ear.

Gradually, he improved, creating many lifelike, lively, and adorable little rabbits—mostly cheap wood and stone carvings, with a few jade rabbit carvings bought with the bit of silver he had saved, commissioning a craftsman to procure the jade.

To carve the little rabbits, his hands became covered in cuts from the knife, but looking at those wounds, he felt no fear—only a trace of pleasure. For he imagined the Rong Consort and the Third Prince covered in blood, collapsing at his feet.

He never forgot his hatred for even a day, which was why he never carved his mother or brother.

Only when carving little rabbits did he enjoy a moment of peace. Otherwise, he dwelt in the flames of hell, burned by the fire of vengeance, in constant agony.

He always sought an opportunity for revenge until, at age ten, the craftsmen unearthed an ancient book while repairing the mausoleum.

This ancient book had been buried for who knew how long, carefully sealed in a treasure casket. Apart from the pages slightly yellowed, it remained pristine and perfectly preserved.

The craftsmen, mostly poor and illiterate, gave the book to him. He opened it and read a few words, immediately sensing the eerie, sinister power in the text. His head split with pain, and he vomited a mouthful of blood.

This ancient book was a secret scroll recording bizarre witchcraft.

From then on, he embarked on a path of no return.

But he did not regret it.

It was through the power of witchcraft that he returned to the palace, reconnected with Wei Huai, and together they staged a coup from inside and out, torturing all his enemies to death.

That night, flames lit up the Imperial Palace.

Beneath the jade steps of Chang Le Palace, corpses piled like mountains, the stench of blood thick enough to make one retch. Nightmare demons’ slender black shadows prowled the halls, hunting the remaining living.

He emerged from the grand hall, drenched in blood, holding the former Emperor’s head. The cold moon hung high, ghostly and eerie, illuminating this hell on earth. Wei Huai, sword dripping blood in hand, crossed the corpses, leading the army to kneel and pledge allegiance to him.

He hurled the former Emperor’s head from the high jade steps. The once-arrogant sovereign, dismembered by his own hands, died with eyes wide open. The head tumbled down the imperial path, trailing a gruesome streak of blood.

At that moment, right then, his heart was ice-cold. There was no joy in successful vengeance—only an incongruous thought:

Was his little rabbit doing well?