The figure kept waving to her. She hurried closer, wanting to see its face clearly, but no matter how fast she ran, she could not make out its true features, and its voice faded in and out.
"Who are you? Who exactly are you?"
Violet stopped, panting as she glared at the figure.
The figure remained indistinct, impossible to tell whether it was male or female. Even its voice betrayed no gender. "Violet, you were the North Sea Kingdom's eldest princess, yet you were forced to marry a decrepit old man. Were you truly willing to accept that? Your husband's family treated you without kindness or loyalty. Do you really intend to keep standing by those people? The Violet Lineage has committed so many outrages against heaven and humanity. Are you truly that unmoved? Don't you want revenge for yourself?"
The figure asked three questions in succession. The last two were nothing special, but the first gave her much to ponder, because no one knew she was actually Zi Yun's older sister, the eldest princess of the North Sea Kingdom.
Aside from the previous North Sea Emperor, no one knew this secret—not even the current Beihai Emperor Ziyun. Why did this figure know?
It was a complicated story, for this was a secret of the imperial court. Violet had been born to the previous North Sea Emperor and a commoner woman when he was young, so her origins were rather disreputable. The previous North Sea Emperor himself was the only one who knew.
But to consolidate his hold on the North Sea Kingdom's throne, the previous North Sea Emperor had secretly married Violet, his eldest princess, to the head of the Violet Lineage at the time. That head had already been over sixty.
He had never had any children, though