Volume One Chapter 1 Three Years Apart: A Reunion with a Chokehold

Southern City

All the high-end villas of the Southern City cluster on the slopes of the southern mountain.

Night had fallen. The rain poured down in fine, needling sheets, cloaking the winding mountainside road in a desolate, chilling solitude.

At that moment, a jet-black Maybach descended from mid-mountain, snaking down the road.

Its dazzling headlights illuminated the gloom, turning night into day—and revealing, with stark clarity, the woman sprawled on the ground, her body drenched in blood.

A screech of brakes shattered the silence, echoing down the empty road.

The Maybach’s nose halted just short of the woman’s body. A single step further, and she would have been crushed beneath its wheels.

With a soft click, the car door swung open.

A man stepped out, his black suit cut flawlessly to his form, merging with the darkness and rain. He held a broad black umbrella, its canopy cleverly shadowing his face, leaving only the slender, upright line of his back to be seen. Even through the curtain of rain, the aura of nobility and authority about him was unmistakable.

His steps were unsteady, wavering slightly, until he stopped abruptly a mere pace from the woman lying on the ground. One inch further and his shoes would have trod on blood mingled with rainwater.

Raindrops beaded across the broad expanse of the umbrella.

Lu Yanci bent one knee, slowly crouching beside the corpse.

Lowering his gaze, his eyes—cold and utterly devoid of warmth—fell upon the woman’s ashen face.

It was her.

The girl the Xie family had pampered for fifteen years, the false heiress he had cherished like a princess for a decade, vowing to marry her and no other.

But now, she belonged to someone else.

A quiet, bitter laugh slipped from his lips—half mocking, half pained.

He remembered, three days ago, waking with great difficulty from his sickbed. The first person to flash through his mind had been this very woman.

Yet he had been told that two years ago, she had abandoned him in his illness and married a man named Fu Lingzhou.

Now, looking at her lying there, her face white and wretched, his heart was as stagnant as dead water, not a ripple of emotion within it, as if she were nothing more than a trivial figure from memory.

After a long silence, Lu Yanci pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose, the flicker of his gaze sweeping into the darkness.

“Rest easy. For the sake of the years we grew up together, I’ll grant you and that man your wish—let you share the same bed in life, and the same tomb in death. Runaway lovers, together even in the afterlife.”

With that, he straightened, preparing to leave.

But just then, Xie Wanning—her death seemingly reversed—suddenly snapped open her eyes.

Her eyelids flew up, a sharp, piercing light gleaming from within, like a newly unsheathed blade brimming with lethal menace.

Almost reflexively, Xie Wanning’s hand shot out to seize the man’s calf, yanking him backward with a forceful jerk.

Caught off guard, Lu Yanci felt a sudden pain in his leg and, in the next second, toppled helplessly to the ground.

The black umbrella arced through the air before crashing heavily onto the asphalt.

Before he could react, Lu Yanci felt a weight at his waist, followed by a hand as unyielding as iron clamping down on his throat.

A voice, thick with threat, rang out above him.

“Save me.”

“Otherwise—” Xie Wanning’s grip tightened, her eyes narrowing to slits, wild and desperate as a beast at death’s door. “I’ll kill you myself!”

“What did you say?” Lu Yanci’s eyes, deep and fathomless, locked onto the woman now straddling his waist, her hands at his throat.

“Enough talk.” The murderous glint in Xie Wanning’s eyes deepened, her grip unrelenting. “Take me to a clinic, now!”

The suffocating pressure from his constricted airway made Lu Yanci realize that if he refused, this woman would truly strangle him on the spot.

She still wanted to kill him?

A surge of nameless fury blazed in Lu Yanci’s eyes.

“Three years apart, and you seem to have forgotten—I detest being threatened above all else.”

As he spoke, Lu Yanci seized Xie Wanning’s shoulders in a vice-like grip.

With one powerful motion, he flipped her over, his strength utterly irresistible.

In a flash, their positions were reversed.

“Xie Wanning, do you think I wouldn’t kill you?”

Now his voice, low and chilling, sounded above her.

The world spun around her. Xie Wanning’s head throbbed painfully, and a rush of unfamiliar memories surged into her mind.

Gritting her teeth, she glared at the stranger pinning her to the ground.

Through his gold-rimmed glasses, she saw a face of devastating beauty—short hair scattered across his brow, eyebrows as sharp as a mountain ridge, his eyes dark as a silent winter pool, scattered with starlight. His nose was straight, his lips thin and perfectly shaped.

But his gaze burned with anger, edged in danger.

Suddenly, she caught a flash of purple light at his brow.

“That’s the Imperial Star’s aura!”

A gasp escaped Xie Wanning as shock widened her eyes.

She quickly noticed that the purple aura surrounding him was tightly bound by a dark, ominous energy, like chains, weakening his fate and dimming the imperial radiance.

If that evil aura wasn’t dispelled, the Imperial Star’s light would soon be consumed entirely.

Feeling the grip on her throat tightening, Xie Wanning stared into his eyes and forced out a hoarse sentence.

“You’re carrying a malignant energy. If I’m not mistaken, you suffer inhuman torments every night… If it’s not purged, you’re as good as dead.”

At her brazen words, Lu Yanci’s pupils shrank, shock and turmoil roaring through his heart.

His hand unconsciously tightened on her throat, hauling her closer.

They were so near that the coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils, making him frown.

“How do you know this?” His gaze was sharp as a blade, boring into her.

Their eyes clashed, sparks flying.

The silence around them was suffocating, the air heavy and cold as ice.

Though her voice was weak, Xie Wanning’s tone was laced with an undeniable authority: “If you don’t want to be devoured by that evil energy, kill me now. Once I’m dead, there’s no one left in this world who can save you.”

Lu Yanci’s eyes narrowed, their depths as black as night, as if trying to see through her completely.

“You’re not Xie Wanning,” he said, a dangerous glint flashing in his gaze. “Who are you?”

“You brat, let me go!” Xie Wanning’s face flushed red, her eyes rolling back—she felt she might lose consciousness at any moment.

She coughed violently just as she thought she was finished, when he suddenly released her. Bereft of support, she collapsed limply to the ground.

A strange sensation trickled through her—the faintest trace of the imperial aura seemed to pass from him to her as he grasped her.

When he let go, the connection severed, and her vision spun wildly.

His imperial aura was actually sustaining her life.

Panting faintly, Xie Wanning, though cornered, retained her proud and unyielding spirit. “You had best pray for my survival, or you won’t live either.”

“Heh, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone on the brink of death so full of bravado when begging to be saved.”

Lu Yanci snorted, his tone mocking.

Forcing herself upright, Xie Wanning lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with unwavering resolve. “Beg? I have never stooped to begging anyone—I only issue orders.”

Her voice was steely, brooking no argument.

Lu Yanci was left speechless, staring at her in astonishment.

A moment later, he could not help but laugh again—this time, clearly out of exasperation.

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