Chapter 22: Wuhuan’s Dominant Acting Skills Made Even the Tyrant Want to Applaud

And in history, this Jin Prince did indeed achieve his goal!

Three years later, Feng Changye suddenly died, and the Jin Prince ascended the throne. The entire court and all of Great Ning rejoiced, delighted that they finally had a new emperor with a gentle temperament who cherished the people as his own children.

From officials to commoners, no one ever speculated with conspiracy theories that the Jin Prince had harmed Feng Changye.

The tyrant Feng Changye’s death was universally celebrated. Even three-year-old children playing games hummed the little folk ditties composed by scholars to celebrate the tyrant’s sudden demise.

In such a time of nationwide jubilation, who would bother to probe the truth behind a tyrant’s death? As long as such a scourge died, that was enough.

The people hated him so deeply that Feng Changye’s name as a tyrant became known by every household for a thousand years.

And wasn’t all of this carefully calculated, piece by piece, by the seemingly gentle and refined man standing before her?

“Wuhuan!”

When the Jin Prince heard Wuhuan’s words, his heart truly trembled!

He hadn’t expected that this plan, still only faintly sketched in his mind, would be completely pointed out by the woman before him!

She even voiced details he hadn’t yet thought through!

He was stunned by her sudden brilliance!

Was this still the same foolish woman he had once toyed with in the palm of his hand?

If not for the fact that her body and face had not changed, he would have suspected she’d been replaced by someone else!

Suppressing his shock as quickly as possible, he immediately put on an expression of indignant anger at being wronged, with just the right hint of fear that someone was accusing him of coveting the throne!

“Zhu Wuhuan, do you have a death wish? Even if you don’t want your life, I do!

Since childhood I have known I was destined to be nothing more than an idle prince. I accepted my fate. I have never coveted my royal brother’s throne. You accuse me of trying to usurp him—if someone hears that, it will be my death!”

“I’ve treasured you above all else, I’ve thought only of you—yet this is how you treat me?”

After his righteous accusations, seeing the mockery in her eyes, he flung his sleeve angrily and pressed on.

“Fine! You say I covet the throne. But if I truly had that ambition, would I be so stupid as to propose Chengying pretend to be our illegitimate child?

By offending my royal brother with this, he could easily kill me in his rage. If I lose my life, what throne would I ever claim?

If I truly coveted the throne, I should have hidden quietly, acted obedient, so that he never felt suspicion toward me. I should have ignored your fate, let your Zhu family perish without heirs, never come to the general’s manor to help you!”

“Zhu Wuhuan, search your heart. Why would I, a perfectly good prince, put myself at risk for your Zhu family’s child? Why would I willingly seek death?”

His eyes filled with sorrow. “Is it not because I love you?”

He shook his head lightly, eyes red. “I love you so deeply, yet because of someone’s slander you have misunderstood my true feelings! You even deliberately came to test me today. How can you treat me this way, Zhu Wuhuan!”

Seeing how he tried to whitewash himself, Wuhuan only wanted to laugh.

Especially at that deep, affectionate look—it was even more laughable!

If the people of Great Ning were standing here, perhaps they really would have believed him.

Unfortunately for him, she was not.

She came from a thousand years in the future.

She knew he was the final victor, and this man who now swore he never coveted the throne would, in the end, happily become emperor.

She curved her lips and said with a smile:

“Why would you do this? Of course it’s because you understand your royal brother too well.”

“You know with his temperament, even if you always behaved, he might still never trust you. But if you yourself exposed your so-called affair with me before him, he would instead relax his guard against you.”

“Because in his eyes, you would then be a fool without scheming or depth, someone who thinks only of romance and passion.”

“Once he thinks of you as a fool, naturally he will underestimate you, no longer constantly on guard.”

“And then, your mother.”

“Your mother has always doted on her youngest son. If she knew the woman you loved most was stolen away by your royal brother, if she saw you unable to acknowledge your own flesh and blood because he was raised by the Zhu family—how heartbroken she would be.”

“And if she then saw your beloved woman cruelly dismembered by your royal brother, and the child you fought desperately to protect die at his hands, wouldn’t she think you tragic and pitiful?”

“At that time, if you coughed blood from grief, pretended to be gravely ill and near death, wouldn’t your mother, seeing you forced into such misery by your brother, look at your brilliant royal brother on the throne and inevitably side with you?”

“With your mother’s help, wouldn’t it be even easier to borrow her hand to destroy her eldest son?”

Wuhuan’s sharp gaze pierced the Jin Prince.

He felt his heart tremble under her stare!

She had guessed it again!

How could she even divine the plans he hadn’t yet voiced?

Indeed, he had intended to use Wuhuan—his “love of a lifetime”—and Chengying—his “flesh and blood”—to stage a bitter tragedy, moving his mother to pity and completely estranging her from his royal brother…

Watching him struggle to maintain his calm, Wuhuan sneered and clapped her hands.

“A plan that kills several birds with one stone, Jin Prince! You calculated your brother’s vigilance, your mother’s maternal love, and the officials’ and people’s disillusionment with your brother! Such cunning, such scheming!”

With a cold flick of her sleeve, she declared:

“But! You should never have used your scheming on me, Zhu Wuhuan!”

Her gaze at the Jin Prince was filled with icy killing intent.

“My Zhu family shed blood and won glorious merit for Great Ning. If you dare pave your way to the throne with our blood, be prepared for my Zhu family’s vengeance!”

She raised her hand, tore a piece of cloth from her robe hem, and, as if discarding filth, let it fall from her fingertips.

She slowly stepped on it, grinding it beneath her foot, while staring straight at him, enunciating every word:

“From this day forth, I, Zhu Wuhuan, sever ties with you, Feng Changjin!”

“From now on, between us there will be no past affection, only—”

“The hatred of extermination!”

“One day, I will take your life, Feng Changjin, as a sacrifice to the forty thousand souls at the border—”

Her gaze locked with his.

“Jin Prince, in order to pin the crime of colluding with the Xiyuan tribes and slaughtering forty thousand soldiers on my father, you deliberately caused the deaths of forty thousand men who fought and bled for Great Ning!”

“When you wake at midnight, do you feel no terror?”

“Their spirits live on. They are all waiting for you in hell!”