Zhen Jiu’er froze for a long moment.

For a long, long moment, she couldn’t respond.

When had he begun to notice that she’d been mistaking him for her Ninth Imperial Uncle?

“The way you look at me is different from how other women look at me.”

Lu Beicheng leaned back against his wheelchair, gazing at her lightly.

“There’s admiration in it, sure, but clearly it’s only the kind of admiration you feel seeing a handsome face — not a trace of romantic feeling in it.”

“And yet you like watching me. Sometimes you even lose yourself, just from looking at me.”

Jiu’er quickly averted her gaze.

Sure enough — even as he’d been speaking just now, she had once again, without meaning to, lost herself in the way he so closely resembled her Ninth Imperial Uncle.

She couldn’t help raising her hand and rapping herself lightly on the forehead.

“Actually…”

Jiu’er let out a long breath and finally admitted, helplessly, “Actually, you don’t look alike at all. Not even a little.”

That sense of resemblance wasn’t in his appearance — it was in his bearing.

The way he spoke, the look in his eyes, even, at times, the small things he did.

“Ninth Master, can you tell me — do you remember everything about your past clearly? Have you ever experienced… memory loss of some kind? Or had certain stretches of memory that were simply blank? Or…”

“I’m not him.” Lu Beicheng’s single sentence cut off every fantasy Zhen Jiu’er had been building.

She really had wondered — was it possible that her Ninth Imperial Uncle had traveled through time too, and simply forgotten his past?

After all, time travel itself was strange and implausible enough already.

Adding memory loss on top of that hardly seemed like much more of a stretch.

But the Ninth Master of the Lu family before her — he wasn’t. He truly wasn’t.

There wasn’t a single blank space in his past. Every one of his memories was perfectly clear.

He really wasn’t the one.

At that moment, Lu Beicheng felt a sudden urge to smoke.

But this time, in order to face the ancient ruins and avoid polluting or damaging them, he hadn’t brought a single cigarette.

Yet now, he felt inexplicably restless.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just… never mind. I really did mistake you for him once.”

Zhen Jiu’er felt the mood grow inexplicably heavy. She hurried to pack up her medicine case, saying, “It’s very late, I won’t—”

“Going to go right back to how you were before? Cold? Distant? What else?”

Lu Beicheng himself didn’t quite know what was wrong with him tonight. He just wasn’t in a good mood.

Jiu’er froze, looked at him, and shook her head. “I won’t. I apologize for how I’ve been acting. I was only angry at myself.”

But seeing him look so troubled, she felt a stir of unease as well.

“Ninth Master…”

“Why go to Ying’an City?” Lu Beicheng asked suddenly, again.

It wasn’t the first time he’d asked this question.

And it wasn’t the first time Jiu’er had chosen not to lie to him: “Ninth Master…”

“These past three years, I’ve often had a dream. The same dream, over and over.”

“Ninth Master?” Was he about to tell her why he’d come here?

Zhen Jiu’er’s interest was instantly piqued.

“What in the dream drew you here?”

She was certain — whatever he was about to say would be the reason he’d come to Ying’an City.

It had to be.

Zhen Jiu’er’s heart, inexplicably, began to pound.

An indescribable tension.

“What exactly did you dream?”

Lu Beicheng glanced at her, seeming reluctant to say more.

Jiu’er found herself puzzled — if he didn’t want to say it, why bring it up at all?

Was it only to find something to talk about, just to keep her here a little longer?

When had she become so important to him?