MTLNOVEL Chapter 175: So Much Worse
The tent the five men were gathered in wasn't large, but it didn't need to be.
Its canvas walls rippled in the wind, heavy with the scent of blood and ash from the nearby forges. Red Demon soldiers lingered at a distance, not daring to speak. The air outside was hushed with the weight of something about to break.
Inside, Crown Prince Zhu Mingyu sat on a simple wooden chair in the center of the room. He leaned back as if he was relaxed, one elbow resting on the armrest as a soft smile appeared on his face as he looked at the woman being brought before him. He hadn't changed clothes since the mines…dirt streaked his once pristine white sleeves, and his own blood dried beneath his cuffs from the cuts his nails had made in the palms of his hands.
He still hadn't slept. He wouldn't, not until she was safe.
Across from him, Yuyan was dragged in by two guards, her wrists bound with thick hemp rope, and her ankles were barely able to hold her upright. Her dress was torn at the shoulder, her hair was so tangled that nothing short of cutting it would restore it, but her chin was still tilted at that infuriating angle she thought made her look more noble.
"Your Highness," she offered breathily, forcing a weak smile. "If I had known it was you calling for me, I wouldn't have put up as much of a fuss."
Yaozu stepped into the tent behind her, once again a silent Shadow.
She flinched.
That reaction alone sealed her fate.
Zhu Deming stood in the corner, his arms crossed in front of him, as his half-mask caught the flickering lamplight. Sun Longzi leaned against one of the tent poles, his lips pressed into a brutal line as he stared icily at the woman trying to tidy her hair. Sun Yizhen was seated casually on a crate, one leg crossed, fanning himself gently as a provocative smile graced his lips. But not a single man spoke. They were here for one thing only.
"You should sit," Mingyu said at last, gesturing toward a stool.
Crown Princess Yuyan of Baiguang hesitated. "I don't—"
"You'll be kneeling by the end either way," Yaozu said softly. "Might as well have the choice."
She sank onto the offered stool with a forced exhale. "I don't understand why I'm here. If this is about the Princess Consort, I was only trying to befriend her—"
Yaozu raised one brow. "With a rock to the back of the head?"
"I didn't—" she tried.
He didn't interrupt her. He didn't need to.
He just stepped forward, pulled a small, cloth-wrapped bundle from his sleeve, and laid it on the table between them. One by one, he unwrapped it. Inside were a surgeon's tools—small, curved blades, thin prying hooks, and a glass vial filled with something amber.
She stared at it. "You're going to torture me?"
"No," Mingyu said calmly. "Not at all. You're going to tell us the truth. Then we'll decide how long you get to keep your tongue. The more honest you are, the more likely you will be to be returned to Baiguang in one piece. It will be better for your husband that way."
Yuyan's eyes snapped to him, indignant. "You're not like this. You're supposed to be—"
"Quiet," Yaozu said.
She wasn't used to being silenced. She blinked at him like he'd slapped her, but the threat in his eyes made her close her mouth.
The first cut wasn't deep. A shallow slice along the back of her hand—clean and deliberate. Not enough to cripple. Just enough to hurt.
Yuyan screamed loud, her voice piercing through the air. But not a single person in the room reacted.
The next was across the wrist, and the next on her upper arm, slicing through the embroidered shoulder of her once-lavish gown.
"I'll tell you," she gasped, trembling now. "I'll tell you what you want to know."
Yaozu paused, blade still held with two fingers. "Then speak."
Her voice trembled. "The Third Prince and I… we've been working together. I thought that was what you wanted. I would help him do all the dirty work, and then you could just swoop in and get rid of him afterward. That way, you didn't have to get your hands dirty in order to get the crowns of all the nations. He would take on the Emperor so you didn't have to."
"And how exactly did he plan to make that happen?" Mingyu asked, his voice steady as stone.
"Support," she whispered. "From the north. From merchant families. They've been storing weapons and supplies in the mountains—enough to take the capital if it came to war. The plan was to gather forces during the hunt. Once Xinying was removed, the coup would begin."
Zhu Deming inhaled sharply. "You were going to kill her here."
Yuyan shrugged her delicate shoulders and said nothing.
"She's being tortured," she added after a long pause. "He wanted to break her, humiliate her. I—I thought we could just keep her quiet. But he... he wanted more."
Mingyu didn't move.
"He's the only one who knows where she is," she said, her voice cracking. "I swear it. He wouldn't even tell me the full location—just that she's underground, in one of the older mines not marked on any map."
Longzi stepped forward. "Who else knew?"
Yuyan's eye darted toward him, then down. "A few generals. Some court ladies. Princess Rouxi—she helped fund it. So did one of the Emperor's stewards."
"And you thought this would end with you as the hero?" Sun Yizhen purred lazily. "That everyone would just fall to your feet and worship you like the goddess you think you are?"
"It was written," she hissed, shaking now. "In the book, it said that Mingyu would completely destroy the world in order to have me. That he would fall in love with me, that we would rule together. I tried to follow the plot; I did everything right."
Mingyu finally looked up, his eyes looking at her like a dead man's.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
"You are nothing like my Villainous Crown Prince," Yuyan spat, as tears started to form in her eyes. "You're supposed to be cruel, to everyone but me. Psychotic when it comes to anyone standing in your way, be obsessed with me the moment you looked at me for the first time. You're supposed to love me…you're supposed to belong to me."
"I was supposed to belong to you?" sneered Mingyu, his impassive face finally breaking as he straightened up in the chair. "I was never yours," he continued, his voice biting like a cold wind as he rose to his feet. "That was what you didn't factor in. I don't give a shit about you or what you want."
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to something far colder than a shout.
"You wanted a villainous Crown Prince? A psychopath who would destroy everyone in his path? You touched my Princess, thinking that I would just sit back and allow it? It appears that you have greatly underestimated me."
Yuyan's lip trembled, but she said nothing, simply raising her chin a bit higher in defiance.
"I don't know what you're talking about—books, plots, destinies," he continued. "None of that is real. But I promise you—" he leaned down, face inches from hers— "I am so much worse than you could possibly imagine."
He turned and walked out without looking back.
Yaozu picked up the tools again.
The screams started again a minute later, and this time, they didn't stop for hours.