Chapter 25 · Survival Menu - Chapter 25: The Second Dish in Blood

The blood was still wet on the page.

I stared at the words. The Third Prince's mother killed the empress. My hands shook. The recipe book burned hot in my grip, like it wanted to get away from me.

Yan Xiao stood three feet back. His face was blank. Too blank.

"Say something," he said.

I couldn't. Not because of the mute act. Because my brain had stopped working.

His mother killed the empress. My mother died for it. And he'd known. He had to have known.

I threw the book at his chest.

He caught it. Didn't even flinch. Just held it there, blood smearing on his palm.

"I didn't write it," he said.

"But you knew." I signed it fast, angry. My hands were clumsy. I didn't care.

He looked at me. Really looked. His jaw worked. Then he pulled his collar open.

A scar ran from his collarbone to his sternum. Old. Puckered. The kind you got from something hot and deliberate.

"I was nine," he said. "I watched them burn her alive."

I stopped breathing.

"She confessed," he said. "In front of the entire court. She said she poisoned the empress.