Xu Yanli crouched down, bringing himself level with her.
"You knelt before her for twelve years, but you never understood what made her strongest: she would never admit defeat, never accept her fate, and even in death, she would still want to bite a chunk of flesh from her enemy."
"Until the day she died, she walked her own path."
"She never knelt before anyone."
"She never begged anyone."
"She never looked to anyone else's salvation as something to rely on."
He stood up and looked down at her.
"And you."
"You knelt before her for twelve years. In the end, all that got you was killing a woman who looked like her, guarding a room with a broken idol in it, and living like the walking dead."
"You were never her believer."
"You were just a coward."
The Duchess of White Tiger's body began to tremble violently.
Her mouth opened, as if she wanted to say something, but not a single word came out.
Tears streamed down her face, her lips quivered, but she couldn't make a sound.
Xu Yanli gave her one last look.
There was no hatred in his eyes, no anger, and not the slightest trace of pity.
Only a calm, icy coldness.
As if he were looking at someone who had been dead for a long time.
He turned and walked out.
The Duchess of White Tiger watched his back, that face exactly like the idol's, and the young man walking step by step into the darkness.
Suddenly, she understood.
He hadn't come to kill her today.
He had come to make her see clearly.
To see just how pitifully she had lived her entire life.
"W-wait..."
Her voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.
Xu Yanli didn't stop.
"Wait!"
She struggled to prop