A howling north wind whipped through the deep winter, accompanied by a rustling snowfall.

Inside the towering palace, darkness reigned, illuminated only by the faint glow of a lapis lazuli kirin-shaped brazier. The crackling of the fire mingled with the steady, solid footsteps outside, causing the person huddled beneath the gold-threaded red silk canopy to involuntarily flinch.

Lu Weimian’s eyelashes trembled as she opened her eyes in the dim light.

Her bright, star-like eyes were red-rimmed, holding a pool of autumnal water, sadly unfocused and vacant.

By now, Lu Weimian had accepted her blindness, and the fact that she had become this man’s captive.

She thought it was her retribution.

Lu Weimian curled her fingers, clutching the silk quilt. The sound of clinking chains echoed within the canopy, a consequence of her slight movement.

The feeling of restraint on her wrists intensified. She knew it was the chains he had fastened, imprisoning her to the bed.

He had arrived, walking through the snow, and the sounds of her movement pleased him greatly.

After the door closed, his presence intensified. Lu Weimian shrank into the quilt like a frightened quail.

The next moment, icy, slender fingers hooked the edge of the quilt.

“No,” Lu Weimian shamefully clutched the edge of the quilt. Even though she couldn’t see, she could feel his deep, sharp gaze, dissecting her inch by inch through the fabric.

The man curved his lips, asking solicitously yet cruelly, “What’s wrong?”

Lu Weimian bit her lip, shrinking her fingers, giving up resistance.

He seemed to leave her a final shred of dignity. The quilt was only pulled back slightly, but the soft, yielding sight beneath was enough to stir the heart.

She was naked.

It had been three days.

On that day, she couldn’t bear it anymore, shouting that she hated him, that she wanted him to die.

He didn’t seem angry, only giving her punishment as he left, as gentle and solicitous as today, forbidding her to wear clothes for three days.

For Lu Weimian, a sheltered young lady raised with strict decorum, this was a tremendous shock.

But the shocks he inflicted went far beyond this.

He was a madman, with cruel and vicious tendencies.

Ordinary intimacy couldn’t satisfy him. He delighted in using strange and unusual methods to erode her fragile mental defenses, loving to watch her body lose control in a state of vivid arousal.

The chains and the bells on her ankles were one such method.

The man’s icy fingers landed on her cheek, causing Lu Weimian to shiver, as if a venomous snake was climbing, trying to strangle her.

His languid, pleased voice echoed in the darkness, “A-mian, your complexion is much better.”

Then, “It seems you can play a new game with me.”

Lu Weimian’s heartstrings tightened. She frantically dodged his hand, shifting back, pulling on the chains, causing them to clink. “No, no, I still… ah!”

The iron ring on her wrist was suddenly pulled with a strong force, causing her to fall into his arms.

Lu Weimian smelled his strange, cool, blood-like scent again, a scent that seemed to corrode the will and destroy the mind.

He caressed her jaw, his words filled with cruelty, “Say you’re willing.”

Lu Weimian’s lips trembled. She vaguely heard the man open a box and unfasten a latch.

Then, a trembling sound came from the box.

He seemed regretful. “This is something new I made. It’s a pity you can’t see it, otherwise you would think it’s very beautiful, and it would match you perfectly.”

As the object approached her, Lu Weimian suddenly cried and struggled. “I don’t want to, I don’t like it, go away, don’t touch me.”

“Help!” She tried to escape, and the name that slipped out in her plea for help was, “Feng Zhen…”

The man didn’t react much, only pulling on the silver chain beside him. The bound butterfly drooped its wings, fluttering down into his hand, forced to endure his affection.

“Who is Feng Zhen?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “Oh, your husband, Feng Xingyuan.”

He slowly tightened the silver chain that bound her, teasing, “It’s a pity your husband is dead, you killed him, don’t you remember?”

Lu Weimian stopped struggling.

That cold, gloomy voice was in her ear, mocking, “I think the biggest regret of his life was not killing you sooner, when you learned his weakness.”

“Otherwise, your lover wouldn’t have known and burned him alive on the mountain.”

Lu Weimian’s heart ached, and she stared blankly at a point in space.

The man’s icy fingers touched her cheek, tracing her jawline. “It’s a pity that your crown prince brother is also nothing special. After ascending the throne, he had your family executed.”

Lu Weimian’s breathing was unsteady, her nose tingling.

It was her fault.

Years ago, she and the crown prince were deeply in love, preparing for their engagement when the emperor suddenly arranged her marriage to Feng Xingyuan as a political maneuver. She believed the crown prince’s lies, promising her the position of empress.

She and Feng Xingyuan were only nominally husband and wife, with little interaction, barely exchanging a few words. But Feng Xingyuan had never mistreated her, always greeting her with a smile.

He was a good man.

Although she didn’t want to marry him, she never intended to harm him; they lived together respectfully.

But after waiting eagerly at the Feng residence for a year, she received news that the crown prince had used her family to ascend the throne, then betrayed her, having her parents and relatives executed. Feng Xingyuan, too, was innocently implicated and died in a foreign land.

Her father had always been a dedicated and frugal official. He had listened to the crown prince’s supposed pro-people policies and proposed the construction of the Jiangnan Dam flood control project.

But it wasn’t a pro-people policy at all, but a chess move by the crown prince. The Jiangnan Dam collapsed due to shoddy workmanship. Coincidentally, the emperor was on a southern tour, causing a huge disaster. Jiang’an City sank, the emperor drowned, countless officials who had opposed the crown prince perished in the flood, and tens of thousands of innocent people suffered heavy casualties and displacement.

The crown prince, claiming illness to remain in the capital, seized the opportunity to ascend the throne. Her uncle reported her father for embezzlement and bribery, and the crown prince readily used this to imprison and execute the Lu family. Her uncle was rewarded for his services, becoming a duke, and his daughter, her cousin, became empress.

Feng Xingyuan, dispatched to quell the flood in Jiangnan, was ambushed and killed because the spy the crown prince had planted beside her used her to learn of Feng Xingyuan’s weaknesses and whereabouts.

Lu Weimian only then realized that she and her innocently murdered family members were merely pawns in the crown prince’s plot to usurp the throne, eliminate dissidents, murder Feng Xingyuan, and consolidate his power.

On the day her parents and relatives were executed,

The eunuch beside the crown prince also told her of Feng Xingyuan’s death.

Of her entire family, only she remained alive.

Lu Weimian, grief-stricken, fell gravely ill and lost her sight.

When she woke up, the chief eunuch in the new emperor’s service looked down at her condescendingly and said, “Madam Feng, the fact that you are still alive is a grace from Her Majesty the Empress.”

“Her Majesty asks you to grieve, but life goes on.”

Life did go on.

But they didn’t enjoy their victory for long. Rebels attacked the capital from the border.

On the seventh day of the new emperor’s reign, the city gates were breached, and rebel troops stormed the imperial palace, killing the new emperor and empress.

Later, she became a prisoner of this madman.

At first, she was sent to his room by the servants to help him arrange his belongings.

At first, it was his cat, his furniture and bedding.

He seemed to enjoy decorating everything around him with beautiful things, but Lu Weimian always felt he was humiliating her.

After all, she couldn’t see anything, and it always took her a long time to ask and discern what she was holding, what color it was, and then make it into something she didn’t even know what it looked like.