TCOTAC C5

The night had grown late. A cold moon hung in the sky, casting its pale light over the Prince’s estate.

Yet Gu Jingsheng remained wide awake. Though lying on her bed, she could not close her eyes. How could anyone so easily cast aside years of devotion? Eight long years. From eight years old to sixteen—half her life had been spent with him. Even knowing he had long since changed his heart, the pain in her chest felt as though it were being carved out with a blade, driving sleep far from her.

By now, Liu Jinyuan ought to be in the West Garden. Or perhaps she was once again in Wen Wu’ai’s bedchambers.

Gu Jingsheng wanted to charge into Wen Wu’ai’s quarters this instant. She could not simply swallow the insults and grievances he had thrust upon her that afternoon. Whatever the outcome, she could not endure the humiliation of being suspected without cause. Claiming she lusted after the Empress’s seat? Claiming she had used him? She had done no such thing.

Gu Jingsheng rose from the bed, draped a cloak over her shoulders, opened the door, and stepped outside.

The night air was freezing. Under the moonlight, the estate lay dead quiet, with only the echo of her footsteps crunching against the stone path.

She reached Wen Wu’ai’s quarters—a grand two-story pavilion. Light seeped through the cracks. He was still awake.

The guards standing watch outside caught sight of Gu Jingsheng. Their faces flushed with embarrassment as they looked at her awkwardly, clearly wanting to say something, yet unable to part their lips. As the principal consort of the Prince of Ning, they did not dare block her path; in name, she remained the mistress of this estate.

She dismissed the guards and stepped inside the pavilion.

A wooden staircase loomed ahead, leading to the second floor. She climbed it step by step, the wood creaking loudly beneath her feet. Yet there was no reaction from above.

Reaching the second floor, she stood before the door to Wen Wu’ai’s bedchamber. Warm light filtered out through the gap, accompanied by a sound—an unseemly, shameless sound.

“Ah… Wu’ai… just a little more…”

Gu Jingsheng’s steps faltered. She froze on the spot.

“You’er… you truly are a little enchantress… How have you stolen my heart so completely…?”

It was Wen Wu’ai’s voice, thick with arousal and mixed with heavy, ragged breaths.

“My Lord… why must you be like this…?”

The soft whispers continued endlessly. As if intending for every soul in the estate to hear, Liu Jinyuan’s voice grew increasingly distinct—as though she were deliberately raising her pitch.

The faint movements beyond the bed curtain. The rustle of slipping robes. Heavy sighs. Low, breathless murmurs. Every detail reached her ears with agonizing clarity.

Gu Jingsheng stood rooted outside the room, utterly lost.

Then it struck her: Liu Jinyuan was already three months pregnant. How could she engage in such acts with child? With a baby in her womb, what could possibly make her so impatient? Why couldn’t she refrain?

No—she knew the answer. It was done deliberately, meant for her ears. Liu Jinyuan knew she would come.

Furthermore, Liu Jinyuan had not stayed in the West Garden; she had moved directly into Wen Wu’ai’s bedchamber. This place had once been her and Wen Wu’ai’s bridal suite. A year ago, on their wedding night, she had spent the entire evening waiting alone on the red bridal bed, yet he never came, using pressing official duties as his excuse.

As the realization washed over her, a sudden wave of nausea surged from Gu Jingsheng’s stomach, turning her inside out. The composure and composure she had fought so hard to maintain shattered completely under the sound of breathless pleas, panting, and coquettish moans leaking from the room.

She could endure no more.

She spun around and stumbled down the stairs, her foot slipping along the way. Nearly falling, she barely caught her balance by grabbing the handrail.

Fleeing the pavilion, she ran blindly, knowing not where she was going—only that she needed to be far from that sound.

Reaching the edge of the rear garden’s pond, her knees gave out. She collapsed onto the ground and threw up everything in her stomach, but having eaten nothing, only bitter bile came out. Her throat burned, and tears welled in her eyes.

She sat there for a long time, staring blankly at the surface of the water, which shone like a lantern. The moonlight mirrored off the pond, shimmering silver.

Her heart ached as if sliced by a blade. Yet strangely, not a single tear fell from her eyes. She could not cry. She simply stared at the freezing water, losing all track of time until the sky gradually brightened and dawn approached.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Rumors that the side-consort, Liu Jinyuan, enjoyed the Prince’s utmost favor spread like wildfire. Only now did Gu Jingsheng—once the proud mistress of the Prince of Ning’s estate—realize how the servants truly viewed her. Seeing Liu Jinyuan gain favor, the servants shifted their allegiance as swiftly as water flowing downhill, serving the new mistress as if by prearranged agreement.

Within a mere fifteen days, the guards in the front and rear courtyards were halved, and Gu Jingsheng’s words no longer held the weight they once did.

In the meantime, Gu Jingsheng, her health deteriorating, instructed her maidservant to simmer some lotus seed paste to cool the fever burning in her chest. Yet the maid did not return even as the sun set. Only when twilight completely swallowed the room did she learn that on her way back with the sweet paste, the maid had been intercepted by Liu Jinyuan.

Claiming that she, too, was feeling feverish and could consume no other remedies due to her pregnancy, Liu Jinyuan had casually seized the lotus seed paste and carried it off to the West Garden.

Such indignities occurred daily, and Liu Jinyuan grew bolder by the hour.

Unable to contain her rage any longer, the maid who had followed Gu Jingsheng from her ancestral home raised her voice at the West Garden’s servants outside the courtyard. The argument quickly escalated into a physical brawl, leaving Gu Jingsheng’s maid covered in dark bruises and her back torn open from a whipping.

Gu Jingsheng hastily summoned a physician to prescribe medicine, then personally applied the ointment to her maid’s back, carefully navigating her fingertips over every dark, swollen welt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips were bitten so hard they nearly bled. The uneven texture of the wounds beneath her fingers carved into her heart like a knife.

Anger flared within her, yet she acutely felt her status and authority slipping away in this estate. The unfamiliar sensation of powerlessness cut to the bone.

“…Miss, you are not one to swallow such grievances! Why aren’t you fighting back against that treacherous fox?”

At her maid’s words, Gu Jingsheng scooped a dab of white ointment onto her fingertip, gently smoothing it over the wound, and spoke softly with clear, quiet eyes.

“No matter how starved you were, would you eat a rotten steambun teeming with maggots?”

The maid scowled, her face contorted in disgust. “Ugh, just thinking about it makes me sick! I’d rather starve to death than touch something so filthy.”

Gu Jingsheng said serenely, “Indeed. If I wished, I could fight back. If my father or anyone in my family knew of this situation, they would surely stand up for me…” She paused, her gaze drifting toward the window, where the reddish rays of sunset were being engulfed by the night. “I just don’t know if there is any point to it anymore.”

Her voice dropped lower.

“That which once filled my heart has now rotted away. Seeing it crawling with maggots, how could I reach out my hand for it again? I would rather starve.”

“…I failed to understand your deep thoughts, Miss. You mean that Liu Jinyuan is like a maggot…”

Before the maid could finish her sentence, the door was slammed open with a deafening CRASH!

The maid shrieked in terror, frantically pulling up the blanket to cover her exposed back and body. As Gu Jingsheng turned her head toward the doorway, there stood the very maggot herself—Liu Jinyuan—striding into the room with her bloated belly intentionally thrust forward, accompanied by two guards who had forced the door open.

Clearly, Liu Jinyuan had been eavesdropping outside.

“What impudent blabber from a lowly wench!” Liu Jinyuan glared sharply at the pale maid before turning her eyes toward the expressionless Gu Jingsheng with utter disdain. “Gu Jingsheng! How dare you speak ill of me behind my back?”

Without losing her composure, Gu Jingsheng calmly capped the ointment jar and turned her cold gaze upon Liu Jinyuan. “This is my quarters. Since when are you allowed to barge in as you please?”

Liu Jinyuan placed her hands on her waist and burst into boisterous laughter.

“Pfft! Hahaha! Gu Jingsheng, drop the act! I heard everything just now. What was it you said? That if you wished it, your father and your family would fight for you?” She caressed her belly with one hand, her face contorted in mockery. “Haha, how hysterical! You haven’t contacted your family all this time, have you? Completely clueless about the world outside! You don’t have the slightest idea—your family has already been exterminated!”

In that instant, all strength drained from Gu Jingsheng’s hand.

Clatter.

The jar of ointment slipped from her fingers and smashed against the floor, spilling white paste across the wooden planks.

Exterminated…?

The word echoed wildly in her ears. It felt as though the blood in her body had frozen solid in a single heartbeat.

Gu Jingsheng slowly stood up, her voice trembling. “What did you say?”

“Stop pretending,” Liu Jinyuan sneered, raising her slender eyebrows triumphantly. She snatched a sealed stack of letters from the maid standing behind her and hurled them violently at Gu Jingsheng’s feet.

The letters scattered across the floor with a sharp rustle. Gu Jingsheng looked down at the characters printed on the corner of a fallen page:

Prime Minister’s Estate… Confiscated…

Her eyelids twitched violently. She dropped to her knees, scrambling to pick up the letters, her hands shaking so violently she could barely tear open the seals.

As she forced her eyes across the lines, the color drained from her face sentence by sentence.

“How… how could this be…?”

Prime Minister Gu had been found guilty of treason for communicating with an enemy state and was stripped of his official post. Just days ago, the Prime Minister’s estate was confiscated, and over a hundred members of the clan were thrown into prison. Given the undeniable proof and gravity of the crime, no mercy would be granted; not only Gu Ping, but every relative would be held collectively liable. Once all evidence was finalized, the entire Gu clan would be executed down to the last soul.

Her fingertips turned ice-cold.

The letters slipped from her numb grip, fluttering back onto the ground.

Yet what horrified and broke Gu Jingsheng even more was the presence of a signature on those documents:

Wen Wu’ai…?

Her parents, her entire family, had been dragged into hell by the very hands of her husband—the man she had loved for years. And she was included in that fate.

It felt as if something inside her chest was being violently torn apart.

Liu Jinyuan turned to the guards beside her with a smile that was sickeningly sweet. “Gu Jingsheng is Gu Ping’s daughter, making her the child of a traitor and subject to collective punishment. His Imperial Majesty has already deposed her as the Princess of Ning. Drag this traitor’s daughter out at once and lock her in the storeroom!”

“Yes, Lady!” Several guards bellowed in response, taking a heavy step into the room.

Gu Jingsheng bit her lip tightly, her face pale as she looked up at them, rage flickering within her trembling eyes.

“How dare you! Even if His Majesty deposed me, I am still the wife of the Prince of Ning! Who dares lay a hand on me?”

Liu Jinyuan let out a short, mocking scoff. “Ha!”

She held her head high and walked slowly toward Gu Jingsheng, step by step, taking her time like a predator cornering its prey. Then, from her sleeve, she produced a single sheet of paper.

Gu Jingsheng never expected that what Liu Jinyuan held in her hand would be the ultimate, devastating blow.

She had never dreamed Wen Wu’ai could be so cruel, stubbornly believing that all of this was merely a series of misunderstandings and coincidences, and that her father’s predicament could still be resolved.

Yet the moment Liu Jinyuan unfolded the paper and the two scarlet characters stamped upon it caught her eyes, she heard the sound of something massive collapsing within her soul.

A Letter of Divorce.