“What are you talking about?!” Xiao Yingtao’s fury erupted instantly, and she nearly could not stop herself from kicking the physician clear across the room.

What did “beyond saving” mean? Just two hours ago, the woman had been perfectly fine. Was it not simply a matter of giving birth? How could a woman go from perfectly fine to beyond saving just from having a child? How was that even possible?

“Truly… truly, there is nothing to be done. Please forgive this old man… he is powerless.” The physician wore an expression of helpless anguish, not even daring to look again at Lian Consort’s face, which had been drained of every last trace of living color.

“You haven’t even checked her pulse yet, you…” The infant in her arms let out a cry. Xiao Yingtao had no choice but to try to soothe the child first.

Seeing that she was momentarily occupied, the physician turned and fled as though running for his life.

“You… come back here!” Xiao Yingtao wanted to give chase, but the infant was sobbing so frantically it could barely catch its breath. In the brief moment of Xiao Yingtao’s hesitation, the wretched physician had already vanished without a trace.

After a great deal of effort, the child’s crying finally subsided. She set him back in the cradle that had been prepared beforehand and turned to look at Lian Consort on the bed — and the sight nearly frightened her out of her very soul.

The color of Lian Consort’s face now could no longer be described as pale. It was gray — the gray of dead ash — like a flame burnt entirely to nothing, leaving only the cinders behind.

“Lian Consort, how are you? Are you…” She rushed to her and saw that blood was still seeping from beneath Lian Consort’s body.

In truth, the bleeding seemed to have stopped — but not because anything was healed. It was because, as though the blood had been entirely spent, there was simply nothing left to flow.

“How could this happen? How could this happen?” Xiao Yingtao moved desperately, trying to staunch the bleeding with cloth — but there was no need to staunch it. There was hardly any blood left to stop.

She was not Jiu’er. She didn’t know how to handle a situation like this. The physician had said there was no saving her. What was she to do?

Where was Jiu’er? Without Jiu’er’s return, there was no hope left at all!

Without Jiu’er here, Xiao Yingtao truly felt a panic unlike anything she had known before.

She realized now, without having noticed it happen, that Jiu’er had become the hero in her heart — her real pillar of strength. Only when Jiu’er was there did she feel safe.

Right now, where was Jiu’er? When could she come back?

“Lian Consort, don’t be afraid. I’ll go and find a physician — I’ll go find another physician right now, I’m certain I can find one!”

“Xiao… Yingtao…” The dying Lian Consort suddenly seized her wrist — seized it with a force that was startling, seemingly stronger than anything she had ever managed in ordinary times.

Xiao Yingtao nearly broke down weeping. Was this the legendary return of strength before death? Was she truly… truly on the very brink?

“I… I want to see… to see the child.” Lian Consort tried to sit up, but she was truly incapable of rising.

Only then did it strike Xiao Yingtao with full force — Lian Consort, after giving birth, had not yet seen her own child.

She quickly went to the cradle and lifted the child with the utmost care. The child had fallen asleep. He had been hungry from the very start, and now Xiao Yingtao didn’t dare wake him.

The child was brought before Lian Consort. Xiao Yingtao made every effort to steady herself and said quietly, “Lian Consort, look — it’s a boy. A son.”

Lian Consort managed at last to lift her hand. Her long fingers hovered in the air, but she could not bring herself to touch the child’s face.

She was a person at death’s door. If she were to pass some unclean thing to the child, what would become of him?

“My… child…” Lian Consort’s gaze began to drift, becoming unfocused.

Xiao Yingtao choked back a sob. She could see that the end of the lamp’s oil had truly come.

“Lian Consort, is there something you still wish to say? Is there something left unfinished in your heart? Tell me!”

Lian Consort looked only at the child. The light in her eyes slowly dimmed. Very quickly, her entire being — like a flower torn from its roots — began to wither at a visible, unhurried pace.

“Lian Consort…” The tears Xiao Yingtao had been holding back at last slid silently down her face.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death — she had truly not experienced much of it herself. The last time, when Shan Yi had taken her own life with a knife, had already driven her to utter despair.

But even then, at least, there had been so many friends nearby, so many people bearing the weight together.

Now, there was only herself. Alone, she faced Lian Consort’s death. Entirely alone.

“Lian Consort, is there anything you wish to say?” Her own voice had grown hoarse. Even she herself was nearly in despair.

Lian Consort’s gaze drifted slowly away from the child and settled on some nameless corner of the room. With death drawing near, there was not the slightest trace of fear — instead, she seemed almost as though she had been released.

“You said he was set free.”

A faint smile touched the corners of her lips. It spread gradually, until it lent that gray, ashen face a trace of the bashful warmth of a young girl.

“You said you would take me to the Tianshan Mountains to see the snow. I have waited eighteen years. You still have not kept your promise.”

“Lian Consort…” Xiao Yingtao’s heart ached, and tears rolled down her face.

She hadn’t expected it. All this time, Lian Consort had never spoken a single word of it — and yet, all along, she had been thinking of the Second Prince with such longing.

She had said nothing. She had displayed such utter indifference to everything concerning the Second Prince. Only now, at the moment of death, did she dare to let the longing she had carried in her heart finally speak.

Lian Consort could no longer hear Xiao Yingtao’s voice. She had forgotten, too, where she now found herself. Everything before her eyes was growing more and more hazy. In the drift between waking and sleep, she seemed still to see a young man — dressed all in white, walking toward her through the mist.

It was a time of tender, green youth. They had walked hand in hand across the grasslands. The wind blew past, and their robes and hair billowed and tangled together.

She had believed her whole life would unfold just like that — you within me, and I within you. Taking each other’s hands, growing old side by side.

But she had not known that in her sixteenth year, an imperial edict would come down like a blade and sever that beautiful dream entirely.

She had been given in marriage. He had not appeared. Word reached her that he had drunk himself into a stupor for three days and nights within his residence — but after that, not a single scrap of news had come her way.

The next time she saw him was the day of his own wedding.

Such was life. What you desired, you could not have. What you did not desire, fell forever into your hands at the slightest reach.

But had she truly asked for much? What she wanted was nothing more than the simplest of things — a life with you, and with me.

“Er Meng, Er Meng…”

Lian Consort’s hand rose into the air, reaching for something unknown. Her desolate eyes could no longer see anything — and yet seemed to see so very much.

That hand, growing ever more withered, reached up into the empty air, where there was truly nothing at all. It hung there, alone. And yet to Xiao Yingtao, it seemed as though that hand had been taken — lifted and held in a strong, steady palm, with great and gentle care.

“Er Meng…” She was finally holding his hand once more. His hand was so warm. His presence so close and overwhelming — so utterly reassuring.

“Er Meng…”

At last, that hand, raised halfway into the air, fell lifelessly back down. The woman who had waited all those years never lived to see the moment when their hands could meet again.

Sweat-dampened strands of hair fell across her face, covering completely that ashen, gray countenance — shutting out every last light, leaving behind only a heartache too deep for words, and despair.

She had, in the end, gone.