"Consort Ru, I can leave your corpse intact."
He bent down, his deep, vicious eyes filled with endless darkness.
His voice was very soft, yet it made it hard to breathe.
"As long as you tell me everything you know."
His boot rested on Consort Ru's dark green palace robes. When he moved it away, a darker stain was clearly visible on the green hem. On closer inspection, it was blood...
Consort Ru stared wide-eyed, her pupils filled with terror. She had heard the rumors that the Crown Prince was addicted to killing, but she had never witnessed it for herself.
If he had killed someone at the Ministry of Justice, the blood on his soles should have dried or been rubbed away by dirt, sand, and paving stones on his way here.
But the dark footprint he had left on her clothing made it clear that this volatile Crown Prince had killed the people outside her palace before coming in.
And he had walked through their blood on his way inside.
What a terrifying scene that must have been. Consort Ru suddenly felt that being force-fed dog meat last time had been nothing. What awaited her now was hell on earth.
She trembled and shook her head, then began nodding frantically. "I'll talk, I'll talk! I'll tell you everything! Don't kill me..."
"Don't... don't kill me."
Consort Ru had gone from a vicious woman willing to scheme at any cost for her own gain to someone so desperate to survive that she had to kowtow to Chu Xuanzhen and beg for mercy like a stray dog.
Chu Xuanzhen's breathing was faint. "Speak."
"That day, you brought back a child. Word spread throughout the harem. Someone came to see me that night. She was a palace maid, but I'd never