She tightened her grip on Bai Zhi, her tear-filled eyes flicking back towards the gilded front doors.
"I want to leave," she whispered hoarsely, her voice trembling with exhausted finality. "Let me leave… or I will kill her… I will… I have nothing left to lose anymore…" her parents were gone, and the only family she ever had Shen Xuan no longer was her son, he had become someone else's.
And as the guards shifted uneasily, as Bai Zhi sobbed helplessly against her grip, and as Shen Xuan curled into a silent ball of broken sobs on the marble floor…
Yueyao realised for the first time:
She truly didn't care what happened to her anymore.
She just wanted it all to end.
Bai Zhi whimpered softly under her grip, her tears soaking the thin fabric of Yueyao's sleeve. Her entire body trembled with terror as the blade pressed deeper against her throat, a thin line of blood dripping down her pale skin.
"Please… Yueyao… please don't do this…"
Don't do this… don't do this…
