You’re not allowed to look. The whole world can look, but not Jun Beiyue!

Perhaps once someone who never cries starts crying, there’s no stopping it.

Ziqing held Jun Beiyue tightly — she had never held him this tightly of her own accord before. She buried her face in his warm embrace and wept, so full of sorrow.

She said nothing more, just kept crying silently.

Grief that could be put into words was perhaps not grief at all. She was hopeless at expressing herself; too many words were pressed down inside her, hidden away, and she didn’t know how to let them out. It was too full, too heavy — all she could do was cry.

The moment Ziqing broke down like this, Jun Beiyue was struck dumb, thrown into panic, all his composure scattered to the winds.

He had always wanted to see her vulnerable side, wanted her to show it in front of him without reservation, without holding back. But now that the woman in his arms was suddenly crying like a tearful mess, like a child —

His mind went completely blank. What was he supposed to do?

He had never encountered anything like this. He hated nothing more than a woman crying endlessly — yet now, all he wanted was to hold her tighter, and tighter still.

Would holding her tighter make her stop crying?

He didn’t know. He was so flustered he didn’t even know how to comfort her, how to coax her out of tears. He just held her stupidly, head bowed, watching the woman buried in his chest, sobbing, her body trembling slightly.

Gradually, the front of his chest grew soaked through, cold and damp — how many tears had she shed to do this?

Han Ziqing, oh Han Ziqing — were you letting out every tear you’d swallowed and hidden since childhood, all at once?

There was no wailing, no thrashing or pounding at him, no crying mixed with complaints. Nothing at all — just the soft sound of her sobbing, enough to make anyone who heard it ache for her, feel her wronged sorrow on her behalf.

Even a heart of stone would melt.

In this moment, she was nowhere near the swift, decisive, sharp-edged Han Ziqing of before. She was simply a child — hurt, at a loss, her face ruined, seen by Jun Beiyue, with no way to take it back, no solution left at all.

In truth, she wasn’t even twenty yet. In truth, she was just a girl, no different from Yelu Qianqian.

Finally, the grown man Jun Beiyue came back to his senses, hastily loosening the arms that had wrapped so tightly around Ziqing — the girl was already gasping for breath through her sobs; if he held her any tighter, it really might endanger her life.

Finally, he calmed himself a little. His large hand gently patted her back, comforting her anxiously. “Qing’er, don’t cry anymore, all right? Don’t cry.”

His heart was nearly melted through. He didn’t dare move, only patted her back lightly, suppressing his own anxiety and helplessness, soothing her in a gentle voice.

“It’s hideous… don’t look, please… just forget it, please!”

Only then did Ziqing manage to speak, choking on sobs, sniffling several times before she could get the words out fully.

“All right, all right, I won’t look. I’ll look once it’s healed.”

As he spoke, Jun Beiyue immediately pulled back his sleeve, tore off a strip of cloth to use as a blindfold, and pressed it into Ziqing’s hand. “Cover it for now. I won’t look — I’ll look once you’ve healed. Yanzi is with Sha Qiuzi; we’ll head back once your face is treated.”

This grown man, this iron-blooded god of war, this ruthless, merciless demon of a man — before this woman’s tears, there were only four words to describe him: utterly, completely undone.

He even forgot to lie to her, to coax her, to tell her she was the most beautiful woman alive, to give her confidence, to tell her he truly didn’t mind at all!

He foolishly went along with exactly what she wanted — handed her the blindfold, then simply turned his back to her!

Had it been anyone else — not to mention anyone else, just take that brash, careless girl Yelu Qianqian, for instance — she would surely have stamped her foot in fury, accusing him of truly finding her ugly, of truly not wanting to look at her, and so on and so forth…

But Han Ziqing was, by nature, single-minded. She had no such tangled thoughts. She truly, simply did not want him to look.

Seeing Jun Beiyue turn away, she immediately covered her face, sniffling for a long while before she finally managed to stop the tears. Those bright phoenix eyes of hers, once so clear that anyone who caught sight of them — no matter how restless their heart — would suddenly settle into calm.

But now, those clear eyes were red-rimmed, brimming with tears, misty and pitiful — anyone who saw them would feel an unbidden surge of tenderness.

She wiped at her tears, her voice thick with crying, yet her tone was, strangely, deadly serious. “All right. You can turn around now.”

Hearing her so earnest, Jun Beiyue turned back — and seeing her so pitiful, he could hardly recognize the woman before him as his own peerless, breathtaking Consort of Prince Yao.

Clearly, he had just come to understand her a little better — so Han Ziqing had this side to her too.

Seeing her tear-filled eyes fixed on him with such stern seriousness, he couldn’t help wanting to laugh, even as his heart ached uncontrollably. How could there be a woman like this, who left him not knowing whether to laugh or cry, loving her and being exasperated by her all at once, utterly at a loss for what to do?

Truly helpless, he reached out on instinct, gently wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, and finally smiled ruefully. “No more crying. I’m not dead yet.”

Hearing this, Ziqing froze slightly, gritted her teeth, and looked at him without a word.

Jun Beiyue looked back at her, his fingers tracing slowly along the corner of her eye, and said quietly, “Silly girl. No matter what, you’ll always be the most beautiful to me.”

As he spoke, he took Ziqing’s hand and pressed it — thump — hard against his own chest, saying earnestly, “This is where it’s kept. Not in the eyes.”

The blow landed hard — his chest ached, and Ziqing’s hand ached too. But her heart, in that moment, felt nothing but warmth.

Her small hand curled slowly into a fist against his chest. “When I turn around,” she said seriously, “I want to see you there.”

If she had turned around just now and seen him, maybe she wouldn’t have cried at all.

She didn’t even know what had come over her — she’d suddenly burst into tears. Just moments ago she’d still been acting like a tough, unshakable woman, and then, out of nowhere, something had pierced her, and it had hurt, it had ached.

Turning around and not seeing him — that terrified her.

Turning around — she wanted to see him there.

Hearing Ziqing’s earnest words, Jun Beiyue immediately smiled. “And here I thought you weren’t afraid of not seeing me.”

He hoped — he hoped she would turn around and look for him.

The wind picked up, sand swirling across the sky — it was already dusk, and in the desert, night fell suddenly.

As he spoke, Jun Beiyue took off his cloak and wrapped Ziqing snugly within it, then pulled her into his arms. “Let’s go.”

They needed to reach Sha Qiuzi’s place before nightfall — Yingzi should have already brought Yanzi there.

As the sky darkened, the cold deepened. Ziqing huddled in Jun Beiyue’s arms, sheltered from the wind, and after a moment’s hesitation, looking out at the boundless desert ahead, she began to speak. “Beiyue, actually…”

She wanted to tell him — that her face actually had a scar, a birthmark she’d been born with, that she had actually been ugly from the start.

But before the words could leave her mouth, Jun Beiyue pulled out a torn, irregularly shaped scrap of paper and asked, “This was left on purpose, wasn’t it? Whose handwriting is this?”

Puzzled, Ziqing unfolded it and looked — on the note were three characters: “Yao Shun Island.” This handwriting…