Xie Yuzhang wailed and sobbed.

This time, everyone outside the carriage heard it. The group, who had already dried their tears at midday and traveled this far in silence, heard the Princess’s weeping and could not help but let their own tears fall again.

“Second Brother sent me into the procession, and I went straight to Nanny Xia. She hid me in her carriage, and it was all going fine until the night before last, when Wanxiu stumbled across me.” Lin Fei held Xie Yuzhang in her arms, letting her lean against her shoulder, and stroked her hair as she told her how she had been concealed within the procession. “I forced her to promise not to tell you, in case you had the Fifth Prince take me back with him. Today both Princes have turned back and our procession has followed the Khan northward — you have no way to leave me behind anymore, so I came out.”

The night before last had been the last night before the procession joined up with the Khan. The night Xie Yuzhang had climbed the snow mound and caught Li Gu spying on her. She had gone to confront Li Gu because she had dreamed of Lin Fei. She had dreamed of Lin Fei because Wanxiu had been crying that evening, saying she’d seen someone who resembled Lin Fei and felt sad because of it.

Wanxiu had lied.

It hadn’t been someone who merely resembled Lin Fei — she had seen Lin Fei herself.

That night Wanxiu had cried in distress, and Xie Yuzhang had thought it was on her own account — but it had been for Lin Fei.

Lin Fei had forced her to keep the secret, while Wanxiu knew that keeping the secret meant Lin Fei would lose her last chance to stay behind in Yunjing, that she would spend her entire life on the steppe just like the rest of them — and so she had wept.

Wanxiu.

Lin Fei.

Xie Yuzhang buried her face in Lin Fei’s shoulder, crying silently, soaking Lin Fei’s padded jacket through.

The two of them stayed in the carriage until all the sleeping tents had been pitched. Then Lin Fei wiped Xie Yuzhang’s face before letting her step down — even though the walk from carriage to tent was only a few paces, she still tied the fastenings of Xie Yuzhang’s fur cloak and pulled the hood snugly around her head and face before letting her out.

The maids had already set up a small brazier to heat water, and had prepared warm towels for Xie Yuzhang to cleanse her face. Lin Fei gently applied pearl cream for her, afraid her skin would crack and dry in this bitter cold.

Xie Yuzhang sat like a child who could not look after herself, letting Lin Fei do all these things for her.

The maids all smiled through tear-bright eyes.

Back in Zhaoxia Palace, Mistress Xu had been caught between the Noble Consort and the Princess and had been careful — seeking no merit, only to avoid fault. So when Lin Fei had entered Zhaoxia Palace and taken on some of her responsibilities, she had actually been glad to step aside. This attitude of hers had influenced the others, and for matters within Zhaoxia Palace, people had always looked to Lin Fei as the backbone.

Now Lin Fei had come after them — and the people of Zhaoxia Palace were all here. The group was complete, and so were their hearts.

How good this was.

After dinner and washing up, they were separated for three months — so naturally on this night, Lin Fei and Xie Yuzhang lay side by side, feet intertwined, talking through everything they had missed.

“When I found out this morning what had happened last night, Nanny and I were both terrified.” Lin Fei said, her lingering fear still palpable. “Who could have expected Wang Shitou to be so useless? Thank goodness the General was there.”

She held Xie Yuzhang and asked, “Pearl Pearl, they told me the General forced the National Preceptor to compel the Khan to swear an oath — that he would abide by the agreement with Great Zhao. Is that true?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “It’s true. There was no other way. If it had been me, I would have done the same thing.”

Lin Fei sighed. “Let’s hope it holds.”

Xie Yuzhang reassured her. “They revere the Ancestral God — in most cases, they will keep an oath sworn before it. But Li Gu also warned me: men in these matters are often unreliable. So from now on, if the Khan gets drunk or anything like that, we must be careful.”

Both were still girls — Xie Yuzhang was only fourteen. In the past they had been pristine and pure, surpassing the white snow beyond the frontier — when had they ever talked about “men” or “these matters”? Yet now as they discussed it, neither felt any awkwardness. Both wore expressions of solemn gravity.

“Don’t be afraid, Pearl Pearl.” Lin Fei lay beside Xie Yuzhang, took her hand, and told her softly, “We are together. There is nothing to fear.”

With their hands clasped, both felt their hearts grow full, that hollow emptiness from when they had been apart now completely gone.

The tent grew quiet for a long while. Xie Yuzhang watched the gentle rise and fall of Lin Fei’s silhouette, and made a momentous decision.

She turned over, wrapped her arms around Lin Fei, and whispered against her ear, “A’Fei, I want to tell you a secret…”

Lin Fei was briefly startled, and then heard Xie Yuzhang say in a voice barely above a breath, her secret laid bare: “I… know the future.”

Lin Fei stared at her in shock, turning to look at Xie Yuzhang.

Xie Yuzhang lay against the soft pillow, her jet-black hair fanned out around her. In the dimness of the tent, her eyes shimmered with a faint, steady glow.

“What?” Lin Fei was bewildered.

When Lin Fei had appeared, Xie Yuzhang had been furious and grief-stricken — yet somewhere deep inside, she had felt the sensation of truly holding onto something. That feeling of being utterly alone with no one to depend on had suddenly vanished.

Xie Yuzhang finally understood: they had spent too long together in their former life, too deeply intertwined — long ago she had come to see the other as half of herself.

Leaving Lin Fei behind in Yunjing was the same as cutting away half of herself.

It had hurt too much. Only because she pressed that pain beneath the conviction of “this is for Lin Fei’s good” had she been able to keep going.

She gazed at Lin Fei on the pillow beside her, tears sliding silently to the pillow.

“I knew in advance that the Mobei envoy delegation was coming to the capital. I knew in advance that they would demand a true-born princess.” Her voice was gentle. “A’Fei, you are with me every day and night. Was the me from before the kind of person who would think to have informants planted by my father’s side?”

Lin Fei had indeed once been confused about that. But before Xie Yuzhang had deceived her into the Duke of Xun’s estate and forcibly left her behind, she had never once imagined that Xie Yuzhang would lie to her.

“Then — how did you know? What does it mean, to know the future? What does that mean?”

Xie Yuzhang wiped away her tears, sat up, and Lin Fei sat up too. The two of them huddled under the blankets and talked.

“I had a dream — do you remember when I was seized by a nightmare? I had a terrible dream. In it, I lived out an entire lifetime.”

Xie Yuzhang slowly, using “a dream” as her framing, shared with Lin Fei the things she knew.

She told her of everything she had encountered after the peace marriage — how Ashina had forced his way in on their wedding night, how Xia’erdan had seized her by force, how Wuwei had cast her aside, the fall of Great Zhao, and at the end — how the two of them had returned to Yunjing.

Lin Fei listened, horror growing on her face.

Because Xie Yuzhang’s gaze was fixed on the air above her, and she did not stumble once in her telling. The feeling of it — rather than recounting a dream, it was more like recounting one’s own experiences and memories.

And the things she described — Lin Fei felt her heart constrict with anguish just hearing them.

“It was a dream! It was only a dream!” Lin Fei pulled Xie Yuzhang close in distress. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.”

“No…” Xie Yuzhang said, gritting her teeth. “It wasn’t a dream. I lived that life, every bit of it. And at the end, you were the one holding my hand when I was sent off.”

“Whether it was a dream or not — what matters is that things are already different now from how they were in that dream, aren’t they?” Lin Fei asked.

Xie Yuzhang nodded, her tears falling. “I did my best to make arrangements. I hadn’t expected Wang Shitou to be so useless.”

Lin Fei asked, “What happened with Wang Shitou?”

Xie Yuzhang told her — about how, when the two of them had been handed over to Jiang Jingye, Wang Shitou and his brothers had charged into the Da Mu military camp with all the courage of their hearts to rescue them.

“I see.” Lin Fei nodded. “No wonder you elevated all these people. I did think it strange at the time.”

All those small confusions from months ago now had their answers. Xie Yuzhang’s sudden maturity, her various actions — they all had a logic to follow now.

Past the initial shock, the confusion resolved, and Lin Fei quickly sorted through her thoughts. Her eyes held a bright, alert gleam.

“So Great Zhao will fall, and we will one day return to Yunjing.” She seized the two most important points.

Xie Yuzhang nodded. “Yes.”

She said with frustration, “But the years in between are so hard. I — I’ve tried so hard to change things, to prepare ahead of time — and I’ve failed at everything.”

Lin Fei said, “How is that failure? Look — your first obstacle, last night — didn’t you get through it safely?”

Xie Yuzhang said dimly, “That was pure luck. Li Gu turned back entirely on an impulse. If he hadn’t —”

“You’re wrong, Pearl Pearl!” Lin Fei cut her off. Her eyes were bright and shining. “I don’t think it was luck.”

Xie Yuzhang was surprised. “It wasn’t?”

Lin Fei asked her, “In your dream, did you ever take any notice of General Li?”

The former life? Xie Yuzhang answered, “No.”

Lin Fei asked, “Was he the one who escorted the peace marriage in the dream as well?”

“Yes,” Xie Yuzhang said with a sigh. “But I didn’t know it then. The me in the dream — the me from before — only knew how to cry and hurt herself. I did nothing useful.”

“There you are, then. But now you know — and you know what kind of person he will become in the future. So you went to him early, you drew close to him. In the dream, perhaps he wasn’t at your side — maybe because of his station, or because the bond between you hadn’t grown strong enough for him to step in. So those bad things happened.”

Lin Fei’s mind grew sharper as she spoke, a bright light kindling in her eyes.

“But the things you did this time have affected him — don’t try to hide it from me. I don’t believe you can’t see that he has feelings for you. Yes, that’s exactly it — that is what binds two people together. By constantly drawing close to him, you made him like you more and more, deep enough that last night he was uneasy and came specifically to check on you — and as a result, he stopped that old creature!”

“Don’t you see? This was not coincidence or luck. This was cause and effect!” Lin Fei gripped Xie Yuzhang’s hands tight and told her, “This is a change you made with your own hands!”

Lin Fei’s words sent a thread of clarity into Xie Yuzhang’s mind, which had grown muddled from a whole day of weeping.

Yes — setting aside the process and judging only by results, the first obstacle she faced upon entering the steppe had already been cleared.

She drew a deep breath. “You’re right. I should not wallow in self-pity anymore. I have already tried so hard — I will absolutely not let those things happen again!”

“Now that’s more like it.” Lin Fei smiled, warmth and relief on her face.

A question rose in her mind, and she asked it. “Pearl Pearl, you’ve told me so much — all of it your own experiences. You only said that at the end I was by your side. But where was I when all those things were happening? Was I just watching you endure all of that without doing anything? I don’t believe that.”

Xie Yuzhang’s face went pale. Her heart ached as though gripped by an invisible hand.

You didn’t do nothing — you did too much, far too much.

You did not spare yourself, you stepped in front of me for everything. What I endured, you endured. What I didn’t endure — you endured that too.

For me, you served Ashina. For me, you served Xia’erdan. For me, you served Wuwei. And at the end, when we both thought we would spend the rest of our lives on the steppe, when we both thought Wuwei could be relied upon, you decided to stop your remedies and bear Wuwei’s children.

No — that wasn’t bearing children for Wuwei.

A’Fei, you never said it, but I know.

You bore those children for me.

“We of the Central Plains hold that a legal wife is the common mother of all her husband’s children.”

A’Fei — in your heart, you recognized only me as the mistress, only me as the one in the proper place. So your children were my children too, and so you gave birth to them.

Only because this broken body of mine, damaged in that difficult labor, could no longer carry children.

Xie Yuzhang pulled Lin Fei close. Her voice was trembling. “Don’t ask. Please don’t ask.”

Lin Fei was silent for a long time, and then held her tight. “All right. I won’t ask.”

In Lin Fei’s warm embrace, Xie Yuzhang gradually stopped trembling — but she held Lin Fei tightly and would not let go.

“A’Fei, from now on you and I —” Xie Yuzhang buried her face against Lin Fei’s shoulder. “We will never be separated again.”

“Of course — why else would I have come after you?” Lin Fei said with warmth. “You are not allowed to leave me behind anymore.”

She said, “Back then, I made a vow before the spirit of my departed mother — that in this life, you and I would never be apart.”

“And I will never be separated from my Princess.”