Chapter 476: Their private affair, and the monk commits murder!

Jiaoguan: "No!"

"I have never had even a shred of true feeling for you!"

"Zongzheng Zhiyan, do you know? I have only ever felt loathing for you!"

"I loathe how you shamelessly keep casting those sticky, lecherous glances upon me."

"Even after all these years, in my heart you don't even measure up to a single hair of Yue'er!"

"In my heart she is the radiant stars and bright moon, while you are nothing but a rat in a gutter!"

"Yue'er is open and upright, sincere and frank. Yet you, from childhood, have envied and hated her—her looks, her talent, everything surpassing yours. You also resent how your imperial brother dotes on her alone as his sister."

"How many traps have you set for her, how many times have you framed her? Do you really think I know nothing?"

"Compared to her, you are merely bringing disgrace upon yourself!"

Saying this, Jiaoguan struck with a palm and fiercely shoved Zongzheng Zhiyan to the ground.

Zongzheng Zhiyan lay sprawled, helpless and motionless; after a long while she finally gave a bitter laugh.

Then her laughter grew louder and louder, yet listening to it carried an endless taste of sorrow.

She lifted her head again, her face streaked with tears.

Zongzheng Zhiyan looked at Jiaoguan with resentment and asked, "Since you despise me so much, and truly are deeply enamored of her, Zongzheng Qingyue—so much that you even became a monk for her sake—why, on that night seventeen years ago, did you indulge yourself all night with me, Zongzheng Zhiyan, in the meditation chamber of this Ningyuan Temple?"

"Is this your so-called deep affection?"

"Is this the devoted heart you claim to keep?"

"Xie Huaiyuan, you are nothing but a hypocrite!"

Jiaoguan flung aside the prayer beads in his hand, lunged forward, and kicked Zongzheng Zhiyan hard in the body.

"I told you to shut up, shut up!!"

"That night seventeen years ago, you deliberately put poison in my tea."

"Even so, the name I cried out with my mouth was Yue'er's!"

"In my dazed vision, the person I saw was her— not you!"

"You disgust me, you vile woman!"

He raved like a madman, striking and cursing at the princess.

The airs of the senior monk he had maintained for over twenty years vanished completely at this moment.

He truly became the twisted, repressed demon lurking in his heart.

Zongzheng Zhiyan screamed a few times, tried to crawl up, but Jiaoguan kept stepping on her with his feet.

She wanted to shout for help, but the guards had long been sent far away by her; now even if she screamed herself hoarse, no one would come to her rescue.

And she, who had lived in luxury and high status for so many years, had always been the one who struck, cursed, and called for death upon others—when had she ever suffered such treatment herself?

Even if she still loved Xie Huaiyuan, at this moment hatred began to stir in her heart: "I told you! I told you!"

"Back when you pursued Yue'er, before her you were like a dog, timidly begging for her love."

"But Yue'er, Zongzheng Qingyue, does not know what a sly, selfish scoundrel you truly are in private!"

"While your soul was utterly captivated by her, you secretly came to flirt with me."

"Some obvious gestures made me secretly favor you, yet you kept saying it was merely the courtesy of a subject!"

"Xie Huaiyuan, you are nothing but a two-faced, treacherous wretch!"

"Do you really think Zongzheng Qingyue doesn't know that it was you who personally shoved her onto that man's bed back then?"

She then threw back her head and let out a wild laugh: "She has known all along!"

"That is why she resolutely chose to marry into DaLiang as an alliance princess to preserve her purity."

"I even have to thank you, Brother Huaiyuan; otherwise, it would have been me sent off in that marriage alliance back then!"

"It was you and that man who drove her to a dead end—what right do you have now to blame me?"

"You won her heart, yet you don't cherish it, and you hypocritically came here to Ningyuan Temple to become a monk, even sculpting her likeness, Zongzheng Qingyue's, into a Guanyin statue—you are simply defiling the Buddhist gate!"

Jiaoguan listened to her heart‑piercing tirades, and instead grew utterly calm.

He picked up the prayer beads from the ground.

Suddenly he knelt and moved forward, pressing Zongzheng Zhiyan between his legs, then lifted the long string of beads in his hand and swiftly wound it around her neck.

In her shocked gaze, struggling to break free, he expressionlessly tightened the bead string.

"You intend to kill to silence her?"

Suddenly a sound, faint as if present and absent, came from behind the Guanyin statue.

Jiaoguan jerked his head up, his scarlet eyes fixed on the face of the Guanyin.

Again a faint sigh, as if there and not there, emanated from the statue.

This time Jiaoguan was startled badly, turned, and fell sitting on the ground.

"She, she spoke!"

Jiaoguan's face turned completely white.

Meanwhile Zongzheng Zhiyan clutched her throat and quickly tore off the beads; she lay on the ground, coughing violently, and only after a long while did she truly feel she was still alive.

He actually... really wanted to kill her?

"Xie Huaiyuan, what a ruthless heart you have!"

She pointed at him and burst into shrill tears.

Just then, the door was suddenly kicked open from outside with a tremendous "Bang!"

Prince Consort Zhang Tingji stood at the doorway with a grim face, staring at the two inside.

Upon seeing his appearance, Zongzheng Zhiyan's face instantly filled with terror.

"You, you—how could you be here? How long have you been here?"

"You—have you heard anything?"

Zhang Tinggui stepped in.

A look of urgency on his face.

"Princess, are you all right?"

"What happened?"

"I heard the princess calling for rescue from afar, so I came here recklessly."

"Did I… disturb the two of you?"

Zhang Tinggui's puzzled gaze flickered between the two, especially noting that Zongzheng Zhiyuan's neck was still wrapped with the abbot Jia Guan's prayer beads.

Why would such an intimate thing appear on his body?

His doubt caused a flash of guilt to pass through Zongzheng Zhiyuan's eyes.

"You, you ask so many—what for?"

"Just now, I merely asked the abbot to perform a transference for the child we lost in utero back then."

"That made my emotions flare a bit."

"Now it's fine; quickly help me up and let's leave."

Zhang Tinggui seemed unwilling to ask further, lifted Zongzheng Zhiyuan and left the Guanyin Hall.

Only while descending the steps did he suddenly turn back to glance at the man inside the hall, cloaked in a kasaya, eyes closed, silent.

At that moment, Zhang Tinggui's eyes were filled with bitter hatred.

Xie Huaiyuan, so my daughter turned out to be your offspring!

You two indeed have an affair!

What can be endured, what cannot?

Your insults toward me, Zhang Tinggui, I will make you repay a hundredfold!

After the princess and her husband left, Jia Guan suddenly knelt on a mat before the Guanyin statue.

"Yue Er, you have come back to see me?"

"If you can truly speak, could you say another sentence for me to hear?"

However, the hall was dead silent, only the wind rustling through the hall could be heard.

Jia Guan lowered his brows dejectedly: "I know you still resent me."

"But just now, it wasn't my illusion, was it?"

"Had you not spoken to stop me, I would have certainly broken the killing taboo."

"More than twenty years have passed… the events of that year have actually passed twenty‑six years."

"When you were alive, I recited sutras and prayed for you every day."

"Now that you are dead, I recite sutras to release you every day."

"Yet you still hate me!"

"That incident back then—didn't you ultimately keep your own innocence? Could I be that unforgivable?"

"Being locked in this Ningyuan Temple, never allowed to step out for life. That is already my punishment; are you still not satisfied?"

"I know no matter how many sutras I chant, I am unworthy of your forgiveness, but Yue Er, you won't even come to my dreams for a single day; I truly cannot accept that—"