Free Web NovelChapter 279: Chapter 279: The Fall of the First Queen’s Legacy
Yue Yue watched, her heart hammering against her ribs, as the scene shifted into a cold, dimly lit bedroom.
She saw Ruoxi sleeping peacefully, her white rabbit ears relaxed. Beside her, Fang Yan sat in a chair, leaning his head against the edge of the bed, ever the silent guardian even in sleep.
Then, a shadow moved. It was not a monster or a beast; it was a blur of movement, a weapon that left no scent and made no sound. It was an assassination so perfect that the air did not even ripple.
Yue Yue tried to scream, to warn them, but she was just a ghost in a vision. She watched as a blade of pure, concentrated energy pierced Ruoxi’s heart and Fang Yan’s throat in a single, lightning fast strike. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
They died instantly. In their final, instinctive moments, their hands found each other. Fang Yan’s fingers curled around Ruoxi’s, and she died with her head tilted toward him.
The world was told they died of exhaustion, their souls spent from purifying the earth. The truth that they were murdered by those who wanted to seize the throne was buried beneath a mountain of flowers and fake tears.
Because Ruoxi had hidden her son so well, the world believed she had no heir. To maintain stability, the people turned to the only "kin" she had left: the younger phoenix brother, Fang Feng.
He was declared the Regent, the keeper of the Queen’s legacy. The historians wrote beautiful, tragic poems about Ruoxi and Fang Yan, calling them the "Twin Suns" who lived and died for love. They were buried in a single tomb, their statues forever locked in an embrace.
And then, when the mourning was at its loudest, a stranger appeared at the city gates.
He was tattered, his golden feathers broken and scarred, his eyes vacant and weary. Xing Li Wei had finally crawled his way out of the deepest, most twisted polluted zone in existence. He had survived things that would drive a god insane, all to return to the rabbit girl who had once beaten him with her small fists.
But he did not find a girl with rabbit ears waiting for him. He found a statue. He found a legend. And he found a world that looked at him with nothing but hatred.
"That is him!" a voice hissed in the crowd. "The one from the old records! The griffin who abandoned her!"
The greedy ministers, fearing this true husband would reclaim the Queen’s power, saw their chance. They spread a poison more lethal than any beast’s venom: slander.
"He did not just return," the rumors whispered. "He was here the night she died. He saw her with the Phoenix and his heart turned black with jealousy. He killed them both because he could not have her!"
The people, who worshipped Ruoxi like a goddess, turned into a mindless, screaming mob. Because they wanted a villain to blame for their grief.
Yue Yue watched in horror as Xing Li Wei was dragged through the streets of the empire he had helped his wife dream of. He did not fight back. He did not even speak. When he heard that Ruoxi was dead, the light in his eyes simply went out. To him, the world was already over; it did not matter what they did to his body.
He was executed in the grand square, beneath the towering statue of Ruoxi and Fang Yan.
His wings were torn from his back. His blood stained the white stones of the capital. He died looking up at the sky, his lips moving silently, forming the name Ruoxi one last time.
The "traitor" was dead. The "lover" was buried with the Queen. And the true son of the empire remained hidden in the shadows of a distant village, his lineage forgotten by a world that preferred a beautiful lie over a tragic truth.
A small, hooded figure emerged from the shadows.
He was young, but he walked with a heavy, steady gait that did not belong to a child. As he pushed back his hood, the moonlight hit his face.
Yue Yue gasped. He was the perfect image of Xing Li Wei, but with a gaze so sharp and cold it could cut through stone.
This was Xing Yan. The hidden prince.
With a strength that seemed fueled by a quiet, burning rage, the boy dragged his father’s body toward the royal cemetery. He did not go to the grand, golden gates.
Instead, he dug a hole in the rough earth directly in front of the magnificent tomb where Ruoxi and Fang Yan lay.
He buried his father there...not beside her as a husband, but in front of her, like a guardian who was still being forced to watch over a woman who had "belonged" to someone else in the eyes of history. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Once the last shovelful of dirt was placed, Xing Yan knelt. He did not cry. He did not scream. He stayed there for hours, his knees sinking into the soil, his eyes fixed on the mound of dirt.
Finally, he stood up. He turned his back on the grand statue of his mother and the Phoenix, never giving it a single glance. His heart had no room for the queen the world worshipped; he only had room for the broken man who had died for a lie.
"Father," his voice was a low, chilling rasp. "I hope you can have a good life in another world. Do not look back at this one. It was not worth your light."
Without another word, he walked away, his small figure disappearing into the darkness of the trees. He was leaving behind the empire, the crown, and the bloodline, carrying only a deep, silent hatred that would likely burn for generations.
As soon as his footsteps faded, the air around the graves changed.
A sudden, violent wind whipped through the cemetery. Yue Yue watched in terror as the white lilies on Ruoxi’s grave...flowers that were supposed to never wither instantly turned black and shriveled into ash.
The ground began to tremble.
From deep beneath the earth, a sound arose. It was not a voice, but a deep, rhythmic, heavy thud.
It sounded like someone beating their fists against a coffin lid.
In the vision, the white marble of the tomb began to crack. The "Twin Suns" statue of Ruoxi and Fang Yan split down the middle, the stone faces twisting into expressions of agony.
They were not resting in peace. They were screaming in the silence of the grave.
They had been murdered. Their son had been discarded. Their names had been used to build a throne of lies. And most of all, Ruoxi’s soul seemed to be thrashing in the dark, reaching for the husband who had been executed in her name, unable to reach him through the layers of earth and deception.
The "Perfect Empire" was built on a foundation of restless, angry spirits who were never meant to die.
Yue Yue could not take it anymore. The sight of the little boy’s cold eyes, the broken body of the loyal griffin, and the terrifying shaking of the Queen’s grave broke her spirit.
She collapsed to her knees within the vision, her hands over her ears to block out the sound of the dead clawing at the earth.
"Stop it... please, stop it!" she sobbed, the tears streaming down her face, feeling real and hot.
The tragedy was too heavy. The unfairness of it, the way love had been twisted into a weapon to destroy the very people who created the world, felt like a physical weight on her chest.
As she wept, the vision began to shatter like glass, the dark, angry energy of the cemetery swallowing everything until there was only the sound of her own heartbeat and the lingering scent of withered lilies.
