After a moment, Wei Yan finally let out a long, slow breath and released the soft form in his arms. “Move a little farther from me — so that I do not lose control and hurt you.”

Ling Jingshu flushed and acknowledged this with a murmur, quickly retreating two meters away.

Now Wei Yan was unhappy again. “There is no need to stand that far!”

It was rare enough that they could meet, without her making things this difficult for him.

Ling Jingshu could not hold back a laugh, the corners of her lips curving upward irresistibly. “How far apart is just right, then?”

Wei Yan considered with genuine seriousness, measuring out a proper distance with his hands. “Three feet from me is sufficient.”

In this moment, he looked just like a young, slightly childlike adult, earnestly fussing over the smallest of things.

A wave of soft tenderness rose in Ling Jingshu’s heart. She did as he asked and stepped a little closer. Only then was Wei Yan satisfied. “Good. Just like that. You still have something you wanted to tell me, don’t you?”

Ling Jingshu hesitated briefly, then slowly nodded. “Yes. You have always been curious — why would a sheltered young lady of a respectable household have contracted such an unspeakable illness? What I told you was only half the truth. The real reason — I have never known how to bring myself to say it. It is also my greatest secret. Today, I will tell you everything.”

The sweetness faded from her face, and her gaze gradually grew cold, solemn, and pained — as though she had recalled something too agonizing to revisit.

It was her deepest and most painful scar.

A secret she had never shared with anyone.

Now she was to peel back that scar with her own hands and lay all her secrets bare before him.

Wei Yan’s heart inexplicably ached with a dull, nameless pain. The words escaped him before he could stop them: “A’Shu — if you do not wish to speak of it, then don’t.”

Ling Jingshu raised her head and looked quietly at Wei Yan, whose face was filled with tender concern. “You have always wanted so much to know my secret. Now that I am willing to speak of it, why are you urging me not to? Perhaps if this moment passes, I may never find the courage to speak of it again.”

“This will become my eternal secret — and will become something you can never quite let go of, either. Even so — are you certain you won’t regret it?”

Wei Yan was silent for a moment before speaking in a low voice: “A’Shu, I do not wish to deceive you. I do genuinely wish to know everything about you. I want to know all of your past. Because I love you, and I want to spend my life with you. People who love each other should be honest with one another.”

“But you matter more to me. If this past event is the greatest source of pain within you, so agonizing that even the memory of it causes you this much suffering — then I would rather never know, not ever.”

“Do not force yourself. Watching you like this causes me even greater heartache.”

A crystalline shimmer rose in Ling Jingshu’s eyes, yet the corners of her lips curved ever so slightly upward.

A face smiling through tearful eyes — achingly beautiful, breathtakingly radiant.

“Wei Yan — I once made a resolution that I would never speak of this secret for the rest of my life. Not even those closest to me know of it. Ling Xiao does not know. Bai Yu does not know either.”

“Today, I am going to peel this scar completely open. Because I have finally found the courage to face what once was.”

“The truth is — I have lived through another lifetime before this one. In that life, I fell deeply in love with my cousin Lu Hong at first sight, and we pledged our hearts to each other with solemn vows. When I was sixteen, I was married into the Lu household and became their daughter-in-law…”

……

Wei Yan — who had remained impassive even under the weight of the heaviest adversity — was utterly transfixed from the very moment Ling Jingshu began to speak.

Ling Jingshu was clearly making every effort to keep her emotions under control, speaking of everything from her past life in a calm, measured tone.

How deeply she had once loved her husband Lu Hong — how joyfully she had given birth to their child — how she had waited, heart full of longing, for her beloved to come home.

Yet the beloved she had waited and suffered for had betrayed her. He and Princess Changping had become deeply entangled, and Princess Changping sought to take him as her Prince Consort.

Lu Qian’s relentless harassment of her, the Ling family’s simmering resentment against her, and then that beast Lu An…

When Ling Jingshu reached the part where she had been strangled to death, Wei Yan could bear to listen no longer.

He strode forward and pulled her forcefully into his embrace, his voice breaking into a choked roughness:

“A’Shu — don’t say any more. Please don’t say any more… It’s all in the past now. I am here with you…”

For more than twenty years, he had been a man of endurance and strength. He had never been broken by hardship — had persevered through everything until this day. A man sheds blood but not tears.

Yet in this moment, looking upon her face as she wept silently, listening to the cruel and near-unbearable weight of her suffering past, his heart felt as though it had been shredded by countless blades — the pain so acute he could barely breathe.

He did not even know what words of comfort to offer her.

He could only hold her tightly, repeating those same two phrases over and over.

Ling Jingshu buried her face against his chest and wept without sound, tears sliding one after another down her face, soon soaking through his robe.

He felt the dampness spreading against his chest, and the ache within him twisted deeper.

How unjust this world was!

Those with power stood high above, giving free rein to their desires and acting on their every whim without restraint. Those who were oppressed by power could only endure in silence. And even then, there was no guarantee of escaping calamity.

As it had been for her in her past life.

That gentle, kind, helpless woman — in the final moment of her life, how much resentment and hatred must have filled her heart.

How fortunate that Heaven had taken pity on her, granting her a new life and giving her the chance to begin again.

She was nothing more than a sheltered young woman without the strength to bind a chicken — and yet she had walked to where she stood today. How much exhausting calculation and careful, fearful treading must have gone into every step.

……

Ling Jingshu did not know how long she had cried.

Her eyes had long since swollen red from weeping. Her voice had been cried to a rasp.

Yet her heart was calmer than it had ever been. The smothering, ever-present pain that had haunted her day and night, the anguish she could not forget, had quietly slipped away in the course of this outpouring of words and tears.

It was because of his presence that she had grown more strong and more courageous.

Ling Jingshu said in a hoarse murmur, “Wei Yan — have I frightened you?”

To die and be reborn, carrying all the memories of a previous life — a thing like that was as shocking and terrifying as anything one could imagine. If she were honest with herself, if someone else had told her these same things, she might not have believed them.

Wei Yan’s voice came from above her head: “You haven’t frightened me. I simply did not expect the truth to be like this.”

“No wonder you were willing to travel such a great distance to come to the capital. So it was to find the opportunity for revenge. And no wonder you contracted such an unusual illness — one where you could not bear the touch of any man.”

Just as he had surmised before — her illness was truly a sickness of the heart.

Once the knot of the heart was undone, the illness would heal without any need for medicine.

Wei Yan let out a soft sigh, his voice filled with tenderness and aching concern: “When you think about it — Empress Xu was an enemy we shared in common. You could say we joined forces to bring her down together. Now Princess Changping has also entered Ciyun Nunnery. Your only remaining enemies are those of the Lu household.”

Ling Jingshu nodded silently.

Wei Yan continued: “And so — the reason you pledged your loyalty to the Crown Grandson was in order to take revenge on the Lu family. In truth, you did not need to go to such lengths to accomplish all of this.”