Prologue
Knowing whom to go to
Prologue
That person also once slowly bowed before her, dressed in plain white, with hair flowing like a spring.
He told her that he would never leave her in this life, and would always be in front of her.
But that was just empty words.
Part 1
Ye Wuzhou first ascended the throne when the pear blossoms were in bloom, and the fallen petals covered the ground like snow, concealing the endless love and hatred in the world.
She was barely thirteen years old that year, still a young child, but she wore a phoenix crown and a phoenix robe, and sat in the most honoured and most lonely position in the world.
On the day she ascended the throne, the weather was beautiful, the ministers knelt in the hall, the nations of the world came to pay homage, and the mountains and rivers bowed to her.
But how many of them were sincere?
The young girl on the throne, still with the innocence of a child, curved her lips in a sneer beneath the tassels of her phoenix crown made of coral.
Wuzhou knew that everyone wanted her dead.
Because she has such crazy parents.
When she was young, her uncles and aunts praised her for having the face of a lotus flower at such a young age. But when she turned her head, she sneered and whispered two words: ‘Evil seed.’
Wuzhou’s mother was originally her father’s sister-in-law. In order to get that woman, her father killed his brother and slaughtered his ministers, and exiled his niece, who had not yet reached the age of one month, thousands of li away. When her mother was forcibly abducted into the palace, the bloodstains on the ground were still bright and fresh.
He kept the woman who had never spoken a word or smiled since the moment she entered the palace gates by his side for 15 years. On the night she died, he killed himself.
These were her parents.
What they saw with their eyes and loved in their hearts was never her, never her.
Neither her mother nor her father ever looked at her or embraced her.
So she understood that in this vast palace, no one was on her side except herself—including her parents.
In this world, all one can rely on is oneself alone.
As she thought so coldly, that person came before her.
At that time, there were distant lights in the palace courtyard, the night mist was heavy in the distance, and the man, dressed in plain clothes with black hair, slowly bowed to her, his thin figure having the curvature of a bamboo pole.
Then he said to her, ‘Your servant Ji Du will never forsake you in this life, and will always be in front of you.’
As he spoke, the young man’s black hair slid silently down his shoulders like a flowing spring. Wu Zhou was struck by how beautiful his voice was.
The child on the throne suddenly became childish. She jumped down and went to the young man, looking up at him. Jidu smiled and gently picked her up. Wu Zhou was stunned. Jidu smiled at her and asked if she was uncomfortable being held like this. She shook her head in confusion, grabbed the young man’s long black hair, and said softly, ‘Before you, no one has ever hugged me…’
After she finished speaking, she leaned into his arms with the unease of a small animal. She felt warm and comfortable, and a subtle sense of satisfaction spread across her beautiful face.
Could such trivial care make her happy? Jidu frowned slightly, then let out a soft sigh. She did not notice the warm compassion in the young man’s eyes, and instead asked him enthusiastically why he said he would never leave her in this life and would use his life for her.
Ji Du smiled and said, ‘That’s because I am your sacrificial messenger.’
As she said this, lamps were lit one after the other outside the palace, and the footsteps of palace maids and ministers came rushing. The attendants announced that the grand banquet would begin soon and invited the empress to attend.
She was reluctant to leave, but Ji Du smiled and let her down, bowed to her again, and repeated to her:
“I will never leave you in this life, and I will always be in front of you.’
Later, she realised the significance of the Imperial Sacrifice Officer to her.
The Imperial Sacrifice Officer was in charge of all the imperial sacrificial rites and was the highest priest in the vast empire.
When the new emperor ascended the throne, the Imperial Sacrifice Officer was replaced accordingly. When the emperor abdicated or passed away, the Imperial Sacrifice Officer also retired.
The ritualist is like a half-body to the emperor. Every generation of ritualists prays day and night for the emperor on the sacred mountain, praying for the emperor to live a long life and rule for a long time.
That night, after praying for her, according to the rules, the new emperor has already ascended the throne, so the ritualist should ascend the sacred mountain. From then on, unless there is a grand ceremony for a marriage, the establishment of an heir, abdication, or death, the ritualist will never leave the sacred mountain again.
The prime minister saw off Jidu, and Wuzhou stood on the palace walls, watching the convoy leave the capital in the night. His small, thin body was wrapped in a long robe with wide sleeves that fluttered in the night wind, almost as if he were about to be carried away by the wind.
As he watched the convoy finally disappear into the darkness, an indescribable feeling slowly rose in Wuzhou’s heart.
There was a subtle sense of melancholy, a faint sense of joy, and ultimately, peace of mind.
He would pray for her, for the rest of his life.
In this world, finally, there was someone who belonged to her, and only her.
That night, the wind was cold and the dew heavy, like falling snow.
At the time, some petals also fell onto her shoulders, so light they had no weight, as if they were the embrace of the God of Fortune.
For Muju, there was no blame, and it was the first warmth and first embrace in her life.
Thinking this, she turned back to face the young girl behind her, the minister’s attendant, but her face no longer had the slightest trace of the tenderness she had just felt. Instead, there was a strange, unruly expression that a child should not have.
She let out a long laugh and walked away.
From that day on, Wuzhou often received letters from Jidu on Mount Ling.
The first letters told her in detail, through astrology, which parts of the country were likely to have floods, and where there might be famine. Wuzhou scoffed and wrote back that these astrological results would come from Mount Ling every half month, so there was no need to write to her individually.
After the letter was sent, Wuju suddenly regretted it and wondered what would happen if she never wrote to her again. But the letter had already been sent, and she didn’t want to lose face by sending it back, so she waited with bated breath, not knowing if the capital would write to her again.
During that period, her temperament became increasingly erratic. It so happened that an official submitted a proposal to recruit her half-sister. In court, she read the memorial, laughed three times, threw it on the ground, and wanted to execute the whole family. She was stopped by many senior officials, and it was decided to sentence the whole family to exile.
This intensified and increasingly bizarre behaviour did not last long. Ten days later, a letter from Mount Lingshan soothed the anger of the young empress.
From then on, in his letters to her, Jidu only chatted with her, asking her what books she had read recently and whether her studies were going well. Then he told her what books he had read recently and what he had learned, discussed the way to be a good ruler with her, and occasionally sent her inexplicable things, such as the time he sent a pair of snow-white rabbits to Wuzhou, saying that he had picked them up by chance on Mount Ling.
She looked at the little guys with red eyes and laughed, saying that they were so fat that they could be eaten. That being said, she built a nest for them under the veranda of her bedroom with her own hands, and let them jump onto her lap and act spoiled as they nibbled on carrots.
Ji Du had even given her a bottle of medicine, saying that he had observed her star position at night and discovered that she might have caught a cold recently. The medicine should be crushed and decocted before use for the best results. When she received the letter, Wuzuo was indeed suffering from a cold, sneezing so hard that she coughed up words. When she poured the medicine into a silver dish, she saw that it was full of seeds of some unknown plant, large and round like lotus seeds.
The imperial doctor said that if Your Majesty wanted to take it, it would need to be examined by the imperial hospital first. She sneered and said, ‘Who said I want to take it?’ Then she ordered the imperial doctor to be thrown out, sneezing all the while, while carefully stringing them together with needle and thread.
She had been brought up in luxury and had never touched a needle or thread. This time, her fingers were bloody as she exchanged them for a string of beads. She held it in her hands with satisfaction, swung it in front of the two curious rabbits, hung it around her neck, and hid it in her clothes.
This was a gift from the planet Jupiter, to keep it from other people’s eyes.
On her fourteenth birthday, she received a pair of wooden bangles sent from Mount Lingshan. The person who delivered them said that Jidu had personally gone to a very dangerous place on Mount Lingshan, where he took branches from a thousand-year-old sacred tree and soaked them in the sacred spring for a thousand nights before making the bangles himself.
Wuzhou was stunned and asked the messenger, ‘Soaking them for a thousand nights means that they were made before she ascended the throne, didn’t it?’
The messenger laughed and respectfully told her, ‘Since the day you were born, the high priest has been praying for you, wishing you a long life and good fortune. These bracelets are just one of the things he has made for you. He paused and continued, ’When the high priest was still a novice, he started preparing things to give you in the future. He even muttered with worry that he was a man who never left the mountain, and he was making things with the knowledge in books. He wondered if you would like them, but despite this small worry, the high priest was still very happy doing it.
At that moment, the fourteen-year-old child nearly shed tears.
Father, brother, it’s just like that, isn’t it?
She thought to herself, carefully putting on the bracelet, which was far too simple for her elaborate attire.
On her fifteenth birthday, she received a gift of a jar of wine made from the snow of the sacred mountain and snow lotuses, personally made by Jidu. It had been aged for ten years, and the clay seal near the red silk faintly revealed the clear, lingering fragrance of the wine.
This time, Wuzuo did not ask the messenger anything. She just carefully held the jar of wine on her lap and stroked it gently. Somehow, she felt like she saw Jiadu bury the jar of wine ten years ago.
At that time, he should have been younger than he is now. Clumsy and awkward, he carefully dug a small wine cellar next to the clear snow spring and buried it.
What was he thinking as he buried it? Was he thinking about what the monarch he prayed to was like?
As she thought about this, slowly, her face pressed against the wine jar, the cold, coarse texture of it gave her a strange sense of peace.
“From the day I was born, you have only thought of me and prayed for me, haven’t you?
She murmured, as if to herself or to the man far away at the top of the sacred mountain, and slowly closed her eyes.
Please, think of me alone, and only me.
Part 2
Part 2
No-fault In the autumn of the year she turned fifteen, a plague swept across the entire country.
Before that, news had come from Mount Ling that there was fear of a plague this autumn, and No-fault decreed that the country should prepare medicinal herbs and that public medical clinics should be on standby at all times. Although the plague came with great fury, it did not cause too much harm.
So there was some minor discussion in the palace and the country, saying that although the empress was willful and headstrong, she was generally good.
Wuzhou only sneered when she heard this, thinking to herself that if it weren’t for the repeated letters from Jidu, she wouldn’t have cared.
She thought this, but since it concerned Jidu’s earnest hopes, she still took the aftermath seriously.
As a result, when the plague subsided and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, no one expected that Wuzhou suddenly fell ill—
First, she had a low-grade fever for a day, so she didn’t pay much attention to it and didn’t call the imperial doctor. She just ate a few things that were cooling in nature during the meal. As a result, the fever turned high that night. When the imperial doctor stumbled into the palace, the 15-year-old empress of the Shuyue Empire was huddled in the corner of the huge bed, and she only let out a low sneer, saying, ‘Don’t worry, everyone is just waiting for me to die, so just close your eyes and don’t say anything.’
What’s the point of talking? What can yelling do? If it’s not yours, you can’t have it, no matter how much you cry and scream.
Wrapped in the quilt, she felt a sudden cold followed by a sudden heat. Outside the curtain, shadows came and went silently, reflecting the light like silent fish swimming in the depths of the sea.
Her mind was dizzy, half-awake, half-asleep. Sometimes she felt close, sometimes she felt far away. Vaguely, she felt like she was back in the palace when her mother was critically ill.
She still remembers that it was also such a deep night. Her father was raging and weeping in front of her mother’s bed. She quietly watched all this from the side, powerless and confused. Then the woman who had never spoken a word in all the years she had been in the palace, with hands that had withered from illness, reached up into the air and called out a name in a dry voice.
Su, Su’er, Ye Su
her mother kept calling before she died, was the name of her elder sister, whom Wuzhou had never met.
So the palace gates swung open, and eight days later, the woman called Ye Su, her sister, was escorted into the palace. Wuzhou stood by the palace gates, watching that figure slowly disappear, and suddenly felt that she and she were but pale scars carved into the ten thousand rooms of this palace.
She just watched Ye Su go in, her heart empty, but she felt something overflow. Then suddenly there was the sound of sobs, like an explosion, coming from the palace – the Empress had passed away.
Her mother, before she died, was thinking not of her, but of her sister.
Wuzhou was burning so brightly that it was blinding, so crying and screaming was useless. When she was little, she fell to the ground and cried until she was hoarse, but neither her mother nor father would even look at her.
Floating in and out of consciousness, she felt everything in front of her start to fade. The palace servants, the lights, the palace, her mother, and her father were suddenly sucked into an invisible black vortex. She wanted to scream, but she froze.
But whose name would she scream? Who would come in response to her call?
Who would come to save her in her life?
A wave of heat rushed through her body again. She groaned weakly from the unbearable pain, and then someone took her hand and embraced her.
That person smelled of mountains and snow, and was so gentle, enveloping her.
‘…Jidu…’ She didn’t need to open her eyes to know who it was; she just knew.
She subconsciously hugged the person tightly, calling out the person’s name in a confused voice. Finally at peace, she fell into a deep sleep.
She slept for a day and a night, and after waking up, she fell into a daze and slept for three days. When she finally came to, she was surrounded by countless courtiers with fawning faces.
Yes, Ji Du was on the sacred mountain, how could he possibly be by her side? It was just a dream.
But even if it was a dream, I felt very happy.
Her slender fingers pressed against the chain of seeds around her chest, and just as a smile began to form on her lips, she heard the lady-in-waiting tell the palace attendants that His Majesty had woken up and to go quickly and inform the ritual officiant.
Upon hearing this, Wuzhou froze for a moment, and immediately asked what was going on. He then learned that Jidu had observed the stars at night and discovered that she was suffering from a calamity, so he had travelled down the mountain overnight and arrived by her side on the night she lost consciousness.
She had previously refused to drink the medicine, so Jidu had held her carefully as he poured a bowl of herbal medicine down her throat, then entered the temple within the palace to pray. He had prayed for as long as she had slept without rest – it turned out that it had not been a dream!
Despite being unable to move, Wuzhou immediately wanted to go to the temple. A group of people tried to stop her, but she ignored them and insisted on going. Just as the voices of the people were in an uproar, the clear and soft voice of Jidu flowed out like a clear spring.
‘Your Majesty.’
With these words, the crowd parted, and Wuzhou suddenly stopped talking, looking at Jidu as she slowly walked towards her.
It was just as she had first seen him: black hair, simple clothes, a refined face, a gentle smile. Between his wide sleeves, there was the fresh scent of mountains and snow.
Wuzhou suddenly felt the sounds around her fade away. She looked at Jidu blankly. When she tried to speak, she noticed with a sharp eye that he seemed to be walking slowly.
She noticed that she was looking at his feet. Jidu gave a gentle smile, ‘It’s nothing, I’ve been kneeling for too long and my feet are numb.’
Yes, it had been four days since he had knelt in the temple praying for her, and before that, he had trekked non-stop for her.
A seething feeling welled up in her chest. Without a reason, she felt like she couldn’t say anything. She watched as the man drew closer to her, reached out to touch her forehead, and slowly revealed a relieved smile. He then maintained that relieved expression as he collapsed into her.
The man’s weight was more than the just-awakened girl could bear. She coughed a few times as she was being covered by Jidu, pushing away the eunuchs who wanted to come up and take him away. Lovingly, contentedly, she embraced Jidu’s shoulders with her hands.
Under the plain clothes, the shoulder blades, which had risen due to the fallen position, looked like two floating butterfly wings.
Embracing him, she felt nothing but contentment—and it was because of this that she made a decision that affected the entire dynasty, and indeed the world, even though at the time its cause was the vague infatuation of a young girl.
That night, Jidu woke up slowly. Outside the translucent silk tent, the shadows of the lanterns floated silently, and the fragrance of the slightly bitter medicine drifted. The sound of the evening drum echoed, shattering the moon like a flowing cup.
There was a warm weight in his arms. From his perspective, the young girl with her dark hair nestling in his arms looked like a small animal, gentle and childlike.
She wasn’t asleep, just looking at him meekly. Jidu turned around and faced her. The young girl’s soft arms wrapped around his neck, and she buried her head in his arms.
She whispered, Jidu, I don’t want you to go back to Lingshan, you have to stay by my side forever.
Ji Dou was a little surprised, but then he smiled and said, ‘If that’s your wish, then I’ll stay by your side.’
For Ji Dou, not being blamed was the only meaning of his existence. The young girl in his arms had been all he had for the rest of his life since the moment she was born.
He was destined to pray for her and carefully protect her for a lifetime, never leaving her side.
It’s for her anyway, so it doesn’t matter where. The palace of the spiritual mountain is no different.
The fingers wrapped around his neck tightened slightly, and the child in his arms said, ‘Jidu, what is your wish?’ She kept him by her side, and in exchange, she was willing to fulfil any of his wishes.
The young man with gentle eyes thought for a moment, lifted the brocade quilt and covered her small shoulders tightly, then smiled.
‘Jidu has no other wish in this life, except that my lord rules for a hundred years and benefits the world.’
He said this.
The young girl was slightly startled, then she smiled, pure and innocent like a lotus flower that slowly breaks the surface of the water and blooms in the summer night.
She nodded vigorously, wholeheartedly, promising her life.
She would fulfil all his wishes, as long as he was by her side.
So, in the year she turned fifteen, the phoenix that had been asleep on the throne for three years finally unfurled its magnificent wings to the heavens – without any regrets. She wished to use a hundred years of prosperity in the Plastic Moon Empire and a wise and holy emperor to trade for the young man in plain clothes to be always in front of the king, never leaving his side.
And the imperial envoy, Ji Du, never returned to Mount Ling again for the rest of his life.
He had promised to always be before the king, never leaving his side.
Part 3
Part 3
From that day on, Ji Du lived quietly in the palace.
He retreated to a corner of the temple, praying and practising, treating this most luxurious place in the mortal world as if it were the same as the austere Mount Ling. In his spare time, on a sunny day, he would sit on the grass, mindlessly feeding the squirrels while listening to the young empress of the empire, gesticulating as she told him about the interesting things, happy things and unhappy things she had encountered.
Jidu never commented on Wuzhou’s administration. He just listened quietly and watched quietly. Under those eyes, she felt that she could not break her promise and could only be a good emperor seriously.
Jidu also never asked her for anything. Wuzhou was not willing to give up and repeatedly asked him what he wanted. He just smiled faintly and said, ‘I just want the Shuyue Empire to prosper for a hundred generations.’
After a long time, she really knew that this man who had been practising on the sacred mountain since birth was truly detached from worldly matters. The wealth, power and authority of the mortal world could not move her in the slightest. So, while she became more and more at ease, she gradually became quietly discontent with something else.
Ask for more from her, she is rich and powerful, she can give her anything.
But Jidu didn’t want anything.
On her eighteenth birthday, Wuzhou gave her a simple, small hairpin made of wood without any gold or jade decorations, not even coloured lacquer. It was carved in the shape of a lotus flower with soft curves.
Wuzhou liked it very much and said coquettishly that she would give him a present in return. She grabbed his sleeve and threw herself into his arms, rubbing against him. This time she was persistent and would not allow Jidu to use any more excuses about a flourishing century, a wise and holy ruler, and so on. She insisted that he name something he wanted.
She was really annoying him, and Jidu thought about it for a while before saying to her seriously, ‘Have a child for me.’
In that moment, she knew clearly that she had stopped breathing.
Her heart was pounding, and she felt as if it would jump right out of her throat. Her mind was in a complete state of chaos. She had never imagined that Ji Du would say such a thing. She just clutched his sleeve tightly, and her mind was in a daze, wondering what she should do if he said next that he wanted to be with her. But when she thought about it, her originally chaotic mind immediately had an answer: if Ji Du wanted her, then what was there to hesitate about? She didn’t want the throne of the country.
Ji Du laughed when he saw her blank expression. He reached out and gave her forehead a gentle tap. ‘Where were you thinking? You’re already eighteen, and it’s time to find a husband. Hurry up and pick a good emperor, so you can give birth to cute babies. I want to hold them too.’
So…that’s it? She couldn’t tell what kind of pain like being cut by a knife was in her heart when she heard Ji Du say that. She forced a smile and quickly said, ‘So Ji Du likes children.’
‘Yes,’ the man with the refined face said softly, smiling. For the first time, there was a slight regret in those usually calm eyes.
She then thought back to the fact that, in the life of a ritual official, even if he retired with the emperor, he was not allowed to marry and had to keep the vow of chastity for the rest of his life.
He could never have his own children.
Suddenly, Wuzhou felt pain in her heart. She felt pain for him, and inexplicably, for herself as well.
She put away her hairpin and hurried away. She returned to her chambers, closed the door, and buried herself in the soft bed. Her heart was in turmoil. For a moment she remembered the first time they met, when he bowed to her with a smile; then she remembered when her mother died, and her sister passed by silently in front of her; then she remembered the faces of her father and mother. She didn’t know how long it took before she fell into a deep sleep.
That night, she had a dream.
In the dream, she was not the Empress of the Moon, but just an ordinary peasant woman. One spring day, she met her husband-to-be on the apricot blossom-lined path, and they married.
They led a simple life, but they were happy together. Such a dream should be a beautiful dream, but she was awakened with a start, and then she stared at the colourful knot at the top of the canopy.
In the dream, her husband-to-be had a refined face, black hair, and plain clothes.
At that moment, she realised that she had long since planted the seeds of love in Jidu, while Jidu was to her both father and brother.
She loved him, but he did not love her.
The young man she had forced to remain in the world was pure as crystal, without impurities inside or out, with no desires whatsoever.
Human love had nothing to do with him. At this late hour, in the heavy dew, she realised this with a newfound clarity.
So she laughed out loud, and in the midst of her laughter, she burst into tears.
She would not be able to have him, she knew.
But she could keep him by her side, for the rest of her life, never leaving each other’s side.
Ji Du had sworn the same oath to her, never leaving each other’s side, always before the Lord.
The next day, she arrived at the temple wearing her finest clothes. He had just finished morning prayers and was returning. She stood in the soft spring breeze and asked him with a smile, ‘Jidu, what is it that you want most, what is it that you hope for the most?’
Jidu paused for a moment, then slowly smiled and bowed respectfully before her.
His answer had never changed.
He wanted a hundred years of prosperity under the bright moon, and for her to be remembered in history as a wise and holy ruler.
Wuzhou smiled a little, and she nodded softly. When she spoke, her voice was even lighter than the willow catkins drifting down from the sky.
‘Yes, I promise you.’
I will give you what you want in exchange for you staying by my side and never leaving.
Wuzhou turned and walked away, suddenly feeling relieved that the man she loved was a priest. If she couldn’t have him, no one else could.
She couldn’t imagine what would happen if Wuzhou weren’t a priest.
She would be even more crazy than her father.
She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want to be like her father, and she can’t even imagine being like her mother, the one she loves.
So, this is good. Since he doesn’t love her, then he doesn’t love anyone, and she can silently love him without being noticed.
That’s just fine.
Once she turned 18, Wuzhou announced to the court that she would choose her husband.
She told Ji Du about this decision in a light-hearted manner. At that time, the young man was carefully drawing water under a shady tree. Hearing her say this, Ji Du put down the bucket and looked at her with a pair of clear black eyes, which actually carried a hint of sadness.
Wu Zhou was shocked, and a glimmer of faint hope sprang up in her heart again. She stammered, not knowing what to say. Ji Du had already walked up to her, gently stroked her long, dark hair, and then reached out to embrace her in his arms.
Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.
Then a gentle voice fell from above her: ‘Although I have no right to ask, under the same conditions, compared to the powerful families behind them, their looks and so on, Your Majesty should still choose the one you like…’
The one you like?
At that moment, Wuzhou suddenly felt like laughing, and then she really did laugh softly.
She nodded obediently and said, ‘Well, I will choose someone I like to marry. Definitely.’
She smiled, but in her heart she thought coldly, how could she marry someone she liked?
Wu Zhou smiled and stepped back from her, gazing quietly at her elegant face. He suddenly smiled broadly, and gently stroked her neck. Beneath her heavy clothes, there was a chain made of tree seeds.
‘Which… Jidu.’
‘Hm?’
‘You will always be by my side, right?’ She suddenly changed her self-address.
‘Yes, I will. My whole life, I will always be by your side.”
Wuzhou’s smile softened. She smiled and nodded gently.
She would do whatever he wanted. She would fulfil all his wishes for him.
If he wanted her to rule the country wisely and in prosperity, she would do it. So, please, always look at her, and, only her.
The ministers quickly found a suitable husband for her.
Among the candidates, she chose the son of the noble Cang family. The ministers all praised her good judgement, saying that this young man was the best of all the candidates, and there was no fault to be found. She just smiled ambiguously on the throne.
Only she knew that she had chosen the Cang family’s son simply because he had a pair of dark, black eyes that looked very similar to Jidu’s. Apart from that, there was no other reason.
Besides Jidu, aren’t all men the same? So all she could do was choose one that wasn’t so eye-catching.
The candidates were narrowed down, and Jidu was consulted to determine an auspicious date. Watching the usually quiet man smiling as he consulted the stars for her, Wuzhou quietly and silently smiled back.
He was genuinely happy for her, genuinely wishing her well. And so, she became even more miserable.
But it’s okay, this is the price she has to pay.
The wedding was scheduled for March of the following year, but in the middle of the year, the head of the Cang family suddenly passed away, and the Cang family’s young master needed to observe mourning for three years. Just as the autumn harvest was about to begin, a locust plague struck the entire Eastern Continent, and the strong people on the grasslands, who had already been forced to submit to the rule of the Shuyue, raised the banner of rebellion.
In the midst of this turmoil, it was Ye Su, Wuzhuo’s sister, who stepped forward and was exiled to the border.
The ministers saw this as a good opportunity to invite Ye Su back to the capital, bestow upon her her rightful status, and make up for her father’s mistake of killing his own children.
So that winter, Ye Su, who had left the capital 21 years ago, returned. Then she met Jidu.
Part 4
That winter, Ye Su was summoned to the capital.
The woman, who had been exiled before she had even reached her first month, finally returned to the long-lost capital when she was eighteen.
Then she met Jidu, who had always guarded the young empress half a step behind Wuzhou – no, it should be said that Jidu finally met her.
Wuzhou bestowed Ye Suxinghou’s title in the main hall, smiling gently. With a flick of her fingers, she threw the imperial edict on the ground. In an instant, the entire hall fell silent. The woman who had been exiled since birth did not move a muscle, bowed to the ground to receive the edict, and picked it up.
Wuzhou laughed and left.
Why should I go to see a woman I hate being happy? She said to Jidu with a smile, and the man in plain clothes with black hair bowed his head in silence.
That night at the banquet, Jidu attended in place of Wuzhou.
He saw Ye Su at a glance.
He had never seen Ye Su before, but he was absolutely certain that the woman hidden behind a screen of shadows was Ye Su.
Wooden hairpin, black hair, set off by a snow-white complexion, and slightly drooping glassy eyes.
The shadows from the surrounding lamps spread out softly like silk, and she stood isolated, like a pale scar in the palace.
Then the woman looked up, right at him.
Jidu felt as if there were ripples of cold water, slowly coming from the direction of Ye Su, one after the other. She walked towards him, bowed slightly, and spoke, her voice clear and cold, like frozen jade.
‘My name is Ye Su.’
Jidu froze for a moment, then hastily gathered his sleeves into a salute and bowed his head, saying, ‘I am Jidu.’
It was the first time they had met, but it felt like they had known each other for a thousand years.
And from that moment on, the world that Wuzhou had built with all his heart, the world of her and Jidu, quietly and silently collapsed.
Wuzhou realised that there was someone else in Jidu’s clear eyes the following spring.
Ye Su, who had stayed in the capital, chose a marriage partner that summer.
The other party was the second son of the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, a fifth-rank military official, handsome and straightforward, from an impeccable family. According to custom, the marriage of royalty had to be divined by the temple. Since Jidu had left Lingshan, he took on the position of head of the temple and it was only natural that he should ask the oracle for the fortune.
That day, after finishing his official business, Wuzhou went to the temple happily to find Jidu.
The pear blossoms in the palace were in full bloom, spreading like flames. Then, under the burning pear tree, she saw Jidu and Ye Su.
They seemed to be saying something. From her perspective, the man who had vowed to her that he would always be in front of the king for life, never lost his composed smile, but revealed a look of pain. Then he reached out and embraced the woman on the other side of him in his arms—
In that moment, Ye Su’s not-so-beautiful face had a quiet sadness.
That embrace lasted only a moment, and Ye Su then broke free. She looked deeply, deeply at the man opposite her, slowly bent her waist, and turned to leave.
She resolutely walked away, never looking back.
Jidu must have loved her, just as she loved Jidu.
Because the way he looked at Ye Su was exactly the same as the way Wuzhou looked at him.
The unspeakable pain and suffering that filled Wújiǔ’s heart was transformed in an instant into indescribable hatred.
She was so lowly, begging for Jidu’s love, but Ye Su didn’t want it.
She actually didn’t want it!
Wuzhou slowly walked over, the snow-like layer of fallen flowers under her feet soft as a blanket.
She stepped on a branch, and there was a soft sound. Ji Duo didn’t turn around, and Wuzhou’s heart suddenly sank, growing cold. Even the hatred slowly faded away, like the temperature of ashes. It turned out that she couldn’t bear to see him suffer, not even a little, Wuzhou thought vaguely.
Like when she was a child and Wu Zuo did the same to her, she reached out her hand, embraced him from behind, and whispered, ‘You still have me… Jidu… you still have me…’
The man did not turn around or react, but just stared blankly in the direction Ye Su left.
Wu Zuo childishly shook him, her tone full of a forlornness she herself was unaware of, ‘Jidu…’
‘Hm?’ He finally responded to her.
She asked, ‘Do you want something?’ Her voice trembled slightly with pain when she said this.
She would give him whatever he wanted, even if his request would cause him to leave her side forever and be with the woman she hated most.
As long as he wanted it.
She could not be like her father, sacrificing the one she loved because of her hopeless love.
She could not bear to imagine what a miserable sight it would be if Jidu became like her mother.
The idea of breaking the wings of her lover and locking him in a golden cage had crossed her mind a moment ago, but the reassuring sandalwood smell on his body made that destructive intensity feel bittersweet and sad.
She loved him so much, how could she bear to see him sad.
She leaned against his back, feeling like crying, but her cheeks were dry. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t. She didn’t know how long it took before she heard the man’s low voice.
‘…I like her, but what can I give her? I can’t give her anything…I can’t even say that I’ll take you with me…‘
Jidu’s voice was ethereal, like the broken sunlight filtering through the pear blossoms.
’I have my responsibilities, and she has hers…this is…something that can’t be helped.’ After saying this, there was a moment of silence. Jidu turned around, looked at her so tenderly, leaned down, and embraced her in his arms.
The man’s embrace was so strong that it was almost out of control, and his voice, almost unable to support it, echoed in her ear like a whisper.
‘…Fortunately, there is still you…Wuzhou…I still have you…’
She suddenly remembered that night many years ago, when this man had bent over backwards for her, smiling and saying that he would never leave her, that he would always be there for her. And now, he was telling her that fortunately, he still had her.
She burst into tears in his arms, unable to control herself.
That autumn, Ye Su got married, and the officiant was precisely Ji Du.
Not trusting Ji Du, she went to the wedding site as well. When Wu Ze arrived, it was just as the husband and wife finished their mutual bows. Her beloved stood there in plain clothes, graceful in his white attire, among the people bowing in worship, like a lonely crane, slowly bending towards her.
She paid no attention to anything around her, walked straight over, looked at Jidu, and Jidu smiled at her with his usual gentle, elegant expression. But she alone could see a trace of pain in the corner of his eyes.
Without saying a word, Wuzhou ignored the people kneeling below and walked straight through the crowd, grabbed his hand, and dragged him away.
The hand under the wide sleeves was cold and slightly trembling.
He dragged him onto the carriage, and the young woman embraced the man, only to realise that he was sweating through his clothes.
It was the wedding of his beloved woman, who had married another man.
Wuzhuo wanted to comfort him, but he could not speak, so he could only awkwardly pat his back gently.
As she watched the magnificent carriage ride away, Ye Su slowly stood up, turned around, and gave a gentle smile: ‘A small wedding banquet, with the emperor in attendance, really makes it shine.’
She said this with a gentle smile.
After returning to the palace, Wu Zhou immediately drafted an imperial decree, granting Ye Su a fiefdom in the south and sending her far away from the capital.
If it had been up to Wu Zhou, he would have simply given her a remote place to live, but when he thought about Ji Du being sad because his beloved woman had been exiled to a remote place, he wrote down a stroke and gave Ye Su a fertile place in the south.
Ten days after the wedding, Ye Su left with the imperial decree. Wu Zhou stood on the tall palace wall. Her black clothes fluttered in the wind. Ji Du was behind her, and she didn’t turn around.
She suddenly said, ‘Jidu, what do you want?’
She often asked this question, and Jidu had become accustomed to it, and Wuzhou had also become accustomed to his answer. She had thought that the man would say the usual answer of a wise ruler in a golden age. However, after pondering for a moment, Jidu slowly told her, ‘I hope Your Majesty is happy.’
‘——!’ She suddenly turned her head and saw Jidu’s gentle smile.
He told her that he wished her happiness.
Wuzhou smiled softly in the wind and she whispered, ‘Yes, I will…’
As long as he was by her side, her love did not need a response from him, or even for him to know.
That was all she asked for.
Part 5
That autumn, Ye Su got married, and the officiant was Jidu.
She was worried about Jidu, so she went to the wedding. When Wuzhou arrived, it was just as the couple finished the mutual bowing ritual. Her beloved stood there in plain clothes, looking graceful in his white clothes, among the people who were bowing to him. He looked like a lonely crane, slowly bowing to her.
She ignored everything around her and walked straight over. She looked at Jidu, who smiled at her with his usual gentle, elegant expression, but she could see the pain in his eyes.
Without saying a word, Wuzhou ignored the kneeling crowd below and walked straight through them, grabbed his hand and dragged him away.
The hand under the wide sleeves was cold and slightly trembling.
Dragging him onto the carriage, the young girl embraced the man, only to feel that he was already sweating through his heavy clothes.
It was the wedding of his beloved woman, who had married another man.
Wuzhuo wanted to comfort him, but he could not speak, so he could only awkwardly pat his back gently.
As she watched the magnificent carriage ride away, Ye Su slowly stood up, turned around, and gave a gentle smile: ‘A small wedding banquet, with the emperor in attendance, really honours this humble abode.’
She said this with a gentle smile, so everyone who had scrambled to their feet secretly admired her. Ye Su is worthy of the name Ye Su, she is magnanimous and kind.
Upon returning to the palace, Wuju immediately issued an edict, granting Ye Su a fiefdom in the south and sending her far away from the capital.
If Wuju had wanted to be mean, he could have just given her a remote place, but the thought of Ji Duo being saddened by the fact that his beloved woman had been exiled to a remote place made him write down a stroke, and he gave Ye Su a fertile place in the south.
Ten days after the wedding, Ye Su left to carry out the emperor’s decree. Wu Zuo stood on the tall palace wall, watching the simple convoy leave the city. Her black clothes flapped in the wind, and Ji Du was behind her. She didn’t turn around.
She suddenly said, ‘Ji Du, what do you want?’
She often asked this question, and Ji Duo had become accustomed to it. As for Wuzhou, he had already become accustomed to his answer. She had thought that the man would give the usual answer of a wise ruler in a golden age. However, after thinking for a moment, Ji Duo slowly told her, ‘I hope Your Majesty is happy.’
‘——!’ She turned her head sharply and saw the gentle smile on Jidu’s face.
He told her that he wished her happiness.
Slowly, Wuzhou smiled softly in the wind. She whispered, “Yes, it will be…”
As long as he was by her side, her love did not need a response from him, or even for him to know.
That was enough, just to be by her side.
She is already content.
So, in this satisfied smile, in the winter of the sixth year of Wuzuo’s reign, the suppressed northern rebellion, which had been suppressed, resurfaced and broke out again.
At the beginning, no one thought it was just a minor border problem. Who knew that by the spring of the seventh year of Wuzuo’s reign, this border problem had not subsided, but instead intensified.
As if in coordination, many small countries that had previously been suppressed by the Shuyue Dynasty began to raise their rebel flags one after the other. By the summer, the northern and western borders of Shuyue were almost completely engulfed in war!
It has been the tradition of the emperors of Shuyue since ancient times to stand in the front of the battle array, and not to shrink from within the palace walls.
So, when summer was about to end, Wuzhou put on his armour and went to war in person.
The night before the army left the capital, looking at the meagre but sturdy battle armour in his bedchamber, Wuzhou’s lips curved into a wan smile, meagre and sharp.
“They just want me dead. If I, this sinner, die, Ye Su, or whoever else, will take my place. They believe that whoever it is will be better than me. For a waste like me to die with a good name is my greatest contribution to the dynasty.’
She said this to Ji Duo, then waved her hand to stop the man from saying anything in rebuttal.
Wuzhou stretched out his arms, embraced him, and fell asleep in his arms like a child.
The next day, the flags fluttered, and the six armies set off together.
Ji Duo was by her side. He smiled at Wuzhou and said, ‘I once vowed that I would never leave you in this life, and that I would always be in front of you.
The empress in the palanquin did not smile. She just looked at him deeply and nodded gently.
In that moment, the young girl, who could almost be considered someone he had grown up with, suddenly had an awe-inspiring solemnity on her beautiful face that he could not look at.
It was an ominous but profound imperial calm.
The war on the front line did not get better with the empress joining the fight, but instead it became more and more stalemated. It was not known whether it was because the local area was too powerful or there was some kind of insider response, but the strategies of the Shuyue army were seen through time and time again, like a tiger being toyed with by a fox, running in vain across the grasslands.
The situation finally completely collapsed in late autumn.
The Shuyue army fell into the enemy’s trap, and the central army protecting the emperor was cut off from the rest—
the entire chaotic army was like a giant snake with its seven vital points pierced, with the elite imperial army surrounding Wuzhu as he fled into the deserted border fortress, and then the enemy army piling on top.
With only one tenth the number of the enemy, the imperial army defended the fortress against the hurricane-like attacks. After the soldiers had fought bloody battles for several days and nights, the enemy suddenly stopped attacking. A woman rode out of the army formation, her black clothes and black hair, her delicate face as still as ice. It was Ye Su.
She demanded to speak with Wuzhou.
Everything became clear. This rebellion, which had come at the perfect time, the rebellion that had started in the north, where Ye Su had been exiled, the seemingly leaked intelligence, and even the poisoning by Wuzhou that year, all had a satisfactory explanation—the woman who had carried the last hope of her parents who had died tragically had been waiting for this for more than ten years, with all her heart.
When she heard the news, Wu Zhou had just woken up. She sat up in the covers, tilted her head back, and looked at the pale-faced Jidu. She suddenly smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, at most I will die.’ What she wanted was the Shuyue Empire and a wise emperor for a hundred generations. Ye Su would not make things difficult for anyone else.
Saying this, she took out the makeup box she carried with her at all times, outlined her eyebrows, put on the crown and kingly clothes, and when she appeared on the city wall, the young empress of Shuyue, Yingluo, was wearing her makeup with a composed smile on her face. She was so solemn and beautiful that even the enemy soldiers below the city were instantly silent.
From a mother, sisters who hated each other, at this moment, one was on the city wall, the other below, gazing at each other.
Leaning on the battlements, Wuzhu suddenly felt very good and laughed.
You see, at this point, her sister still needs to look up at her, and the man Ye Su loves is right behind her.
After laughing, she didn’t say anything and left, while the woman under the city seemed to sense something from their same half-blood and ordered preparations to enter the city.
When the attendant asked her if she still needed to prepare for battle, Ye Su shook her head silently.
No need… she said.
Slowly and cautiously, she walked down the battlements, heading towards her tent without blame. Ji Du followed behind her, and when she lifted the curtain, he whispered, ‘…she won’t kill you…’
“Yes, she will never bear the blame for killing her brothers and sisters. She will grant me a rich fiefdom and allow me to exercise the emperor’s ceremonial attire in it. But does that mean anything to me?’
She turned her back on Jidu and said this, then turned her head and smiled sweetly, ‘By the way, Jidu, do you think I look beautiful?’
He was silent for a moment, and then he said hoarsely, ‘Beautiful.’ The woman on the other side smiled sweetly and childishly.
She told him, ‘Jidu, you are free, from now on.
She finally no longer has to bind him.
Ji Du was finally able to pursue his happiness.
It was a pity about his vow.
He had once said that he would never abandon her and would always be by her side.
It turned out to be empty words.
But it was good that they were empty words. As long as she knew that he would be able to find his happiness, she would be content.
So she smiled even more happily, just like a little child.
Finally, she looked at him deeply, and Wuzhou finally walked into the tent. Jidu stood in front of the tent door, stunned. After a while, flames rose from the inside and engulfed the entire tent in an instant.
The woman, the woman he had protected since childhood, at this moment, chose to defend her dignity, even if it meant death.
Slowly, slowly, he bowed to the woman, in a reverent posture, as if it was the first time he had bowed to Wuzhu in the temple that year.
Behind him came the sound of hoofbeats, the searing heat burning his face. Jidu slowly straightened up, turned his head, and saw the plain-clothed woman leading the horse.
‘What are you going to do?‘ Ye Su asked him, approaching slightly. Ji Duo did not answer immediately, but just looked at her and then slowly smiled.
’That day in front of the temple, I asked you a question, and you didn’t answer. Now, can you tell me the answer?’ He asked her softly, with a gentle expression, but inexplicably, it made Ye Su uneasy.
She twisted the reins in her hands, and then slowly spoke, ’I love you…from the first time I met you…’
As if she had finally obtained a precious treasure, she smiled happily and unrestrainedly. Jidu leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.
In an instant, Ye Su knew that she would lose him and never get him back.
‘Wuzhou is a child who is afraid of the cold, afraid of the dark, and lonely. She is also very proud. Apart from me, who can take care of her and make her smile? A-Su, you have this vast country and a great world. Wuzhou only has me. Wuzhou is a delicate child. It is still not too late to go after her now.”
After saying this, Jidu’s face became solemn and he bowed to her.
‘You have the qualities of a wise ruler. Please extend your benevolent rule and grant me a century of prosperity.”
After saying this, he slowly walked towards the fire without hesitation.
He had sworn before the young girl who walked alone in the depths of the palace that he would never leave her side.
He remembered, he thought, and she should remember too.
So the story ended in the midst of the fireworks that burned everything. The dead emperor was given the honourable title of dying for his country, and the living woman became the new emperor as a matter of course. She was diligent in her governance, loved the people, kept the country safe, pacified the four quarters, and finally achieved the reputation of being a great emperor who revived the dynasty.
However, such a beautiful and long-lasting story will never end with a young man in plain clothes with black hair and clear eyes slowly bowing before her, his posture as straight as a bamboo stalk, telling her that he will never leave her side and will always be by her side.
It is said that all living beings are hindered from the right path by the obstacles of karma, which are created through greed, hatred and delusion, and which prevent them from diligently practising the good dharma.
Love, lust, delusion and hatred are all karma.
Back to one
That was a fleeting moment in the thousand years. In an instant, the thousands of green lotuses in front of the Buddha died and were reborn. Between the picking of the flowers, 3,000 people became Buddhas in the world of saṃsāra and entered the demon realm, all in the snap of a finger.
The snake demon under the water stretched out her supple waist. In her arms was the withered skull of her lover. The water plants grew strangely from the hollow eyes.
Emerging from the water, her snow-white hair covers her supple body. White Ring collapses softly on the fragrant green grass, her long tail lazily sinking into the lake. Tiny scales as soft and transparent as crystal shards cover her lower body, gradually growing smaller. She raises the skull and kisses it reverently.
‘You have slept for a thousand years.’ The white fox’s graceful nine tails trailed through the fallen flowers and landed in front of Bai Huan’s eyes.
Bai Huan reached out his hand, looking at the demon fox with eyes the colour of pale jade immersed in smoke and water. His lips, pale to the point where the colour was barely visible, curved up slightly. “Nine Tails, I can’t stand up.”
The demon fox sighed and bent down, extending his hands to embrace the snake demon’s slender body. The soft skin that belonged to the aquatic species was so slippery that he could barely hold onto it.
A faint smile appeared beneath the snow-white hair. The snake demon gracefully swayed her body, wrapping her body around the demon fox in a coiling gesture. She placed her hands intimately around the nine-tailed demon’s neck, and leaned over as a whole, lazily hanging her slender long tail over the nine-tailed demon’s wrist.
‘He has been reincarnated.’
“Are you going to find him?’
‘Yes.‘ She played with Jiuwei’s long hair and revealed a graceful smile. “Jiuwei, that was the person I loved. My current strength is not enough to leave the wilderness, so I’ll wait for him to call me in the human world.”
’Yes, yes.’ Jiuwei carried her back to their cave. Bai Huan happily rolled around in his nine tails.
Seeing her having fun, Jiuwei didn’t say a word, but slowly stroked her snow-white long hair.
Bai Huan’s hair was always cold, just like her body. It could never be warmed.
‘I’ve found Yi. What are you going to do?’
She looked up at him. She smiled, her pale, almost transparent fingers pressing against her pale, colourless lips, which revealed her sharp fangs.
‘…eat him, or, be eaten by him,’ she said after a pause, suddenly lowering her eyes slightly.
Suddenly the wind picked up, and the white flowers of the utamaro flower fell, like white birds without wings.
Jiuzi didn’t say anything; he decided to remain silent.
He really wanted to tell her, Bai Huan, don’t go.
Back to part 2
Shanghai 1922 The sky is jealous of the wind
It’s the city of stars that has been overturned
The air smells of coffee.
The slender, almost transparent fingers with a faint fragrance of white wine hold a cup of frozen stone in the palm of the hand. The cup is cold like ice, and the freshly ground coffee is churning inside. The rich aroma fills the box.
Water sleeves flutter on the stage, and the beautiful woman sings in a babbling voice. The sound comes from far away, bounces off the wall and then bounces back into your ears. It gives the illusion that a needle has jumped in a record player and slipped a grid.
I watched the White Snake on the stage with great interest. After a while, Lu Sheng, the owner of Shanghai Leheng Industrial, turned his head and looked at the only other person in the box apart from himself, ‘Mr. Wei, I’m told you are the most accurate fortune teller in Shanghai?’
The young fortune teller, whose single name was Wei and who was famous throughout Shanghai for his accurate predictions, had sad golden eyes. ‘You flatter me. I don’t know what you want to ask.’
After a moment of silence, Lu Sheng rested his forehead on his hands. ‘I’ve been having dreams about a white snake lately.’
It was a white snake that haunted his dreams, gently calling his name in a naive and charming voice. It waved its long, snow-white tail, gently wrapping him up layer after layer.
The yarrow in Wei’s hands had already been sorted, and after a quick count, he sighed, ‘White is gold, and the main direction is the west. Mr. Lu Sheng, you need to be careful.’
‘What about the rest?‘
’The heavens cannot be divulged.‘ After saying this, the tail respectfully bowed to him and walked out.
Lu Sheng looked at his receding back for a long time in silence, then suddenly smiled, got up and walked out. The butler outside the box immediately followed, “Sir, where are you going?”
’The west,’ he said with a smile.
It was drizzling, with light grey clouds in the sky. When they reached the westernmost part of the city, Lu Sheng signalled for the rickshaw to stop.
He got off the rickshaw, and a servant who had caught up with him held up an oiled paper umbrella for him. The ground was shiny from the rain, and the light from the old street lamps was faint, casting a pale yellow shadow in the rain. In the distance, I don’t know where a record is playing, a woman is singing with a squeaky voice, the ending has a little bit of a strange tremolo, thin and winding, there is a pastel-coloured paper umbrella on the street corner, with a cheongsam with a blue floral pattern on a white background at the bottom, graceful and elegant.
Attracted by that figure, Lu Sheng turned around inexplicably. In front of him was a Xiangfei bamboo umbrella, and below it was a white figure with snow-white hair and pale-peach-coloured eyes.
It was a woman with snow-white hair, fair skin, pale-peach-coloured eyes, and lips that were so pale they seemed to have no colour at all.
‘Look, this is the fashionable dress of the moment, isn’t it?’ The woman turned lightly in front of him, her lithe movements as if she had no weight.
There was a very familiar feeling.
Lu Sheng saw the white-robed woman gently throw aside the umbrella in her hands, then wrap her supple body around him, her arms wrapping around his neck. The cool, soft touch reminded him of the white snake in his dream, “Look, I’ve found you, Lu Sheng.”
Cause and effect meet, instant enlightenment.
Suddenly there was the loud applause of the end of a play. Lu Sheng was startled, opened his eyes, and realised that he was in a private box on a rainy street, with light smoke rising from the coffee on the table. The fortune teller with white hair and golden eyes was smiling at him and asked softly, ‘What do you think?’
It was just a dream.
Lu Sheng didn’t say anything, and with a very subtle look in his eyes, he looked at the young man in front of him. After a moment of silence, ‘Who was that?’
“Just a love affair from a past life.’
‘What do you mean?‘
’Literally, a karmic relationship. Or, fate.’ He said this lightly, stood up, bowed to him, and then turned and left.
Lu Sheng sat in the box, listening to the groups of people downstairs clamoring and walking by. After a moment, everything returned to silence.
Part 3
In the ten-mile foreign district of Shanghai, the lights are on, the cars are honking, and the singing and dancing are in full swing.
Under the crystal chandeliers of the Western-style buildings, robes and horse-riding vests mingle with Western-style suits and dresses. Lu Sheng quietly lurks in a corner of the venue, holding a crystal glass in one hand and striking up a conversation with the person next to him. He is distracted, but finds himself looking among the beautiful people for that snowy white figure.
It was just a dream, an illusion. He shook his head, and suddenly saw a figure move in the corner of his eye. From afar, at the other end of the venue, the snow-white woman was smiling at him.
Lu Sheng immediately rushed over, almost hanging half his body over the balcony. The figure that was clearly visible was gone like foam, without a trace.
Lu Sheng almost despondently pounded on the balcony to adjust his mood. As soon as he turned around, a friend came through the crowd. Lu Sheng took a deep breath, concealed the disappointment in his eyes, and regained his usual demeanour.
He is Lu Sheng. Lu Sheng, who can turn the tide with a flick of the hand on Shanghai Beach.
With a smile, after some small talk, his friend looked around and saw that there was no one around, so he suddenly leaned in close to him and lowered his voice, ‘…you should be careful recently.’
Raising an eyebrow, he waited for further explanation.
‘Someone is very unhappy about your winning the bid for the dye factory last time. Rumour has it that they paid off the thugs.’
There was a slight smile of disdain at the corner of his lips. He still bowed to his friend, who had been concerned about him, ‘Thanks, Lu Sheng will be careful.’ Hmph, petty!
After seeing off his friend, he casually looked back. In the dark courtyard, a snow-white figure was smiling at him from under the weeping willows by the pool.
A faint voice came from the darkness, cutting through the noise of the room and reaching his ears.
‘…Call my name, Zisheng.’
When he looked again, he saw nothing.
Her name? Where would he know her name? As he thought this, he subconsciously mouthed a word, ‘Bai…’
Bai… Then what? He couldn’t remember.
Well…he looked like he was probably at his most dishevelled in his entire life.
Leisurely thinking about this, Lu Sheng covered his bleeding stomach, leaned against the wall behind him, and was no longer able to support his body, slowly slipping.
But you can’t blame anyone else for this. He had already been warned by a friend to be careful of ruffians, but he still wandered alone in the alley every night, just to find that snowy white figure, and that’s how he was ambushed and fell limp here.
Well, maybe that was the messenger of death, and it appeared just to take his life.
His head began to feel a little dizzy, and the sound of the pursuers‘ hasty footsteps came again. Lu Sheng closed his eyes and thought to himself, Bai… Bai… Bai what?
Suddenly, he felt that the current situation seemed very familiar. He opened his lips and called out a name, “Bai… Huan…”
The next second, cold fingertips touched his face.
’…It’s me, A Sheng.’
A soft touch covered his lips, and something flowed into his body. The aching parts began to feel no pain, and the bleeding wounds between his fingers quickly healed.
His consciousness also became much clearer. Lu Sheng looked at the beautiful woman in front of him with long, snow-white hair and imperial-purple eyes, smiling gently. He raised his eyes, and the rogue in the distance was rapidly approaching, the light of his long sword shining in the moonlight.
The woman just stared at him, suddenly smiling with an innocent expression, ‘A Sheng, what are you going to do with them?’
‘…Kill them all.‘ He returned her smile, and the woman nodded happily, her voice soft and sweet.
’Good!”
Lu Sheng slowly closed his eyes.
In the distance, the young soothsayer named Wei’s figure gradually faded away. All that remained in the air was his shallow rambling.
White Ring, I helped you bring the one you love to you, so be careful.
Middle
Part 4 of the Return
The first encounter was a fleeting glance a thousand years ago, like a petal of the nandina flower slipping from the palm of your hand. It was a stolen moment of beauty that would shape your lives forever.
At that time, she was nothing more than a demon that had not yet shed its snake form, with translucent white scales covering the part of her body above the waist that had turned human.
But the white rings didn’t matter. In this vast wilderness, she had her own pool of water and the company of her nine tails. It was just a matter of time before she slowly cultivated her immortality.
With a rustling sound, that day, she dragged her long tail and swam through the blossoming flowers. The elegant and slender end of her tail was gliding past a cluster of golden peonies when the flame-like petals softly attached to her skin.
She parted the grass and saw the handsome face of a man.
He had closed eyes and dark hair, the colour of the night, but it gave a very bright feeling.
It was a human.
The snake demon, which had no taboos in the wilderness, encountered a human for the first time.
The man did not move, not even blinking. She swam around him curiously, trying to poke him with her tail, but the man still did not react.
It must be a corpse. She had just moved closer when the man suddenly opened his eyes –
such bright, dark eyes.
Shocked, Bai Huan jumped quickly into the water. Amid the splashing, she heard the man laugh loudly. Turning angrily, she saw that the man’s smile, which could be described as innocent, was dappled with colours in the sunlight and water droplets.
The heart under her chest suddenly began to beat rapidly, and she felt a little heat on her face. Bai Huan hid half her face underwater with a white ring, only exposing a pair of pale-peach-coloured eyes.
‘My name is Lu Sheng. I’m here to cultivate. What about you?’ The man blinked interestingly.
‘…Humph!’ It seemed like a small grunt. Bai Huan dived underwater and left, without telling the man her name.
‘…’ Why did she always think of that man? And when she thought of his gentle smile, there was a dull warmth in her chest.
Rising from between the green water plants, she looked up and saw a figure swaying on the water.
Dark hair and dark eyes.
Bai Huan gazed at the figure on the water, listening to the snake girl’s snake girl’s calls, and strangely feeling her heart pound.
Holding her chin, she was underwater, and Lu Sheng was on the surface, gazing at each other in search.
Lu Sheng searched for her all day, and then she dreamed of him underwater all night.
The man lingered by the lake for seven whole days, and she watched him underwater for seven whole days.
Listening to him call her again and again, she had a subtle curve on her lips that she didn’t even know was there.
Then, one morning, she no longer heard the man calling her, and suddenly her heart felt empty. She swayed her long, white hair underwater, grabbed the sleeve of the white fox that had come to visit her, and asked him, ‘Jiwei, Jiwei, what’s wrong with me?’
Jiwei didn’t say anything, his golden eyes just looking at her with a sad expression, and then stroking her cold, long hair as he had when she was little. ‘You’ve forgotten him, haven’t you? You’ve forgotten him.’
‘But… I can’t forget. Look, it hurts when I think about him,’ she said, pressing her chest and looking at him innocently with her pale-peach eyes. Jiuwei didn’t say anything else, just gave a wry smile.
I don’t know how many more days passed, but suddenly one day, something shattered the tranquility of her pool of blue water. She looked up and saw that one after the other, mice were being thrown into her pool.
She hated rats the most! White Ring angrily poked her head out of the water. In the bright sunshine was Lu Sheng’s unsuspecting smile.
The man was covered in mud, but he was smiling happily.
‘Look, I know that Snake Girl likes to eat rats. Last time I scared you, and this time I caught some especially for you, and sure enough, you came out.’
White Ring blinked, staring at him in disbelief.
Lu Sheng blinked too, staring at her in the same way.
‘……You……why did you want me to come out?’ Bai Huan had wanted to ask with righteous indignation, but the words that came out were as weak as a whisper. Then her snow-white tail curled up as if she were shy, blocking half of her fair face, and her pale-peach eyes peeked behind the tail at the man opposite.
Lu Sheng scratched his head, blinked, and thought for a long time, ’…I, I don’t know either.’
Bai Huan laughed. She swam softly, circled once, plucked a few lingzhi, and threw them into the man’s arms from afar. ‘Here, eat them.’
Lu Sheng looked at the lingzhi in his arms and suddenly laughed, ‘You treat me with papaya, and I repay you with jade…’
Seeing that Lu Sheng was slowly walking towards a cave by her small lake, she knew that he would not leave for a while. Bai Huan happily swam back to the lake, playfully grabbed the sleeve of Jiuwei, and asked him repeatedly what the meaning of those two lines of poetry was.
Seeing Bai Huan’s hopeful expression, the demon fox paused for a moment, indicating that she didn’t know either. In fact, she was screaming in her heart, ‘He’s flirting with you, you silly girl!’
And when she knew the meaning of those two lines of poetry, it was a long, long, long time later…
The days that followed were very happy. Occasionally, she would come out to chat with Lu Sheng. Lu Sheng would tell her about the world beyond the Great Wilderness. She would pick lingzhi to give him to eat, throw it to him from afar, then when he closed his eyes to rest, she would carefully approach him. If Lu Sheng made the slightest movement, she would immediately jump into the lake, half of her head showing above the water, her pale-beige eyes rolling around as she looked at the man who was smiling wryly for some reason.
She never told Lu Sheng her name.
It was winter, and she could not resist her biological instincts, sinking to the bottom of the lake among the water plants. That would have been her favourite time of year, and as long as Jiuzi did not call her, she could sleep lazily through spring and summer, letting the water plants sigh and cover her soft body.
But now, she had a figure with dark hair and dark eyes in her heart, and the pleasant sleep of the past had become an insurmountable loneliness, so she woke up early.
There was still a thin layer of ice on the lake, and the moon was like a silver hook, casting a hazy shadow on the ice.
Suddenly, she heard a faint cry from under the water. Breaking through the ice, she saw Lu Sheng leaning against a tree by the lake. When he saw her, the man smiled, his face pale.
‘…I thought I would never see you again.’
There was a smell of blood in the air.
Her heart beat violently for no reason, and white rings swam ashore, allowing the cold of the snow to chill her body, which was already without warmth. She moved closer to the man and saw bright red liquid flowing from him.
She dipped her finger in the bright red liquid, and the warm temperature almost burned her finger. The bright red tongue licked her finger, and the human blood was indescribably bitter.
‘It’s nothing, I just had a fight with the ground wolves a few days ago,’ Lu Sheng smiled and comforted her, still with that same clean smile.
Shaking, her fingers, which still had fine scales, caressed Lu Sheng’s face.
Human skin, soft and warm, was nothing like her cold and unfeeling skin.
At that moment, Lu Sheng reached out and grabbed her slender wrist, smiling brightly at her, ’…You see, I finally caught you.’
After saying this, his body swayed and Lu Sheng fell into her arms –
Bai Huan had gone to the Nine-Tailed Fox’s cave to kill it. One of the tails smashed the door that the demon fox had carefully carved, and the human, who had lost too much blood, was almost dead, and was left in front of the white fox.
‘Save him,’ he said, ignoring the white fox and turning to leave.
Looking at the human, who was already gasping for breath, the Nine-Tailed Fox revealed a complex look in his eyes.
‘…Maybe, I shouldn’t have saved you…‘ He shook his head, and a golden light appeared in the palm of his hand, enveloping the human’s body…
Bai Huan returned a few days later, her snow-white body covered in bright red.
’…How many did you kill?’ Jiubi asked indifferently.
The snake demon replied with a still innocent but exceptionally enchanting smile, “One clan,” and she revealed her bright red tongue.
The nine-tailed fox nodded without speaking, flicked her finger lightly, and the human cultivator lay quietly on the bed.
The snake demon reached out, as if she wanted to hug him, but when she looked at her nails and body covered in blood, she winced, backed away, and cautiously watched.
The golden light gradually faded, and then Lu Sheng’s long, dark eyelashes moved slightly.
It was as if the lotus flower was silently vibrating in life and death.
Looking at her own reflection in those dark eyes, Bai Huan spoke softly, ‘Bai Huan…’
Lu Sheng looked at her and responded indistinctly, ‘Hm…?
’…My name is Bai Huan.”
In an instant, Lu Sheng revealed a gentle smile, and he reached out with difficulty, drawing the snake demon closer to him and embracing her soft waist.
Bai Huan wanted to tell him that she was covered in blood, but the human man didn’t care at all. He wrapped his arms tightly around her body, and her long tail landed weakly with a crack. It twisted slightly on the ground.
She snuggled up to him, her bright red tongue flicking out, as Bai Huan licked and kissed the man’s neck and face.
This was how snakes showed their affection. When Jiuwei found her, she often licked him all over, getting his face all wet.
Lu Sheng froze for a moment, but then suddenly smiled again.
The Nine-tailed Fox next to him sighed, walked out silently, and then closed the door behind them.
Then the Taoist with the dark hair and eyes of the same colour stayed by her side.
The days that followed flew by. She loved nothing more than to lie next to Lu Sheng, wrapping her tail around her lover’s body in circles, the soft, slender tip of her tail wrapped around Lu Sheng’s wrist, circling back around to be played with at her fingertips.
Lu Sheng told her many interesting stories from the world of mortals. He told her about a woman who drowned her treasure box when crossing a river, and about a man who died hugging a pillar in order to keep his appointment with his lover.
Then, one day, he told her about a white snake who flooded Jinshan in order to find her husband.
At that time, the white snake wrapped itself around his neck, its soft, long tail
as she looked up at him from below, her moist, ruby-coloured eyes seeming to be filled with rippling, emerald-green water.
‘The White Snake must not love Xu Xian.’
‘Why?’
The white snake revealed an elegant smile, its blood-red fangs faintly visible. ‘If you love him, you must eat him.’
She was a snake, and she only knew this way to show her deep love for the other person.
Lu Sheng laughed out loud, and embraced her tightly, whispering tenderly, ‘Then when I die, you must eat me.’
‘…’ Bai Huan did not answer immediately, tilting her head,
and then bowing her head on his chest, with the steady heartbeat in her ear, ‘…I don’t want to eat.’
She wanted him to live a long life, to tell her stories, to brush her hair, until the end of time.
Bai Huan thought of something and added, ‘…Ah Sheng.’
“Hm?’
‘I never eat mice,’ she corrected solemnly.
She felt like she was speaking very seriously, but for some reason, after hearing her words, Lu Sheng burst out laughing, unable to stop himself.
Bai Huan was inexplicably angry. That time, she was angry for a whole half month, and it wasn’t until Lu Sheng had said all sorts of things to apologise that she swam out of the pool of water.
Next
She had thought that this would be how it would be forever, but Lu Sheng still left her.
That time, she was struck by lightning, but the lightning that should have struck her struck the human man who had rushed out and covered her.
At that time, her lover was already white-haired, and his dark eyes had long since become dim, but in her eyes, he was still the same as the day they met.
Bai Huan will remember forever when Lu Sheng brushed aside the peony flowers, and in an instant, between the green and red, the gentle man gave a refined smile, and they were together for life after life.
She sat there, dumbfounded, with her lover’s body in her arms.
Without crying or shedding a tear, she just sat there.
Bai Huan thought that she would just keep looking at that face forever. Until Lu Sheng became a pile of bones, until the bones turned to ashes.
She had said that she didn’t want to eat him.
It’s not delicious at all.
But he still left her.
Bai Huan did not move, as if she were dead. Her knees were on the bones of her lover, and the unfulfilled heavenly thunder had burned half her body, but she felt nothing.
The heavenly maiden entered meditation, and the soldiers’ swords entered her body, but she still gave a faint smile.
But only for a moment.
It was as if the world had just opened up, and she was in a trance, not knowing how long it had been. Someone touched her eyelashes with a fingertip, just like a Bodhisattva would, and she woke up with a start.
Bai Huan opened her eyes and saw the snow-white Jiuwei in front of her.
He told her, ‘Stand up, and go and rest your body.’
Bai Huan tilted her head curiously. Why? she asked. The half of her body that had been burned was set off by the other half, which was elegant and innocent, and it was surprisingly enchanting.
You are human, and you will be reincarnated. Jiubi said indifferently, and you want to see her, don’t you?
Bai Huan didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
Sleep. After looking at her for a while, Jiuwei said with a sigh.
So she embraced her lover’s body and sank to the bottom of the water, transforming into the most primitive and secure posture, wrapping around Lu Sheng in tight circles. The soft water plants were like Lu Sheng’s long hair, gently brushing against her cheeks.
I will wait for you until the end of time.
Chapter 5
‘…’ Lu Sheng opened his eyes and looked out the window at the dark night sky.
He had just had a dream. No, it wasn’t a dream, but a long playback of memories from a previous life.
One night, one life, a split second.
He moved slightly and realised that he was lying in his own bed, and all the wounds on his body had instantly disappeared, no longer causing any pain. He turned his head slightly and saw White Ring lying on the bedside table, watching him. Her pale-beige eyes had a faint moist sheen in the night.
‘…… It really is…… Every time I need you to save me.’ He really was a useless man.
His cold, delicate fingers touched his cheek, and Bai Huan leaned over him gently in an elegant, swimming-like posture.
‘Sheng, do you want to know who wants to harm you?’
‘No.’ Why would he want to know? There were only a few people with a conflict of interest who would want to do him in, so why bother? Just eliminate them one by one.
Bai Huan nodded, looked around with her pale-peach eyes, and then curiously picked up the coffee cup on the nightstand—and took a bite.
Watch your teeth! Before Lu Sheng could say anything, Bai Huan already threw the cup onto the soft, long-haired carpet with a pained expression on her little face, ‘It’s so hard…’ She thought it was something she could eat.
Fortunately, at least she didn’t ask him if his phone was attached to a tree.
He had loved her so much in his previous life. He had searched for her so much in this life.
Now, she was within his reach.
…previous life…previous life… He raised his eyebrows slightly.
A small doubt spread through his mind after he had once again embraced White Ring.
White Ring…do you love me?
Do you really…love…‘Lusheng’?
That was a poisonous weed, with weak roots that sprouted quickly and grew rapidly.
One day, when he was worried about what to give White Ring for lunch, Lu Sheng suddenly had a brainstorm: he told his subordinates to catch mice. Then, in the afternoon, he walked towards the mansion happily, carrying a cage full of mice of all shapes and sizes, with the background music being the cries of his subordinates.
When the cage was placed in front of White Ring, the snake demon looked up and looked at Lu Sheng.
‘Lu Sheng.‘
’Hm?‘ Go ahead, say it, you like to eat that kind of…
’…You’ve forgotten again, I don’t eat mice.’ Lu Sheng had forgotten again.
Again? The smile on Lu Sheng’s lips froze slightly, then he smiled broadly, “It was my oversight…”
The snake demon simply ignored the slight stiffness in her man’s face. She laughed and stretched her supple body, leaning into his embrace, ’But at the beginning, you did catch mice and bring them to me.’
At the beginning? Suddenly, it came back to him. Yes, there was indeed such a passage in his memory. But was that really him?
Lu Sheng almost indifferently lowered his eyes and changed the subject, ‘What do you want to eat for lunch?’
She rubbed against him coquettishly, ‘I don’t want to eat anything right now, I just want you to stay by my side, Ah Sheng.’
The affectionate endearment touched Lu Sheng’s nerves; he remembered that in his previous life, Bai Huan always looked at him with those moist eyes, calling him ‘A Sheng’ over and over again.
He smiled and patted her back, ‘I’ll tell someone to make you some vegetarian food in a moment. For now, I’ll keep you company. What do you want to do?’
‘Play chess with me,’ Bai Huan said, her eyes crinkling with laughter. ‘You taught me how to play chess.’
“Before…?’
Lu Sheng nodded and, in silence, took out the chessboard.
On a bright moonlit night, Lu Sheng sat by the window, outside which was the quiet radiance of the night.
Suddenly, a soft arm curled around his neck.
“Sheng, what are you thinking?’
Lu Sheng hugged her into his arms, her soft body following the contours of his back, while his dark eyes looked into the distance. After a long while, he asked, ‘Bai Huan, do you love me?’
‘Yes, I love you, Lu Sheng,’ she answered without hesitation.
‘…’ There was a moment of silence, then Lu Sheng smiled and hugged her close, ‘I love you too.’
What is love?
She has been in his dreams since he can remember. Then, after searching for her a thousand times, the moment he embraced Bai Huan in his arms, he felt his soul go numb, and the tiniest part of him trembled with pain.
He wanted to give her the best things in the world, and to see her smile with happiness and contentment.
The most important part was to expect the same gentle response from the one he loved.
Bai Huan loved Lu Sheng.
But that wasn’t him.
Past life memories and things like that don’t matter at all. He is Lu Sheng, a simple individual who loves Bai Huan with all his love in this life, not the remnants of a so-called past life.
That’s not him! He doesn’t recognise it!
His fingers tightened slightly, and Bai Huan looked up, ‘…Ah Sheng, it hurts…’
Lu Sheng relaxed his hands, his eyes looking into the distance, his voice gentle and ethereal, ‘…Bai Huan, do you love me?’
The snake demon gazed at him for a moment, then gave a loving smile, ‘Love, I have always loved you, Ah Sheng.’
‘…’ He wordlessly hugged the snake demon in his arms.
The same characters, the same pronunciation.
Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sheng, Ah Sh
Then, that night, after Lu Sheng had fallen into a deep sleep, the white phantom of a white fox appeared before the snake demon.
‘Be careful,’ he warned the white ring.
‘I know,’ the white ring only smiled. I love him so much.
So…it doesn’t matter what happens.
I love her so much.
Lusheng said to himself, and then his golden eyes looked clearly at himself as he let go of his fingers. With a flick of his fingers, the realgar at the fingertips immediately sank into the cup and disappeared.
The wine was strong and had a rich taste, enough to cover the smell of realgar.
The snake demon was water, and earth could suppress water. Even a thousand-year-old snake demon would die from a cup of realgar wine in a clay cup at the time of the Dragon Boat Festival!
He brought the cup of wine to Bai Huan and gently persuaded her to try it.
Holding the wine glass, Bai Huan looked as cute and adorable as a white bird.
‘Mmm. Anything given to me by A Sheng is bound to be good,’ she said with a smile, and slowly drank the wine mixed with realgar.
As she drank, Bai Huan gazed steadily at the man in front of her with her calm, pale-purple eyes.
I love her so much. Lu Sheng said to himself.
Therefore, I cannot allow her to love anyone other than me.
Even if it is the so-called previous life, the so-called other me, it is not okay.
If it is such an incomplete love, then he would rather not have it.
Then, the pottery cup fell to the ground, and the not-so-crisp sound shattered the entire life.
He knew, and Bai Huan knew, that it was realgar wine.
Realgar or anything else, as long as it was given to her by Lu Sheng, Bai Huan would still eat it without hesitation. It would certainly be done according to his wishes.
As the saying goes, ‘smiling while drinking arsenic’. This was Bai Huan’s way of loving him.
There was a faint sound of rolling and struggling on the ground. Lu Sheng slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he gently picked up a beautiful white snake on the ground and kissed the tightly closed eyes.
You see, I really am not your Sheng. Your Sheng would have been gentle and caring, and given you a wide world. But I just want to have you all to myself, to share you with no one.
I love you so much.
He picked up the snow-white snake and felt its tiny lips rest against his neck. It was as if it whispered, Sheng, I love you so much.
He replied, I love you too. So, you and I will always be together, okay?
Epilogue 1
So everything returned to normal, and Lu Sheng remained the same as before.
The white-clad woman he had loved disappeared without a trace, and no one knew where she had gone, but no one cared.
The only trace of those days was a small habit that Lu Sheng had picked up.
He began to enjoy listening to records.
He listened to ‘The Legend of the White Snake’ and only the part where the White Snake drinks the orchid with her profound magical powers. The phrase ‘With my nine transformations, it’s no problem’ echoed, and then he would smile tenderly as he listened.
That was just a moment.
Although, a moment is a thousand years.
Epilogue 2
Then he grew old. One day, he leaned back in his rocking chair and died, peacefully, with a smile on his lips.
The moment he died, a white light bloomed, flesh and blood splattering. Then a beautiful white snake appeared from his body.
In the blink of an eye, it turned into a woman, who looked down at him and smiled.
Are you satisfied, A Sheng?
He went to reincarnation, and she went to sleep, waiting for their next encounter in the next millennium.
They both disappeared, and not even a drop of blood remained. Only the gramophone continued to play.
In the third month of the bingwu year, spring was in full bloom.
That year, Xiao Jinxiu was only seven years old. In the spring morning light that filled the Daiyue palace, she dragged her long, black hair to the ground and recited the lines ‘I have not combed my hair since last night’ on her father’s lap.
Then the young man from the Shen country, a hostage, came up to the palace in her soft, childish voice and bowed.
The young man was only 11 or 12 years old, with a sharp-cheeked face, fair skin, and a red mark between his eyebrows, like the enchantingly poisonous wound on the top of a red-crowned crane’s head, cold and beautiful.
A female official beside her whispered that this hostage from the Shen Kingdom had a very picturesque face.
Jinxiu was born blind and could not see things. She was so young that she had no idea what a picturesque face looked like, so she became curious. She listened carefully, wrapped in a bright red brocade quilt, and climbed down from her father’s lap. Barefoot, she ran over to the young man, who was kneeling quietly with his forehead touching the ground. His thin body was bent into a dignified arc, motionless.
‘Princess, you’ll catch a cold!’ The maidens cried out in alarm as the young man slowly looked up.
The little girl, with her long, black hair reaching to the ground, ran towards him, a round bead of crystal on her neck, the natural golden filaments inside it woven into the shape of a lifelike lotus flower. It was the precious lotus bead that Shen Guo had offered as tribute with him. At the mere sight of it, the expression in the young man’s dark pupils slightly and barely perceptibly tightened.
Standing in front of him, Jinxiu’s delicate fingers shyly touched his cheek, and she blinked her big eyes and said childishly, ‘My name is Jinxiu…Big brother, what’s your name?’
The touch of the warmth of the face, warm and soft, made his cold body come alive in an instant.
The child in front of him was so innocent and pure, how could he carefully protect her and raise her in the palace?
The young man looked at her for a moment, then suddenly curved his lips. For a moment, his already beautiful face shone with a radiance that was almost enchanting. He whispered, ‘My name is Shen Ruo.’
Yes, his name was Shen Ruo, the eldest son of the queen of the Shen Kingdom and the future heir to the throne. After the defeat, he was taken as a hostage to the enemy country of Dali.
That year was the 27th year of the Longqing reign, and they were the most beloved father and daughter in the Da Yue court: the seven-year-old princess, who was the apple of her father’s eye, and the eleven-year-old hostage of the defeated country.
His fortune was uncertain, and most likely he would have no way out.
She was surrounded by riches and her future was bright and dazzling.
At the beginning of their lives, they stood at the fork in the road, heading in opposite directions—
Jinxiu liked him so much.
Perhaps it was because there were so few children of the same age at the palace, but from that day on, Jinxiu kept pestering Shen Ruo.
Whenever Shen Ruo climbed a tree to pick flowers, she would go with him. Then she would hang pitifully from the tree and refuse to come down, wanting only Shen Ruo to hold her.
The thin body of a 11 or 12 year old boy would collapse under the weight of Jinxiu’s embrace, and he would scrape his elbows on her. But the next time, in the midst of the white pear blossoms, her black hair fluttering like a fountain, she would reach out to him, smiling, wanting only his embrace.
Not only at this time, but also in everyday life, Jinxiu often snuggled up in his arms like a gentle and weak kitten, softly calling his name, ‘Aru Aru,’ with complete trust—it was so warm.
Speaking to her gently, smiling tenderly, stroking her hair, looking at the lotus beads on her neck, slowly resentment climbed up.
In such a deep palace, why is she so innocent and kind? Are there also the flesh and blood of his sinking country among the things that feed her such innocence?
Such a thin neck could be broken with ease.
Shen Ruoran thought absently, and the gentle smile on his handsome face grew warmer. Then, with a silent sigh, he hugged the young girl in his arms even tighter. She was so warm, and she was the only warmth he had in the palace of the empire.
In the year Shen Ruo turned 19, his younger brother Shen Lan, who had been raised by the Empress along with him since their mother died young, travelled thousands of miles from the Shen Kingdom to bring him some terrible news: his mother, who had always been weak and sickly, had finally fallen ill with a terminal illness that doctors had determined would not be cured.
His younger brother, the child who was a year younger than him, crawled on the cold palace floor of the Dage Palace, begging the emperor to let Shen Ruo leave and that he would be willing to take Shen Ruo’s place as a hostage.
The man on the throne smiled as he watched this, and finally chuckled, ‘You are only the son of a palace maid, do you really think you are qualified to be a hostage?’ After saying this, he swept away.
Just because his country is weak and poor, he has to suffer such an insult.
He seemed to sense the gloomy aura emanating from Shen Ruo. The young girl sitting next to him, who could see nothing, gripped his sleeve. Shen Ruo silently broke free, slowly walked over, picked up his younger brother, who was still prostrate on the ground and whom he had doted on since childhood, and carefully patted the dust off his body. He led him away from the hall.
His country was in turmoil, and in the palace of this enemy country, all he had was his younger brother, who was in his hands and connected to him by blood, and his own body.
A faint and weak voice came from behind him, and Shen Ruo did not turn around.
Then the voice calling his name gradually grew louder, then suddenly it went quiet, and finally it faded away in the wind, like a broken string thrown far away.
Three days after this incident, Shen Ruo saw Jinxiu again.
That day, he and Shen Lan returned from the Shen Kingdom’s envoy late at night. As soon as they pushed open the door, they saw the slender young girl standing in the doorway.
The moment he saw Jinxiu, Shen Ruo thought she had cried. Looking more closely, he saw that it was just the night dew brushing against her eyelashes, causing fine beads of water to roll down her face.
Shen Ruo asked his younger brother to leave, and he walked up in silence. The young girl tilted her head, her eyes that clearly could not see anything staring at him quietly, and then reached out to him for a hug, just like when they were children.
It had never changed, such a warm and soft body.
Did she seem to have become lighter? Shen Ruo thought absently that the weight was different from when she was a child and often fell over him. Now, Jinxiu was as light as a handful of lotus flowers that would sink with the water. No, it was that he had slowly grown up over the long period of time.
The little girl leaned over his shoulder and asked in a low voice, ‘Do you want to leave Da Yue?’
Shen Ru was momentarily stunned: hadn’t she been sulking these past few days, waiting for him to come and coax her? Why did she suddenly ask such a thing?
Not getting a response from him, the young girl slowly reached out her hand and stroked his face.
She had often touched him like this, and knew his changes better than he did himself. Then Jinxiu repeated in a low voice, as if about to cry, ‘Yes, Ru, I can help you leave Dajiye.’
Jinxiu handed him several travel documents that had been properly signed and were valid for travel within the Da Yue territory and for crossing the border. With these, he could leave Da Yue without any problems.
The emperor of Da Yue was a tyrant at the time, and even for Jinxiu, who was so beloved by him, it was not easy to obtain so many travel documents.
It turned out that she had been preparing for this for the past few days.
She could read his every thought, without words or any hint, as if it was a tacit understanding between them.
He looked at the vouchers in the candlelight, feeling as if they still had her faint warmth on them. Then his younger brother, who was half his blood but the most similar of all his siblings, almost exactly the same, smiled.
‘Big brother, you go first. Otherwise, you’ll be too late,’ Shen Lan said with a smile, just as handsome, but not as peaceful and calm as his thin and pale face.
You go with the envoy, I’ll stay here,’ Shen Lan said.
Shen Ruo suddenly felt a little dazed: it turned out that they even sounded alike.
Yes, whenever the envoy left, he hid in the carriage, and Shen Lan hid in the bedroom—
No—Shen Ruo suddenly looked up, but saw his younger brother solemnly and slowly bowing towards him in the midst of a scattering of candlelight. They had grown up together, and he had always been impolite. He had been admonished many times by the female officials, but he never called him ‘Your Majesty’, but instead kept calling him ‘Big Brother’.
This solemn gesture was the first time for the 18-year-old boy, and also the first time for Shen Ruo.
Shen Lan’s dark hair reflected a deep and solemn colour in the light. His voice seemed to slowly penetrate from the bottom of a very deep pool, hardly like that of a teenager,
his beloved younger brother, speaking to him as a subject.
‘Father is weak and trusts the treacherous. Mother has been ill for a long time and is unable to manage the palace. The daughter of the powerful minister is the imperial consort and actually controls the palace. She has no children of her own and has taken the son of a palace servant to raise as her own. to raise. His son is weak and incompetent, even more so than Your Majesty. Now that the Empress Dowager is about to pass away, and my father is already plotting to install a new empress. If my brother does not return to the country at this time, the position of heir to the throne will go to someone else. By then, with a weak country and an incompetent ruler, and a powerful concubine, what will remain of Shen?
His brother said this.
Shen was silent for a moment, and then burst out laughing!
His laughter came and went without warning, and while the echoes were still reverberating in the sea of candlelight, his cold voice froze everything in its tracks.
‘I’m going back,’ he said. ‘No matter what the cost—’
Shen Lan looked up at him, then dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.
Tears welled in the eyes of the sixteen-year-old.
Ten days later, the Shen delegation set off—
and on that very day, Jinxiu discovered that the prince of the Shen Kingdom had been replaced without her knowledge—she was the only one who noticed.
Shen Lan was curious about this, and Jinxiu leaned against the window, not answering immediately, but staring out the window with those eyes that could see nothing.
After a moment, Jinxiu’s voice slowly came.
The footsteps are different… A Ruo walks very quietly, with small steps, preferring to walk in a straight line, exactly twenty steps from the courtyard entrance to the corridor.
As she said this, she smiled slightly, and Shen Lan was momentarily stunned, and blurted out: Do you like Big Brother?
He had no idea why he was asking.
Of course I do. Jinxiu replied softly, with a thin blush on her cheeks. Although she was shy, she did not hesitate.
I like Aru, I like him very much, I just want to be with him. If he is happy, I am happy; if he is sad, I am sad. It was a beautiful day, the sky was as blue as a mirror, Jinxiu was wearing a pale-blue palace dress, her fine, soft black hair spread out like a spring of water. She tilted her face upwards, and in the lively sunlight, a thin layer of translucent pink blush spread over her delicate face, making her look almost otherworldly.
In that moment, Shen Lan felt something inside him shatter, something soft that made people feel gentle and something else that made people feel bittersweet.
It’s very good, he muttered, not knowing why he was saying it. He just felt very good, really good.
It’s very good to have someone so beautiful who loves her brother so deeply.
It’s really very good.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
A month and a half later, Shen’s delegation had already left the borders of Da Yue, and the emperor had also left for the spring hunt with his senior officials. It would be two months before he returned to the capital. It was the perfect time, so Shen Lan began to make preparations for his escape. On the night before he left, Jinxiu went to see him and brought a large package full of odds and ends. Jinxu went on and on, saying that this was something Shen Ruo liked to eat, that he had looked for this book for a long time, and that among the palace attendants, only Li Xuan’s shoes fit him perfectly…
Then she suddenly stopped talking, stroked each item, and slowly lowered her eyes.
Shen Lan almost thought she was going to cry, but Jinxu didn’t. She just repeated her actions.
Shen Lan was silent for a moment, then reached out and wrapped each item back up before placing it in her hands.
The young man, only a year older than her, asked her if she wanted to go together.
Jinxiu stared at him with eyes that could not see anything, but were beautiful as if they were filled with misty water. Shen Lan repeated her question again.
Should she go with him? To Shen’s country, to see Shen Ruo?
That was the same voice as the young man she loved.
It was as if the world had gone dark before her eyes.
‘I am willing to marry and devote my life to you. Even if you abandon me without mercy, I will not be ashamed.’
Those were the words she longed to hear from him, but Shen Ruo never said them.
She knew that Shen Lan was standing in front of her, extending his hand to her.
Under the snow-white cuffs, warm jade-like fingers gently touched Shen Lan’s palm. She smiled, as happy as a blooming flower, and tears fell without warning.
‘Well… I’ll go with you,’ she said, smiling through her tears.
The two of them set out on their journey of escape, lightly equipped and travelling light.
The escape came sooner than Shen Lan had imagined. He was prepared to be dragged down, but in reality, the blind girl who had been pampered in the depths of the palace was weak but strong.
She never complains, never complains. She is cautious and studious about everything new she encounters. She gets up when she falls, endures illness and injury with a stoic face if it doesn’t affect her journey, and never tries to be brave if she judges it will only delay her.
Jinxiu is the strongest woman he has ever met.
Shen Lan once said this inadvertently while they were eating in the inn where they were staying.
Because she wanted to see Shen Ruo… Because she had held Shen Lan tightly on horseback, and her fingers, which had blistered from the rough fabric, were not very nimble when holding chopsticks, she whispered this, and a sweet, innocent expression appeared on her white jade-like face, before she fell silent for a moment. Her eyes slowly dropped, and her voice was low.
Because I am… my father’s daughter… I have already let my father down… At least, in the things I can do, I will not let him suffer any more shame…
At that time, they were about to cross the Yunlin River and reach the border of the Shen Kingdom. After learning the news, the pursuers sent by the Emperor of Daiyue sighed and stopped by the Yunlin River.
She had shamed her father and caused him pain.
The soldiers stopped at the Yunlin River and stopped pursuing, perhaps fearing that they would hurt her, or perhaps finally giving up on her shameless daughter.
Shen Lan reached out to comfort her, but suddenly realised that he was in no position to offer any comfort to Jinxiu.
So he remained silent, watching the petite young girl as her hand holding the chopsticks trembled slightly, and tears fell down her face, dripping onto the table.
Shen Lan vaguely thought to himself, yes, she is crying in front of him again. She doesn’t know, but when she cries, it hurts him.
But she would probably never know… because the person she loved was his beloved older brother.
That was fine, he really thought so.
So, two and a half months after Shen Ruo left, Jinxiu finally saw Shen Ruo again.
That day happened to be the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, a day when girls make wishes for their future husbands.
According to the Chinese lunar calendar, it was a good day for marriage, with the God of Happiness in the east and the God of Wealth in the southwest.
So when Shen Lan took her hand and led her quietly to the Prince’s eastern palace, the whole place was decorated with lanterns and streamers, and it was a lively and bustling scene.
The crown prince had recently returned to the country. Although he had not yet had time to see his mother for the last time, and had immediately married the only beautiful young lady raised by the prime minister, he had also told his father to calm down a little and not to establish a new queen immediately. This also made the prime minister, who had been full of wishful thinking and wanted his daughter to be the queen, lose his arrogance. Speaking of which, there was another great piece of good news. Perhaps it was because of the joy of the crown prince’s return that the emperor of Da Yue was also heard to have fallen ill.
The servant spoke with great joy, almost unable to contain his happiness. Shen Lan almost wanted to throw down the things in his hands and cover Jinxiu’s ears so she couldn’t hear anything.
This young girl had abandoned her country, come here, and suffered illness and injury without uttering a single cry of pain. After all her hardships, she had waited for the news of her lover’s wedding and her father’s illness—
Shen Lan almost wanted to scream, but Jinxiu gently tugged on his sleeve.
At that time, the Milky Way stretched across the sky, and the magpies crossed the dark sky on their bridge. She raised her face to look at him, her face so white that it was almost too much to bear.
Jinxiu said very softly, A Lan, let’s go, okay?
He looked at her steadily, and then said, ‘Okay.’
Shen Lan’s mansion was nearby, not big, but there was a pond of blooming lotuses in the courtyard.
‘I’m aware of this… My father had so many concubines. He didn’t like those women, but he had to marry them anyway, and even had to calculate so that they could give birth to children in order… I know… A Ruo is going to be the emperor in the future, I know… He will have many concubines… many… Father became ill because he was heartbroken. He loved me so much but I abandoned him. He was so heartbroken that he…’ She stood on the small curved bridge in the middle of the lotus pond, her back to Shen Lan. Her voice gradually faded away, and then the young girl slowly and slowly slid to the ground, embraced her knees, and curled up her body with all her strength, like a young animal that was hurt and in pain.
There was a suppressed, thin sob that seeped out.
It was a sound of crying that was desperately suppressed, even to the point of biting her lips.
In his brother’s description, the young girl in front of him had never shed a tear, always smiling as soft as a warm silk satin in the spring sunshine.
What he remembered, however, was her face when she cried.
Shen Lan heard her mumble and mumble, mentioning her father and Shen Ruo. He had no idea what to do, so he bent down and put his hands on her shoulders. Then he heard Jinxiu’s choking sobs: ‘Don’t look at me.’
Shen Lan was silent for a moment, closed his eyes, and said, ‘I’m closing my eyes, I can’t see anything.’
Then there was a sudden warm weight in his arms.
She finally let out a loud wail in his arms, her liver and gallbladder all torn apart.
Her father, her country, and her lover all left her on this night
He could do nothing, and could only let her cry in his arms.
Jinxiu cried herself to exhaustion and fell asleep. Shenlan left immediately. In the name of congratulating Hexi, he went to the Prince’s residence. Shenruo did not know that he was returning today. When he saw him, he was ecstatic. He just grabbed his brother’s hand and whispered in his ear, ‘…Jinxiu is here.’ After saying this, he was exhausted and Shenlan turned and left. Shenruo’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he smiled and spoke with a calm, pale and beautiful smile, the same as the Prince of the Shen Kingdom with long sleeves.
The figure in the bright red wedding dress was shaken for a moment by the two words, ‘Jinxiu’.
Royal weddings are complicated and trivial. Shen Lan held the hand of the listless young girl in bed and coldly watched her brother’s wedding from the sidelines.
Everyone said, ‘What a perfect couple!’ Everyone said, ‘The prince personally escorted his wife home for three days after the wedding, showing his deep affection for his young wife.’
Everyone’s idle gossip drifted by, but Jinxiu stopped crying. She just held Shen Lan’s hand tightly, ate her meals on time, but vomited after eating. Then she sat back down and continued eating.
‘I have to eat… I’ll get sick…’ she said weakly, her eyes, which could see nothing, like deep pools.
Shen Lan couldn’t even say anything to comfort her.
He could only watch, holding her hand. That was the best he could do, and there was nothing else he could think of.
On the fifth night, after the second drumbeat of the night watch, Shen Ruo came quietly. Jinxiu was drinking congee on the couch when she suddenly stopped and listened attentively.
A gentle smile slowly appeared on her face. ‘He’s here…’ she whispered, and then started counting backwards from ten. When she reached one, the door creaked open and Shen Ruo slowly walked in.
That soft, warm voice broke naturally and silently from the palm of Shen Lan’s hand.
‘Aru,’ she called out to him, her voice soft and sweet, as if all the suffering and endless worries she had experienced before had never existed.
Shen Lan suddenly understood that in front of Shen Ruo, Jinxiu could only smile.
A warm, gentle smile that could calm people’s hearts.
Shen Lan silently withdrew, and no one said anything to stop him.
His brother, who looked almost exactly like him, passed him by, and neither of them looked back.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
She seems to have lost weight, but where has she become more beautiful… Standing there, Shen Ruo thought vaguely that the way she had called his name just now was even softer than before.
He walked slowly over, and Jinxiu threw her arms around him.
I had no choice. If I didn’t marry the Right Minister’s daughter, I would have had a hard time living. Shen Ruo muttered these words, but felt ridiculous.
Why did he have to explain? Who was she to him? But then again, he felt that he had to explain.
So after saying that, he suddenly stopped.
Jinxiu, however, didn’t seem to care. She took one of his hands and concentrated on writing something lightly in the palm of his hand.
This was a game they had played since they were children.
Jinxiu was blind, and back then Emperor Longqing went to a lot of trouble to find her an astonishing number of engraved blocks for her to feel and read, but he was worried about her finger calluses, so he simply had the palace maids read to her. But there were some girlish sentences that she was too embarrassed to have read out, so she would secretly bring the books to him and ask him, childishly, to read to her.
When Shen Ruo took the book and was about to read it, Jinxiu felt embarrassed again. Shen Ruo had no idea what to do, so he took her hand and slowly wrote each word in her palm.
She was shy and timid, her small body shrinking into a ball, but she didn’t struggle, just letting him hold her hand and stroke it slowly.
After a while, Shen Ruo had the illusion that those lingering and shocking sentences were repeatedly inscribed by his fingers on her soft palm, and they were thus branded into each other’s flesh and blood.
Now, in turn, she wrote in his palm, writing ancient sentences.
My concubine intends to marry and never rest. Even if she is abandoned without mercy, she cannot be ashamed.
While Shen Ruo’s heart was soft, an uncontrollable resentment gradually rose.
Look, she is now in his arms. There is no place to go back to, no one else to rely on. He is all she has in the world.
Content but also suffering.
Here and now, it would be so easy to destroy her.
After a long time, Shenruo gave a silent smile. The candlelight was dim. In that moment, the pale young man with a red mark on his forehead looked like a wounded crane tilting its head to the sky.
He embraced the young girl, who was the only source of warmth left for him, deeply, tightly, and with all his strength.
She only had him now.
On the fifth day after Shenruo’s marriage, Jinxiu was welcomed into the Prince’s mansion. The most beloved princess in the most prosperous empire on the Eastern Continent entered the world of the man she loved from the back door with no lights, in a small green sedan chair with two bearers.
She was nothing more than a concubine who had been taken in by the Da Yue.
When Shen Lan asked her as she was being put into the sedan chair, ‘Are you sure about this?’ the slender woman smiled gently and nodded.
She wanted to be by his side, just by his side.
She abandoned her family and her country, and this was what she got in return.
“I intend to marry and stay with you for the rest of my life. Even if you abandon me without mercy, I will not be ashamed.’
According to the example of the sinking country, the concubines of the crown prince are divided into three classes: Liangdi, Zhaoxun, and Ruzi, each with four people. They are regarded as high-ranking officials and have their own ranks. When Shen Ruo married his wife, he took in the daughters of all the influential ministers and generals in the court except the prime minister.
The crown prince’s wife was the only daughter of the right prime minister, beautiful and jealous, and the rest of those women also came from famous families, and their beauty and reputation were not much inferior to hers. As a result, there was a fight within the prince’s mansion.
Jinxiu should have been swept up in this dispute as well, but she had no status, and because she was blind, she did not have to serve in front of the crown princess or Shen Ruo. She quietly lived in a corner of the palace, and few people bothered her.
Although occasionally the crown princess would give her a hard time when she remembered, after all, there were too many women in front of Jinxiu waiting to make trouble with her, so she couldn’t bother with her. For Jinxiu, life was relatively stable.
She lives quietly, waiting quietly for the man surrounded by many beautiful women to occasionally come to her side, to speak a few hurried words, and even before she can finish speaking, he leaves her world with a hasty kiss.
The world of Shen Ruo is so big, but her world is so small, with only him and this small courtyard.
She does not feel unhappy, but occasionally in the deep silence of the night, she feels melancholy in her chest.
It was an emptiness, a feeling of melancholy that came from nowhere and filled her chest.
It wasn’t regret, nor could it be called sadness, just melancholy.
She would think of many people: her father, Shen Lan, and her mother, whom she had never met. Her father must have been heartbroken by her, right? As she thought about it, she felt like crying, but she could only bite her lips and try to look up at the sky.
If I cry here, I won’t be a daughter of my father, and I’ll be denying everything that’s happened before – won’t I?
So Jinxiu covered her face and, alone in the middle of the night, she gently curved her lips up.
When Jinxiu was 18 years old, the emperor of the Shen Empire passed away, and after a thrilling power struggle, Shen Ruo ascended the throne.
The struggle began on the day the emperor died and ended cleanly the same day. The price Shen Guo paid for this brief turmoil was the lives of four princes, three princesses, and eight concubines in the harem. In this battle, all the adult offspring left by the previous emperor died, except Shen Ruo and Shen Lan. Only one prince under the age of eight and three princesses —and this was just the beginning. Correspondingly, from that day until Shen Ruo formally ascended the throne, in the half month that followed, as many as 29 powerful clans were eradicated. The entire clan was exiled, which was considered lucky; the entire family was executed, and children under the age of ten, girls were sent to the palace, and boys were imprisoned, to be executed after the age of ten.
Thus the entire country truly realised that the emperor on the throne, who was pale and beautiful, had ruthless methods and a cold heart.
For Jinxiu, all this meant was a change of residence, and she was given the title of a concubine of the ninth rank and moved into the palace. She had finally officially become the concubine of the man she loved.
But even the occasional tenderness that came in the quiet of the night slowly disappeared this time.
The lover who used to gently embrace her under the pear tree was gradually drifting away from her world.
But maybe he was here to protect her…
She muttered as she stood in the corner of the courtyard.
She only had one maid, who was young and loved to play around. Now she had run away and disappeared. Jinxiu leaned over the corner of the wall and whispered.
It was a dilapidated earthen wall, hidden by flowers, not easily noticeable. There was a half-person-high hole in it, and just a wall away was a deserted courtyard where the old and weak palace maids were housed. She had happened to walk here that day and whispered softly that she felt unhappy. Someone on the opposite side silently broke off a branch of a pear tree that still had the soft morning mist on it and gave it to her.
That was the only silent warmth she had ever felt in this palace.
So Jinxiu got into the habit of going to this corner to talk about her heart’s desires when no one was in the palace.
She didn’t know who the person was or their identity, but she knew intuitively that the person would never do her harm. The person across from her was sometimes there and sometimes not, and when they were there they were quiet and just listened to her finish talking before giving her a flower or plant.
Today was no different. She hung her head and whispered, ‘My grandfather, the emperor, was just like that… He had a beloved woman, and in order to protect her from harm, he deliberately distanced himself from her…’
So… was Shen Ruo the same?
Did he cherish her and want to protect her, so he placed her in an obscure corner of the palace?
She tilted her head and thought about it, then slowly stopped talking and said no more.
The man opposite her handed her a cardamom, the aroma of which filled the air.
She believed that the man had ignored her and left her to her own devices in order to protect her.
Please let her believe so.
As a result of this reshuffling of power, some of Shen Ruo’s concubines received awards commensurate with their families, while others, like her family, were inexplicably relegated to the cold palace and then inexplicably died or went mad.
Everyone knew that if they couldn’t make their rivals suffer the same fate as the latter, then they would have to go crazy and die in the cold palace themselves.
So these beautiful flowers that adorn the palace of the Shen Kingdom, under the shade of the flowers, kill each other – in this battle, death is not a personal matter, but the rise and fall of the entire family behind her.
This white-hot battle finally swept into the palace the following year.
The cause was a fight between the empress and a concubine. The concubine was pregnant and was afraid that the empress and the other concubines would share her favour at this time.
Beautiful but without family status, the emperor’s beloved maid, who was taken in when he was a hostage in another country, is blind and pitiful, gentle and obedient, not causing trouble, and has accompanied Shen Ruo for so long without any intention of competing for his favour. Who could be a better candidate than her?
So she was pushed to the forefront, and on the night of the Qiqiao Banquet, she was sent to Shen Ruo’s chambers.
Then the man, who in her memory had always been gentle and kind to her, burst into an unexpected rage the moment he saw her.
‘What is she?!’ He dragged her out of the room and threw her to the ground. ‘What is she?!’ His angry voice was almost hoarse. Then Jinruo felt someone grab her hair, lift it up, and the hairpin in her hair fell off, landing softly on the ground.
With her ears buzzing, she could hardly hear what the man she loved so dearly was yelling. She could only vaguely hear him yelling something about maintaining one’s status. Could it be that he still thinks this is the Da Yue Kingdom?
Ahhh…yes…
This is no longer the Da Yue Kingdom.
This is the Shen Kingdom.
Shen Ru is no longer the crown prince, but the emperor of a country.
She is no longer the most beloved princess, coddled on her father’s lap, but merely the lowest-ranking concubine of the emperor.
What is she?
With half-open eyes, she feels someone dragging her out. Jinxiu does not struggle or resist, but when she is about to be dragged out of the palace, she turns her head and asks him softly, ‘So, you hate me…’
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Jinxiu did not wait for the man’s reply, but instead received a clean slap from an unknown high-ranking concubine.
She was knocked sideways and slowly blood oozed from the corner of her lips.
Jinxiu stopped talking and quietly let the people drag her away.
It turned out that he hated her.
But it should be expected, right? Her father destroyed his country and family, took him as a hostage, and humiliated him in every way.
She was roughly held by the arms and dragged away.
That year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, she hurried here and saw red candles burning high and the word ‘happiness’ hung lightly. It was another year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, and she was dragged out of his chambers as if she were nothing but the most filthy thing.
Jinxiu suddenly slowly smiled, her hair bun disheveled and her face unkempt. She murmured something softly over and over again.
I intend to marry myself to you, and never to live with you. Even if you abandon me without mercy, I will not be ashamed…
I will not be ashamed…
She slowly closed her eyes.
Jinxiu was thrown into the courtyard, and the palace servants walked away. Her timid maid was so afraid that she did not dare to come near her. Jinxiu whispered to her to go to sleep, and the little girl ran like a rabbit, jumping back into the room. After a long time, Jinxiu barely managed to support herself, slowly stood up, went back to her room, tidied herself up, and felt something sweet and fishy stuck in her throat. When she spit it out, she realised it was blood.
At this time, there was a sound of a gong outside the palace walls, and it was already four o’clock in the morning.
She slowly walked out and went to the usual corner, but she could no longer stand. Slowly, slowly, she crouched down and huddled herself up like a little child.
‘…hated by A Ru…never thought about it…but now that I think about it, he was kind and gentle to me, but he was just using me…’ she said quietly, and then felt an uncontrollable pain well up from her chest, as if it had been broken through.
As she repeated herself over and over, she didn’t know if there was anyone there, and just kept talking. In the end, she didn’t know what she was saying, just that if she kept talking, the hole in her chest would tear open and she would fall apart.
‘But of course he hates me too,’ she said, when suddenly she heard a soft sound. Someone handed her a flower across the table.
Jinxiu whispered a thank you and reached out to take it. It was a blooming hosta flower, her favourite flower. When she was young, Shen Ruo would always pick her big bunches of hosta flowers when they were in bloom, almost drowning her, and then the young man would smile and arrange the flowers in her hair.
It turned out to be just wishful thinking.
Jinxiu held the branch of flowers tightly, buried her head low, and then slowly, sobbed.
The man opposite her seemed to hesitate for a moment, then reached out to her and touched her shoulder. Jinxiu finally burst into tears and grabbed the man with her back hand, but she only grabbed his sleeve. With a soft sound, she grabbed something off his wrist.
A string of beads, warm and with the slight temperature of a human body.
When she grabbed the other person, she felt that the other person seemed to be a man. Jinxiu blankly opened her eyes, which could not see anything, and felt that she should return the string of beads to the other person and apologise properly. She staggered to her feet and walked towards the wall, calling softly, but found that the other person had already gone silently.
Holding the string of beads, she carefully hid it close to her body, and Jinxiu slowly and sadly smiled.
I wonder if there is still a chance to give them back to him…
Since the night of the Qixi Festival, Jinxiu has been ill and by the end of July, she could no longer even get out of bed.
Before this, she was just an unloved maid in a corner of the palace, almost forgotten by everyone, and she was left to fend for herself. But now it was different.
The relationship between her and Shen Ru was the subject of all kinds of speculation, and it was eventually alienated into the idea that she had a fleeting affair with Shen Ru in Da Yue. After taking her back to the palace, every time he saw her, he would think of the humiliation he suffered in Da Yue. And because Shen Ru was kind-hearted, he took her in to live out her life in the palace.
When such whispers reached the ears of Jinxiu, who was tossing and turning on her sickbed, she only gasped for breath and laughed, without saying anything.
The empress was annoyed by her flattery, and the imperial consort hated her for ruining things. With such rumours spreading, everyone despised her, and anyone could humiliate her.
Jinxiu could do nothing about it. All she could do was curl up on the bed, clutching in her hands the string of beads that had fallen from that person’s hands.
It was a string of ordinary wooden beads with a faint fragrance, seemingly sandalwood, but not very high-grade sandalwood either. The beads were carved with the auspicious pattern of a bat in a cloud brocade, with fine craftsmanship and rounded and smooth edges. You could tell that they had been worn for many years, but there were hardly any carving lines. It seemed that the person who wore them treasured them very much and took great care of them, right?
It must be something very important. I should take it back to the other person… Jinxiu thought, smiling weakly, then with great effort she propped herself up slightly, tilting her head and coughing. The familiar sweet, fishy smell rose from her throat, welled up beyond her lips, and dripped onto the pillow.
She didn’t even have the strength to get up and wipe it away.
Jinxiu coughed and coughed, thinking to herself, maybe I’m going to die…
She slowly closed her eyes, and the shattered emptiness in her chest slowly began to boil again.
She had nothing left.
Outside, there was a flurry of footsteps, as if the palace maids from the other palace had come to her lonely place to slack off, chattering about something. She listened vaguely, and suddenly she heard the words, Emperor Ogo has passed away.
She suddenly opened her eyes wide, trying to stand up, but she fell to the ground!
Father! Father! Father! Jinxiu struggled to stand up on the cold and dirty ground, but she could only fall to the ground again and again. Her vision was dark, but she had never felt more desperate.
Outside, the soft chatter and laughter continued to drift in. The palace maids said that His Majesty was overjoyed at the news and had ordered the entire palace to be decorated. As Jinxiu listened, she felt like crying. Her eyes were wide open, unable to see anything, but there was not a hint of tears in them, as dry as a bottomless pond.
Her father – she remembered when she was little, sitting upright on his knee, as he lovingly combed her long, dark hair. Then the man, universally acclaimed as a hero, smiled and told her that on the day she was born, he had listened to her faint cries while busily leafing through the classics, writing down dozens of names with a red brush. From charming and dignified to refined and wealthy, he was not satisfied with any of them, and finally settled on this name.
Cheesy, right? Her father said with a smile, kissing her forehead.
But I like this name very much. Splendid and splendid. Father only wishes you a life of splendour and beauty, a world of flowers and joy, without winter, only warm sunshine.
Then she turned her back on such a father, bringing him shame.
She broke her father’s heart, and was not even able to see him one last time. Then she had to be in the palace, celebrating her father’s death –
At that moment, she did not feel hatred.
But who was there to hate?
Shen Ruo? He never told her to come, never said a word. Shen Lan? He was just expressing his own desires.
The only person to hate was herself, right?
She no longer had the strength to struggle. The crushing feeling in her chest suddenly became sharp and acute. For a moment, she felt as if her entire life was collapsing and shattering into pieces.
Jinxiu felt something hot and sweet and fishy overflowing from between her lips.
Then it seemed as if someone had walked in, and there was a small scream in her already blurry mind, followed by a flurry of footsteps. In the midst of her empty and desolate grief, she suddenly felt with crystal clarity that something had broken at that moment and would never exist again.
Jinxiu had a high fever and was in a daze. She felt people walking around her, but there seemed to be no one there. The Queen’s unique, soft and haughty voice drifted past her ear, as if saying that she was so sick with a terrible disease, she was afraid it might be the plague, and she hurriedly threw her out of the palace.
Then someone held her and roughly dragged her out, as if they weren’t dragging a sick and weak woman, but something insignificant that could be broken and discarded casually.
Jinxiu had long since been unable to open her eyes. She only felt that she was dragged out of the courtyard, walked for a while, and then suddenly she was roughly thrown down. With a crisp sound, the string of beads that she had hidden close to her body rolled to the ground. She wanted to pick them up, but someone stepped on her fingers.
Finally, even this meager comfort left her, she thought.
There were birdsong and laughter all around her, and then she suddenly sat up, as if in a flash, and looked in a certain direction. There had been a light sound of footsteps there a moment ago, very light, not a big step, but a straight line –
as if sinking into the ground.
Those were the footsteps of Shen Ruo –
Jinxiu knew, she could tell, even though she was so dazed.
Then, the footsteps did not come her way, but in the midst of the pretty female voices, they went in the opposite direction without hesitation.
The voices of the concubines drifted intermittently, all saying that it was so unfortunate, on such a beautiful afternoon, to be accompanying His Majesty to admire the flowers, and to be bumped by a consumptive who had been thrown out of the palace.
Jinxiu Zhang opened her eyes wide, unable to see anything, and stared fixedly at the distance, before suddenly her lips curled up. A look of despair and insight suddenly appeared on her pale and haggard face.
‘I am willing to marry you and never leave you. Even if you abandon me without mercy, I will not be ashamed.’
She had once held the hand of the man she deeply loved, slowly writing in his palm, each word and sentence depicting something unforgettable.
It turned out to be nothing more than her wishful thinking, a delusion.
The look of despair suddenly disappeared from her beautiful face, and was replaced by a look of exhaustion. She closed her eyes, but found that she could not cry after all.
That man had caused her heart to turn over a hundred times in her life, and had made her shed thousands of tears.
After being thrown into a damp and stinking vacant lot in an unknown place, she finally lost all consciousness.
Before losing consciousness, she heard the sound of hasty footsteps, which were somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t think of who it was – never mind, she didn’t need to think about it.
She was going to die, she knew.
Then she seemed to hear someone anxiously calling her name –
but it didn’t matter.
She thought.
All her senses disappeared completely at this moment.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
The return of consciousness was like the moment of breaking through the water.
Consciousness slowly returned in the midst of boundless darkness, and then all other sensations rushed in: pain, sadness, and then the sadness in her chest that felt as if her whole body was about to shatter.
It turned out that she wasn’t dead.
Because if she were dead, she wouldn’t feel any pain.
Jinxiu was silent, and suddenly her lips curved up, and her fingers moved slightly before she realised that someone was holding her hand.
There was a clear, bitter smell of medicine all around her, which was warm and had a certain familiar, reassuring feel.
She tilted her head slightly and moved her fingers again. The hand holding hers moved slightly as well.
The strength was just right, not too light or too heavy, and she could neither break free nor feel any pain. She was familiar with this strength, because during the long escape, through countless nights and days, she had been gently guided forward by this strength.
If he were calm, he would not be like this. He would either hold her lightly, so that she could easily break free, or hold her so tightly that her wrists would ache.
This was just the right amount of strength, never more.
In fact, was this a hint? In the greater country, she was his master, and in the Shen country, he was her emperor.
So she smiled more and more brightly, and there was an unexpected pain at the corner of her lips. Perhaps it was an injury sustained when she was dragged along, and it hurt when she smiled.
Her throat was not dry, and there was the taste of sweet water in her throat. It seemed that she had been taken care of very well and properly.
Jinxiu squeezed the hands a little tighter and called out softly, ‘Lan…’
Then she was suddenly embraced. The young man held her from behind, his long fingers trembling slightly, causing her skin to tingle a little.
Even though she was so excited, the embrace did not make her feel uncomfortable in the slightest.
The strength was just right, and it was warm and soft.
She rested her head on his shoulder, slowly closed her eyes, called out softly for Lan again, and then fell into a deep sleep.
And after her breathing had evened out, and she had called out for the doctor to make sure that she had not fainted again, but was asleep, Shen Lan, who had been guarding her during this time, slowly let go of her hand.
He was careful, placing her under the quilt, then tucking in the corners, soft and sad, gazing at her for a long time.
The red candles around them were flickering in the darkness, and her face was pale as snow, her breathing was cool and weak.
It seemed as if she would die at any moment.
Shen Lan looked at her, unable to think of anything to say, and then covered his face. This young man, who was second only to one person in the entire Shen country, was helpless like a child.
Jinxiu was sometimes awake and sometimes asleep. It wasn’t until the middle of the eighth lunar month that she completely recovered. She was able to sit up and take medicine by herself, and talk to the maids around her. By the end of the month, she was already able to walk, and had recovered most of her strength.
Shen Lan visited her in her room every day, but didn’t know what to say to her, so he just stood there stupidly, bringing her food and then taking it away again.
Jinxiu didn’t say anything either, but she did smile at him when he came, and slowly ate the food—which was better than he had expected, because he had thought she wouldn’t even be able to eat.
Hearing his doubts, the woman, who was holding a cup of medicinal tea and sipping it slowly, gave a gentle smile. Her eyes, which could not see anything, glanced in his direction accurately, and she lowered her eyes and said, ‘We always have to live…’
Since she woke up, Jinxiu has not even cried. She is as usual, smiling and talking as usual. She mentions Shen Ruo as if she were mentioning an old friend she has not seen for a long time. She will play the piano and tease the birds in her spare time, and ask the gardener in the mansion how to plant flowers. But despite her usual behaviour, when she turns her back, the moment she does, that thin and fragile figure has an indescribable air about it, as if she is using all her strength and soul to support this strange and fragile calmness.
Such beauty made Shen Lan, who was standing behind her, unable to say anything comforting.
Any form of comfort was just an illusion to her.
At the end of September, Jinxiu had already recovered. Shen Lan asked her what her next plan was.
After Jinxiu ran away, her father did not revoke her imperial status, etc., but instead left the palace under the pretext that she was convalescing. Now that Jinxiu wants to go back, she can still go back, so Shen Lan asked her if she wanted to go back to Dayu. The woman just smiled lightly and shook her head.
’…Because you failed, so you fled back? The princess of Dayu has not been so shameless.’
Shen Lan was silent for a moment, and then told her that when he rescued her from the mass grave that day, Shen Ruo did not know about it. Should he tell him? Jinxiu burst out laughing this time, saying, ‘I was dragged away from him alive that day, and he never stopped for me. I think he doesn’t care whether I live or die.’
Shen Lan was silent for a very long time.
After an unknown period of time, he whispered, ‘So, will you go with me?’ Shen Lan said that today Shen Ruo had made him the King of Wu, with his fiefdom near the border, and he would soon have to go to his fiefdom.
Jinxiu felt dazed.
Many years ago, it was also such a man who had held out his hand in front of her and asked her if she wanted to go with him.
Now, it was still him, and he was still asking the same question.
Since the day she met Shen Lan, he had seen her most embarrassing and most unattractive appearance. Then the man fell silent and held out his hand to her.
Shen Lan was so gentle.
She slowly smiled, tilted her head to look at him, and her expression was actually somewhat naive and childish. Shen Lan stared at her and suddenly became dispirited.
She should hate him, shouldn’t she? It was his impulsiveness that year that had led him to take her with him to Shen Country, where she had suffered torment and humiliation. If he hadn’t brought her with him back then, would she still be living the life of luxury she deserved in the lavish palace of Da Yue?
He lowered his hands and asked her even lower, ‘Do you hate me?’
Jinxiu opened her eyes wide in surprise, wondering how he could have such thoughts.
Back then, she made all the choices herself, so what did Shen Lan have to do with it? Why should she hate him?
‘…… Is that so?’ Shen Lan echoed, then suddenly fell silent. Instead, Jinxiu raised her face and smiled at him.
‘Lan.’
‘Hm?’
‘Do you like me?’ She asked, tilting her head, her thin, pale neck like that of a swan.
‘——!’ Shen Lan’s eyes widened at the moment she asked, and then she sighed slowly, finally smiling wryly: “…yes, I like you. From the moment we first met.”
Jinxiu nodded, and she also replied, saying, ’Lan, I’ll go with you.
People always have to live, don’t they?
Wuzhou is located on the border, near the outside of the pass. The iron horses and frosty river have a different kind of golden and iron atmosphere.
Wuzhou City is built against the mountains, making it easy to defend but hard to attack. The royal palace is built halfway up the mountainside, and in the back garden there is a waterfall that looks like a white ribbon, flowing down in a torrent of splashing water.
Jinxiu likes it here, even in winter, wrapped in her fur, she listens to the sound of the water splashing in the pavilion.
Shen Lan once asked her why she liked waterfalls so much, but she just smiled and shook her head, without answering, just staring.
In that moment, the feeling Shen Lan had once sensed in her, of someone doing their utmost just to support an appearance of peace, rose up again without a sound.
The woman in front of him had not escaped from that nightmare; she was just pretending, pretending that she had.
Time flew by, and it was the Qixi Festival once again. Shen Lan was afraid that she would be saddened by the sights, so he followed her carefully all day. Jinxiu didn’t mind, and just laughed, saying that she was fine.
The people in the palace didn’t know her identity or background, but Shen Lan treated her so well that everyone was respectful towards her.
However, on the upper floors of the palace, where the banquet was held to celebrate the Qiqiao Festival, there was finally no sign of her.
Shen Lan went to look for her and, unsurprisingly, found her in the pavilion by the waterfall.
The woman in plain clothes with black hair stood with her back to him, as if she would step into the moon at any moment.
Amidst the sound of the water, the voice coming from Jinxiu was unexpectedly clear.
‘…Every turning point in my life has been the Qixi Festival.‘ She said this so calmly, then turned her head and even smiled at Shen Lan.
’…Lan, you like me, don’t you?’ That was the question she had asked last year, and after that, she went to Wuzhou with him.
Shen Lan looked at her, and after a long, long time, the young man, whose appearance was strikingly similar to Shen Ruo’s, slowly replied, ‘I don’t need you to repay me. Shen Lan is incompetent, but he is not shameless to this extent.’
‘…You are completely different from him.’ Jinxiu froze for a moment, then laughed, and she said very softly, ‘You are completely different from him.’
Shen Lan shook his head, ‘In terms of talent, dexterity, breadth of mind, and wisdom, I am far inferior to my brother.’
Jinxiu gestured for him to come over, and Shen Lan stood next to her, in front of a white waterfall. Then he heard the soft voice of the woman coming slowly.
‘Lan, you once asked me why I like to watch waterfalls. I will tell you now. I feel that waterfalls are like me.’
When there is water in the waterfall, it is majestic, as if it can break through everything. When there is no water, there is a perseverance that will wear down stone—in fact, the truth is that no matter what, it cannot wash away this small pool.
The pale and beautiful woman gazed ahead with those eyes that could see nothing, and said, while Shen Lan was silent, listening to her quietly.
Her whole life, since she met Shen Ruo when she was seven years old, had been a grand desolation. From that day on, her world had only been about Shen Ruo.
And now? She is still trapped in Shen Ruo’s world.
She pretends that she has forgotten, that she no longer cares, that the wound no longer hurts, that she will never cry for him. The price is that she is so fragile that she could fall at any time.
‘I want to stand up, I want to walk out,’ she says.
She is the daughter of the Xiao family, the princess of Da Yue.
Jinxiu looked away from him and smiled, ‘But I’m not that strong. I can’t walk out of this wasteland alone. And you like me, Lan. You say you’re not shameless, but I am. This woman wants to use your love to get herself out of a dead end.’
Shen Lan didn’t say anything, but slowly reached out and took her cold, white fingers in his hands.
Jinxiu’s lips curled up slightly: ‘This woman doesn’t love you right now.’
‘Mm,‘ he nodded, squeezing slightly.
’…she may never love you.‘
’Mm,‘ he nodded again, squeezing a little harder.
’She’s just using you.‘
He had already squeezed her fingers tightly.
’I just want her to stand up from her despair and smile at me. I know how sad she is, please use me.’ With these words, Shen Lan kissed her forehead.
Chapter 6
‘I just want her to stand up from despair and smile at me. I know how sad she is, please use me.’ With these words, Shen Lan kissed her forehead.
Under the bright moonlight, the woman’s face wore a smile of despair and indifference, an expression that fell apart the moment Shen Lan kissed her forehead.
She could no longer hold back, and in his arms she wailed like a newborn baby.
Shen Lan didn’t say anything, just held her close and then, like a big brother, patted her back.
Jinxiu cried until she was hoarse and could hardly breathe. As he patted her, she laughed softly and said, ‘Look, you still have me, don’t you?’
Jinxiu’s head ached from crying. As she sobbed, she thought vaguely, ‘Yes, she still has Shen Lan.’
Shen Lan was the last straw for her at this point. If even he pushed her away, then she would truly be lost and never be able to stand up again.
As she thought this, the man slightly hugged her a little tighter and whispered in her ear, ‘I will never let you go, Jinxiu.’
He said he would never let her go.
He said she could take her away.
Jinxiu gave a soft, silent nod, and then in his arms, she gently closed her eyes.
At least she still had a chest to cry on.
She was so lucky.
She was so lost in her crying that Shen Lan asked her softly if she would be his wife. Jinxiu laughed and said that she was not shameless enough to do that, and Shen Lan laughed too.
Finally, she fell asleep in his arms after crying for a long time. It was the only deep and sweet sleep she had had in a year.
After that, Shen Lan took her to explore the whole city of Wuzhou.
Just the two of them, without any attendants, galloping around the desolate land of Wuzhou.
He never let go of her hand.
No matter how crowded or how remote, whenever and wherever they were, he held her hand and never let go.
That firm temperature, just the right amount of strength, was a warm support in her crumbling world.
This is what it feels like to be loved and cherished, isn’t it?
On the Lantern Festival, he took her to release the river lanterns. Shen Lan held her finger as they lowered the delicate lotus lantern into the water. The temperature of her fingertips was warm and slightly cool.
On the Mid-Autumn Festival, the two of them hid in the kitchen, concentrating on kneading the dough and making mooncakes under the chef’s guidance. Shen Lan was ingenious, wrapping the petal mooncakes. They were so bitter that he didn’t want to eat them himself, but Jinxiu took a bite of each one, grimacing with bitterness, but still ate them.
Then, on the 15th day of the first lunar month of the following year, Shen Lan made a big rabbit lantern for Jinxiu. Although one of the ears was drooping and it didn’t look very beautiful, it was the biggest rabbit lantern in the palace. Jinxiu dragged it around, and it and fell in the snow. She innocently held out her hand to him, and when he patted her body to make sure she wasn’t hurt, he laughed and picked her up, not letting her down. He carried her directly under a blossoming plum tree and awkwardly broke off a branch of plum blossoms and handed them to her.
She suddenly remembered that in the Shen Kingdom’s harem, someone had also quietly listened to her confide in them and then broken off a branch of flowers and plants for her.
Shen Lan looked at her as she took the plum blossom and slowly recited, ‘There is a plum blossom in full bloom, in fact, seven plums, asking me to cover it, until its auspiciousness…’ These are the lines from the Book of Songs in which a woman laments her marriage prospects and why her man has not yet come to marry her. Jinxiu was both amused and saddened, and then reached out and stroked his face.
It was exactly like Shen Ruo’s, but yet completely different.
This man loves her, truly and sincerely.
So she said softly, ‘Let me think about it, okay?’
This thinking dragged on until spring. At the beginning of spring, the neighbouring country of Changzhao invaded the border. Shen Lan led the troops to repel the enemy, but he was seriously injured.
The day he was carried back to the palace, Jinxiu was picking the stamens of the late-blooming plum blossoms, planning to use them to make wine. Then her heart suddenly began to race, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Not knowing what had happened, she got up in a panic and heard a commotion coming from the sky. The words ‘the King of Wu is seriously injured’ swept away all the warmth in her body.
She stumbled and ran, and when she arrived at his bedside, she was about to speak when she was grasped by the hand.
The temperature was cool, and the strength was weak, but it was a familiar touch.
Then she heard the man’s weak voice slip past her ear. He said to her, ‘It’s okay, I’m here…’
Jinxiu felt like she should laugh. It was him who was hurt, but he told her that it was okay, that he was here. Thinking about this, she really did laugh, and then a warm liquid slid down her cheek.
She buried her head in her hands, murmuring angrily that it was all his fault, that in her whole life, she had only cried so much and so miserably in front of him.
Shen Lan laughed, without saying anything else, and just held her hand.
Jinxiu leaned over his pillow and told him a whole lot of childish things. As she spoke, she gradually became drowsy, and then it seemed that a maid was softly humming outside.
The delicate voice of a young girl sang softly, ‘A Long Life for the Maiden.’ ‘At the spring banquet, I will sing once more while drinking a cup of green wine. I will make three wishes: one for my husband to live a thousand years, two for my health, and three for us to be like the swallows on the eaves, seeing each other every year.’
Jinxiu suddenly gripped his hand hard. The man asked her softly what was wrong, but she remained silent. Then she said, ‘Lan…
I want to grow old with you, never leaving each other.
The man was stunned, then he laughed. He reached out and stroked her hair, and said so tenderly, ‘Okay.’
According to Jinxiu’s wishes, it would be fine to be by his side, but Shen Lan refused. He told her that he had no intention of taking a concubine, and that he didn’t want any of the ten concubines. The woman he loved deserved to be his wife in a proper and dignified way.
Jinxiu was stunned, then she smiled tenderly.
That smile was even more graceful and beautiful than the ones Shen Lan had seen when he was a young boy.
After pretending to marry Jinxiu to an ordinary official family in Wuzhou, Shen Lan submitted a petition to the imperial court. Shen Lan didn’t care that the imperial decree was hastily written in a rough hand and had a splash of ink on it. On the Qixi Festival that year, the wedding of the emperor’s beloved younger brother was held in Wuzhou without fanfare.
When the veil was lifted, Shen Lan said to her regretfully, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t give you a more grand wedding.’
She shook her head silently and then snuggled into his arms.
Shen Lan took her hand and put something on her wrist.
It was a string of wooden beads with a faint fragrance, and the auspicious pattern of a bat in the cloud brocade ten-character pattern was on it —
She had touched it so many times in her palm, the string of beads she had received in the Shen palace but unfortunately lost –
no, not a string, there was a subtle difference –
Jinxiu looked up suddenly. The man who was now her husband gave her a shy smile and whispered, ‘This was given to me by my mother… something she brought with her to the palace, saying it was for my future daughter-in-law…’
He scratched his head and admitted, ‘Well, it’s not really anything precious.’
It was him –
the one who had listened quietly to her confessions and handed her a flower.
That was why Shen Lan had told her, ‘I know how sad you are.’
Because he had seen it all.
She had gone the wrong way, loved the wrong person, and then suddenly looked back, but the person was already at the end of the road.
After all the twists and turns, it was not too late after all, and she had finally reached the person she was supposed to be with.
She stretched her arms wide and embraced Shen Lan.
The moment she held the man in her arms, she felt only happiness, warmth and tenderness.
So this is what it feels like to be loved by someone who loves you.
From then on, she only wished to grow old with him, holding hands—
And then time just slipped by like flowing water.
In the early summer of the third year Shen Lan was stationed in Wuzhou, he was summoned to the capital. Half a month later, with the concerted efforts of the two brothers, the second purge of the powerful officials began. It began in the sixth year of Shen Ruo’s reign—
Unlike the purge six years ago, this one relied on the sheer power of the emperor, and there were no vested interests other than the emperor.
The empress was accused of witchcraft and thrown into the cold palace, where she committed suicide that night. Her family was arrested the next night, and other powerful families also suffered various punishments.
Everyone said that the phoenix, which had not chirped for six years on the throne, had finally unfurled its magnificent and luxuriant wings to the heavens.
Half a month later, the elimination of the powerful ministers was completely settled. Shen Lan entered Shen Ruo’s bedchamber and saw a pool of blood on the floor that had not been cleaned up.
It was the blood left behind by a concubine who thought she was favoured and asked Shen Ruo for forgiveness for her father and brother. After he coldly refused and she was killed by touching a pole, she left behind this blood.
It seemed that Shen Ruo had not asked anyone to clean up, and the hall was in a mess. Shen Lan frowned as he walked around the blood and went inside. The curtain moved, and his elder brother, with long hair still damp, walked out silently.
He had just bathed, and was wearing a plain light-coloured robe, with a touch of red on his forehead, which made him look even more like a picture. There was a kind of thin elegance in his eyes.
Shen Lan had come to say goodbye, and Shen Ruo listened to him absent-mindedly, while grabbing a handkerchief to wipe his hair. As he listened, he casually threw the silk scarf away, interrupting Shen Lan.
‘A Lan.’
‘Hm?’
“I want you to help me find someone.’
Shen Lan’s heart skipped a beat for no reason, and he bowed slightly to ask Shen Ruo who he was looking for. The emperor, with his thin beauty, suddenly revealed an expression that bordered on sadness.
‘Jinxiu,’ he said softly. ‘I’m looking for Jinxiu.’
Shen Lan felt his heart thump heavily. He stood there, not knowing what to say, and then Shen Ruo slowly sat down, his shoulders slumped, no longer the spirited man he had been in the palace.
Shen Lan felt that he could not bear to watch, so he answered carelessly and was about to go out, but Shen Ru suddenly grabbed his long sleeve.
Then he was surprised to find that Shen Ru’s fingers were trembling slightly, and then he was exerting himself so hard that his knuckles turned white.
‘……In fact, when you brought her here, I was very, very happy…’ he said, with a look of general confession, as if if he didn’t do this, he would no longer be able to control his emotions.
The Seventh Chapter
‘…In fact, when you brought her here, I was very happy…’ He said this with a look of confession, as if if he didn’t do this, he would no longer be able to control his emotions.
Shen Lan began to feel a chill climbing up from the soles of his feet. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak, couldn’t avert his gaze, and could only watch as his older brother held the fingers of his sleeve and within his line of sight, his face, which was so pale that it even revealed a sense of vulnerability.
Shen Ru seemed to be organising his words, speaking in fits and starts.
‘……I know that I shouldn’t have left her at that time, I should have let her go back……What’s the point of me keeping her? There are so many powerful officials’ daughters, my throne is in a precarious position, I can’t protect her……I should have let her go back……But I didn’t.’ He said this, closing his eyes, and there were droplets of water from his damp black hair falling on his trembling eyelashes, as if they were tears.
‘When I think that if I let her go back, her father will immediately marry her off to another man so that she can be happy, I can’t do it. I know exactly what will happen in the future, I know everything, but… I still keep her by my side.”
He knows that she will be bullied, he knows everything, but for the sake of his desires, for the occasional sight of her, he leaves her as she is.
Then what? He cast her aside again, left her alone in a corner of the palace, waiting for the situation to calm down so that he could take her in his arms – but at that time, he was actually feeling twisted satisfaction, wasn’t he?
He made her world smaller and smaller, more and more desolate, with nothing but him – that’s it, in the name of protecting her, he indulged others and trampled on and humiliated her.
In the end, she crawled on the ground that day, looking at him quietly with a desperate expression of deathly silence and defeat.
He was trembling slightly, but he smiled and flirted with the surrounding concubines, walking away from her step by step.
If he had just looked back at her then, he would have ignored everything and rushed over to hug her, but that would have killed her instantly, so he forced himself to suppress his feelings and walked further and further away.
Shen Lan looked at him, watching his older brother cover his face as if he were about to cry, trembling all over.
‘…She was driven out of the palace. I immediately sent someone to look for her, but she was nowhere to be found…’ Shen Ruo suddenly stopped talking, then lowered his fingers that were covering his face, his dark eyes staring intently at his brother, who looked just like him.
In that moment, Shen Lan felt the sudden coldness around him, something intangible and creepy winding its way up, crawling like a snake.
Shen Ruo’s fingers climbed up his wrist, and he stared at Shen Lan.
‘……You will help me, right, Lan.’
He knew that it was him who had taken Jinxiu away.
Think about it, how could Shen Ruo not know? If he really loved Jinxiu.
Shen Lan immediately understood, and without saying a word, he just knelt down to his brother and bowed, then left.
After leaving the palace, Shen Lan immediately left the capital, ignoring everything else, and rode non-stop to Wuzhou. The journey should have taken a month, but he arrived in ten days and rode straight into the royal palace. Jinxiu was in the courtyard with a group of maids, tending to the flowers and plants, when she heard the sound of galloping horses and shouting. As soon as she looked up, she felt a gust of wind and was embraced in someone’s arms—
Shen Lan was in a sorry state, his body smelling of sweat and sourness, gasping for breath, his heartbeat fierce. Jinxiu let him hold her, waved her hand gently, and told all the maidservants to leave. Then she heard the man say to her, ‘Jinxiu, let’s run away!’
She suddenly widened her eyes, which could see nothing, and then slowly closed them. She only gently patted his back and said softly, ‘Let’s go in first, and you can tell me slowly.’ However, her heart was a desolate calm.
Where can we go? We can’t go anywhere.
As she had done every day for the past three years, she poured him a cup of tea, listened quietly to Shen Lan’s confession, then smiled and reached out to hold his cheek.
Those eyes that could see nothing gazed straight at him.
“Where can we go? Lan, under heaven, everything belongs to the king, and all his subjects are his servants. Where can we go?’
She asked him quietly and calmly, stroking his face a little.
‘I ran away from my responsibilities years ago, so today, are you going to run away from yours?’
Shen Lan shuddered, and looked up from her hands.
The beautiful and calm woman gazed at him with eyes of indescribable tenderness, and then smiled.
“Shen Lan, are you going to abandon your country?’
His eyes widened as he looked at her, unable to speak. His beautiful smile slowly turned desolate.
Like a child, she buried her head in the hollow of his neck.
‘Lan, every time, it was you who told me to take me away, but this time, I’m afraid it won’t work…’
Look, the man in front of her has seen all the tears of misery in her life.
Crying on your shoulders all night was the last.
Shen Lan felt a hot liquid seeping into his clothes and muscles, dissolving into his blood and flesh.
This was the only woman he had ever loved in his life, and he was unable to protect her, or even hold her in his arms.
She whispered in his ear that the three years of living together as man and wife had been the best compensation for her life up to that point.
The humiliation and suffering she had endured had been all but erased by Shen Lan.
She even felt that all the suffering and the uncertainty of the future were all worth it for these three years.
She told Shen Lan that having a loving companion for the rest of her life was enough.
Shen Lan slept in her lap, not opening his eyes, just chatting with her aimlessly. Then the cock crowed at dawn, and he opened his eyes and looked at the woman he loved, but he screamed in shock, ‘Jinxiu, your hair…’
That woman, overnight, turned white, her black hair turning to snow, but she herself was unaware.
Jinxiu pinched her hair and laughed, saying, ‘You see, I’m sad for you, but more than him.’
Then, a maid screamed and came, saying, ‘Your Highness, it’s not good, there are soldiers surrounding the palace!’
Jinxiu turned to the maid and smiled, and the maid suddenly saw her head of white hair and was so shocked that she couldn’t speak. She laughed and said, ‘Take me out.’
As a result, when she went out the front door, she found herself in the midst of a battle, with a palanquin being carried out. Amid the clashing of iron armour, the low voices of the men echoed under the still-dusky sky of Wuzhou.
‘By the Emperor’s command, we welcome Your Highness back to the palace.’
She straightened her back and walked up the stairs, holding her skirt up.
She sat down calmly, folded her hands in front of her, and her face was pale and expressionless.
She hadn’t told Shen Lan that she was pregnant.
She had wanted to tell him as a surprise, but now it seemed that there was no need.
If only she could forget the name Shen Ruo. She thought about it, but found herself indifferent.
Before today, she had neither love nor hatred for that man.
But that was only before today.
Her happiness, the first twenty years, or the next twenty years, was all destroyed by the hands of one person.
He owed her, and he would repay her, one by one, starting now.
Jinxiu closed her eyes, leaned against the car wall, and suddenly felt a little cold. She thought of Shen Lan, who now didn’t know how to feel sad and blame himself.
So her heart ached too, starting from her chest, a pain that made it hard to breathe.
The pain that radiated from the inside of her body made her bite her finger hard, and she felt nothing even when her flesh became bloody.
She thus left the man she loved.
Shen Ruo Shen Ruo –
She hated and resented from the bottom of her heart, and suddenly felt the whole incident was very ridiculous.
Five years ago, had she ever imagined that she would call that man with such hatred and resentment?
She bit her finger, and then thought of Shen Lan, desperately thinking of him, before she could finally continue to breathe.
She had heard the maid’s delicate voice singing in the spring.
One wish is for my husband to live a thousand years, two is for my health, and three is for us to be like the swallows on the eaves, seeing each other every year.
Now, it’s all in vain.
Shen Ruo Shen Ruo——
Her bloody fingers grasped her chest, and her white hair was scattered all over her face.
——She had never hated anyone so much——
On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when the magpies first crossed the bridge, the phoenix sedan chair was taken directly to the palace gates and carried into the palace. Shen Ruo went to meet her and, at the moment he saw her white hair, he felt as if he had been struck by lightning, and his entire face turned pale.
Jinxiu, however, smiled sweetly. She supported the palace maid who was serving her from the side as she got out of the sedan chair, and as she passed him sideways, she raised the corner of her lips, covering her lips with her long sleeve, and whispered softly, as soft as ripples on the water.
‘I did not turn white overnight for you, Your Majesty.”
Shen Ruo’s maid closed the door, and in an instant, the entire palace was filled with the sound of their breathing.
Shen Ruo had imagined this moment many times, but when he actually saw Jinxiu, he realised that it was not any of the scenarios he had imagined.
The woman opposite him was dressed in plain clothes, with white hair and an expressionless face.
Shen Ruo suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He subconsciously reached out to her, but just as he was about to touch her face, Jinxiu reached up and opened his hand. He froze for a moment, then suddenly grew angry. He grabbed her hand with one hand and ran his other hand over her face.
This time, Jinxiu could not hide, so she let him touch her. She only curled the corners of her lips, and her eyes, which could not see anything, looked straight at him as she slowly uttered a sentence.
“Shen Ruo.’
‘What?‘ he asked dryly. She called him Shen Ruo, she didn’t used to call him that, she used to call him A Ruo…
’I’m pregnant.‘ She smiled gently, then there was a malicious hatred in the depths of her eyes.
’——!’ Shen Ruo took a step back, but Jinxiu reached out and grabbed his hand that was covering her face.
She gradually increased the pressure, but Shen Ruo couldn’t feel any pain, he just looked at the woman in front of him in almost horror.
Her smile grew ever more sweet and gentle, and her fingers tightened ever so slightly. ‘Will you let me go because of this?’
‘No.’ Shen Ruo’s face grew ever more ashen. He finally stopped backing away, and then blood slowly oozed from the palm of his hand, which Jinxiu was holding, a bright red line.
After saying those two words, a bright red mark between his brows grew ever more vivid, and Shen Ruo’s expression instead grew quiet. He repeated in a low voice, ‘…no.’ There was no way he would let her go, no matter what time or situation.
Jinxiu’s fingertips sank deep into his flesh, and her smile was as gorgeous as the blood he shed.
She said softly, ‘I knew you would do this…’ No one understood this man better than her.
Chapter 8
She said softly, ‘I knew you would do this…’ No one understood this man better than her.
Jinxiu smiled, ‘Forget it, but the only person you can use to threaten me is Lan, and even if you use Lan, you can only threaten me to this point.’
Her smile was innocent and pure, but underneath it contained a profound maliciousness.
‘Shen Ruo, you owe me, starting from today, repay me, one by one.’
Please repay her, the price of taking away her happiness for the rest of her life.
After saying this, she turned around and walked away, leaving him alone, drenched in blood.
That day, he turned away from her, ignoring her despair and shattered dreams. Today, she leaves without a backward glance, leaving him to struggle and repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Retribution.
This is the retribution he meted out to her back then. Now it has come back to him, without fail.
Shen Ru muttered to himself, then suddenly laughed. So be it.
He wants her by his side, regardless of everything else.
If it is not the happiness he can give, then forget it.
She can ask for anything from him as long as she stays by his side.
His wish is so humble.
Shen Ruo followed the white-haired woman like a lost soul, watching her enter the remote palace where she had previously lived. The woman suddenly turned back to him and gave him a charming smile, then slowly closed the door on him—
From then on, he was doomed to live a life of despondency, never again seeing the door slowly open to him. That charming yet resolute smile became the last song in his memory of the only woman he ever loved.
Then, after the door slowly closed in front of him, the woman in plain clothes and white hair slowly leaned against the doorframe and hugged herself tightly.
She was back in this nightmare place.
Many years ago, the incompetent and cowardly self passed by this familiar palace room with the present her. She was cold all over, and could only chant the name of the man she loved, clutching the string of wooden beads on her wrist.
Shenlan, Shenlan, she silently chanted the name of her lover, her fingers gently stroking her still-flat stomach.
Where, I will always make you happy, she thought, then silently closed her eyes, feeling tears well up.
This time, Shen Lan could no longer appear before her and wipe away her tears…
Shen Lan, Shen Lan, Shen Lan…
In the sixth year of the Renzhi reign, the Queen of Wu passed away, and the King of Wu volunteered to go to the border. The Emperor succeeded and installed the new Queen Xiao, who was chronically ill and stayed in the harem.
In the seventh year, the Queen gave birth to her first son, named Huan.
So, this period of entanglement came and went, and in history, it was reduced to such a meagre line of text.
What a struggle of blood and tears, but it was nothing.
Then, time passed slowly, and Shen Ruo had already settled comfortably on the throne for the twentieth year.
Early that summer, in the middle of the night, the woman who had lived alone in the palace for so long suddenly woke up with a start. In a trance-like silence, she slowly reached up to her face and felt the tears, warm as blood, running down her cheeks.
She had never seen anything in this world, so her dreams were always dark and she could only hear people talking. But tonight, someone was hugging her shoulders and speaking gently to her. She couldn’t remember what was said, except that after she woke up, the tears wouldn’t stop.
She had cried in front of only one person in her life.
So, deep down, she had an ominous and real feeling.
Something had happened, and she was about to find out.
Hearing a noise inside, the child, who had been sleeping lightly outside, ran in, took her hand, called out to her mother, and asked her what was wrong. She shook her head in confusion, unable to speak, and the young man frowned. At that moment, suddenly, from the direction of the main palace, the sound of the Jingyang bell, which was supposed to announce bad news, resounded with great force, shattering the quiet night and coming like waves –
Then a palace maid came running in horror, and the bad news came from the front hall: the King of Wu had died in battle.
That same night, there was a fire in the Shen Kingdom’s harem, and only Jinxiu was trapped in the flames.
She sat alone in the midst of the fire, locked the palace doors behind her, and then felt the tongues of fire lick up her sleeves and body with gentle strength.
Then she felt someone take her hand, someone with a familiar strength and voice, so gentle and warm.
Her beloved said to her, ‘Jinxiu, I will take you away with me, and we will never be apart again.’
She nodded, smiling innocently.
‘Yes, I’ll go with you, and we’ll never be apart again.’
She closed her eyes –
but she didn’t know that, before the burning palace gates slammed shut, her nominal husband was crying his eyes out, trying to rush in after her. The son looked at the flames, then the young man slumped to the ground, as if he had let go, and finally let go.
The emperor of Shen turned his back to the sky, and for the first time in his life, something finally slipped out of his eyes.
It turned out that Jinxiu, who was determined to follow her lover to the grave, didn’t even want to leave him with a corpse.
Sitting on the throne, propping his forehead, Shen Ruo looked at the young man in front of him, Shen Huan, his nominal son and heir to the throne, holding the barely collected urn of ashes. He gave a tired but calm wry smile.
What could he do? he thought.
He whispered an order to Shen Huan to take the ashes and bury them with Shen Lan, then closed his eyes and heard the boy ask him if the King of Wu was his real father.
He didn’t answer, just told him to leave, then quietly took a small, often-caressed wooden bead string from his bosom.
Carved from sandalwood, it had the pattern of a bat with a thousand characters in brocade, the lines delicately carved, the edges rounded and smooth. It was the exact same string that Jinxiu had lost years ago.
This was the relic of Shen Lan’s mother. When he left his country and family, his little brother put a string of wooden beads on his wrist in a childish manner. He carefully protected it and never showed it to anyone.
That day, as usual, he quietly watched her from outside the section of the earthen wall in the courtyard where Jinxiu lived, listening to her whisper about her grievances. In the end, she huddled into a ball, weeping sadly.
It was the first time he had seen her cry, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do – he had never thought she would cry, she would always smile at him no matter how sad or painful she felt. But he had seen her cry, just that once.
He didn’t know what to do, he just knew that he was also in pain and sorrow as Jinxiu sobbed. Finally, he couldn’t hold back any longer and reached out to comfort her, but she pulled off the string of beads on his hand.
The day he was expelled from the palace, she dropped the string of beads again, and he had someone secretly pick them up, but never gave her the chance to wear them again.
Shen Ru slowly closed his eyes, as if he had returned decades ago, also on such a warm spring day. He walked slowly through the palace, and then saw a girl wrapped in a piece of brocade, on her father’s lap, smiling at him shyly and sweetly.
She said in her childish voice, ‘My name is Jinxiu… What’s your name, big brother?’
What did he say in reply? Yes, he said, Shen Ruo.
It was the third month of the Bingwu year, and spring was in the air.