Jiang Xuening hadn’t expected Xie Wei to be waiting for her.

Carrying that wooden box, she walked out the manor gates. Seeing the carriage waiting for her outside and Jianshu standing beside it, she almost had the illusion of memories flowing backward to two years ago.

When she lifted the carriage curtain and entered, seeing Xie Wei, she felt even more dazed.

He was lowering his head, unhurriedly smoothing the folds on his sleeves. Seeing her enter, he merely glanced up and said: “Let’s go.”

His expression indifferent, as if he hadn’t been waiting for her long.

The edges of his eyes carried a faint trace of weariness, though not obviously. This wasn’t because he wasn’t particularly tired, but rather because he was accustomed to it. Even he himself felt indifferent about it, so others naturally thought nothing of it either.

Aside from that night—whether real or dream—when he sat beside her bed, during this period since the war began, Jiang Xuening had hardly seen him again.

The front battle lines advanced swiftly; if the rear couldn’t keep up, there would be disconnection.

Lu Xian, capable as he was, only managed the two words “money and grain.” Moreover, without an official position and unable to claim complete vision and authority to handle rear affairs properly, Xie Wei naturally had to oversee everything. It could even be said that the rear of the battle lines was far busier than the front.

Jiang Xuening softly said “Greetings, Teacher,” then quietly sat down opposite Xie Wei.

She still held that box tightly in her hands.

Xie Wei raised his eyes to glance at it, saying: “After welcoming the Princess back this time, your wish should be fulfilled. After leaving the border pass, where are you preparing to go?”

Jiang Xuening hadn’t expected him to be so direct, yet thinking again, she felt it completely normal. That night Lu Xian had heard everything, so Xie Wei understanding her plans wasn’t surprising. Moreover, he penetrated human hearts—if he couldn’t even see through her small thoughts, how could he qualify as the current Imperial Tutor?

Only…

Her fingers rested on the edge of the wooden box as she lowered her eyes: “I dare not tell Teacher.”

Xie Wei said: “You’re willing to speak the truth at this moment. However, if I don’t let you go, where could you escape to?”

Jiang Xuening fell silent, not speaking.

Seeing her like this, Xie Wei felt utterly stifled. For a moment, he wanted to scold her with whatever words came, to scold her awake. Yet he was also terribly afraid that once he scolded her awake, she would run off to find Zhang Zhe without looking back.

The carriage left the city, heading toward Yan Gate Pass.

When Shen Zhiyi had gone for the marriage alliance years ago, it was at dusk.

Now as they went to welcome her return to court, it was at dawn’s first light.

A long silence filled the carriage.

After a long while, Xie Wei glanced again at the box she held, remembering that young girl from years ago who had cried uncontrollably while hugging her knees. He asked: “What virtue or ability does Shen Zhiyi possess that’s worth you giving everything, going through fire and water for her?”

These words inevitably carried some sarcasm.

Jiang Xuening only felt stabbed by these words. She raised her eyes to look at him, her pupils carrying more coldness as she simply said: “Her Highness treated me very well.”

In her previous life, her impression of Shen Zhiyi truly couldn’t be considered good.

But in this life, she had merely drawn a petal of cherry pink for her at the Chongyang banquet at Earl Qingyuan’s manor, saying such an obviously flattering phrase, yet she was truly treated with sincerity.

Reading in Fengchen Palace, she had been her backing.

Knowing full well that her character wasn’t good either, yet believing in and liking her, she indulged and protected her. No matter how others slandered her, Shen Zhiyi had never doubted her from beginning to end. How she had treated her before, she continued treating her that way afterward.

Yet such a good person, because of her identity as princess, rose and fell in the treacherous palace court, actually had to leave home and travel far to the Tartars for a marriage alliance, accepting an uncertain fate beyond her control…

Jiang Xuening couldn’t forget how two years ago, Shen Zhiyi, already almost under house arrest, had celebrated her birthday in Mingfeng Palace. And at midnight, that bowl of longevity noodles quietly brought by palace servants…

She only remembered crying terribly hard.

The noodle soup was full of the salt and bitterness of fallen tears. Whether it tasted good or not, she didn’t have much deep impression of that.

Jiang Xuening blinked, slowly saying: “Someone like Her Highness—Teacher cannot be, and I cannot be either.”

She said these words very seriously.

However, Xie Wei only coldly pulled his lips: “Trapped in prison, held in check by others, being fish meat under someone’s knife—such a person, I, Xie, truly cannot be.”

Jiang Xuening was left speechless.

She simply stopped talking.

As the sky outside gradually brightened, Yan Gate Pass, built at the strategic point between two mountains, finally drew gradually nearer.

The windblown sand outside the pass had carved countless marks of vicissitude into the nearby stretches of rammed earth walls.

Banners flew high on the gate tower.

The surrounding walls wound continuously along the mountain terrain, with three large stone walls and over twenty small stone walls built outside, almost encircling the entire pass city into a solid fortress.

Inside the pass was the Central Plains’ fertile soil; outside the pass was wilderness and windblown sand.

Shen Zhiyi still remembered all the various scenes she had witnessed traveling all the way from the capital to leave the pass.

Natural phenomena changed, from prosperity to desolation.

When her carriage passed Yan Gate then, she had looked back—the gray-white yellowing city walls, in the deep dusk, seemed stained with blood, possessing a desolate and magnificent beauty. Looking forward toward the unknown path ahead, the setting sun sank, the vast wilderness wind sobbed mournfully, a winding blurred road extending straight forward, yet seeming to connect to the horizon, as if endless.

Through two years of hardship and tribulation, she never imagined she would have a day of returning alive.

Her childhood playmate had already become a commander ruling three armies, at this moment riding before the carriage on a black-hooved steed, gradually brightening daylight falling on his shoulders.

Shen Zhiyi only felt everything had changed while people remained.

Even her heart was full of desolation, without much joy.

Her swollen abdomen proclaimed the fact that she would soon become a mother, inevitably making her worry about the embarrassing predicament she would soon face.

All of this gradually became clear as the carriage approached Yan Gate.

At this moment, inside and outside the pass city, all soldiers had long since formed their formations. Above and below the city walls, armor neat and orderly, each face perhaps still bearing the marks of wounds with dried blood. Yet whether they were young men or in their prime, all stood facing the direction of the northwestern wilderness!

Someone first saw from afar this winding procession like a long dragon, and the commander’s banner at the front of the procession. Immediately they shouted loudly: “General Yan’s banner, it’s General Yan’s banner! The Princess has returned, Her Highness the Princess has returned—”

In that moment, Jiang Xuening trembled all over.

After arriving at Yan Gate Pass, she had followed Xie Wei up the high city wall to gaze into the distance. But the morning sun rising in the east blazed brilliantly, inevitably making it difficult for her to open her eyes, unable to see very clearly.

Until that long convoy finally passed through those few spots of shimmering light in Jiang Xuening’s vision, she finally truly saw clearly—it was the carriage with swaying curtains in the midst of the procession…

“Your Highness!”

Her heartbeat suddenly intensified. Without thinking, she grabbed her skirt and, like a bird spreading its wings, turned around and ran past Xie Wei, rushing down the steep steps from the tower toward below.

Xie Wei instinctively reached out his hand, but only touched the corner of her clothes.

The brocade silk sleeve slipped like flowing wind, leaving some coolness on his fingertips.

When he raised his eyes again, she was already below the tower.

The wind cutting across her face was cold, yet Jiang Xuening seemed not to feel it, running directly through the formations of countless soldiers standing below the tower.

People around inevitably looked at her with surprised eyes.

Yet she still ran all the way through the wide-open city gate, toward that procession gradually approaching Yan Gate Pass, toward that most special carriage in the procession, still shouting loudly: “Your Highness—”

Shen Zhiyi’s cold and lonely heart suddenly trembled.

That vaguely familiar voice carried against the wind.

She stood up at once, abruptly pulling aside the curtain hanging in front!

That girl who had once raised her hand to draw a stroke on her cheek, that girl who relied on her backing to do as she pleased in Yangzhi Studio, that girl who in the Imperial Garden had grabbed her sleeve saying she would take her away—just like that, she ran out from within that gate tower long eroded by windblown sand, bringing a long-absent, intensely vivid vitality, bursting into her vision…

She suspected she was dreaming.

The heat instantly surging from her eyes almost filled her cold and frigid heart completely.

Everything had changed.

That Jiang Xuening hadn’t changed.

The procession stopped.

Yan Lin silently reined in his horse.

Jiang Xuening finally came before the carriage. Her steps had been hurried, but when she truly drew near, she raised her eyes to see Shen Zhiyi standing on the carriage shaft. The magnificent palace gown from years past worn on her seemed somewhat large, fluttering and swaying in the wind like a sheet of paper.

Thus a sudden desolation struck her.

Her steps stopped, tears glistening in her bright eyes.

Yet the next moment, she stubbornly curved her lips.

That wooden box pressed tightly against her heart.

In the glory spread by the rising sun, in the fierce wind blowing across the frontier, Jiang Xuening knelt half-bent below the carriage shaft, yet held high that wooden box, gazing at the standing princess, smiling brilliantly: “Your Highness, your homeland soil, your homeland nation, and your homeland capital.”

When that day comes, when Yan Lin leads Great Qian’s iron cavalry to break through Yan Gate—

Bringing this handful of homeland soil to welcome me—

Return to the homeland nation, return to the homeland capital!

Shen Zhiyi had almost forgotten that to trick her into feeling at ease, she had once made such bold declarations, had such a promised agreement with her…

Yet she actually hadn’t taken it as a joke.

The tears long held in her eyes finally rolled down when she received and opened that wooden box from her hands. She bent down to tightly embrace this companion reader from her youth. Her choked throat became unbearably hoarse, unable to make half a sound.

Outside the pass, the wilderness stretched boundlessly.

Inside and outside Yan Gate Pass, the great army like a tide all prostrated themselves at this moment, bowing toward that beautiful princess they couldn’t quite see clearly on the carriage, calling out in unison: “We humbly welcome Your Highness’s return to court!”

Those voices merged into waves, sweeping into the sky.

They also transformed into flooding tides, thundering beside people’s ears.

The wind howled fiercely, banners filled the view, proclaiming across the vast frontier.

Yet Xie Ju’an stood high on the city wall, not moving a step.

He was like a towering mountain cliff, unchanged by human joy and sorrow, just coldly overlooking the dusty world of partings and reunions, then drawing out a smile carrying faint hostility.

Shen Zhiyi’s gaze crossed the empty space, unexpectedly falling upon that tower, actually colliding with his distant gazing vision.

He was that teacher from Fengchen Palace from days past.

Yet at this moment, her heart unexpectedly didn’t produce much long-absent warmth and familiarity, only an icy coldness seeping into her bones. Simultaneously rising was an indescribably great irony and sorrow.

After all, she had grown up in the palace. These years in the Tartars hadn’t been without growth either. As early as when Yan Lin led troops to break through the Tartar royal court, she had already detected some abnormalities.

When she asked Yan Lin, Yan Lin wouldn’t say.

Until this moment, at the border pass, she saw Jiang Xuening who shouldn’t have appeared, saw Xie Ju’an who shouldn’t have appeared…

Shen Zhiyi held Jiang Xuening tighter, laughing with red eyes and a choked voice: “Foolish Ningning.”