With her deceased husband as her dowry, would Your Highness dare to marry her?

Xuanjing lowered his eyes, his fingertips still lingering on the prayer beads. After a long silence, he finally spoke: "This humble monk has witnessed the sincere heart of King Liang. I wish to stay by his side and pray for his well-being."

"A sincere heart?" Lin Ci didn't understand. "Where is the sincerity?"

"He never hides his desires and ambitions. He's much better than a two-faced person. You don't have to be afraid of him saying one thing to your face and another behind your back when you're with him."

Lin Ci smiled dismissively after hearing this. "You mean you're birds of a feather with the Prince of Liang?"

"Then what are you and Pei Jinxuan?" Xuan Jing raised her empty eyes, staring directly in her direction. "Adulterous couple?"

Lin Ci's face darkened. "You are also a well-read scholar. How can you speak so carelessly and insult someone's reputation?"

"Innocence?" Xuan Jing's lips slowly curled up, the smile growing colder with each passing moment. "What innocence do you have to speak of? Back in the bamboo hut, you and Song Xuan had an affair without any matchmaker or betrothal. What else could you be but a harlot? Now that you're at the Jing'an Prince's mansion, you must have put in quite a bit of effort, haven't you? No wonder Xiaoyaozi passed on all his life's medical skills to you. It seems you also used some underhanded methods in front of him."

"You are not allowed to insult my master!"

Enraged, Lin Ci suddenly mustered a burst of strength and rammed headfirst into him. Caught off guard, Xuan Jing was knocked to the ground like a clay Buddha falling to the ground, his back hitting the carriage wall with a dull thud.

Lin Ci was still not satisfied and opened her mouth to bite down hard on his shoulder.

Xuan Jing gasped in pain, and he raised his hand to push her away forcefully. Lin Ci, however, refused to let go, and a metallic, metallic taste instantly filled her mouth.

As he struggled, a sharp "ripping" sound rang out. A large hole was torn in the black monk's robe, revealing skin covered in wounds. The wounds overlapped, the result of repeated beatings, which had long since scabbed over into permanent scabs.

Xuan Jing's muscles tensed, and the granulation tissue twitched like a worm.

Lin Ci froze, and in that moment of dazed disbelief, Xuan Jing suddenly flipped her over, pinning her against the carriage floor. His eyes instantly blazed with fury, burning from the depths of his heart. He stared intently at Lin Ci's face, as if he wanted to devour her alive.

"You...you can see?!"

"Yes." Xuan Jing grinned maliciously, his handsome face twisted like a demon in the dim light. "I've always been able to see it. I just don't want to see the ugliness of this world! I don't want to see you hypocrites!"

Before he could finish speaking, he had already grabbed Lin Ci's throat, his knuckles tightening, veins bulging, filled with boundless hatred.

Lin Ci couldn't breathe and desperately tried to pry his hand open, her nails digging into the back of his hand, but he seemed not to feel the pain and didn't move an inch.

Lin Ci forced out a few words through gritted teeth, "I... have no grudge against you..."

"No grudge?!" Xuan Jing leaned down, his lips close to her ear, his voice forced from deep in his throat, tinged with blood and pain, "You stole my father! All your medical skills should have been mine!"

Daddy?

Lin Ci's mind went blank.

Could he be referring to his master?

But Master has passed away at over a hundred years old, and Xuanjing looks to be only in his early twenties, how could this be...?

wrong.

She suddenly raised her foot and kicked Xuan Jing hard in the stomach, sending him flying. She hissed, "What nonsense are you spouting! Don't you dare tarnish my master's reputation!"

Xuan Jing held her chin with one hand and pressed her against the car wall with such force that he almost crushed her face.

"He didn't tell you, did he? He didn't tell you he had another son, a son he fathered in his old age with a courtesan!"

Xuan Jing's eyes were ferocious, and every word was dug out from the darkest and deepest part of his heart, spreading out bloodily.

"What 'ghostly healer,' what 'carefree master'... He's nothing but a beast who abandons his promises after pulling up his pants! He treated me like dirt, discarded my mother like worn-out shoes, and even pretended not to recognize us, afraid of ruining his reputation. The world loves him, praises him, but they're all blind!"

Xuan Jing, like a wounded wild beast, trapped her in a small space. He was so close that she could see the reflection of fear in his eyes.

"Say what you just said again." Lin Ci's voice trembled, and her body shook.

Xuanjing leaned close to her ear again and said, word by word, "Your master, Xiaoyaozi, is my biological father. He is a beast who abandoned his wife and children."

Lin Ci stared wide-eyed, not even blinking. She couldn't believe her master would do such a thing.

"You're talking nonsense!" Lin Ci pushed Xuan Jing away forcefully. Xuan Jing was breathing rapidly, her face was flushed, and she was tense all over.

Xuan Jing chuckled as he looked at her, and it was this chuckle that calmed Lin Ci down. She thought for a moment, then met Xuan Jing's eyes, which were full of resentment, and her gaze gradually darkened.

Why should I believe you?

Xuan Jing stared intently at her, trying to find a certain shadow in her eyes.

"You really don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"When you were a child, Xiaoyaozi took you to a small temple in the mountains."

Lin Ci pondered deeply, and these words quietly pried open a corner of her long-sealed memories.

It seems that one late autumn, her master led her and Song Xuan to practice in a remote mountain temple. The abbot there was an old friend of her master's, and they spent their days discussing scriptures, playing chess, and drinking tea in the meditation room.

There was a young novice monk by the abbot's side. He was honest and quiet, but very diligent in his work. Later, she became familiar with the young novice monk, and the two of them secretly went to the back mountain to pick wild chestnuts.

Could he be that little novice monk?

Lin Ci raised her eyes and met Xuan Jing's otherworldly face.

Xuanjing suddenly laughed, his whole body shaking with laughter.

"You remember now, don't you? Back then, Xiaozi didn't even look at me, and you even asked him if he didn't like me?"

Lin Ci was speechless. This had indeed happened. She was young that year and felt that her kind and gentle master was very cold to this little novice monk, even stingy with his smile. She felt sorry for him and even shared some candied fruit with him.

Xuanjing's fingers descended from Lin Ci's face, a strange sadness creeping into his eyes. "Back then, you gave me candied fruit and played with me in the mountain stream, saying you'd come to see me again next autumn. I waited a year, a year, and another... Do you know how I've survived all these years?"

With a "rip," the cloth tore open. He ripped off his right arm of the monk's robe, revealing his entire arm covered in scars, one after another, evenly spaced.

Lin Ci could tell that these wounds were all caused by a dagger.

Xuanjing didn't take it seriously, raised his arm, revealing a burn scar the size of a copper coin on the inside of his elbow.

"My mother burned me." He ran his fingertips along the uneven, old marks. "She said I shouldn't have come into this world. She thought I was dirty."

Lin Ci opened his mouth, as if to say something, but swallowed the words back down.

Xuanjing's hand moved to his shoulder, where a fleshy bud lay horizontally. The moment his fingers touched it, the bud twitched slightly, as if it had come to life.

"Back then, whenever I did something wrong, my mother would carve a mark on my body. She said it was to remind me of the pain, and that I should be like my father, Xiaoyaozi, with noble character and be respected by all."

He slowly, very slowly, tore open the hem of his monk's robe. The sound of tearing silk was particularly jarring in the deathly silent carriage. More wounds were exposed, spreading from his shoulder to his waist, deep and shallow, new and old, layer upon layer, covering each other, leaving him practically covered in wounds.