She once believed no one but he could make her happy again. She once thought she had loved to the limit and would never love again. She once imagined herself shattered beyond repair, appearing alive but long dead inside. Yet, ultimately, she discovered that with enough time to wash away the past, year after year eroding old memories, the hidden parts would resurface. But they seemed unfamiliar, like a previous life, now seeming too unreal.

So, when her withered life suddenly blossomed with a familiar brilliance, a brilliance that even she found unreal, she couldn’t help but feel afraid…

The sun climbed higher, and her feet grew numb from crouching. Yi Xiao lazily shook her mud-covered hairpin. It seemed she needed to move around to restore circulation. She decided to stay outside a while longer. No matter how vast and grand the pavilion was, it felt suffocating. Sitting idly indoors was even more torturous.

“Fu Yi Xiao!” Feng Suige’s furious voice thundered like lightning, startling Yi Xiao. She turned towards the sound, only to see a pair of eyes blazing with anger.

“Why are you shouting so loud? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Before Yi Xiao could finish scolding, Feng Suige had already charged over like a thunderbolt, yanking her up from the ground.

Her vision darkened, her feet felt unsteady, and her wrist hurt, but Feng Suige kept dragging her forward, heedless of her stumbling. After a good distance, Yi Xiao finally regained her senses, realizing she had been pulled out of the flower garden.

Feng Suige gripped her arm so tightly it felt like he might crush her bones. Yi Xiao gathered herself and started cursing, “Feng Suige, let go of me! What’s wrong with you now?!” Feng Suige suddenly stopped and turned to look at her. “You’d better think of a good explanation before we get inside,” he said through gritted teeth. “Otherwise…” He didn’t finish, ignoring Yi Xiao’s punches and kicks as he dragged her forward.

Several maids hurriedly approached, “Greetings, Prince, greetings…” “Get lost!” Feng Suige roared. “All of you, get far away. Not a single person is allowed near.” He kicked open the door and threw Yi Xiao inside.

Yi Xiao stumbled and steadied herself against the bed. She turned back to glare at Feng Suige, who had already closed the door. He stood with his back to her for a moment, then suddenly chuckled softly. “Well, did I scare you?”

“You’re just a senseless lunatic,” Yi Xiao fumed. “You’ve gone mad and want to drag others into your madness!”

“Yi Xiao,” Feng Suige released the door latch and walked to the table, sitting down and wearily rubbing his brow. “I’m really tired. Sing a song for me, will you?”

Yi Xiao, still angry, put her hands on her hips and sneered, “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. This is the Prince’s manor, not some brothel. Do you want to hear a song? Too bad, I don’t know how!”

“You’re lying to me. I’ve heard you sing before,” Feng Suige lowered his hand, his eyes blazing. “Last time, you sang for me on the street.”

Yi Xiao glanced at him. “You’ve heard it once, that should be enough. Why ask for more?”

“Please sing,” Feng Suige said gently. “Just this once. If you don’t want to sing after this, I won’t force you.”

“Lunatic,” Yi Xiao muttered but sat down at the table. “You said it, just this once.”

“Mm,” Feng Suige nodded. “Just once.”

Yi Xiao pulled out her hairpin and lightly tapped the empty teacup on the table, producing a clear, tinkling sound. “Drinking alone and singing alone…”

“Not good,” Feng Suige shook his head, interrupting her. “There are two people here, and we’re not drinking. How can it be drinking alone?”

“Do you want to hear it or not?” Yi Xiao snapped. “Are you singing or am I?”

Feng Suige grinned. “Of course, you’re singing—sing something like last time.”

Yi Xiao glared at him, thought for a moment, then tapped the teacup again and began to sing:

“After one parting, two places of longing,

Thought it’d be three or four months, who knew it’d be five or six years,

Seven-stringed qin with no heart to play, an eight-line letter with no one to send,

Nine-linked chain broken in the middle, ten-mile pavilion, eyes straining to see,

A hundred thoughts, thousand ties, ten thousand helpless blames on my love…”

Yi Xiao paused, seeing Feng Suige with his eyes half-closed, seemingly entranced. She had no choice but to continue:

“Ten thousand words, a thousand phrases can’t express it all,

Hundred idle moments leaning on the railing ten times,

Nine times nine climbing high to watch the lonely wild geese,

Eighth month’s mid-autumn, the moon is full but people aren’t.

Seventh month’s Ghost Festival, burning incense and candles, asking the heavens,

Sixth month’s heat, everyone fanning while my heart is cold,

Fifth month’s pomegranates are red as fire, yet cold rain drenches the petals.

Fourth month’s loquats not yet yellow, I face the mirror, my heart in chaos,

Hurriedly, the third month’s peach blossoms float away with the water,

Fluttering, the second month’s kite string breaks.

Alas! My love, my love, I wish in the next life, you’d be the woman and I’d be the man…”

Feng Suige suddenly burst into laughter. “What a line, ‘you’d be the woman and I’d be the man’!”

Yi Xiao tossed her hairpin aside angrily. “I’m not singing anymore,” she said, pouring herself a cup of tea and sipping it slowly.

Feng Suige smiled as he watched her. “Appearances can be deceiving. Who would have thought the fiery-tempered Fu Yi Xiao could sing such a tender, flowing tune?”

Yi Xiao gave him a coy glance and lowered her head without speaking. Feng Suige spoke again, lazily, “Don’t put on this act in front of me. It only makes me sick.”

Feng Suige’s words of disgust pierced Yi Xiao’s heart like a sharp weapon. She looked up, dazed, to see his face full of cold disdain. The gentle smile from earlier seemed like her own delusion.

“Sick?” Yi Xiao unconsciously repeated. Feng Suige sneered, “Yes, sick—Ping Ling Xue Ying, Hong Yan Yi Xiao, are you going to say you don’t remember?”

Fu Yi Xiao sat there silently for a long time. Suddenly, she smiled. “So you went to Ping Ling. What did you hear?”

Please, say something to me, do something to me. The crueler the better. Dispel all the faint stirrings that have just risen in my heart. Don’t let me harbor hope and illusions about you.

“Do I need to spell it out?” Feng Suige could no longer contain himself. His heart ached so much it almost convulsed, and his voice trembled uncontrollably. “Don’t you know what you’ve done?! Do I have to name them for you to remember?!”

“Them?” Yi Xiao’s forced smile grew fainter as she repeated the word. Hearing this, Feng Suige furiously pounded the table and stood up, pacing the room like a caged beast. Suddenly, he stopped and pointed at her. “Are you playing dumb? You know what I’m talking about!!”

“I truly have no idea,” Yi Xiao said calmly, looking at him provocatively. “What is Prince Feng worried about? Why not speak plainly? Who exactly are ‘they’?”

Feng Suige was almost driven mad with anger. He forced out a few words through clenched teeth: “Your… paramours!”

With a crack, the teacup shattered in Yi Xiao’s hand. The spilled tea mixed with fresh blood, soaking a large patch of the embroidered tablecloth. Feng Suige’s body lurched forward, then forcibly stopped. He made himself ignore her dilating pupils and the painful expression within them, also forcing himself to disregard the strands of sympathy rising in his own heart. “What’s this, playing the victim?”

Yi Xiao didn’t speak. Her indifferent expression, in Feng Suige’s enraged eyes, had only one meaning—admission. Blinded by anger, he couldn’t see the budding hope gradually withering in Yi Xiao’s eyes.

Yi Xiao wanted to give Feng Suige a contemptuous smile—but at some point, clouds had obscured the sunlight. With a flash of lightning and the following rumble of thunder, the smile froze on Fu Yi Xiao’s lips. Her tightly clenched, bleeding hand suddenly pounded her chest heavily. Something in her heart instantly broke free from its restraints, surging forth in a moment, filling her to the point of overflowing and tearing open—was it because of his existence that she suffered such unbearable pain?

It was like a dream she once had.

When she woke from the dream, her entire body was covered in wounds, inside and out, scarred all over. The physical injuries could heal, but the holes in her heart oozed pus and blood day and night. In those years, every time she opened her eyes in the night, they were hollow and tearless. She could only comfort herself that feeling pain meant she was still alive.

She thought those wounds had healed. But unfortunately, thinking so was just that—only thinking.