He softly said, "You've really been put through the wringer these past few months, huh... What's it like to become a woman? Even the dayflower is identical to a woman's, how does it feel?"
"You..." Su Ziqiu's speech was stiff and she struggled to speak: "How exactly did you... manage to do this..."
"Hehe..."
Lin Yue sneered, took a small knife from the pouch around his waist, and gently cut the tip of his own index finger.
Immediately, he smeared a drop of blood that had just emerged from the wound onto her forehead.
Su Ziqiu was slightly taken aback, feeling only a bit of warmth on her forehead.
But in just an instant, that bit of warmth turned into a strong burning sensation, followed by a surging heat flow that continuously spread throughout her body!
In this intense heat, she felt as though her flesh and bones were about to melt, causing her consciousness to become muddled.
Lin Yue narrowed his eyes at Su Ziqiu.
At this moment, in his eyes, the smear of blood on Su Ziqiu's forehead was gradually disappearing, or rather, being absorbed.
And her body was undergoing strange changes visible to the naked eye.
Once the bloodstain had completely vanished, Lin Yue saw that Su Ziqiu's face seemed to molt, with a layer of keratin-like skin slowly peeling off her face.
And at the corner of her forehead, a small piece of reddish-white keratin skin was already starting to lift.
Lin Yue watched her expressionlessly, reached out to grab that small piece of skin at the forehead, and slowly tore it off.
Starting from the forehead, it was like peeling off a human skin mask, gradually unveiling the brows, eyes, nose, lips, all the way down to the chin.
In a few breaths, an entire translucent layer of skin was peeled from her face.
And she, or rather, he—
Had turned from a sickly beauty to a young man with pale skin and a nearly skeletal frame!
Not just the face, but the body had also completely changed, from the previously delicate stature of over six feet tall to a man's frame of over seven feet, including the swell that used to be the woman's chest, which had completely flattened.
The only thing that remained unchanged was the same skeletal thinness.
"Yo... long time no see."
Lin Yue casually pocketed the skin and squatted in front of the young man, a cold smile on his lips, "Mr. Xia Lie, Your Highness Xiahong Lie, it's been a long time since I have seen your honored visage, I really am..."
"Slap!!"
Xiahong Lie just felt darkness before his eyes, his cheek suddenly numb, stars bursting in his vision, his ears buzzing, and his upper body involuntarily crashing to the ground.
After a while, a fresh red handprint slowly emerged on his originally pale cheek, and from the corner of his mouth trickled a thread of crimson blood.
"...My hand was really itching."
Lin Yue flicked his wrist with a chuckle, saying cheerfully, "Previously, Your Highness, you took on the appearance of my wife, which really made me reluctant to strike, and I didn't dare to let you revert back in Qingdu, but now I've finally let off some steam."
Xiahong Lie spat out a mouthful of bloody spit, lying on the ground and staring at him, his speech slightly unclear, "I know you hate me to the core, kill or flay me, it's all the same to you."
"Is that so?"
Lin Yue chuckled, "Your Highness is now at the mercy of others, clearly wanting to live yet still able to say such things, you do have some backbone."
He casually grabbed Xiahong Lie's collar, lifted him from the ground, propped him against the stone wall, and then said, "Even though it's meaningless now, I still want to ask you a question, and I hope you will answer me truthfully."
Xiahong Lie licked the blood from the corner of his lips, then sneered, "I know what question you want to ask... Do you want to know why I killed Su Ziqiu?"
"I advise you not to provoke me."
Lin Yue's smile was icy as he watched him, "Otherwise, I will rack my brain to come up with many inhumane methods for you to thoroughly try."
Xiahong Lie was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Ask whatever you want to know."
"Then tell me," Lin Yue squinted his eyes, spoke slowly, "Why? Why was Su Ziqiu killed that day?"
He had never asked before.
Because he didn't want to hear those cruel answers while the other party still bore Su Ziqiu's appearance.
The world had already been cruel enough to her.
No parents, frail since childhood, few friends, and a life destined to be short—on that day, she had gathered the courage to bring food to him at the academy. She seemed happier watching him eat than if she herself had tasted the delicacies of the mountains and seas.
She simply wanted to experience the most basic form of happiness.
But in the end, what did she do wrong that even this simple happiness had to be stripped away?
Perhaps misfortune really does choose the weakest to break, bad luck always targeting the already suffering?
He only wanted to hear the most genuine answer when Xiahong Lie was Xiahong Lie.
"Why?"
Xiahong Lie looked at him weakly and said, "Do you, a man of such intelligence, really need an answer to such a question?"
Lin Yue was silent for a while, then spoke indifferently, "I don't need those fundamental or philosophical answers, I just want to understand the thoughts of someone like you, to avoid them in the future."
Xiahong Lie laughed, his smile filled with mockery and self-mockery, as if answering yet also repeating someone else's answer:
"She did nothing wrong, it was just that I couldn't bear the sight of her and killed her on a whim... just that simple. My killing her, what does it have to do with how much she suffered while living?"
Lin Yue narrowed his eyes and said slowly, "Merely because you couldn't bear the sight of her?"