Ancient Era Extra 3: The Double

【Night of the Hidden Moon】

When Zhou Tan woke, it was already evening.

He turned over in a daze and found himself somewhere entirely unfamiliar — not his own residence, not the palace, not the imperial prison, not even the home of anyone he knew.

Hanging from the pear-wood bed frame was his white jade scholar’s sword, one he hadn’t drawn from its sheath in a long while. Someone had wound a strip of red silk around it, tied into a jaunty little bow at the hilt.

The room was dim, incense burning — the scents of still-water fragrance and apricot blossom mingling in the air.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a while in a daze, and reached out for the outer robe draped beside him — only to find, as he rose, a woman’s peach-blossom gauze underdress slip off his own body.

This gave him quite a start. Zhou Tan instinctively stepped back, so startled he didn’t even dare pick up that outer robe, and when he reached out a hand, he found instead a woman’s hairpins and jewelry casually set down on the table.

The lattice window had been left open, and flower petals drifted in on the evening breeze. In the last light of the sunset, he finally saw clearly — this was, unmistakably, a woman’s boudoir.

Zhou Tan felt a wave of dazed absurdity wash over him. He forced himself to calm down, sat at the table by the couch, and poured himself a cup of tea.

The tea had already gone cold, but the moment it touched his lips, he froze — plum-blossom dew and snow, spring water for brewing tea — this was the exact method his master had personally taught him, sprinkling dried osmanthus into the bowl the moment the water boiled, so that after steeping a while a faint sweetness would rise.

The tea in this strange place — had he brewed it himself?

Or… his master hadn’t died, and this was his master’s home? But his master had no women in his household.

Zhou Tan felt a splitting headache coming on. He tucked back a loose strand of hair by his ear, his thoughts in chaos.

His memory still lingered on that snowy night in the imperial prison, kneeling on the ground after his punishment, hearing Song Shixuan ask before him: “Teacher, was there truly no reason at all for your long delay in coming to Qifeng Cottage?”

He wanted to lift his head, but it felt frozen stiff, too heavy to move, so he could only huddle on the ground, shivering with cold — whether from his thin clothing or from the words of the man before him, he couldn’t say.

Song Shixuan crouched down in front of him, untied his own crane-feather cloak and draped it over him. The scent of ambergris enveloped him completely, and yet, strangely, he felt no warmth at all.

“Ziqian…” Zhou Tan gripped the hand that was tying the sash for him, finally finding his voice. “Your Majesty…”

Having lost so much blood, his lips had gone bloodless white. Song Shixuan looked at him only a moment before he couldn’t bear to look any longer. “Teacher, say no more… I’ll have someone take you back to rest properly…”

“Your Majesty!” Zhou Tan gripped his wrist and would not let go, coughing heavily. Outside, the wind howled, swallowing the anguish in his voice. “Has Your Majesty always thought… that this is how I’ve treated you? Is this… truly how you see me?”

He called himself “your subject” — no longer “Ziqian.”

Song Shixuan lowered his eyes, remembering the days he’d spent waiting for Zhou Tan at Qifeng Cottage.

For as long as he could remember, he had lived in flight — the mountain forests of Lin’an, the crowded streets of the capital. Born of the imperial bloodline, he had known no dignity at all, until the day Gu Zhiyan had secretly found him.

A few household guards had blindfolded him and taken him from the ruined temple where he’d been living, and he’d felt as though falling into an abyss of ice, thinking that after fleeing for so long, he still couldn’t escape his fate. But when the blindfold was removed, he saw before him an elderly man, spirited and lean, upright in bearing.

“This humble subject… greets the young prince.” Gu Zhiyan stepped back and, trembling, bowed.

The young scholar standing beside him hurried forward to support him.

Gu Zhiyan revealed his identity, but Song Shixuan still found it hard to believe. “Sir, you are… the current chancellor of the realm, surely loyal to His Majesty — then do you know… it was he who slaughtered my entire family, was it not…”

“Child,” Gu Zhiyan said, gripping his hand, a note of sorrow in his gaze. “It was your imperial grandfather, on his deathbed, who entrusted this to me — to preserve a thread of bloodline for your grandfather, for your father… I have searched for you for many, many years.”

Emperor Xuan and Prince Jing had been brothers of the same mother, close through the years — otherwise, when Emperor Xuan first grew suspicious about Emperor De’s bloodline, his first thought would not have been to summon Prince Jing back to the capital.

Had Emperor De’s poisoning not driven him to such madness, had there been time enough, Emperor Xuan might truly have rewritten his final decree, leaving the throne to the brother he trusted more.

But it was already too late for all that. In the end, all Emperor Xuan could do was hand Gu Zhiyan a decree that might never see the light of day.

“Chancellor Gu… there is no one else left for me to trust. After I am gone, I ask you… to do everything in your power to preserve a thread of my brother’s bloodline.” On his deathbed, Emperor Xuan had gripped the hand of the chancellor he trusted most. “If Chang’s son… proves capable as emperor, then support him well, and simply raise my brother’s descendants to adulthood in secret. But if it truly comes to…”

He paused there, struggling. “If the emperor proves unworthy of the throne… let it pass to Prince Jing’s line. As for lineage, bloodline, truth or falsehood — I no longer wish to concern myself with it. Guard the Zhenru Palace for me. Guard… my dynasty.”

The palace bells tolled for forty-nine days for Emperor Xuan’s passing, and all the people mourned together.

Gu Zhiyan kept that decree hidden, one that might never see daylight, and quietly mobilized every resource he had to search for any descendants of Prince Jing who might have survived out in the world. Year after year passed before he finally found Song Shixuan.

Hearing Gu Zhiyan recount all of this, Song Shixuan felt his nose sting, and tears streamed uncontrollably down his face.

He was, after all, still only a child — his family destroyed, forced into hiding, and now finally having found a place to belong. Hatred, pain, relief, bewilderment, all rose up in him at once, and he simply couldn’t hold it back.

The young official standing behind Gu Zhiyan saw his tears and hurried over, kneeling before him, drawing a handkerchief scented faintly with still-water fragrance from his sleeve to gently wipe away his tears.

“Little Highness, don’t cry.”

Through his tear-blurred eyes, Song Shixuan looked at the handsome young man before him, who lowered his eyes and spoke to him with respect and sincerity. “This subject is Chancellor Gu’s student, top scorer in this spring’s examinations. My surname is Zhou, given name Tan, courtesy name Xiaobai — the Tan of sandalwood… I am about to be sent to serve outside the capital. If Little Highness doesn’t mind, from now on I and Lord Su will study alongside you.”

Another man in the room, dressed in a dark blue scholar’s robe, knelt before him as well and bowed properly.

Though Gu Zhiyan had wished to teach him personally, he was, after all, aging, and burdened with a great deal of court business — far less free than these two young men.

From then on, he gained two young “teachers.”

During the time he stayed at Gu Zhiyan’s residence, his identity kept him confined indoors, and since Zhou Tan had not yet left the capital, he came every day to study with him.

Su Chaoci was not Gu Zhiyan’s student, and frequent visits to the residence would have drawn unwanted attention — besides, that was precisely the period of the Su case, and he was too overwhelmed to spare much attention.

Only Zhou Tan accompanied Song Shixuan every single day.

At first, Song Shixuan called both of them “teacher,” but later he insisted on calling only Zhou Tan “Master.” Zhou Tan corrected him several times, without success, and eventually gave up trying.

Su Chaoci, perhaps lacking experience with children, was far less gentle with him than Zhou Tan was. He respected them both, but deep down always felt closer to Zhou Tan.

Ai Disheng, the son of Gu Zhiyan’s most trusted retainer, found him a small courtyard house on the edge of the capital’s busy streets and assigned many hidden guards to protect him. And so Song Shixuan moved from Gu Zhiyan’s residence to Qifeng Cottage, where he lived for several years.

The moment Zhou Tan returned to the capital from his posting, he came to see him. Song Shixuan performed the formal rite of discipleship before him, and Zhou Tan chose the character “Qian” — modesty — from the Analects for his courtesy name.

He had no other intentions at first.

He had thought he would simply grow up there in Qifeng Cottage, under the protection of his teachers, and once the current emperor passed away and his identity was no longer so sensitive, he would marry as Chancellor Gu’s adopted son and live out an ordinary life — a fitting way to honor the life his parents had died to preserve.

Until the Candle-Lighting case broke.

After Gu Zhiyan’s death and Zhou Tan’s imprisonment, when Zhou Tan surrendered his loyalty to the emperor, Su Chaoci and Ai Disheng both held their tongues, unwilling to let him know too much. All he vaguely gathered was that his teacher had stopped coming to see him for a long while.

Some time later, Su Chaoci finally told him everything about Gu Zhiyan and that decree. In that moment, Song Shixuan finally understood — the reason Gu Zhiyan had insisted on keeping him in the capital all along.

Not to mention everything Su Chaoci and Zhou Tan had taught him over the years.

It had all been the learning of an emperor, the arts of rulership.

Su Chaoci, somewhat nervously, confessed to him that the Su family bore an old grudge against the crown prince and could never support his succession; none of Emperor De’s other sons were fit to rule, and he hoped with all his heart that Song Shixuan would be the one to inherit the throne.

But what of the teacher he’d always loved?

His teacher, adrift now in the currents of officialdom, gave nothing away.

Ai Disheng told him vaguely that if, one day, he saw his teacher walk back through the door of Qifeng Cottage, it would mean he had made his decision.

And so Song Shixuan waited, patiently.

No one in this world could resist power within arm’s reach, and he was no exception — especially having witnessed his family’s destruction with his own eyes; to say he held no hatred at all would be a lie.

He didn’t know why Su Chaoci hated the crown prince so deeply — at the time, the crown prince still held a good reputation, diligent and compassionate in governance. So… what would his teacher choose?

Song Shixuan, who had started out full of confidence, grew steadily more anxious as time passed, until every shred of certainty had worn away.

He even began to console himself — if, in the end, his teacher didn’t choose him, it could only mean his teacher believed he wouldn’t do any better than the crown prince. His teacher was always right. If it came to that, he… could simply live the plain life he’d once imagined, and that would be fine too.

It had been years since he’d last recalled that particular kind of anxiety.

Now, in the imperial prison, the teacher who had once seemed so lofty and distant to him, gentle as an immortal in his youth, was drenched in blood, his eyes bloodshot, calling him “Your Majesty” — it had been so many, many years since he’d last called him that in private.

Song Shixuan trembled, remembering the moment Cheng Shu had placed that copied indictment before him — the instant he read through it, he felt his blood run cold.

Panic.

An empty, hollow panic wrapped itself around him instantly.

Did his teacher… know?

Know that the retainer who protected him had once killed the person most precious to him?

Back then, Bo Ying had once sent that indictment to him through Luo Jiangting’s hands — and Zhou Tan had intercepted it.

He had seen it.

He must have known for a long time already.

Perhaps far, far earlier than he’d ever imagined.

Bo Ying, sharp enough to foresee his own end but not quite willing to accept defeat, had left a final gambit behind — a last, desperate move to drive a wedge between them. Li Yuanjun and Luo Jiangting, believing the moment ripe, had struck in haste, no doubt thinking that with a domineering minister and a ruler already growing estranged from him, once he read that indictment, he would never spare Zhou Tan.

Who would ever feel at ease keeping as a subject someone who bore a blood feud against him? Who could guarantee such a man would never harbor treachery, never hold on to hatred, for the rest of his life?

A bushel of rice earns gratitude; a peck too many breeds resentment.

Zhou Tan had done far, far too much for him — a debt he could never repay, never settle.

Song Shixuan suddenly felt his eyes grow wet.

They believed themselves flawless in their scheming, yet the one thing they never accounted for was that, all these years, his devotion to his teacher had been genuine.

He was only afraid — afraid that Zhou Tan’s feelings for him weren’t so pure after all, afraid that he hadn’t served him faithfully out of true affection, but simply because he was “the most suitable choice.”

That indictment had merely given his own emotions a satisfying, self-justifying outlet.

Zhou Tan’s wavering before entering Qifeng Cottage, the way he’d sacrificed his own reputation to clear a path for him, refused high office, and been willing to live out his life alone and unwed…

Perhaps none of it had been because it was “most suitable” — not because he himself was “the most suitable” — but because Zhou Tan simply couldn’t let go of that old grudge, and so insisted on doing what he thought was “for his own good,” even against Song Shixuan’s own wishes.

Song Shixuan had no idea at all that these were nothing more than excuses he’d invented out of his own guilt, unsure how else to make amends.

But every one of those excuses, landing on Zhou Tan’s ears, cut like a blade to the heart — a pain no less than being flayed alive.

“So, in Your Majesty’s heart… I amount to no more than this, after all…”

Zhou Tan gave a self-mocking laugh and slowly loosened the hand gripping his. His voice was so faint that Song Shixuan completely failed to catch the despair and grief woven into it.

“Do I hate you? Perhaps I do. It’s been so long, I can hardly say for certain myself… Do I not hate you? That, too, seems… impossible, doesn’t it? In the end, even I can’t sort out this tangled old account, let alone anyone else. Hatred, or the lack of it… in the end, it all falls on me alone to bear.”

He seemed to be talking to himself, his voice growing fainter and fainter. Song Shixuan couldn’t bear to listen any longer. He rose to his feet in confusion, stumbling back a few steps, not even remembering to wipe his own tears — his face was a wreck, tears streaking every which way, all trace of imperial composure long gone.

“Teacher… I — I’ll come again tomorrow. Come see you again.”

With that, Song Shixuan fled the dim execution chamber as though running for his life. Zhou Tan made no move to stop him, only knelt where he was, watching Song Shixuan’s figure disappear completely down the dimly lit corridor.

“Tomorrow?”

He repeated the word softly, gave a mocking little laugh, then forced himself to rise, and bowed deeply toward the direction his retreating figure had gone.

“It seems… Ziqian’s birthday is nearly here. What a pity. What a pity…”

A pity that you no longer need me at all.

Two sword-bearing guards gruffly urged him on, escorting him back to the imperial prison.

Zhou Tan followed them in a daze, walking past a long stretch of red palace walls.

Outside, the snow had stopped, and there was even a moon out — though the night was still deep, cold and endless.

Zhou Tan saw a young palace maid kneeling beside a bronze rain vessel.

Her hair was done up in two low buns, her head bowed low, wearing only a thin robe, shivering with cold.

Almost without thinking, he untied the crane-feather cloak Song Shixuan had left him and draped it over her shoulders.

The young maid startled and looked up at him, her lips frozen bloodless — but her eyes were clean and bright, like the bright moon at the edge of the sky.

Beautiful, he thought. Beautiful things ought to last a little longer.

His punishment earlier had been rather severe, and his hands trembled badly; it took him a long while to tie the sash for the girl properly. When he rose and glanced at her once more, he felt his heart pound uncontrollably.

“Wrap it tighter,” he said.

Too late.

Behind him, the young maid called out softly, “My lord…”

Too late. Too late.

Zhou Tan, dressed too thinly for the cold, returned to the prison. The two sword-bearing guards locked the chains, muttered a few words to each other, and turned to leave.

Left alone, Zhou Tan saw Song Shixuan’s expression from just now rise vividly before his eyes — the dawning realization, the resentment mixed with grief. You hate me — that’s why you won’t come.

You hate me… that’s why you want to go far away.

He suddenly felt terribly cold, and terribly like laughing, though he couldn’t quite manage it.

The people in the prison didn’t dare treat him too poorly — the cell even had brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. But on this bitter winter night, of all nights, someone had taken away his winter quilt — perhaps one of the hidden guards assigned to protect him, unable to stomach the way he’d hurt the emperor, punishing him for it.

But Zhou Tan no longer cared about any of it.

He licked the clean tip of his brush, using the last of his own warmth to thaw the frozen ink, and wrote a line of poetry on the bluestone wall.

As he wrote, he spoke to the empty air, half in a daze, almost mad.

“Mother, Mother… I once thought there would always be a few people left in this world who remembered me. Now there’s one fewer… After all these years, it turns out — the ruler never truly knew his subject, and the subject… never truly knew his ruler either.”

“What a joke. What a joke. This whole life of mine… an utter failure, nothing accomplished. The things I wished to hold onto… I couldn’t hold onto them. In the end, we must part — so wouldn’t it have been better… never to have met at all?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha…”

He tossed aside the brush and laughed without restraint, only belatedly noticing how cold he felt.

But his tears were scalding hot.

“Mother, I too will… reach my limit soon. I want to see you. I miss Father, my teacher, my senior brother, and… my wife, the one I never formally married. I carved her name onto my own gravestone… now, at last, I can go see all of you. At last, I can go see her…”

Zhou Tan braced himself against the cold wall, feeling a metallic taste of blood rise in his throat. He hated that smell, and in a fit of stubborn defiance, slammed his head against the wall once.

His vision swam, but he didn’t lose consciousness, so he gathered his remaining strength and struck the wall again.

The world opened up before him, wide and clear.

Relieved, his wish finally granted, he fell into a bottomless darkness.

The next day, when the emperor received the news, he couldn’t believe it. Without even finishing dressing, his crown only half arranged, he rushed there together with the chancellor, and stood before the young palace maid who had received Zhou Tan’s cloak, watching helplessly as the guards carried Zhou Tan’s body out.

Song Shixuan could barely stand upright. Numb and eerily calm, he rewarded the maid, then followed close behind the guards and Zhou Tan’s body, refusing to let go.

The guards had originally meant to simply cremate the body, but seeing the emperor’s state, none of them dared act rashly, and for the time being carried the prisoner’s body back to the cell where he’d spent his last night.

By the faint light through the small window, Song Shixuan gripped Zhou Tan’s already-cold hand tightly, and saw the line of poetry inscribed on the bluestone wall.

Su Chaoci, standing behind him, said in a daze, “In a few days… it will be His Majesty’s birthday.”

Even in death, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say a single word of reproach — only leaving behind one grand and gentle blessing.

— This humble subject offers you the longevity of the southern mountains.

— May Your Majesty’s glorious name endure for ten thousand ages.

Zhou Tan jolted awake from these chaotic memories, his hands shaking too badly to hold the teacup steady, and he had to take another sip just to settle himself.

That flavor was far too familiar. Who — who exactly was the master of this courtyard, who could pull him free from those cold, dark palace walls?

Zhou Tan rose, put on his outer robe, and straightened himself briefly in the bronze mirror — his collar half-open, his hair loose, and if not for the fact that the face in the mirror was unmistakably his own, he would hardly have believed he could ever look so disheveled.

With a white jade hairpin holding back half his hair, Zhou Tan pushed open the door and found the small courtyard planted with a great many apricot trees.

He walked slowly along the moss-covered stone path. For a long while he saw no one; the courtyard was utterly empty, silent.

At the end of the path stood the courtyard’s main gate, left slightly ajar, not fully shut — back in the capital, with so many common folk stirred up by rumor coming to make trouble at his residence, how could anyone dare leave a gate half-open like this?

This… was not the capital.

He pushed the gate open, and after a long moment’s hesitation over whether to step outside, he saw two figures approaching from the left, careless and unkempt in bearing, one of them carrying a half-grown child on his back.

One of them said, “Heavens, if your mother finds out about this, she’ll break your legs for sure!”

The other said, “That’s right. Second Sister’s never let you play with us, if not for—”

The rest of his words dropped too low to catch.

The child, however, shouted with full lung power: “Mother’s having a grand chat with the lady of the house, and sent me up here with a message. My leg’s already broken, what’s a beating on top of that… I promised Mother I’d come, so I had to. Teacher told us the story of Wei Sheng clinging to the bridge post — well, I’m clinging to your neck to get here, so that counts as keeping my word too!”

Still spouting this nonsense, the child suddenly caught sight of Zhou Tan standing at the gate.

He immediately smacked the shoulder of the man carrying him, jumped down, and ran over at full speed — nothing at all like someone whose leg was supposedly broken.

“Teacher!”

Seeing an unfamiliar commoner approach, Zhou Tan instinctively stepped back — only to be caught completely off guard as the child threw himself forward and hugged his leg.

“Teacher, the book you told Fusheng to read at home — Fusheng’s already read it!” the child said, tilting his head up with a bright grin. “What’s Teacher doing here?”

Zhou Tan didn’t know what to say. He glanced up at the two ruffian-looking men who’d come up with the boy, and to his surprise, the two of them, catching his eye, both raised their hands in a somewhat awkward bow.

“Greetings, Master Zhou.”

“Master Zhou, how’s your health been lately, haha?”

Noticing Zhou Tan’s pale face, one of them leaned in a little, saying with apparent concern, “Is Lord Zhou feeling unwell? Should we run and fetch the lady of the house for you?”

Fusheng chimed in as well. “I came up specially to pass along a message for the lady — she said she’ll eat dinner with my mother before heading back. Teacher, would you like to come to our house?”

…The lady?

These three were all complete strangers to him, and he hadn’t understood a single word they’d said, but to avoid rousing suspicion, Zhou Tan simply waved a hand vaguely, and had just turned to head back into the courtyard when Fusheng came bounding up and pressed a candy figurine into his hand.

“I brought this specially for you, Teacher,” Fusheng said, waving as he went. “Take care, Teacher — I’m heading back now!”

Zhou Tan stood there, staring blankly at the candy figurine in his hand for a long, long while.

The sun had only just dipped below the horizon when Qu You said goodbye to Er Niang and headed home.

She’d meant to stay a bit longer, but when Fusheng went back and mentioned Zhou Tan didn’t look well, perhaps unwell in health, she’d grown uneasy and decided to head home early after all.

No lamps were lit in the courtyard — not even the one that usually hung by their door every night.

That lamp had to be lit every single evening; when Qu You wasn’t there, it was usually Zhou Tan who lit it himself. Had he forgotten?

Zhou Tan had felt lazy that afternoon, and with a rare bit of free time, Qu You had let him sleep alone for half the day. She’d just heard from Fusheng that he still seemed unwell after waking — could it be that he’d fallen back asleep, and that was why the lamp wasn’t lit?

The thought only deepened her worry, and she crept up quietly, pushing open the door carefully, closing it firmly behind her — only to turn and find a faint light already glowing in the inner chamber.

Qu You let out a breath of relief and pushed through the layered gauze curtains hanging before her, grumbling as she walked in: “You scared me half to death, you—”

Before she could finish, she heard a faint sound cutting through the air.

She looked up and saw Zhou Tan sitting upright on the bed, looking at her with an utterly unfamiliar, icy expression, his white jade scholar’s sword already drawn, its tip stopped an inch from her face.

“You—”

“Who are you?”

Qu You blinked and repeated his question back to him. “I… who am I?”

Only a single candle burned in the room, its flame faint in the darkness, Zhou Tan’s expression obscured behind it. “Who are you? And where… is this place?”

He’d expected the sword to be intimidating enough, but the woman before him, entirely contrary to his expectation, showed not the slightest fear, stepping forward toward the blade instead, even reaching out to flick it lightly with her finger.

A ringing, metallic sound echoed through the quiet room.

Only once she’d stepped closer did Zhou Tan finally see her face clearly.

She had a pair of warm, smiling eyes, beautiful in a clean, unadorned way. She favored pink, and yet there was nothing coquettish about her — clear, gentle, like moonlight.

And there was… something faintly familiar about her too.

The instant his attention wavered, she caught the tip of his sword lightly and, leaning to one side, retrieved that peach-blossom gauze garment from the bed.

She tossed the woman’s underdress onto him and said, half-scolding, “Lord Zhou still asking who I am?”

Zhou Tan, thrown off by an audacity utterly at odds with her appearance, flushed a deep red instantly and nearly lost his grip on the sword. “You— how dare you!”

“How dare I?” Qu You found this rather funny, then grew suspicious. “Stop joking around. Did you not sleep well last night?”

But Zhou Tan asked instead, “What… year is it? What day?”

She’d told him to stop joking, and yet he still hadn’t lowered the sword.

Qu You finally sensed something was wrong, and softened her tone. “What year and day does Lord Zhou think it is?”

Zhou Tan frowned, his head still aching badly. “Chongjing… Chongjing… no, wait — how did you get me out of the imperial prison? I was clearly already… could it be I’m not dead?”

He muttered to himself in evident anguish, and Qu You, piecing together his meaning from these fragments, felt a wave of disbelief, but pressed on with her own train of thought. “My lord Chancellor… were you, before this, imprisoned in the imperial jail? Did you fall into total despair after growing estranged from His Majesty…”

Before she could finish, Zhou Tan snapped, “Just who are you?”

How could she know something so closely guarded, in such precise detail?

The moment the words left his mouth, the woman before him suddenly sank down and knelt against his leg.

The white jade sword slipped from his grasp. Zhou Tan stepped back, and the woman lifted her face to look at him, smiling — but her eyes were wet. “My lord, only last night you gave me the very crane-feather cloak off your own back — how could you have forgotten it all so completely, in so short a time?”

“You—” Zhou Tan’s lips trembled. He wanted to help her up, but couldn’t set aside his suspicion. “Then, I—”

But before he could finish the question, the woman continued, “Last night was too cold, and I never got the chance to tell you, my lord… my surname is Qu. Qu, as in — the very same character you carved on your own gravestone.”

For a moment, Zhou Tan couldn’t process what she meant. When it finally hit him, he was utterly stunned.

“—What did you just say?”

Qu You wrapped her arms around his leg, forcing down the emotion churning inside her. “My lord, it’s me… Back then, my father was exiled and my mother died. I didn’t die — I became a servant girl in the palace. After Yunyue’s death, I had no identity left, and I didn’t want you to see me like this, so I never…”

“My lord, there has always been someone… watching over you,” she said, then suddenly found she couldn’t go on. “I brought you medicine after the late emperor had you flogged. Every morning, I swept the ground by the east gate in the bitter cold, just for the chance to catch a glimpse of you after court let out… I memorized every poem you ever wrote… Last night, I risked my life sneaking past Consort Ting to bring medicine to the prison for you, and when she caught me, she had me kneel by the roadside as punishment, my lord…”

Zhou Tan had been utterly unwilling to believe a word of it — but in that same instant, she had already broken down sobbing, gasping so hard she could barely form complete words, her beautiful face streaked with tears, looking so pitiful.

He had no choice but to bend down, meaning to help her up first.

But Qu You threw her arms around his neck directly, hot tears sliding down the back of his neck. “Don’t… don’t ever do something like that again. There is someone — there is still someone who loves you, who cares about you. You’re also my… reason for holding on, for living.”

Zhou Tan knelt on the ground, watching the woman sobbing so violently against his shoulder. He raised a hand, meaning to pat her back, but it hovered there, unable to fall.

A sharp, achingly familiar pain flashed through his heart, and in the end he couldn’t help himself — he carefully gathered the woman before him into his arms, comforting her in a trembling voice: “Don’t — don’t cry.”

The moment he said this, he felt his own nose sting, nearly on the verge of tears himself. “Miss Qu, you… you really didn’t die? All these years… you should have come to find me. At least, then… you wouldn’t have had to suffer so much.”

Qu You hadn’t expected him to say such a thing first. She wiped at her tears, trying for a smile, but could only manage between sobs: “All right, all right, I won’t cry anymore… My lord, I didn’t die, and neither did you. Do you know — after you took your own life in the imperial prison, Heaven gave us so many more chances…”

By the time she’d told him everything about this life — every joy and sorrow — it was already deep into the night.

She spoke in such thorough, intimate detail that once she’d finished telling him of her family’s ruin, Zhou Tan had come to believe her completely.

He held her, leaning back against the long couch by the window, and whenever she reached some particularly painful part of her story, he found himself tightening his embrace without meaning to.

Weary in spirit, Qu You took a handkerchief and wiped away her own tears, then his. As her fingers brushed his cheek, he caught her wrist.

“And then?”

She heard his low voice.

“You said… after I died in the imperial prison, you were released from the palace. What did you do after that?”

These memories were too painful to look back on — but Qu You had already suffered enough from withholding the truth, and now answered every question without holding back. “At Xiuqing Temple, on that wishing tree, I found the wish you’d once tied there… ‘Though the seas run wild, hold fast to your true heart’ — you did it, the wish you made for me… I kept that red silk ribbon, and climbed the temple wall to escape.”

She lay across his lap, her long hair spread loose, flowing like clouds.

Zhou Tan stroked her hair tenderly, remembering that the two of them had never, in that life, formally bound their hair together as husband and wife.

“I walked for so, so long, avoiding the soldiers, and by the time I found the hillside where you were buried, my skirt was filthy beyond words.” Qu You spoke in a daze, seeming genuinely bothered by the state of her ruined skirt. “I saw the stone markers you’d set up… I only meant to see you one last time, but on your gravestone, you’d carved my name.”

Zhou Tan went still.

“What was there left in this world for me to hold onto… Before I left the palace, I went and begged Lord Su to find my sisters and let them go free… I heard that my father and brother had already fallen ill and died before ever reaching their place of exile.” She opened her eyes, staring blankly at the nearly burnt-out candle in the room. “Thank you… it turns out that when you carved that stone, you left me one final place to belong. I suppose that means… I had a home after all. If not to go home to that, where else was there for me to go?”

Her head still felt foggy, her fingers cold, her chest tight with a heaviness. A familiar sense of despair and grief overtook her, and Zhou Tan found himself trembling, unable to stop.

—No. Don’t.

“I tied that red ribbon to the tree in front of your grave. To be able to die alongside you — I could never have dreamed of anything better.”

The candle burned down to its end.

When she woke the next day, it was already noon. The sky was overcast that day, heavy with clouds but no rain. When Qu You rose and went to wake Zhou Tan, she heard him murmur, “I’m still a little sleepy.”

So she brewed him something to calm his spirit. After he drank it, Zhou Tan drifted back to sleep, and Qu You pushed open the door and stepped out of the room. She’d barely taken a few steps when she heard someone call from the courtyard gate: “My lady!”

She looked up slowly and saw it was Er Niang calling to her.

Er Niang set down the basket of dried apricots she’d been carrying and waved her over. “Did my lady forget? We agreed yesterday to have tea and go into town together — why did you suddenly cancel on me? Are you feeling unwell?”

That did seem to ring a bell. Qu You nodded absently, meaning to say that Zhou Tan wasn’t feeling well and they’d have to meet another day — but what came out instead was: “There’s still time. It’s just about lunch. My husband’s resting, so let’s head down the mountain together, Er Niang.”

Er Niang laughed. “Wonderful, wonderful.”

Qu You was startled by her own words the moment they left her mouth. She followed Er Niang a few steps, and in her distracted state, tripped over the courtyard threshold.

Er Niang hurried to catch her. “Careful, my lady!”

The moment those words left Er Niang’s mouth, Qu You finally realized what was wrong!

This scene… it was far too familiar. It had happened exactly like this — just yesterday!

She lunged forward and grabbed Er Niang’s hand. “Er Niang, what date is it today… the how-manyeth of the second month?”

Er Niang answered, puzzled, “The twelfth of the second month. Today’s the Flower Dawn Festival. My lady even said yesterday that after lunch we should go pick some flowers.”

Qu You closed her eyes, remembering with perfect clarity that the day she and Er Niang had gone down the mountain “yesterday” had also, precisely, been the twelfth of the second month.

She seemed… to have fallen into some strange, repeating loop.

【When the Snow Melts】

Zhou Tan turned back to look at Su Chaoci, standing amid a hazy drizzle.

Su Chaoci wasn’t in official dress, wearing instead a simple dark green scholar’s robe, just as he had the day they’d first met. The jade belt at his waist had been loosened slightly — he’d grown noticeably thinner lately, his eyes rimmed red, his expression exhausted.

Zhou Tan glanced at him and asked with a smile, “Everything’s settled now — why does Brother Su still look so unhappy?”

The ferry hadn’t yet arrived, and thick mist hung low over the clear stream before them.

Su Chaoci stared fixedly at the water’s surface, lost in thought, and only after a long moment spoke, his voice hoarse almost beyond recognition. “His Majesty… wanted to come too. Wanted to see you off.”

Zhou Tan lowered his eyes and said nothing for a long moment.

It was just the start of spring, the stream having thawed only three or four days before. Fortunately the sun had been bright these past few days, and the floating ice had melted away completely, though patches of snow still lingered on the ground.

As they spoke, a fine, misty rain began to fall.

Wind blew along the riverbank. Amid the sound of flowing water, wind, and rain, Su Chaoci opened an umbrella and heard Zhou Tan say, calmly, “Never mind it.”

Su Chaoci closed his eyes in evident pain, pressing his fingers to his brow, murmuring as though to himself: “I don’t even know what could have happened between the two of you, to bring things to this… Neither of you will tell me anything. Ziqian summoned me into the palace in the dead of night — I hadn’t seen him cry in so long… The next day, the two of us went to fetch you, and you wouldn’t say another word either…”

“Say no more.”

Zhou Tan cut him off, curling his lips into a self-mocking smile that never quite formed.

Su Chaoci said, “But I truly don’t understand!”

Zhou Tan reached out and steadied his forearm, looking up at him earnestly. “Chaoci, do you believe… that in this world, there exists a bond of loyalty and affection that nothing can break?”

Su Chaoci faltered, unable to answer.

“You see — you don’t believe it,” Zhou Tan said with a smile. “In this world… hardly anyone truly believes it, I suppose. Even those who claim to, mostly say it just to comfort themselves. But I… I truly did believe it. Once a person becomes attached to something, they grow foolish over it — always feeling that others ought to be just as devoted as they are, to be worthy of them. Thinking on it now, though — why should anyone owe me that? Everything I did, I did from my own heart. A thousand wishes, ten thousand feelings, I gave them willingly, seeking only my own fulfillment, my own peace of mind. No one owed me anything, and I owe no one either… The great path is as vast as the open sky, and yet I alone cannot find my way through it — perhaps… that, too, is because I was too foolishly devoted.”

Su Chaoci paused, then said softly, “The world has never lacked for foolish, devoted hearts… You, who have been through so much, and still cling to those first hopes of yours — that’s exactly why you keep disappointing yourself, again and again. Xiaobai, you… are still, even now, the idealist with the sword in hand that you always were. But I’ve long since worn down into something withered. That innocent young man from the night of the imperial banquet — from beginning to end, it was only ever you. I… envy you, truly.”

The ferry emerged from the white mist.

Su Chaoci continued, “Every age needs a few foolish souls like this — people who never lose their innocent hearts even unto death, who sacrifice themselves to smooth over the rough road to that blue sky, so that those who come after won’t have to exhaust themselves the way you and I have, just to glimpse the mountains and rivers free of snow, the fresh green of another spring.”

Zhou Tan turned to look at him. Su Chaoci ran his fingers over the multicolored prayer beads at his wrist, meeting his gaze — and before long, both their eyes had reddened.

“I remember the letter you wrote, baring your heart — ‘knowing you walk the path of white snow, to melt away is its own quiet grace’… I am not the banished immortal of the eastern seas you once imagined in your heart, nor the lone white crane crying through the night. This path — I have walked it, and so have you. Our footprints overlap. Which of us is the surface and which the reflection hardly matters anymore.”

“Ha ha ha ha…”

The two of them threw their heads back and laughed together on the riverbank, laughing with a freedom and abandon they hadn’t shared in many, many years since they’d first known each other.

“I’ve sung through the parting song, my tears not yet dry — fame and fortune are but trifles; eat well, and let them lie! The boundless waters bear the endless trees to the sky, half the mountain buried under rain-soaked clouds on high… Ancient griefs and new, a thousand kinds there be! Is parting and reunion all there is to joy and misery? The river’s mouth has not yet seen the worst of stormy weather — there is a harder road still, walked by men, together!”

Zhou Tan boarded the boat, and having recited this poem in full, turned back to say to him: “The path I set out to walk has reached its end. Whether this road can become an open, level way to the heavens — that, you must still walk on for a long while yet. I only hope it won’t betray what both of us once hoped for.”

Su Chaoci shouted after him from the bank: “I swear to you… this snow — it will melt one day!”

In the thick fog, Zhou Tan lifted his brush and wrote out that mourning poem.

“Yes. The snow… will melt one day.”

He watched Su Chaoci’s figure on the bank grow steadily fainter, until at last it was swallowed entirely by the boundless mist.

“Once the snow has melted away… this world will surely be different, in the end.”

The boatman, not knowing his identity, came over to greet him. “My lord… it’s far too cold out on the deck. Best go inside now.”

Zhou Tan answered with a smile. “All right.”

As he bent to step into the cabin, Zhou Tan thought quietly to himself that although he and Su Chaoci had known each other for so long, in the end, just as it had been the very first time they met, Su Chaoci was simply someone different from him — never quite able to understand him the way he wished.

And he hadn’t been unlucky enough, either, never to have met someone who truly understood him, truly loved him.

It was only a pity that she, like fresh snow fallen on old mountains and rivers, had vanished the instant the sun rose, without leaving behind even a single drop of water.

Zhou Tan returned to Lin’an alone, and bought a small courtyard house on the outskirts of the city, one planted with a great many apricot trees, which he loved dearly.

It had been a long time since he’d last thought of his deceased wife. Sitting beneath the apricot trees, trying to recall her features, he found he could barely remember her face at all, and had to dig through his chests to find her portrait.

After her death, he’d locked the portrait away at the very bottom of a trunk, unable to bear even a single glance at it.

One glance too many, and that heavy, gray sense of loss would wrap itself around him completely, draining every scheme and plan of any meaning at all — as though everything in the world had, in truth, always been meaningless.

But back in the capital, there had been so much to attend to, the weight of it all pressing down on his shoulders like thunder, and he’d never dared let his guard down for even a moment, afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold on, afraid of failing when success was within reach.

Now, at last, he had the chance to look at it as much as he wanted.

There was only the one portrait, commissioned after their marriage, with an inscription in her own hand alongside it.

“A single wisp of white cloud drifts far away — by the green maple shore, sorrow knows no end.”

On the first day he moved into the small courtyard, Zhou Tan sat at the end of the long corridor and stared at his late wife’s portrait for an entire afternoon.

Not until dusk drew near did he finally come back to himself. He meant to steady himself against the corridor pillar and rise, but instead his eye fell on something set atop the very trunk he’d pulled the portrait from — unmistakably, the white jade sword he hadn’t laid eyes on in many years.

The sword his mother had given him. Later, caught up in the affairs of court, he’d rarely had cause to raise a blade against anyone, and had put it away.

For it to appear here today — could that be some kind of fated sign?

The sword slid from its sheath, its cold light glinting sharp and clear.

Zhou Tan began to laugh.

Qu You still remembered the past life she had dreamed of while imprisoned in the Ministry of Justice’s dungeon, back when Song Shiyan had held her captive.

In the first life, Zhou Tan had died in the imperial prison.

In the second life, she was no longer the young palace maid kneeling in the snow — and so Zhou Tan, wrapped in Song Shixuan’s crane-feather cloak, had written that line — “may Your Majesty’s glorious name endure for ten thousand ages” — on the prison wall, then returned to Lin’an alone.

He had made a wish that all her illness be transferred onto himself — and so, later, after his parents passed, he had fallen gravely ill, growing steadily weaker, never practicing martial arts again.

So in the third life, he had died of illness.

What she had deliberately avoided remembering, all this time, was the choice Zhou Tan had made in that second life, back at their old home in Lin’an.

There was no other reason for it — that memory was simply too painful.

Qu You still remembered, even now, standing as a spirit beneath the apricot tree before Zhou Tan, watching helplessly as he drew a short sword and, with an expressionless face, slit his own wrist.

Blood pooled across the ground, mingling with fallen apricot petals. Utterly unconcerned, he gripped that white jade ring tightly and, weakening, made his wish.

“Never let me meet her again… I will stay far, far away from them both…”

She had thrown herself forward madly, trying to stop the bleeding, but it was completely useless — she could only kneel before him, watching his life drain away, drop by drop.

“That doesn’t count! What kind of wish is that?! It doesn’t count at all!”

Before he died, Zhou Tan had dipped his finger in his own blood and left a final message on that portrait, leaving his entire fortune behind, asking that whoever collected his remains bury him alongside his wife’s ashes, kept in an urn, on the apricot-covered slope behind their courtyard.

The blood soaked into the sword, dyeing it red, spattering across the portrait they’d once painted together in the fullness of their love.

“…My lady!”

Qu You rubbed her temples, walking alone along the road home.

It felt like a dream — first following Er Niang down the mountain, then, exactly as in her memory of “yesterday,” embroidering, sampling tea, brewing wine, buying a potted apricot sapling at the market, and then forgetting it at Er Niang’s house.

If everything continued to unfold exactly as it had “yesterday,” then when she got home, she would see…

At the thought, Qu You quickened her pace, and finally broke into a run.

Breathless, she pushed open the gate of the Apricot Blossom Cottage, and before she’d even caught her breath, she found herself face to face with Zhou Tan, who had just stepped out of the house. He stared at her, stunned, and after a long moment, reached out a trembling hand, calling out in disbelief: “A’Lian…”

Different — different from yesterday!

Qu You didn’t have time to be surprised. She rushed forward and took his outstretched hand. “It’s me… it’s really me.”

Zhou Tan cupped her face, tears falling unconsciously down his cheeks. He couldn’t believe it, checking again and again with a trembling voice: “You’re still alive… you’re still alive, and I get to see you again.”

Amid the joy, he instinctively glanced down at his own wrist.

The skin was smooth and unbroken, without a single scar.

With just that one glance, Qu You understood.

This was not the man from yesterday.

Yesterday had been Lord Zhou, who had died in the imperial prison.

Today was her husband, who had taken his own life at the Apricot Blossom Cottage.

“How are you here? I— how am I here?” Zhou Tan crushed her into his arms, nearly unable to breathe. “All these years… you never once came to me, not even in a dream.”

While Zhou Tan was still pouring out his heart to her, a cheerful voice suddenly called out from beyond the cottage: “Brother! Sister-in-law!”

Ever since they’d retired to the Apricot Blossom Cottage, of everyone in the capital, Zhou Yang was the one who visited most often.

Though he usually followed Yan Fu on campaigns, the western border was at peace now, and he was still in the prime of his youth — three days and nights on horseback meant nothing to him. Whenever he had a spare moment, he’d ride through the night to reach Lin’an and see them.

How strange that he’d happened to come to Lin’an today, of all days.

Qu You remembered clearly that he hadn’t come “yesterday.”

Hearing that voice, Zhou Tan went completely still. He stood frozen for a long while before finally turning, asking her with difficulty: “Is that… A’Yang?”

Qu You nodded and went to open the door for Zhou Yang, who strode in eagerly carrying a jug of fresh wine. “Sister-in-law, General Xiao Yan and I both agreed — this frontier wine, you and Brother absolutely have to try…”

Before he could finish, he caught sight of Zhou Tan standing on the steps, his eyes red.

In his memory, his elder brother rarely showed such raw vulnerability. “A’Yang?”

“Brother…” Zhou Yang scratched his head and stepped closer. “What’s wrong?”

Qu You, still holding the wine Zhou Yang had brought, suddenly realized — this was the second-life Zhou Tan.

In this stretch of time she hadn’t witnessed, what exactly had happened in that second life?

“Nothing’s wrong. Brother’s just…” Zhou Tan gripped his shoulder tightly, murmuring, “just missed you so much, missed all of you so much. To see you again now, here in the underworld, it’s truly…”

Sensing something wasn’t right, Qu You stepped forward quickly and murmured to Zhou Yang, “Your brother’s not feeling well. Go stay with Uncle De and Nanny Yun next door for the day — I’ll send for you again tomorrow.”

Startled by Zhou Tan’s expression just now, Zhou Yang didn’t question it and left after a few words of concern.

The moment he left, Qu You turned to Zhou Tan and said, “Husband, listen to me… this isn’t the world you knew before.”

Zhou Tan said, lost and hollow, “I know, I know…”

“You don’t know — this isn’t the underworld, and you’re not dead,” Qu You said urgently. “…Do you remember anything, from before?”

“From before?” Zhou Tan repeated, his face going pale. “I seem to… I seem to have died in the imperial prison, and then woken up in a woman’s boudoir, and I— I didn’t even recognize you at first. These things…”

His hands were trembling badly. “Are these… all real?”

Qu You stepped forward and embraced him, drawing him inside with her. “Yes, but… these are all memories from your past lives. Just as you… took your own life in this very courtyard — all of that is over now. You’ve come to a new world.”

Zhou Tan clung to her tightly, curling up on the couch by the window, not daring to light a lamp for fear that if he did, all of this might vanish. “A past life? Then… in this life… you didn’t die?”

Qu You stroked his cheek tenderly. “No. Neither did you. We’re alive here, together, and living quite happily.”

Zhou Tan asked again, “A’Yang… he didn’t die either? And Yuechu, and Shisan…”

So in the timeline she hadn’t witnessed, had everyone Zhou Tan cared about… all been lost?

Qu You’s breath caught, but she answered quickly, “No, none of them died.”

Zhou Tan let out a long breath, as though he’d narrowly survived some disaster, still hardly able to believe this sudden joy. “That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. All of you…”

It took her a long while to calm him down, and from his murmurings she gradually learned just how much had happened in that other life.

He had never broken with the Ren family, and so, while locked in conflict with Fu Qingnian, Ren Pingsheng had suddenly been assassinated by unknown parties. Sensing the danger, Zhou Tan had immediately sent Ren Shiming and his mother away from the capital.

But Ren Shiming, determined to avenge his father and unwilling to implicate Zhou Tan, had made a desperate, all-or-nothing attempt on Fu Qingnian’s life. He’d wounded Fu Qingnian’s arm, but had himself fallen into Fu Qingnian’s hands.

Fu Qingnian had meant to keep him as leverage, but never expected to fall so abruptly to Zhou Tan himself. Before his death, he’d laughed uproariously, telling Zhou Tan that even in death, he would make sure Zhou Tan never knew peace.

Zhou Tan hadn’t caught the hidden meaning in his words.

And so, after Qu You had died of illness on the road to Ruozhou, he’d received a letter from Su Chaoci in the capital.

Su Chaoci had barely been able to bring himself to write it.

Ren Shiming had died in the most horrific condition, having clearly suffered inhuman torture before his death. By the time Su Chaoci found him, he still clung to a thread of life — Fu Qingnian hadn’t allowed him to die, and though Fu Qingnian himself had already fallen from power, the men under him hadn’t known that, and had kept him locked in a dungeon for over three months.

Zhou Tan, believing Ren Shiming was safely in Jinling, had even written him a letter before leaving the capital.

In his final moments, Ren Shiming had gripped Su Chaoci’s hand tightly, begging him.

“Master Su… please, don’t let my elder brother… find out about this… He cares too much about the people around him. I’m afraid… afraid he won’t be able to bear it.”

But after much deliberation, Su Chaoci had decided he couldn’t keep it from Zhou Tan after all.

Zhou Yang, meanwhile, had died in an assassination plotted by Bo Ying. Though Zhou Tan and Su Chaoci had long suspected there was still someone with ill intent hiding within the palace, neither of them had ever imagined it could be Bo Ying.

Bo Ying had never gotten close to Song Shixuan directly — he’d asked Bai Shating to secure him a position at the Imperial Academy of Medicine, but had no way to get near the young emperor’s daily meals. So he’d taken a different approach, striking while the young emperor was performing ancestral rites at the Chang Mausoleum.

Zhou Yang had thrown himself in front of Song Shixuan, taking a blade meant for him.

In the end, it was Bai Shating who, threatening his own life, forced Bo Ying to release the young emperor — the two of them dying together in the underground chamber of the Chang Mausoleum.

Qu You couldn’t bear to hear any more.

She knew Zhou Tan too well. Even the deaths of people he’d only briefly crossed paths with — Gu Xianghui, Yan Wuping — had been enough to fill him with self-blame to that degree. If it had been his own family instead…

What must have gone through Zhou Tan’s mind, as each of them died?

Qu You cupped his face in her hands and kissed him first. Zhou Tan held her tightly, pressing her down onto the couch amid the tangled gauze curtains.

Rarely did he ever lose control of his emotions so completely.

All that remained was a full, raw desire — vivid, tangible, safe. Something he truly, fully possessed.

Qu You clung to his sweat-slicked shoulder and bit down, hard.

If they couldn’t live together, then let them die together.

Amid the heady rush of blood and breath, she heard Zhou Tan ask, his voice trembling: “Will I see you again tomorrow?”

She kissed the fresh mark she’d left with her teeth, and made a solemn vow: “Yes. Of course you will.”

【Falling into the Mortal World】

—Er Niang, what date is it today… the how-manyeth of the second month?

—The twelfth of the second month. Today’s the Flower Dawn Festival. My lady even said yesterday that after lunch we should go pick some flowers.

Qu You sank into thought, remembering — the twelfth of the second month, the Flower Dawn Festival. This, it seemed, was the very day she and Zhou Tan had first met.

Trapped in this fixed, repeating path, she’d only just managed to endure until sunset — but this time, to her surprise, on her way home she ran into Zhou Tan, hurrying toward her.

The two of them met each other’s eyes just outside the courtyard wall, his hair soaked through with cold sweat.

“You—”

“A’Lian—”

“I dreamed you fell from somewhere very, very high up. No matter how I called your name, you wouldn’t answer me.”

He held her, sitting before the Sky-Shadow Pavilion, and at her request, began recalling the years that had passed.

Qu You listened attentively, offering the occasional comment.

“When you left the city that day, part of you was hoping Ziqian would come see you off, wasn’t it… You’re the kind of person who always says they’ve given up hope, but never actually does. Just like later, the moment he came to the Apricot Blossom Cottage, you forgave him immediately.”

Zhou Tan asked, muffled, “Am I really that soft-hearted?”

Qu You raised an eyebrow. “What else would you call it?”

Zhou Tan tightened his arms around her. “Then why wouldn’t you soften, that day? On the city wall, I watched, helpless, as you fell right in front of me — you, of all people, should understand that feeling better than I do.”

“Back then… I was only remembering the past,” Qu You said, her smile fading, her voice quiet. “Even though I’d seen the future, I… was still, in truth, that same person kneeling in the corridor, gazing up at you, never daring to say too much even in death. I — I get afraid too. I was afraid that even after everything, I still wouldn’t be able to save you. Afraid my hopes would fail. Afraid of hardship and danger, afraid of stormy waters, afraid of a road too hard to walk. How was I, alone, supposed to stand against history and fate?”

Zhou Tan cut in quickly, “Why fight it at all? I… only ever wanted, simply, for you to live. You don’t have to worry about my reputation for my sake, don’t have to give up your life for mine. Doing nothing at all, just staying by my side — that alone would already be… more than enough.”

Zhou Tan fell into a deep sleep alongside her. Before closing her eyes, Qu You heard him ask, “Do we… really get a good next life together? You really… aren’t lying to me?”

She held him a little tighter, and hummed a soft, smiling “mm” in answer.

“I would never lie to you. We’ll have a good life together — everything you’ve hoped for, none of it will be lost. Sleep now. When you wake from this sleep, the whole of you… will finally get to meet the whole of me. We’ll live this life happily, contentedly, deeply in love, candles burning bright, children and grandchildren filling the house, and even once our hair has turned white, we’ll still love each other just as we did when we were young.”

The past fades to color, falling into the dust of the mortal world.

When you open your eyes again, it will be a brand new world.

——————

Author’s Note:

Oh my goodness, I finished writing this and realized this chapter turned out to be fifteen thousand characters long…

The extras after this will mostly be side character stories!

Next up is some husband-winning-his-wife-back material for Bai Shisan and Chun Niangzi…

Notes:

1. “What cannot be kept must in the end depart, no need to rush.” — Shi Xiaoyou, “Wu Ye Ti”
2. “Mournful, the spring light cannot be kept — better, in the end, never to have met at all.” — Li Zhiyi, “Jiang Shen Zi”
3. “This humble subject offers you the longevity of the southern mountains; may Your Majesty’s glorious name endure for ten thousand ages.” — Li Bai, “Spring Day Journey”
4. “The great path is as vast as the open sky, and yet I alone cannot find my way through it.” — Li Bai, “The Road Is Hard, No. 2”
5. “I’ve sung through the parting song, my tears not yet dry; fame and fortune are but trifles, eat well, and let them lie. The boundless waters bear the endless trees to the sky, half the mountain buried under rain-soaked clouds on high. Ancient griefs and new, a thousand kinds there be! Is parting and reunion all there is to joy and misery? The river’s mouth has not yet seen the worst of stormy weather — there is a harder road still, walked by men, together!” — Xin Qiji, “Zhe Gu Tian: Seeing Someone Off”

#Extra Volume 3 · A Hundred Blossoms, A Thousand Reds