The Obsessive Crown Prince Can't Let Me Go
Chapter 209 - 207: He Wants to Safely Reach Shen Yinning’s Side

Chapter 209: Chapter 207: He Wants to Safely Reach Shen Yinning’s Side

So easy to deceive...

Lu Ying clearly read her lips.

It turns out that tonight’s rendezvous had been a deception from beginning to end.

She had never intended to reconcile with him, to restore what was broken, never intended to prepare a New Year’s gift for him, nor had she wanted to walk together at the Lantern Festival and share a bowl of glutinous rice dumplings.

She had lured him here to kill him.

Firelight reflected off Lu Ying’s cold and desolate face.

His eyes were reddened as he gazed at the girl sitting in the palm of the Bodhisattva’s hand.

Under the blaze of the lanterns, her scarlet red cloak and crow-black tresses danced boldly in the cold wind, even the arcs of their movements exuded seduction and charm, like a masterpiece inked by an intoxicated artist—a beauty too extraordinary to belong to the mortal realm amid the sea of lantern lights.

Behind her, the towering Lamp Sea Bodhisattva emanated a compassion that transcended worldly sorrows.

She sat in the Bodhisattva’s flower-holding palm, like a mischievous fox who had done something wicked yet coquettishly sought shelter under the Buddhist emissary’s protection.

Delicate, spirited, stunning.

She had been his cherished treasure for the entire year, pampered and spoiled beyond measure. Every rare item he could procure—the money shop’s token, the emerald-encrusted jewelry, the finest silks and rarest Shu brocades—he had delivered to her without exception.

Even the East Pearl embellishing her Shu brocade shoes was something Shen Yunxi did not possess!

Yet she wanted him dead.

She wanted him dead...

He couldn’t understand; how could this woman be so heartless?

How could she desire to kill him?

The man’s throat swelled with bitterness.

It felt as though not the restaurant was burning, but his very liver and guts within his chest cavity; she had mercilessly set fire to him, igniting a blaze that scorched and consumed his innermost organs, the flames so intense they burned the bitter gall within him...

With the long wind flowing through the Capital, the resplendent fire grew even fiercer.

Civilians and the Imperial Guard took turns trying to put out the fire, but the water source was too far to extinguish the raging flames in time.

Shen Yinning sat within the Bodhisattva’s palm.

She overlooked the spreading fire below, her eyes gleaming with an uncanny light.

"Hahaha..."

"Hahahahaha..."

She laughed wildly, as if finding immense joy in the chaos.

Should Shen Yunxi and her group perish in the restaurant’s blaze, there would be no one left in the world to bully her ever again.

Her great vengeance would have been exacted at last.

If her father, elder brothers, and mother’s spirits in heaven were aware, surely they would rejoice.

She missed them dearly—her father, her mother, her elder brother...

A cold droplet of water quietly fell onto her cheek.

Had she begun to cry?

Shen Yinning raised her hand to wipe her tears away but found that the drops grew increasingly numerous and icy. These were not her own tears.

From the street below came the excited cries of the people:

"It’s raining, it’s raining!"

"Amitabha, heaven has intervened—this rain is truly timely!"

"..."

The drizzle fell from the skies over the Capital, aiding the Imperial Guard in dousing the fire, causing the once fearsome flames to weaken.

Lu Ying and Lu Shiyan’s trusted men, cloaked in soaking blankets, charged into the fiery ruins, pulling survivors out one by one.

Though many had fainted from inhaling smoke, the urgent rescue prevented any loss of life—even Madam Gao was spared, carefully carried out on a stretcher and rushed to a nearby medical clinic for treatment.

Shen Yinning stared at them in a daze.

It rained...

She had calculated so much, scheming against the heavens, the earth, and the hearts of men for countless days, yet she had failed to foresee tonight’s rain...

"It’s raining tonight, it’s raining tonight..."

She murmured to herself, then suddenly began to laugh, almost out of her mind.

As she laughed, tears ran down her cheeks in twin streams.

She raised her hands to wipe them away, but they only fell harder, like beads from a snapped string, soaking her garments.

It’s raining tonight...

Why would it rain tonight?

The girl’s laughter gradually degenerated into grief-stricken despair.

She tilted her head back to gaze at the lightless expanse of the night sky, rain mingling with tears in her eyes and streaming down upon her.

Soaked entirely through, she sat immobilized, like a spirit bird whose damp feathers rendered her incapable of flight.

Along the opulent streets of Gold and Jade Pavilion.

Shen Xinghan helped Shen Yan and Mrs. Qin into the returning carriage, then suddenly cast a sharp glance toward the Lamp Sea Bodhisattva in the northern part of the city.

In the palm of the Bodhisattva sat a girl.

The rain blurred her silhouette, yet faintly, through the haze, the contours of her figure suggested the arsonist from the restaurant, cloaked in red.

Firmly resolved not to let anyone go free, Shen Xinghan immediately pointed at her and shouted, "The culprit is sitting in the palm of the Lamp Sea Bodhisattva—what are you standing around for? Hurry, arrest her!"

With no time to waste owing to the severity of the matter, the Imperial Guard sprang into action, mobilizing a hundred men who surged forth like an undertow toward the Lamp Sea Bodhisattva.

Shen Yinning acted as though entirely unaware of her impending capture.

She rose to her feet and pulled out a firestarter from within her sleeve.

Her expression was strangely tranquil as she stared at the newly ignited flame, murmuring softly, "I am not at fault for failing tonight; it was heaven that refused to aid us. Father, Mother, Brother—it was heaven that betrayed me, heaven that betrayed me..."

The girl’s voice dwindled into an inaudible whisper.

She loosened her hold.

The flame fell straight down, igniting the entire Lamp Sea Bodhisattva!

The Bodhisattva, constructed with oil paper and wood, containing countless lit lanterns within, was even easier to set ablaze than the restaurant. A gust of wind fanned the flames, enlarging them until the entire structure erupted instantaneously into a roaring inferno!

From afar, Xue Ling furrowed his brows: "She wants to immolate herself?"

Self-immolation...

Lu Ying’s face was half-lit by the flames, half-shrouded in shadow.

He stared at the diminutive figure amidst the firelight, his heart aching violently as though seized in an unrelenting grasp, suffocating under the pain.

She wanted to immolate herself...

She hadn’t even properly explained why she wished to kill him, yet now she sought to end her own life...

He would not allow it!

Lu Ying abruptly whistled sharply.

A white horse streaked like lightning before him.

He mounted the horse in one swift motion, disregarding Xue Ling and the others calling out behind him, and galloped at breakneck speed toward the Lamp Sea Bodhisattva!

——This was none other than the famed Zhao Ye Jade Lion steed, entirely pearl-white without a single blemish! Look at its mane—finely spinning silken strands. Agile and fleet-footed, swift enough to traverse a thousand miles in a day, as the saying goes: "With a silver saddle upon a white horse, flying swift like a shooting star"—this Zhao Ye Jade Lion outruns even the stars across the twilight sky!

The chaotic scene caused by the fire along the noisy streets fell far behind the Zhao Ye Jade Lion’s dashing strides.

Lu Ying clutched tightly to the reins, his knuckles turning pallid and blue.

The rain blurred his sight.

Cold droplets lashed his face while the wind screamed past his ears; it felt as though all the forces of the storm were intent on stopping him from reaching the inferno ahead. Yet impervious to cold or pain, his eyes sought only the engulfed Lamp Sea Bodhisattva in the distance.

The fire spread voraciously; in mere moments, the massive sea of lanterns began to topple inward.

Civilians fled en masse, the surging crowd a cacophony of chaos.

The horse’s hooves thundered.

The white steed surged against the flow of people; swift as flashes too fleeting to catch, it darted through the rain, past lanterns of kaleidoscopic colors, and showed up just on the outskirts of the marketplace in the blink of an eye.

Lu Ying didn’t know whether Zhao Ye Jade Lion truly matched the speed of a falling star.

But he prayed for it to be faster, faster yet...

To take him safely to Shen Yinning’s side...

In the next instant, the Lamp Sea Bodhisattva collapsed in a thunderous blaze!

The snow-white horse materialized as a streak, neighing as it plunged straight into the sea of fire!

...

Shen Yinning stood atop the highest lamp rack.

Flames surrounded her.

She knew the Imperial Guard was closing in to arrest her.

There would be no escape for her.

Should they capture her, the fate awaiting her would be worse than death.

She discarded her crimson cloak fashioned from fire-washing cloth, leaving her clad in only a simple white diagonal-collared dress. Leisurely she wrapped half her dark hair with a jade hairpin as though oblivious to the raging inferno surrounding her, still poised and enchanting like a fox who had mistakenly wandered into the mortal realm.

She closed her eyes and leapt from the highest point.