Pu Zhu began to dream. She dreamed of her previous life.

In this life, she had returned to her previous life in dreams more than once before. In past dreams, she had relived the cherished days of her pampered childhood before her family’s ruin — days when she had been held like a jewel in the palm of a hand — or, later, the small tender moments she and Ju A’mu had shared, clinging to each other for survival in He Xi.

But this night, for the first time ever, she dreamed of the Li Xuandu of her previous life.

He knelt before Jiang Shi’s memorial, dressed in white as pure as snow, his figure rigid, his eyes stained as if with blood.

In the midst of all the people in the funeral hall, she had quietly watched him from within the crowd. For reasons she could not explain, she had felt his grief as keenly as her own — yet at that time, she had barely known Jiang Shi, and had felt no deep sorrow for her passing.

In the blink of an eye, she encountered him — injured, hidden in the depths of the grass, unconscious. As if guided by some invisible force, she had betrayed her own station and identity, pretended to see nothing, and slipped quietly away.

Another blink of an eye, and many years had passed. She dreamed she was in the Wanshou Palace at the imperial mausoleum, where at last she lost her life.

Finally she dreamed of that last night before her death.

That night, she had climbed alone to the top of a plateau, leaned against a great boulder at the summit, and wept without stopping.

Wanshou Palace had also been the place where he once lived for three years. Perhaps this was why, among all the desolate places of her seclusion there, it was the only one that offered her any faint comfort when she thought of it. Time and again, as she resisted the advances of that powerful minister who coveted her in those years of confinement — in some deep recess of her heart, had she not harbored a secret hope?

But that night, she learned it was impossible — the one who had quietly drawn her gaze, softened her heart, whom she had never truly been able to forget — he would not come to save her.

She wept without stopping. Just when she had sunk into deep grief and despair, unable to pull herself free — she saw him.

He rode a magnificent horse, clad in battle armor, spear in hand, like a god descending from the heavens, galloping toward her.

He had come to save her! Just as she had hoped and imagined so many times — he had finally come.

She was wild with joy. She ran toward him. She ran close, just as she was about to throw herself into his arms — and suddenly the person before her changed.

It was not him. It was his cousin Tanfang, smiling, extending a hand of rescue toward her.

At the exact moment this scene appeared in her dream, Pu Zhu woke.

Her heart was beating rapidly, but her entire body felt soft and limp. She could not even summon the strength to move a finger.

She lay with her eyes closed, unmoving, for a long time. Only when she felt her throat dry and burning, as though it were on fire, did she finally open her eyes.

She wanted water.

The bedchamber was dim with no lamp lit. She had no idea what time it was, nor how long she had been sleeping off the drink.

Her head was still a little dizzy. She did not feel like calling anyone in to attend to her, so she slowly sat up on her own, felt around for her shoes, slipped them on, and got out of bed. Just as she was about to walk to the table to pour water, her foot gave way — she lost her footing, her body swayed, and suddenly a hand reached out from beside her and gripped her arm, catching her in an instant.

Pu Zhu turned her head and saw Li Xuandu. He had returned at some unknown point and was standing in the shadows at the side of the bed. She had no idea how long he had been standing there like that — had he not steadied her just now, she would have gone on in a muddle without noticing him.

She stood quietly, not moving. He did not immediately release her either. Just like that, in the dark of night, he continued to hold her.

After a while, she moved and offered as conversation: “I was too happy tonight, playing pitch-pot and drinking along with everyone — I ended up getting drunk. How ridiculous for Your Highness to witness… When did Your Highness return?”

Her voice was rough and dry, hoarse to the ear.

He did not respond. He simply guided her to sit on the edge of the bed, then went to the table and poured a cup of the tea that the maidservants had left before she slept. He pressed his fingertips to the wall of the cup and tested the temperature. Finding the tea still held some warmth, he walked back and handed it to her.

Pu Zhu took it gratefully and drank in large gulps.

The tea moistened her parched lips, tongue, and throat. She felt she had never in her life tasted water as sweet as this moment. She drank it all in one breath, not a drop left.

“Would you like more?”

He asked. His tone sounded very gentle — entirely unlike the way he had spoken to her the night before, scolding her for prying into his past secrets.

“Yes,” she said.

He poured her another cup. She drank it all again. Finally satisfied, she watched him set the teacup back down — but he did not return.

He stood quietly at the table for a moment, seemingly preoccupied with something. Then he suddenly spoke — telling her to go back to sleep. With that he turned and started to walk out.

Pu Zhu watched his retreating figure about to leave the inner room. For no reason she could name, a sudden urgency rose in her heart. She told him to stop.

Li Xuandu stopped. He watched her take swaying, unsteady steps to the table, pick up the teapot, and then sway back to the stove in the middle of the room that was still burning for warmth. She lifted the lid and poured the entire pot of water straight into the coals.

Accompanied by a sudden sharp hissing sound, the fire went out.

“Before I did not know — that was my fault. From now on I won’t use the warming stove either. You don’t need to go sleep elsewhere on purpose. I’ll just add another layer of blankets — I won’t be cold.”

Li Xuandu was silent for a moment, then let out a soft laugh.

He said: “Are you pitying me?” After a pause: “You take care of yourself first — do not suffer needlessly on my account. I am perfectly fine either way.”

“I still don’t feel like sleeping. I’ll go get some fresh air.”

He made to step outside again.

The scene from the dream rose up in her mind.

Even in the dream, he had not come to save her himself. She knew she could not blame him for that — yet the resentment from the moment of death was something that had lingered long and refused to fade.

She had never been a magnanimous person — she could not compare to Li Tanfang. She could not.

It must have been all the wine she had drunk tonight. Only that could explain why she was so unable to control herself. In a moment, dream and reality seemed to blur and collide.

Her heart ached and burned. Acting on impulse — and only realizing it when she came back to herself — she found she had already rushed toward him, throwing her arms tightly around his waist from behind, pressing her face against his broad back, murmuring incoherently: “Your Highness, don’t go…”

Li Xuandu stood still for a moment, then gently unraveled her hands clasped around his waist. He turned and scooped her up in his arms, carried her back to the bedside, and set her back down.

“You’re still drunk — go back to sleep…” His voice was low, carrying a suppressed quality of some unnamed emotion. But before the words had even finished, Pu Zhu’s hand had caught his.

She gritted her teeth and gave him a hard yank. He momentarily lost his footing and toppled over her. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, refusing to let go, refusing to let him get up. In the end she wrestled him onto his back against the pillow, then crawled over and sat astride him, pinning him firmly down so he could not rise. She cupped his face in both her hands and kissed and nibbled on him recklessly, letting out soft broken moans: “…Your Highness, if I were about to die and you knew — would you truly refuse to come and save me?”

Li Xuandu tried to get up, wanting to pull himself away from this chaotic and sudden intimacy. But he felt strangely weak in his limbs — somehow she had managed to pin him down, and for the moment he could not break free. When he heard her make such a delirious remark, he panted and tried to soothe her: “Let go of me first, will you… When did I ever refuse to save you? Didn’t I save you during the rockfall last time?”

“That was before — before, not now…”  Her words were fragmented.

Li Xuandu could tell she was very drunk, her words making no coherent sense. He had no idea how to respond.

“Your Highness, why aren’t you saying anything — do you truly not care about Zhuzhu anymore? Someone has wronged me…”

Her voice carried a quality of grievance and pleading. She continued to murmur her drunken words, and she kept trying to kiss his lips.

“You’re drunk…”

Li Xuandu closed his eyes. All he could do was turn his face away to dodge her lips that kept seeking his. In the darkness, the man’s voice sounded faintly powerless.

But she would not be put off. She chased after him, turning his face back toward her, determined to kiss him.

“Yesterday you were so harsh to me — I was very sad…” She kissed him for a while, then finally released his lips, pressed her face into the hollow of his neck, and went on murmuring her unhappiness.

The imprisonment at Wuyou Palace was the darkest and most degrading passage in Li Xuandu’s life to this point.

He would tell no one — not a single word — not even Empress Dowager Jiang Shi. Even when facing the physicians who treated him later, he had ordered Luo Bao not to reveal even half the cause of his condition.

No physician, no matter what miraculous remedies they might prescribe, could cure his illness. He understood this perfectly well.

That Pu Zhu – Chapter of the past — he himself did not wish to revisit even the smallest fragment of it.

Last night, drunk as he was, he had woken to hear her pressing Luo Bao with questions.

Who was she to him? A woman who from the very beginning had schemed against him at every turn, plotting to manipulate him.

He despised the feeling of being schemed against and manipulated. Even more unendurable was letting such a woman learn of his degrading past.

At that moment, beyond suspecting her motives, he had felt a profound shame and humiliation.

Li Xuandu fell silent.

Perhaps this time, she truly had only been concerned for him. Though he had no need whatsoever for her so-called concern.

Listening to her muffled voice, his heart suddenly softened. He slowly lowered the arm he had raised, no longer trying to push her away from him. He let her press against his chest, as though his chest were her sleeping place.

Pu Zhu lay with her eyes closed, waiting. She had not yet received any explanation from him when she thought again of the way Li Tanfang addressed him.

She called him Elder Brother — the closeness of someone who had grown up together from childhood, a kind of familiarity only those who had shared a lifetime could possess.

The moment this thought surfaced, a deep, twisting sensation seized hold of her five internal organs, deeply uncomfortable.

Without thinking, eyes still closed, she entreated: “Your Highness, may I call you Yuli’er?”

She murmured the name softly, twice.

“It sounds so beautiful! Your Highness, can I call you that…”

When he heard his own name — a name that only the handful of most cherished people close to him would ever use — spoken from her lips in such a tone, Li Xuandu’s face grew slightly warm. Then it was as if something that had been cradling a bone-dissolving warmth deep inside him suddenly burst apart.

He understood full well in his heart that he must not let her go on tangling herself around him like this.

But all the strength seemed to have drained out of his body and gone somewhere unknown.

He could easily have lifted her off himself — and yet he found he could not undo the two arms she had wound around his body. In the end he could only lie on his back unmoving, enduring her hand that had begun to slowly glide beneath his clothing, stroking. The hand moved lower and lower, and just as it was about to reach a place it should not, he abruptly raised his own hand and pressed it down to stop it, saying hoarsely in a low voice: “You and I are not meant to travel the same path — you know this yourself when you think it through. You are drunk!”

The hand he was pressing stopped.

In the shadow of the night, he saw her slowly raise her face and look at him. He once again turned his face away, avoiding her gaze, though the darkness around them was so deep she could perhaps not even see his expression.

“I have promised what I promised. I will keep to it. But nothing more than that ought to exist between us. Let it go.”

His voice was low, but the words reached Pu Zhu’s ears one by one, clear as struck stone.

With his unfamiliar tone he reminded her — she had been throwing herself at him again.

In the past, she had thrown herself at him with a purpose — to conceive a child, to secure her position. She had never felt diminished by it.

Tonight, in this moment, when she heard him say these words, she suddenly felt a profound smallness — as though she had sunk so low she had entered the mud.

What was wrong with her?

She lay pressed against his chest, stunned for a moment. Then she thought again of his promise to her — what he had said by the campfire that night.

He said he would protect her as best he could. That whenever the time came, she could freely leave him.

She suddenly felt as though she had completely sobered up. That heart which the wine had allowed to stray was as if pricked by something, and slowly, inch by inch, she drew it back.

He was right to remind her. She and he were not meant to travel the same path to begin with. His cousin Tanfang was the one his heart truly cherished. And for herself — the thing she most needed to do was not to feel sorry for herself, not to feel inadequate.

Put away those useless, laughable moments of weakness. She should return to her position, back to the path she had long since charted for herself — fix her eyes on the goal, and no matter how difficult, keep walking.

He could think little of her, could feel she was not even fit to carry Li Tanfang’s shoes — even if that were truly the case, she could not think little of herself.

Her hand slowly slipped out from under the palm he was pressing over it. She climbed down from him.

He did not move. He continued to lie on his back for a moment. Then he turned his face and looked toward her outline in the darkness of night.

“Zhuzhu…”

He seemed a little uneasy. After a pause, he called to her softly.

Pu Zhu gave him a light, breezy smile in the dark and said: “Your Highness, I must have had too much to drink tonight. What just happened — I was only playing around with you. Please do not take it seriously.”