AUBTN -Chapter 339 A Total Loss

The spacious mourning hall echoed for a long time with Xiao Yuyao’s words.

【This is freaking heartbreaking and freaking inspiring at the same time! What kind of human suffering is this?!】

Yu Qing bit down hard on her lower lip, barely stopping herself from bursting into tears on the spot.

【What an absolute trash father! Just to pave the way for his son, he didn’t even care about his own daughter’s life! If this were modern times, I’d absolutely drag him to court for attempted murder!】

Standing nearby, Lu Yan’s usually cold, iron-like expression twitched slightly.

The hand gripping his embroidered spring saber unconsciously loosened a little.

For some reason, hearing those outrageously rebellious thoughts in her mind actually felt strangely satisfying.

On the other side, Su Hewan still maintained her calm and detached demeanor, her cool gaze quietly fixed on Xiao Yuyao.

【So the saying that feudal traditions devour people really is true. If Xiao Yuyao had been born in modern times, with her courage and strategic brilliance, she would’ve become some unstoppable warrior queen. What a pity… she was born in an era where even her talent was considered a crime.】

Su Hewan sighed silently in her heart.

In the silence, a slow clap suddenly rang out.

Shen Jue’s slender fingers tapped lightly together, dark emotions swirling within his phoenix eyes.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze casually sweeping across Su Hewan’s composed profile.

Warrior queen? Era?

The words in this woman’s head were always so strange… yet somehow startlingly perceptive.

Shen Jue withdrew his gaze and looked toward Xiao Yuyao.

“Fourth Miss Xiao’s confession is truly enough to move listeners to tears,” he said leisurely. “Unfortunately…”

He deliberately paused.

“Unfortunately, the people who most needed to hear those words… were not us.”

The moment Shen Jue finished speaking, heavy breathing suddenly came from behind the screen on the right side of the mourning hall.

A tall figure stepped out from the shadows.

Xiao Yuyao trembled violently, her eyes widening.

“General Lin?”

This battle-hardened general, who had killed countless enemies without blinking on the battlefield, now had bloodshot eyes.

He stared at the young woman dressed in mourning before him, his gaze filled with shock, heartbreak, regret, and disbelief.

It turned out that tonight, Shen Jue and Lu Yan had laid a layered trap.

Not only had they brought Su Hewan and Yu Qing to break through Xiao Yuyao’s psychological defenses, they had secretly invited Lin Wei as well, forcing him to personally hear the truth behind the murder!

Lin Wei walked up to Xiao Yuyao and suddenly dropped to his knees with a heavy thud.

“Fourth Miss…” His voice was hoarse.

“That battle at Black Wind Pass back then… the young commander who led eight hundred light cavalry on a hundred-li night raid to burn the barbarian army’s grain supplies… that person was really you?”

He lifted his head to look at her.

The young commander in the military camp who always wore half a silver mask, whose frail appearance hid a genius-level mastery of warfare.

The prodigy who never appeared at victory banquets, whom the Prince of Zhennan always claimed was ill and resting behind the scenes…

So it hadn’t been some illegitimate son raised outside the family.

It had been the secluded Fourth Miss, who supposedly never stepped beyond the inner quarters.

Looking at Lin Wei kneeling before her, the manic fire in Xiao Yuyao’s eyes gradually faded, replaced by deep sorrow.

Suddenly, she laughed.

“So what if it was me? And so what if it wasn’t?” Xiao Yuyao staggered half a step backward, weakly leaning against the pillar beside the mourning banner.

“General Lin, you served my eldest brother for three years. Put your hand on your conscience and tell me honestly…”

“Did he deserve the title of Young Commander?”

Lin Wei shut his eyes in pain.

No one knew better than he did what kind of useless fool the Heir Apparent was!

Cowardly, greedy for life, and only good at armchair tactics—several times he had nearly led the entire army to annihilation!

So it turned out that from beginning to end, the morale of the three hundred thousand soldiers in the Southern Frontier had been thoroughly deceived by the Prince of Zhennan himself!

“That’s enough reminiscing.”

Lu Yan’s cold, hard voice shattered the tragic atmosphere.

He stepped forward and stared directly at Xiao Yuyao.

“Xiao Yuyao, the crime of patricide is already proven beyond doubt. Now tell me—where is the tiger tally?”

At the mention of the tiger tally, the mockery at the corner of Xiao Yuyao’s lips deepened once more.

Slowly, she turned and looked toward the massive golden nanmu coffin resting in the center of the mourning hall.

“You Jin Yiwei and Eastern Depot spies turned the entire manor upside down. You even searched through the mud at the bottom of the lotus pond. Yet you still couldn’t find the tiger tally.”

Step by step, dragging her weakened body behind her, Xiao Yuyao walked to the coffin and gently stroked the icy wood with her pale fingers.

“There’s a saying in military strategy: survive only after being driven into death ground. In this world, the most dangerous place is often the safest place.”

The moment those words fell, everyone in the hall changed expression.

【Holy shit! No way, no way! She hid the tiger tally inside the coffin? Sleeping beside that dead scumbag father of hers? I seriously respect her nerves of steel!】Yu Qing screamed internally, eyes wide as bronze bells.

Su Hewan’s gaze also landed on the coffin.

【Hiding in plain sight. Out of respect for the deceased—and because of ingrained assumptions—investigators would never casually disturb the body of the Prince of Zhennan after he had already been laid to rest. What a dangerous move. As expected of someone proficient in military strategy.】

Hearing this, an intrigued glint flashed through Shen Jue’s narrow eyes. Tilting his head toward Lu Yan, he said with a half-smile,

“Brother Lu, it seems you’ll have to trouble the late prince’s soul a little.”

Lu Yan let out a cold snort, ignoring Shen Jue’s sarcastic tone.

He strode forward, gathered force into his palm, and with a heavy bang, shoved the massive coffin lid open with one hand, forcing a narrow gap.

Without changing expression, Lu Yan reached into the coffin.

A moment later, when his hand emerged again, resting in his palm was a dark-golden military tally engraved with the image of a fierce tiger descending the mountain.

It was the supreme authority capable of commanding the three hundred thousand iron cavalry of the Southern Frontier!

All this time, it had been hidden inside the sleeve lining of Xiao Zhengnan’s burial robes!

“Found it.”

Lu Yan coldly displayed the tiger tally before everyone.

As Xiao Yuyao stared at the tiger tally—the very object she had schemed for so desperately, even willing to bear the infamy of murdering her own father to obtain—finally falling into the hands of the imperial hounds…

All her faith collapsed.

Eight years of chronic poisoning, the sword wound Lu Yan had inflicted on her the previous night, and the violent emotional upheaval of tonight had already pushed her body to the brink of total exhaustion.

Her knees gave out, and Xiao Yuyao collapsed heavily onto the prayer cushion.

“Fourth Miss!” Lin Wei cried out in alarm, trying to rush forward, only to be stopped cold by Lu Yan’s embroidered spring blade.

Xiao Yuyao waved her hand, refusing anyone’s approach.

She knew her path ended here.

The murder of a prince was a crime punishable by extermination of the entire clan.

Even if the emperor showed mercy, her ruined body would never survive this winter.

She had lost.

Lost to this damned world.

Lost to this unfair fate.

With great effort, Xiao Yuyao raised her head. Looking at Lin Wei, who was blocked only a few steps away, she suddenly composed herself and, gathering the last of her strength, bowed deeply toward this former subordinate of hers—the very pillar of the Southern Frontier.

“Miss! What are you doing?!” Lin Wei’s eyes split wide with anguish as tears burst from them.

“General Lin… in this life, Yuyao has already lost everything.”