The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

"It's alright... Little Imperial Uncle... Everything will be alright..."

Tang Xixue's voice was like a spring stream flowing over bluestone, soft and clear, gently flowing through this warm pavilion.

One hand was still unconsciously held in Bei Chenji's burning palm, so she leaned down slightly and gently patted his back with her other hand.

The movements were unhurried and gentle, each beat seemingly trying to smooth out the trembling and tension etched into the bones over the years.

Her voice seemed to possess a strange power, piercing through the thick fog at the edge of his consciousness, touching his heart more easily and warming his soul more than the finest celestial music.

With each gentle, comforting word, Bei Chenji's nerves, which had been stretched taut like a bowstring and on the verge of breaking, gradually relaxed, like a cold rope being slowly unfurled in warm water.

The pulse beneath her fingertips was still beating rapidly, but deeper within, it revealed a chilling emptiness and depletion, as if she had been completely drained.

That was the wear and tear accumulated over the years, stemming from the combined effects of endless vigilance and chronic, long-standing ailments.

He was like a lonely lamp whose oil had run out, yet he still forced himself to burn with the fiercest and most dangerous light, just to illuminate the cold night around him.

If this continues...

He will only burn himself to ashes, leaving not a single bone behind.

Perhaps even earlier, as early as twenty years ago, on that night when the northern snowstorm swallowed up all warmth.

Bei Chenji, the boy who witnessed the tragic departure of his loved ones and fell into the icy abyss himself.

Those who survived were merely shells held together by hatred, responsibility, and unfulfilled desires, while inside lay a desolate wasteland where wind and snow howled.

"Little Xue'er..."

He lingered on the edge of the chaotic abyss, murmuring the name hidden deep in his heart.

He is most dangerous when he is tormented by this bizarre skin thirst and old nightmares to the point of delirium.

Like a severely wounded and dying beast, it will unleash an instinctive and ferocious counterattack against anything that gets too close.

The War Hall Master's irrational killing moves are always the prelude to mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"Little Imperial Uncle, I'm here."

Tang Xixue did not back down at all and responded softly.

She never imagined that one day she would become this young imperial uncle's "medicine".

He—Bei Chenji, the sharpest and darkest blade of the Chenyao Dynasty, the absolute ruler of the Dark Realm War Hall.

He has a fierce temperament and a heart as cold as iron.

Before today, she had always thought that she was one of the most conspicuous things among the many things he disliked.

However, when he was on the verge of losing consciousness and being consumed by pain, he still held her hand tightly, as if it were the only piece of driftwood in a vast icy sea, she suddenly realized...

She felt as if he had already drawn her into the boundaries of that private forbidden zone in some way that she had never noticed.

The shock brought about by this realization was far greater than imagined.

"It's so cold... The snow is really cold..."

Bei Chenji was completely trapped in the nightmare of that never-ending winter from twenty years ago.

The body felt as if it were being scorched by flames inside and out, while the soul felt as if it were nailed to the bottom of a bottomless ice cave.

A bone-chilling cold seeped from the depths of the bone marrow, freezing the blood and solidifying the breath.

No matter how hard they struggled, they couldn't feel even a sliver of warmth.

Why is this world so cold and bone-chilling?

Father... Mother... Fragments of images, a mix of blood and pure white, flashed by, bringing a deeper sense of suffocation and despair.

Tang Xixue felt his body trembling violently and uncontrollably. It was not only physical pain, but also the fear and struggle of his soul in endless nightmares.

He was really very ill, so ill it was alarming.

She quickly went through all the "bad things" her young uncle had done for her over the years in her mind.

It seems that, apart from the cold face and distance he deliberately put on over the past five years, he has never actually taken the initiative to hurt her in the slightest.

In those even more distant memories, everything about him is mostly warm fragments:

He secretly gave her a jeweled dagger for self-defense; he secretly brought back a rag doll from outside the palace; and he silently stood in front of her, tall yet frail, when she was targeted by other princes and princesses…

At this moment, her hardened heart involuntarily softened again.

Her compassion as a healer, combined with warm memories of the past, led her to make a decision.

She tentatively moved closer, almost nestling into his trembling arms.

She tried to use her slightly cool body temperature to shield him from the bitter cold of his nightmare.

The relief of skin thirst often requires a larger area of ​​continuous skin contact to provide comfort.

For Bei Chenji, who was trapped in the nightmare of the icy abyss, her close embrace was like a ray of light suddenly appearing at the end of the eternal night.

For the first time, a warm glow, carrying warmth, shone through the frozen snowfield.

As night fades and dawn breaks, the first light of day appears.

When the snow clears, the sky may be clear.

At this moment, the cool fragrance of crabapple blossoms lingered silently, and the slightly cool softness of his palms and the gentle pats on his back enveloped him in a peaceful realm.

A surge of drowsiness, like a tidal wave bursting its banks, swept over all pain and vigilance.

Bei Chenji's eyelashes gradually darkened, and her last struggle was quietly disintegrated by this gentle force.

And so, in a place that was not under his control, he held her hand that had not yet been pulled away, and fell into a deep sleep on an unfamiliar bed.

The frost and fierceness that had accumulated between his brows over the years melted away silently, as if encountering spring snow.

Her sleeping face exuded a rare tranquility, and even her tightly pursed lips unconsciously relaxed, shedding the sharp edge of the day.

At this moment, he was not like the fearsome Lord of the Battle Hall.

It's like a lone wolf, covered in wounds and having wandered alone for a long time, finally finding a tranquil haven in the cloud-shrouded wilderness, sheltered by a cool fragrance and a warm touch, where it can shed all its sharpness and defenses and sink into a long dream of healing its wounds.

"Master—is he...asleep?"

Yuan Qi, who had been hiding in the shadows and even slowing his breathing, could hardly believe what he was perceiving.

He subconsciously wondered if his master had been drugged with some kind of extremely potent sleeping potion.

But then she remembered that the prince had a rare Peach Blossom Gu in his body, making him immune to all poisons, and ordinary sleeping potions were completely useless against him.

If there really were a drug that could bring him down, why would he have suffered from insomnia all these years?

His master, the Prince of Beichen, was prickly, a light sleeper who rarely closed his eyes when away from home, and who always kept a sharp blade under his pillow—

At this moment, it was as if a ferocious beast whose unruly fur had been gently stroked by an invisible hand had been tamed so thoroughly by Princess Mirror's few words and a few incredibly gentle movements.

He fell into a deep sleep without resistance, and a gentle, relaxed expression, unseen for many years, even appeared on his face.

This scene shocked Yuan Qi more than any sudden attack by a powerful enemy.