The mad princess forces love upon him, and the aloof imperial advisor trembles every night.

He took half a step forward.

Just half a step.

"boom--!!!"

An invisible pressure surged forth like the sky collapsing and the earth sinking! All the golden bricks in the hall shattered simultaneously! Spiderweb-like cracks instantly spread to all four walls! The beams and pillars groaned under the unbearable weight! All the candles were extinguished!

In the darkness, only the morning light filtering in from the window outlined Si Chen's silhouette and his pair of silver eyes that gleamed with a cold light.

Chu Xuanche coughed up blood and was pressed so hard against the bed that his bones creaked.

The Chu Emperor's back was stiff, his dragon robe soaked with cold sweat, and he dared not turn around to look at his son.

He had never seen the Imperial Advisor get angry.

I've never seen anything like this before... a scene that's almost divine punishment!

The Queen collapsed to the ground, frantically shouting, "Light the lamps! Quickly, light the lamps—!!"

The servants scrambled to find the fire tumbler.

Si Chen's voice rang out, calm and deep like the tolling of an ancient temple bell striking into an abyss:

"Your Highness harbors resentment towards me; please speak frankly."

"However—"

He paused, the morning light falling on half of his face, his handsome features almost unreal, cold as if he were not alive.

"Do not implicate others."

"A woman?" Chu Xuanche laughed maniacally amidst the excruciating pain.

"Who is the Imperial Advisor referring to? Chu Qingyue?"

"That 'child' you raised for eight years, and then personally sent away for a political marriage?"

"The Imperial Advisor is protecting them already?!"

Si Chen gave a very faint twitch at the corner of his lips.

That wasn't a laugh.

It is compassion, it is mockery, it is the most thorough contempt for the folly of the mortal world.

"Princess Chu Qingyue is but a fleeting moment in my four hundred-plus years of life..."

His voice was slow and deep, each word like an ice pick piercing the heart:

"A child I raised for eight years. Moreover, for the sake of the Great Chu Kingdom's fate, I sent her away for a political marriage."

The words fell.

He slowly turned around.

His gaze swept over the Emperor and the Empress, finally settling on Chu Xuanche's resentful face.

"I watched her grandfather cry in his swaddling clothes and helped her great-grandfather mount a warhorse for the first time."

"Even when your founding emperor Chu Xiao was still a rough and uncultured man, I cast a divination for him—'The hidden dragon is in the abyss'."

The Chu Emperor's fingers suddenly tightened.

These secrets are not even fully recorded in the oldest imperial genealogy.

Si Chen's eyes lost their cold brilliance, returning to a desolate stillness: "To me, the six generations of emperors of your Chu clan are no different in essence from the roadside grass and trees, or the snow on the eaves."

"Birth, aging, sickness, and death, rise and fall, are but insignificant ripples in the cycle of nature."

He looked down at Chu Xuanche.

His gaze was as if looking at a painting destined to fade, a fate already written in the sky.

"I saved Chu Qingyue because she was not destined to die back then, and her star had not yet dimmed."

"And I will punish you—I will say it again."

"It's not that I can't, it's that I choose not to."

"Why not?!" Chu Xuanche roared, his eyes bloodshot and ferocious. "Why wouldn't I—"

"Does Your Highness know how weighty the words 'destined by Heaven' truly are?"

Si Chen interrupted him, his voice suddenly turning low.

"I have designated you as heir because although the purple aura in your natal palace is turbid, it is connected to the imperial star by a thread, which is called 'power'."

"However, beside the Emperor Star, there will inevitably be assistants, killings, and calamities."

"Your fate has been sealed, your vital essence has been damaged, and your lineage has been harmed—this is Heaven's punishment for your past acts of letting tigers kill people and harming your own siblings."

Chu Xuanche trembled all over.

"If I were to forcibly reverse the situation and heal your essence with my spiritual power, I would be going against the 'punishment' that Heaven has ordained for you."

Deep within Si Chen's silver eyes, a cold star map silently spun.

"If the punishment is not fully received, the calamity will surely shift."

"Where will we move to then?"

"Perhaps he died suddenly three days later."

"Perhaps it was a secret letter of treason that was 'accidentally' discovered ten days later."

"Or perhaps..."

He straightened up, his silver hair flowing down, his back view as solitary and desolate as the ice on the summit of a snow-capped mountain that never melts.

"It was your mother's sudden decline in health, and your maternal grandfather's clan that was suddenly infected with the 'epidemic' overnight, resulting in the death of the entire clan."

"No--!!!"

The queen screamed shrilly and collapsed to the ground.

Chu Xuanche's pupils were unfocused, and the gauze on his lower body had once again swelled into large patches of dark red. He felt no pain, only an icy chill.

Si Chen stopped looking at him, turned to the Chu Emperor, and nodded slightly.

"Your Majesty, the matter here is settled."

"With the sacrificial ceremony to Heaven imminent, and the celestial trajectory calculations still requiring time, I shall take my leave."

The Chu Emperor's Adam's apple bobbed as he looked at Si Chen with a complex expression, then swept his gaze over his ashen-faced wife and children. Finally, he asked in a hoarse voice, "Grand Preceptor... regarding the position of Crown Prince, has the divination revealed anything?"

The room was deathly silent.

The candlelight crackled.

The empress held her breath, her fingernails digging into her palms until beads of blood seeped out.

Chu Xuanche gripped the blankets tightly, his knuckles turning as white as bone.

Si Chen raised his eyes, looked towards a certain point in the void, and after a moment of silence, finally spoke: "The will of Heaven is constant."

"It will not exist for Yao, nor will it perish for Jie."

"The divination result remained unchanged yesterday."

"The choice of heir apparent... remains unchanged."

Chu Xuanche collapsed onto the couch.

Tears streaming down my face—

Whether it's joy or sorrow, a narrow escape or a plunge into deeper hell, remains unknown.

The Empress kowtowed deeply, her forehead touching the cold brick: "Thank you, Imperial Preceptor... Thank you, Imperial Preceptor..."

Si Chen did not linger.

His purple robe trailed on the ground, his silver hair flowed freely, and he turned and left, his back view as solitary and aloof as a banished immortal detached from the world.

As he walked along the long corridor outside the hall, the wind ruffled a strand of silver hair at his temple.

He paused almost imperceptibly.

—Just now, when Chu Xuanche roared "There's something fishy going on between you..."

He vaguely recalled that when the girl was eight years old, she stood on tiptoe and tugged at his sleeve, her smile as radiant as a blooming peach blossom:

"The Imperial Advisor? Your Excellency the Imperial Advisor? They say you're a deity... But don't deities get old?"

What did he say in response?

forget.

I only clearly remember that she later pursed her lips, muttered something under her breath, but the light in her eyes was astonishingly bright:

"It would be good if you didn't grow old... When I grow up, you still have to look this good."

The wind passed without leaving a trace, and he looked up at the Star-Picking Tower.

That little madman should wake up.

—————Star-Picking Tower————

As dusk settled, Chu Qingyue jolted awake from a drowning nightmare, sat up abruptly, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, as if it would burst out of her chest.

Cold sweat soaked through my undergarment, clinging stickily to my skin and bringing a distinct chill.

She took a few quick breaths, forced herself to calm down, and the first thing she did was to examine her dantian—her internal energy was surging, as powerful as ever, and even more profound and weighty.

The spirit-sealing seal has been broken.

She lowered her eyes, her gaze falling on her slender ankles—the section of black iron chain was gone too.

Her long, silvery-white hair slid down her shoulders, trailing across the brocade bedding with a cold sheen.

She reached out and picked up a strand, feeling a slightly cool touch on her fingertips.

She didn't care much about the traces of poisoning.

"Heh..." A very soft chuckle echoed in the empty bedchamber, eerily quiet like a ghostly whisper.

I got up and silently stepped barefoot onto the cool ebony floor.

She walked to the second floor of the Star-Picking Tower, where Si Chen usually bathed.

The hot soup steamed, with white mist swirling around it.

She submerged herself in the water until the bone-chilling cold and lingering nightmares were gradually melted and dispelled.

As she stood up, water droplets slid down her silver hair and the winding curves of her body, splashing out tiny glimmers of light on the white jade bricks.

Then, she encountered a problem.

Her clothes were not there.

My gaze swept over the sandalwood clothes rack to the side, where Si Chen's everyday clothes were neatly folded.

Most of them are deep purple, made of top-grade ice silk brocade. The cuffs and hem are embroidered with intricate nebula patterns in the same color silk thread, luxurious yet understated, just like him—forever separated by the Milky Way, unreachable.

She raised an eyebrow, and a wildly eccentric smile curved her lips.

"Si Chen..."