With my great vengeance unavenged, how could I allow myself to die first?

"Very well, very well..." With a chilling bitterness, as if an unwilling cry had risen from the depths of hell, Gu Fei spoke through clenched teeth.

Yet, barely had she finished her words when scarlet blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, vivid as fire, fierce as flame—striking and shocking against her pale, almost translucent face. She had bitten through her own gums and tongue in her anguish.

"Miss, you mustn't!" Old Nurse Ku hurried forward, pinched up her sleeve, and tenderly wiped Gu Fei's mouth. "Miss, restrain your grief. We have to keep this life—only by living well can we plot and wait for the right moment."

Gu Fei pushed her away, her slender fingers wiping the blood from her lips, staining them crimson as cinnabar. A fierce, brazen intensity radiated from her. In moments, she was as calm as stone, as though the person who had lost herself to anger and resentment just now was not her at all.

"Don't worry, Old Nurse Ku. My great vengeance is unavenged—how could I die before that?" Her voice was light and distant, like a rootless leaf adrift atop icy waters, without anchor.

Old Nurse Ku was stunned. She gazed at the shadow beneath Gu Fei's lashes, unable to speak for a long time.

She had cared for Gu Fei for some time now. The first time she saw her was in the capital, at dusk when the evening light wavered. Gu Fei's lower body was nearly soaked in blood, her skirt torn, revealing what should have been slender, fair legs—now stripped of flesh, blood streaming, most of the muscle carved away. She was barely clinging to life, the agony so severe it seemed she might die at any moment. It was a scene of utter misery.

From the capital to Yi Prefecture, before settling in the Gu household, the leg wound never healed—some places even festered and bred maggots.

Even the physicians dared not treat it. The maggots had to be picked from the rotten flesh, then the wound seared with a hot iron, only then could amputation be avoided.

She remembered clearly: when no one dared act, Gu Fei bit down on a rag, took up a dagger, and with wide, unblinking eyes, cut away both the maggots and the spoiled flesh herself—enduring the agony of flesh being carved twice. Such courage and tenacity, even most men could not match.

Often, when Old Nurse Ku closed her eyes, she recalled that scene. From then on she knew—one day, when Gu Fei's wings grew strong, she would become many people's nightmare.

"Prepare incense and candles. I wish to pay respects."

After a long silence, Gu Fei's voice, calm and steady, sounded. Old Nurse Ku came to herself and saw Gu Fei turning the wheels of her chair, struggling toward her room.

Old Nurse Ku moved to help her, but was stopped.

"I want to be alone for a while," Gu Fei said, her back to Old Nurse Ku. Her thin, delicate silhouette gradually melted into the night beyond the hall, growing vague and indistinct, tinged with a sorrowful bitterness. Yet her back remained straight, as though even mountains and stones could not bend it.

Half an hour later, when all preparations for the rites were complete, Old Nurse Ku gently knocked on Gu Fei's door.

No one knew what Gu Fei did alone in her room. Old Nurse Ku thought perhaps she wept bitterly, perhaps cursed heaven and earth. But when Gu Fei opened the door in her wheelchair, facing Old Nurse Ku—

Old Nurse Ku was slightly surprised. Gu Fei looked perfectly normal, even wore a faint smile. Her eyes, larger than most, were dark and bright. Yet Old Nurse Ku wondered if she was mistaken, for it seemed a terrible beast lurked in Gu Fei's gaze.

One day, that beast would break free, and wherever Gu Fei looked, destruction would follow, consuming even herself.

For that beast was called—Hatred.

"Old Nurse Ku, why aren't you leaving?" Gu Fei asked mildly, seeing her standing there, staring.

"I'm going, right away. Everything is ready," Old Nurse Ku replied quickly. She moved behind Gu Fei and gently pushed the wheelchair.

The place for the rites was not far from Qingmo Courtyard, in a hollow beneath the rockery facing south. Even a stray spark would be hard to spot, for Old Nurse Ku had taken great care.

Gu Fei knelt expressionlessly on the ground, burning paper offerings with deliberate, steady movements. The pale yellow smoke and fire soared upward until all was reduced to ash, and even the embers died. Still, Gu Fei did not rise.

"Miss, the ground is cold—beware the chill, your body can't take any more," Old Nurse Ku peered out from behind the rockery, saw no one, and whispered her concern to Gu Fei.

Gu Fei acted as if she hadn't heard. She knelt for some time more, then, after three bows and nine prostrations, signaled for Old Nurse Ku to help her into the wheelchair.

Old Nurse Ku brushed the smoke and ash from Gu Fei's body, when she heard her ask, "Old Nurse Ku, I want vengeance! I want them all to die with no grave left behind!"

Hearing this, Old Nurse Ku was startled, her hands frozen mid-air as she turned stiffly to look at Gu Fei in the night, unable to utter a word.

That night, Old Nurse Ku kept watch over Gu Fei. When she saw her finally asleep, she prepared to rest in the outer room, only to witness Gu Fei convulsing, her face twisted in agony, trapped in a nightmare she could not escape no matter how she called.

Gu Fei was indeed dreaming. For the first time in many days, she clearly relived the past—opening her eyes in darkness, she again saw that stunningly beautiful face of Mo Qingge.

Mo Qingge looked down at her with lofty arrogance, then, as if granting pity to an insect, said, "Just a worthless branch-born wretch. Did you think that being raised by the main family for ten years would change your fate? How laughable."

She struggled desperately, but could not break free from invisible shackles. It was as though her whole life was destined to be oppressed by Mo Qingge, at her beck and call.

Her heart surged with boundless hatred. Even knowing it was all past, the stabbing pain was as sharp as before, and she remembered every detail of what was to come.

As expected, she heard Mo Qingge say again, "What are you, Mo Fei? A mongrel from the branch family of the Mo clan in Yi Prefecture. That talent for ink-making should never be wasted on you. Only I, only I—Mo Qingge, the capital's first beauty—am the true genius of the main Mo clan..."

Hearing "Mo Fei" mentioned again, rage like molten lava welled in her chest, burning with the urge to reduce everything around her to ash.

"Ten years ago, you never should have appeared before me. As long as I exist, Mo Qingge, there should never be a Mo Fei. How dare you compare yourself to the legitimate eldest daughter of the Mo family? In what way are you superior..."

She wanted to scream, but her throat could not utter a sound, her eyes bloodshot, bracing for what was about to happen, her gaze threatening to burst.

"I will make sure you live a fate worse than death, and spend your entire life in the shadow of Mo Qingge..."

"And that useless brother of yours, blessed with a pretty face, who dared to profess his admiration for me—how utterly disgusting. Tonight, I will show you siblings what true hell is..."

No!

She could not cry out, only stare in hopeless despair at Mo Qingge's face. Through a haze of red, she heard Mo Qingge pronounce, "Born with a face more beautiful than a woman's—make sure to break him, utterly!"

Then came waves of obscene, lewd laughter; those lowly guards, their filthy hands before her, tore her brother Mo Xuan's clothes to shreds. Amidst the flying scraps of cloth, she plunged into the abyss of despair, condemned to darkness, forever denied warmth.

"I'll spare your life..."

"Slice the flesh from this wretch's legs, piece by piece. For ink-making, the hands alone suffice!"

She remembered every word Mo Qingge had spoken, and the searing pain in her legs. In that agony, she suddenly struggled—

"Miss, miss, thank goodness you’re awake."

Old Nurse Ku’s voice, hoarse as though scorched by fire, sounded gently in her ears, as soothing as a mountain stream. Gu Fei slowly turned her neck, her eyes focused, and only after a while realized she had escaped the nightmare.

"Old Nurse Ku..." she murmured, using all the strength in her body for that single word, weak as an abandoned cub, fragile and pitiful.

"I'm here, I'm here," Old Nurse Ku pulled up the quilt around Gu Fei and wiped her cold sweat with a dry cloth. "It's all right now, it's all over."

Gu Fei answered feebly, leaning against Old Nurse Ku, staring at the blue silk canopy without moving.

The pain from revisiting the past in her dream was now clear in her legs, as if the body itself retained the memory—each return to those memories brought fresh agony.

After a long while, her fingertips trembled. Having savored and remembered every past torment, a chilling fierceness rose in her eyes. She said, "What hour is it? When dawn breaks, Old Nurse Ku, please ask the master to come. Tell him I wish to strike a bargain."