Living on Bended Knees

"Yes, that child knew her destiny from the very beginning," Jin Xuanzi said, lowering his eyelids.

Heavy breathing filled the air.

"Why! Why of all people must it be her! In such a vast Great Xia, why did they have to choose her!" Baili Mo abruptly raised his head, bloodshot veins beginning to spread across his eyes.

"There are some things perhaps you never truly took the time to understand. Even for me, some news only reached my ears very recently. What I am about to tell you might be difficult to hear. Do you still wish to know about that child?" Jin Xuanzi asked solemnly.

"I want to know, I truly want to know. Why, why did she turn into that state on that day?" Baili Mo asked with a bitter smile, without the slightest hesitation.

"Ever since she returned to the palace, her life became even more arduous, exceedingly difficult. Though she no longer had to worry about food and clothing, as a princess of Great Xia, she had frequented establishments of ill repute like brothels. Once word of this reached the palace, there was not a single day she could hold her head high there."

"It is true that the previous Xia Emperor favored her, but that was out of a sense of guilt toward her. Yet, matters within the imperial family are far more complex than we could ever imagine. In the places out of the previous Xia Emperor's sight, do you have any idea how much suffering she endured?"

"Bullied by other princesses, cursed by servants, and coveted by the dissolute scions of the court ministers, she lived cautiously and submissively. It was precisely because of this temperament of hers that anyone dared to ride roughshod over her, speaking ill of her without her even daring to harbor resentment, let alone accept any praise."

"She dared neither to resent nor to speak out. She could only offer a forced smile to everyone. Perhaps, to her, merely having such a place to rest her head already felt like a blessing. She was never one to burden others."

"She did the chores meant for servants, was at the beck and call of the other princesses, and even some outrageous princes dared to make unseemly remarks and mock her. Her plight never changed, no matter where she was."

"Mo'er, do you know what the only reason was that kept her going?"

Another long silence followed. No one spoke, and Baili Mo kept his head lowered, his body trembling slightly.

"It was you. Every single letter you gave her, every glimmer of hope you offered. She protected every letter with the utmost care; it was the sole bridge between you and her."

"Mo'er, do you know when the only time she ever lost her temper in the palace was? A servant took the letters you wrote to her and tossed them about wantonly, mocking her mercilessly. That was the first time she ever flew into a rage."

"Yet, what good did that do? Once a person lowers their head, they might never be able to stand up again. She was, after all, a fragile woman, a woman of that disposition. Maintaining her own innocence in that colossal imperial palace was already the absolute limit of what her utmost efforts could achieve."

"That day, that servant slapped her across the face. Isn't it laughable? Merely for the sake of a letter, she, dignified as a princess, willingly endured that slap. They were all laughing, mocking her."

"Take a guess, what was going through her mind at that very moment?"

"Months ago, the Xia Emperor passed away, and her only reliance in the palace was gone. How do you think those so-called half-siblings of hers treated her?"

"Lacking the protection of the late Xia Emperor, her days in the palace became even more unbearable. She even thought of escaping the palace to find you. The last letter she sent you—what she wrote about coming to find you was true; she genuinely wanted to rely on you."

"But ultimately, she failed. The previous Xia Emperor passed away, and the current Xia Emperor ascended the throne. Seduced by absolute power, the palace underwent a massive purge. As the favorite daughter of the late Xia Emperor, she was naturally marginalized and imprisoned in a small courtyard, robbed of her freedom and any connection to the outside world."

Jin Xuanzi recounted these events to Baili Mo detail by detail. These were things he deserved to know.

"Why, why did she never tell me any of this? Why! Why!" Baili Mo abruptly raised his head and shouted, roaring inside the tiny room. He no longer knew what kind of emotions were surging within his heart.

It hurt—it hurt so intensely, agonizingly much. He should have forgotten her; he ought to have forgotten her. He had made a promise to his junior sister, vowing to place the greater good above all else.

Yet now, Baili Mo discovered with a bitter irony that he had never forgotten her at all. He had always kept her locked away in the deepest recesses of his heart, buried until this very moment, when those feelings broke through the earth once more.

"There is no why, only that she loved you. It is as simple as that." The junior sister smiled with a trace of bitterness and sorrow. Watching her senior brother's agonizing expression, her own heart ached as if pierced by needles.

"After she had been imprisoned for several months, the current Xia Emperor suddenly sought her out. He told her she could leave the palace—leave this place that had become a nightmare for her—provided she accomplished one task for him."

"She was overjoyed at first. She thought those people had finally let her go, that she could finally be with you, little did she know those people were merely shoving her into yet another trap."

"The Xia Emperor demanded that she go through a marriage alliance, sending her off to the Northern Territory to become a person of that region. To better forge an alliance with the Northern Territory, the man who would marry her was Guyue Wu, the son of Guyue Hong, the chieftain of the Guyue tribe in the Northern Territory. That is a major tribe in the Northern Territory."

"An abandoned, spurned, and loathed princess who emerged from a place of ill repute naturally became the prime choice, didn't she?"

"She wouldn't agree! How could she possibly agree!" Baili Mo clutched his head, suddenly realizing he could feel such profound agony, hurting to the point of being unable to breathe.

"Yes, she originally refused. But what good did that do? She was nothing more than a puppet at the mercy of others—a fragile woman whom anyone in the palace could bully. Even if she was a princess of the Xia Dynasty, what of it? Her fate had been sealed long ago."

"Do you know why she came to find you in the end?" Jin Xuanzi asked, lowering his head to gaze deeply at Baili Mo.

"Why? Why didn't she ask me for help? I could clearly have helped her! I could clearly have saved her!" Baili Mo cried out in bewilderment, his face turning haggard and twisted.

"Mo'er, if you truly understood her, would you still utter such words? Or rather, have you ever truly tried to understand her? This thing called love is far more complex than the Dao of cultivation," Jin Xuanzi sighed, lost in some distant thought.

"That child chose to make a clean break with everything between you two because she wanted to protect you. What happened in the palace had made her realize that certain things must never be touched, and the internal affairs of the Great Xia Imperial Dynasty were far beyond what a raw youth like you could ever meddle in."

"That is why she came. That was the condition she laid down when she agreed to the Xia Emperor's demand: she wanted to see you one last time. She chose to sever ties with you face-to-face. From then on, she would be her, and you would be you, with no further intersection whatsoever. Her affairs would no longer have anything to do with you. That was what she wanted."

"On that day, you suffered, you shouted, numbing yourself with alcohol over and over again, behaving as ridiculously as a coward. You thought she no longer loved you, you thought her heart had changed."

"Yet what about the reality? In the places you could not see, how did that child weep her heart out? What kind of emotions was she enduring at that moment?"

"Daring to love yet unable to love, pushing the person she loved away with her own hands, hurling herself into the abyss with her own hands—everything she did was to protect you."

Jin Xuanzi's voice was exceedingly soft, yet every single word that left his lips fell like a massive hammer, striking Baili Mo's body and heart over and over again until it was suffocating.