At first, Jiang Nong was stunned and bewildered—her heart like a patch of wild grass set ablaze, filled with sorrow and helplessness. Yu Lingxin seemed to sense her emotional turmoil. He held her hand and stroked it, starting from her pinky, gently tugging and smoothing each finger one by one.
They said that when you were feeling down, doing this could help lift your spirits.
Perhaps this folk remedy really worked—soon her mood settled. Whatever the dream had shown her, whatever outcome it represented from another life—at least in this one, the ending was good. Chao Ning wasn’t dead. Yu Lingxin was alive. Yuan Lian was safe. Everyone’s fate had been rewritten for the better.
Throughout the meal, three of the four people at the table buried themselves in eating.
Jiang Nong ate while also sharing with Yu Lingxin—after all, she’d resolved to treat him better.
Yu Lingxin, however, was the only one who seemed disinterested. He chewed his food as if it were dry grass, grinding it eighty-one times before swallowing. Occasionally, his gaze would drift across the other three at the table.
As her stomach filled, Jiang Nong’s clever mind began to work again. She glanced at Yu Lingxin, chewing on a vegetable stem, and asked vaguely: “Not to your taste? Why don’t you seem to like it?”
Because Jiang Nong was being so careful with him, Yu Lingxin was equally cautious in return. He quickly ate everything she had placed on his plate—then stopped using his chopsticks.
Jiang Nong raised an eyebrow, piled more food onto his plate, and gave him an expectant smile.
Seeing that, Yu Lingxin suddenly found his energy. He gobbled it all down in one go.
Jiang Nong’s mood brightened. That nightmare had been just a blurry shadow—she’d only dreamed it once, nearly a year ago now. If she could send Chao Ning and Yuan Lian back soon, perhaps everything would be fine.
As soon as he finished, she fed him more. Yu Lingxin kept eating. They went back and forth until Chao Ning, clutching his stomach, gave Yu Lingxin a thumbs up—praising his appetite and also complimenting their affection.
Jiang Nong rested her chin on her hand, watching Yu Lingxin force down everything she gave him despite having no appetite. He was being so good. Once she figured he’d had enough, she stopped feeding him.
Under the table, Yu Lingxin hooked her hand with his. She didn’t resist, so he curled his palm around hers, his heart warm.
Jiang Nong cared about him. She worried he wasn’t eating well. She loved him most of all.
Chao Ning and Yuan Lian, having fled for so long, hadn’t had a proper meal in ages—certainly not such delicacies. Kneeling on their cushions, they looked slightly lightheaded. After some casual chatter, they rose to take their leave and rest.
Jiang Nong suggested a stroll through the imperial gardens to aid digestion. Yu Lingxin agreed without hesitation and followed her.
Xuan Shi Hall sat at the very center of Tan’s palace, while the imperial gardens were far north—a round trip of six li. Just the two of them, hand in hand, strolled along the path beneath the indigo palace walls.
The eggshell-blue sky to the west soon blazed into a tapestry of brilliant sunset clouds, then sank heavily into dusk. Tan being far north, the sky was high and the clouds thin; the firmament shifted to a frosty, muted blue, reflecting onto the ground, each breath carrying the faint coolness of dew.
Attendants quietly lit clusters of palace lanterns, and the ground seemed to break away from the stark, cold sky—becoming a world of warm, golden light.
Jiang Nong walked with her hands behind her back, shuffling along the blue bricks. It wasn’t an ideal position for holding hands—but Yu Lingxin insisted. He trailed behind her, offering his hand as if being led along at a stumbling, awkward angle.
It looked rather comical.
Jiang Nong seemed to realize this and adjusted her posture to make it easier for him to hold her hand.
She seemed sharper after a full meal—many overlooked details now surfaced. If the tragic scene in her dream was real, why was each life so different? The starting point was always the same—yet fate seemed to shift every time Yu Lingxin intervened directly in their lives…
Jiang Nong tested the waters: “Have we met before—before the previous life?”
Yu Lingxin’s heart tightened. He dodged the question: “Maybe. They say it takes nine lifetimes of fate to earn one life as husband and wife. Perhaps we’ve known each other for eighteen lifetimes.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” Jiang Nong swung his hand.
She was probing him. Yu Lingxin guessed she might have recalled fragments, but he didn’t know how much. He couldn’t let her coax it out of him easily. He played dumb: “What do you mean then?”
On the day they’d confessed, Jiang Nong had made Yu Lingxin swear he would never hide anything from her. But Yu Lingxin had never been one to keep his word—when it came to things he couldn’t do, he was most skilled at making promises. His vows scattered like puppy farts, gone without a breeze.
Jiang Nong knew that too—if Yu Lingxin believed something was for her own good, he’d definitely keep it from her. His mouth was harder than a boiled duck’s, tighter than granite. But lovers always love to make each other swear vows—vows that will inevitably be broken. She was no exception.
“You know what I mean.”
Yu Lingxin fell silent, then suddenly clutched his head, groaning: “I really can’t remember. Give me a hint.”
Keep pretending! Let’s see how long you can keep this up!
Her fist, aimed at his chest, stopped midair—then softened into a gentle rub at his temples: “If it still hurts, should we go back? Does this help?”
The matter was brushed aside for now. Yu Lingxin caught her hand, a shallow dimple appearing on one side of his face as he smiled, the tips of his two white canine teeth showing: “I’m better now. When you push me to remember, I really can’t—it just gives me a headache.”
Jiang Nong really wanted to punch him.
If she didn’t spell it out clearly, Yu Lingxin would keep playing dumb. But the imperial gardens weren’t the right place for that conversation.
“Then tell me about your previous life.”
“Where should I start?”
“From when you returned to Tan.”
Yu Lingxin thought for a moment. It had been so long that he’d forgotten many things; he could only offer a rough outline: “When I returned to Tan, I was temporarily locked up in the Side Courts. Later, I learned of your political marriage, and in my bitterness, I went mad with ambition—I wanted to seize the throne. At first, I attached myself to some prince—I don’t even remember which one—and gradually built my own power. Then I killed him and framed someone else, stirring up a muddy mess. I took advantage of the chaos and smoothly ascended to the throne. You probably know the rest.”
He made it sound easy—but he never mentioned what he’d suffered in the Side Courts, how he’d struggled to win over those princes who looked down on him, how his brothers had used him like a servant.
The scars on his body from the previous life—those she had once hated and ignored—now came into sharp focus. She had once wished the Side Court guards had beaten him harder, that they’d just killed him. Now she only wished they hadn’t been so brutal, that he hadn’t been so deeply wounded.
When you love someone, you overlook their flaws and magnify their hardships. Yu Lingxin’s past brutality was forgotten; instead, she ached for the soft, kind boy who had suffered so much in the Side Courts. Or perhaps—there had once been a gentle, good Yu Lingxin who had run himself ragged in Tan, striving for survival, only to come to a bitter end.
She listened quietly, then took his hand and pressed her cheek to his scarred wrist: “No more pain. No more pain.”
Yu Lingxin’s pupils contracted sharply, and he froze.
—
The pitch-black Side Courts knew no daylight. The stench of mildew mingled with the rust of blood, nauseating. The boy’s white robes were soaked through with gore, stiffened into a dark red crust. His hair was tangled, obscuring his face.
A young man in fine sable and brocade frowned, pinching his nose as he stepped into the filthy cell, bringing in the fresh air from outside. The strong scent of ambergris cut through the filth of mildew and blood.
A clatter of chains—then a thud. The body fell like a tattered sack from above.
The jailer brushed the hair from the boy’s face, felt for breath, and turned nervously to the young man: “Second Prince… it seems he’s… already stopped breathing…”
The Second Prince’s frown deepened. He stepped forward, kicked the boy’s face with his foot—and finding no response, spat in disgust and turned to leave. But as he lifted his foot, he couldn’t move.
The chains scraped faintly against the stone. The supposedly dead boy had somehow raised his hand and clutched the hem of his robe, leaving a filthy, bloody handprint.
The Second Prince, deeply offended, kicked him away again. But the boy wasn’t dead—he slowly lifted his head. Through the disheveled hair, a pale face emerged, his chin knife-sharp, one purple eye glinting unnervingly in the shadows, hiding a stubborn ferocity.
In an instant, he averted his gaze and spoke hoarsely: “I am willing… to serve Second Brother as a slave, to follow at your heels—only… only to leave the Side Courts.”
The Second Prince, seeing him like a stray dog, smiled smugly. He ground his heel against the boy’s head, then kicked it aside, before ordering the jailer to release his festering wrists and ankles.
The wounds were too deep, rot spreading to the muscle. Only by cutting away the decayed flesh could his limbs be saved—but deep scars, visible to the bone, remained.
The scars on his wrists ached on rainy days—it had become a habit. Even in this life, with a whole body, that phantom itch still haunted him on overcast days.
—
Yu Lingxin had thought Jiang Nong never looked closely at his previous life’s body. But she had—and she ached for his wounds.
The cold, throbbing pain was soothed by the warmth of her cheek against his skin. Slowly, it faded, replaced by her warmth.
With one side of her face pressed to his wrist, Yu Lingxin lowered his head and pressed his cheek to the other side of her face, murmuring softly: “Mm. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Not at all.”
Every bit of her tenderness made his broken body a little more whole.
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