[TCFO] Arc 1 — Chapter 68.1

Big Brother’s Epilogue I

On Mount Snowdrop, Lan Ziyu sat muddled and haggard, holding the body of a corpse that had grown cold and stiff. But he held Lan Min with unusual gentleness, as if the person in his arms was not dead but sleeping.

But the blackened bloodstains on her clothes let everyone know that the soft woman who had followed Lan Ziyu into the battlefield and finally sacrificed her life to protect the Emperor of the Lan Kingdom was the only Princess of the Lan Kingdom!

And she was already dead ....

But what was clearer in everyone’s eyes was that this dead Princess was more important to the Emperor of the Lan Kingdom than his life. The smell of blood in the air could not be masked despite the days of cleaning up the corpses and blood around them.

All those who were with Lan Ziyu in the ambush knew that on that day, their coldest and most indifferent Emperor, like a madman, hugged a woman who was dying and cried out in despair. And that woman, so righteously, blocked the poisoned arrow that was shot at Lan Ziyu when no one else reacted.

But did the woman not anticipate that the arrow would not only kill her but also drive the Emperor to madness with her death?

On that day, many people died, not only the enemy’s but also their own. Those guards who failed to protect Lan Min were sliced like melons by Lan Ziyu, one by one, ruthlessly, like a red-eyed beast.

There was only pain!

Only when Lan Ziyu fell and passed out, did the guards behind him dare to come out and carry him out of the sea of blood.

When he found Lan Min’s body in the pile of the dead, her coat was already red with blood, and Lan Ziyu, dressed in white, carried Lan Min, who was covered in blood, back to Mount Snowdrop, where he sat for three days!

He did not eat, did not drink, did not sleep, did not move, and his eyes were full of despair and death as if Lan Ziyu had died instead of Lan Min.

”Firstly, I want you to unify the three kingdoms and become the absolute King. And then I’ll take the kingdoms as your dowry to marry me! Secondly, I want you to unify the three kingdoms and find the silk and the flower to make me the only wedding dress in the world. Thirdly, our bloodline prevents us from having children, so I want you to raise an heir to the Lan kingdom like yourself and never let the kingdom fall into the hands of a foreigner! I want to be the Empress Dowager and your wife even after I die! If you don’t promise me, you and I will never meet again in the Yellow Springs for the rest of our lives!”

Lan Ziyu’s heart was already aching to the point that he could not feel it anymore, and his ears seemed to be hallucinating. His mind was consumed with Lan Min and the sweetness of the past. The vow she had so resolutely sworn – originally, he’d thought that the statement of the Yellow Springs was absurdity. But now that he thought about it, why did he feel so ridiculous?

Why did happiness disappear so unexpectedly? When Lan Min suddenly rushed out that day, his heart felt ominous. But she had not a single piece of defence. Watching her slip away right in front of him, he could not even react to the shock.

When he reacted, she never woke up again. His heart, aching, could hardly breathe. With every beat, there accompanied cries of despair and throbbing pain.

He didn’t know how to relieve the heartbreaking pain, the suffocating desperation of breathing, other than to kill those who had caused Lan Min pain.

His mind went blank, except for the uncontrollable killing. Until the sudden pain in his head caused him to close his eyes. He closed his eyes and saw Lan Min lying quietly on the other side as if she was sleeping. Do you hate me that much?

That night, he had a dream, and the things in the dream were so clear: his cold self, the self who was cruel to the woman he loved, the self who watched the strange woman torment Lan Min into a pig, the self who eventually became a member of that disgusting woman’s harem and surrendered the kingdom of Lan to her...

When he woke up, he didn’t dare to go back to sleep because the dream of himself and Lan Min’s final cry of despair before she died made his body feel like it had fallen into an ice cave. That wasn’t him. He wouldn’t do that to Lan Min! It wasn’t him ...it wasn’t ...!

In the midst of his uncertainty, Lan Ziyu suddenly woke up from his coma in a frenzy, he then searched for Lan Min’s corpse like a madman and sat with her in his arms for three days...

In his dream, he and Lan Min met in the same place, but Lan Min had become another woman, the one who had made him sick in his dream!

For three days, what had once been a source of confusion for Lan Ziyu was now clear: the vow, the vow not to let the Lan kingdom fall into the hands of others...

Lan Ziyu hugged Lan Min’s body tighter, “Why, three days, why is your body still not warm ... Lan Min, that dream is our ... past life!”

He had never believed in ghosts and gods, but he suddenly felt that the world could be full of wonders, because in the dream before Lan Min died, she cried out in despair, “I hate you all, if there is an afterlife, I will make your life worse than death and never get everything you want....”

These words, like a magic spell, haunted Lan Ziyu. Lan Ziyu held Lan Min’s already a pale corpse. He was sometimes angry, sometimes crying, sometimes pleading, sometimes grieving, like a madman. “Lan Min, is this also your punishment for me? I was so scared. I really was, especially after I saw the dream of my past life. How could I live in a world without you? Life is like death, but I can’t ask to die... You are more cruel than I am!”

The more he spoke, the more Lan Ziyu buried his face in the side of Lan Min’s neck. His body bowed and trembled terribly.

”LAN MIN!”

The grief-stricken cry reached the ears of everyone behind him. The people who heard it couldn’t help but reddened their eyes: what a desperate cry!

Anyone who heard his desperation would know that this person’s heart was already dead!

What could be more painful than to live like a corpse without love?

The guards behind him looked at the man who was always so sure of himself - the man who seemed to have everything in his chest and his palm; the man who had always been the only Emperor... they had never seen him lose his temper like that before.

The three days of water and food deprivation had caused him to shake his body, but he still stood up proudly like the master of heaven and earth. But they didn’t know if it was an illusion. They saw only in their Emperor loneliness, pain, and eternal despair…

...and a lifeless soul!

Could it be that the death of the Princess had really turned this cold, haughty, unbeatable Emperor into what he was now – as if the world would be forever reduced to a human hell with the death of the Princess...

Time passed in the bloody war, and no one knew that there was a bloodthirsty and warlike Emperor in the Lan Kingdom.

The year after the death of the Princess, the Lan Kingdom struck at its neighbouring kingdom unexpectedly but with good reason. For it was at the hands of their Prime Minister that Princess Lan Min died.

So it was only a matter of time before the neighbouring kingdoms were destroyed. With successive wars, a rich treasury, and an excellent geographical location, plus the unification of the three kingdoms, which Lan Ziyu had been planning, Lan Min’s death only brought things forward...

Ten years ago, Lan Ziyu was sitting on top of the world, and his subordinates were powerful tigers, each of whom was a tiger that he personally bred up. They were also his confidants who had stayed with him since he was a child, and they were also the secrets that the Lan clan could not reveal. But in order to make up for the immature attack plan, or Lan Ziyu’s desperate bet, he released the bloodthirsty wolves...

And he was the absolute wolf lord, the absolute Emperor!