Chapter 216

Chapter 216. The Silent Corridor

And yet, everything she was experiencing now was not a dream. It was real.

And the reality was that she truly was a demoness of the Ancient Royal Clan.

She was the scourge those people spoke of every day, a being everyone wanted to see cast down.

That thought was like the final straw that shattered Cailin’s last line of defense. She bit her lip, reached out, and gently pulled the door open.

Whether it was because she had used too little strength or too much, the hinge suddenly let out an extremely faint creak. In such a silent, deathly still night, the sound was especially clear.

At that instant, Cailin’s heart clenched violently. Her whole body froze in place. She did not even dare breathe, and both hands clutched tightly over her heart.

Nothing had ever made Cailin so terrified before.

Even back when Chu Feng had seized her vital weakness, she had only felt anger, never fear.

Cailin stood there for a long time, not daring to move. Only after making sure there was no further sound did she slowly come back to herself. Then she carefully turned her head to look at the attendants keeping watch through the night.

She saw two little palace maids and two little eunuchs sitting sprawled on the ground, slumped against the doorframe, sleeping so soundly that even an even rhythm of snores kept drifting out from them.

Cailin let out a breath of relief. Lightly and carefully, she stepped out the door, then cautiously pulled it shut behind her.

The moment the door closed, she seemed to hear something snap inside her heart.

Perhaps her heart had truly died completely.

At last, she had taken the first step.

Sometimes, taking the first step required the greatest courage. Once it was done, the road ahead naturally became much easier.

Before this, Cailin had felt as though she had never truly seen what the Great Chu Dynasty looked like.

Only now did she finally see it clearly. Outside the Palace Chambers was a long, long corridor, one that seemed to stretch on without end.

Lanterns hung on both sides of the corridor, and the candles inside had already burned more than halfway down. The already dim yellow glow swayed faintly in the night wind, making the corridor alternately bright and dark.

Barefoot, Cailin walked along the corridor. The pebbled path beneath her feet was especially cold, and it bit painfully into her soles. The chill shot straight from the bottoms of her feet into her heart, spreading along her bloodline to every limb and bone.

The stinging pain under her feet made her nose ache with bitterness, and with the flickering candlelight around her, the place felt all the more eerie.

Cailin looked down at her bare feet and frowned, not knowing why she had come out barefoot.

At first, it truly had been because she was afraid the sound of shoes would wake the little palace maids and little eunuchs. But now that she had already left her own Palace Chambers, why had she not brought her shoes with her?

If she truly managed to leave the Great Chu Dynasty, how were her little feet supposed to deal with the rough, uneven roads outside?

But there was no time to think about that now. Even if her feet were rubbed raw and bloody, she had to leave this place tonight.

The night wind swept past, lifting Cailin’s skirt and hair ornaments, and stirring the lanterns on both sides of the corridor. The candle flames swayed even more violently in the wind, like wronged souls crying out to the heavens.

The shifting light and shadow stretched her silhouette long across the ground until it seemed to merge completely with the darkness of the night.

As she walked, Cailin suddenly remembered that day from before.

Even now, she still remembered that it had been a night just like this. She and Chu Feng had walked side by side through this very corridor. He had held her hand, pointed at the stars in the sky, and said that the brightest one was her natal star.

Back then, Chu Feng had immediately drawn her into the topic, and she had taken the initiative to ask him why he knew so much.

And then Chu Feng had given an answer so shocking that she would never forget it: because the way that star looked at him was the same as the way she did.

Cailin still remembered how her face had turned red on the spot and how her heart had pounded wildly. Flushed with embarrassment, she had chased after Chu Feng, trying to hit him. He had run while laughing, and she had laughed as she chased him.

Those peals of laughter seemed as though they were still echoing beside her ears... Back then, with Chu Feng by her side, Cailin had not felt the slightest fear. She had not even noticed the problem with the candlelight.

But now, only she was left.

Cailin bit down hard. The immense sense of loss almost became too much for her to bear in an instant, yet she still had to stay strong and keep herself from crying.

She could not cry.

If she cried, she would not be able to leave.

Cailin kept repeating those words to herself in her heart, telling herself that she had to remember the suffering she had endured at all times. She absolutely could not let herself repeat the same mistakes.

Cailin truly forced herself awake in that instant. She quickened her pace and almost ran through the corridor.

At the end of the corridor should be the passage leading to the palace gate.

As long as she passed through that passage and went out through the palace gate, she would be able to leave this Imperial Palace.

Leave Chu Feng...

When that time came, no one would ever be able to call her a demoness again. No one would ever again be able to openly accuse her. No one would ever again be able to threaten Chu Feng into killing her.

The more Cailin thought about it, the more certain she became that this decision was absolutely the right one, and a bleak smile curved at the corners of her lips.

She felt that what she was doing was simply too right. It solved both of their problems.

Standing at the end of the corridor, Cailin turned back for a glance. Only then did she realize that, without noticing it, she had already come this far.

She was about to succeed!

The outline of the Palace Chambers was hazy in the night, like a dream on the verge of waking, exactly like her own life.

She suddenly remembered the first time Chu Feng had brought her to those Palace Chambers.

At that time, she had already been filled with humiliation, and nothing pleased her eyes. She had felt that everything there was a form of confinement imposed upon her. Yet Chu Feng had still used his actions, patiently and gently, to warm her.

The more she had hated this place back then, the more reluctant she was now to leave it.

Since ancient times, people had always said that humans were the most fickle of all. But who would have thought that the demonic beasts of the Ancient Royal Clan could be just as fickle?

At last, Cailin could no longer hold back her tears. They slid silently down her face, but she immediately raised her hand and wiped them away hard before turning and walking into the passage.

High palace walls stood on both sides of the passage, and vines climbed all across them, giving the place a kind of quiet beauty.

The moonlight could not reach this place. Here, there were only those swaying candle flames and those flickering shadows. Only from the distant palace gate did a trace of light faintly spill through.

Barefoot, Cailin relied on that dim light as she walked forward step by step.

Under her feet was still that same sharp pebbled path. The blue stone was freezing to the bone, stabbing into the soles of her feet like blades.

But Cailin had already walked for so long that she had long since grown used to this kind of pain beneath her feet.

The sound of her footsteps echoed through the empty passage. Though the sound was not loud, each step landed like a drumbeat striking against her heart.

Thud.

Every step felt like walking on the edge of a blade, painful beyond escape.

Every step carried her farther away from him.

She remembered the way Chu Feng had flicked the tip of her nose that day in the Imperial Garden.

The sunlight had actually been beautiful that day, spilling over him and gilding him in gold, as though he were a divine man who had stepped straight out of a painting.