Yu Lingxi looked at Ning Yin like a child caught doing something wrong.

She hadn’t expected Ning Yin to wake so quickly. Before she could speak the words she had prepared, Ning Yin coughed lightly and slowly walked out from the darkness of the secret chamber.

“Mice crept in last night, and I haven’t had time to clean up. Be careful not to prick your feet while running around.”

Ning Yin casually pressed a spot, and the bed moved back into position as the thick wall closed seamlessly.

The fish-belly white dawn light, silver as iron, illuminated Ning Yin’s handsome features almost transparently, with a light, shallow smile nestled in his black, ice-like eyes.

Yu Lingxi shifted her gaze and began to speak: “Ning Yin, I…”

“You haven’t even washed up yet, why the hurry?”

Ning Yin smiled, interrupting her, his gaze returning from her loose, flowing hair as he opened a drawer to take out an object. “Sit down, I’ll do your hair.”

Yu Lingxi was pressed into the room’s only chair, facing the bronze mirror on the dressing table.

Ning Yin picked up a comb and, unhurriedly, took her cool strands of hair and began to style it.

His movements were so natural that, had she not witnessed those heart-stopping events last night with her own eyes, Yu Lingxi would certainly have thought this was just an ordinary morning, as ordinary as could be.

Ning Yin arranged her hair in a simple hanging bun. Due to his lack of practice, the bun was somewhat loose, which only added a languid, beautiful spring-like charm to her reflection in the mirror.

“Ning Yin.”

Yu Lingxi didn’t expose the bloody “test” from last night, merely curling her fingers slightly and trying to speak as gently as possible: “I need to go home.”

She watched Ning Yin’s expression in the mirror.

“The weather is quite nice today,” he said with complete composure. “After breakfast, I’ll take you out for a walk.”

Yu Lingxi curled her fingers a bit tighter, knowing that Ning Yin was changing the subject.

Ning Yin was so intelligent, so perceptive of people’s hearts—if she showed even the slightest hint of reluctance or unwillingness, she couldn’t deceive his eyes.

Yu Lingxi sighed lightly, held Ning Yin’s hand, and stood up to speak more clearly: “I mean, I must return to the Yu mansion.”

Ning Yin still maintained his casual demeanor, looked at her for a moment, then laughed softly: “I’m accustomed to being humble and lowly, and rarely get angry in front of Suisui. So Suisui probably thinks my temper is quite good.”

He moved closer, lifted Yu Lingxi’s chin, and said softly: “This mouth deserves punishment.”

As he drew near, Yu Lingxi instinctively wanted to press against his chest but, mindful of his wounds, ultimately placed her finger awkwardly over his lips.

His lips were also slightly cool, startlingly so to the touch.

Yu Lingxi swallowed and continued: “I’ve enjoyed playing out these past two days. But Your Highness, given the current situation, I cannot selfishly go with you.”

“Playing?”

Ning Yin lowered his eyes, savoring this word, with what seemed like ink-black clouds churning in his dark eyes, or perhaps it was just stillness.

Yu Lingxi knew she had to continue.

Every moment she stayed by Ning Yin’s side was a great burden and danger to both the Yu family and Ning Yin himself.

“Since our first meeting at Yujie Xiandu, through these ten months, I have nothing more to give you. You now possess both literary and martial virtues; go back to being a prince.”

Yu Lingxi took a deep breath and forced her most perfect smile: “I also need to prepare for marriage!”

Ning Yin didn’t speak for a long time.

Outside the window, the slender dawn light pierced the horizon, pouring golden silk, while inside the room, only shadows faced each other in silence.

What was Ning Yin calculating?

Yu Lingxi guessed that he probably wanted to stuff her into a box and lock her in a small dark room. He imprisoned her with his gaze, leaving her nowhere to escape.

Ning Yin was indeed thinking this way.

The Xue family was hypocritical, reaping empty fame, thinking that the Emperor’s arranged marriage would allow them to swallow the remaining military power of the Yu family.

As long as Yu Lingxi said “no,” Ning Yin had many ways to make Xue Cen disappear, destroying this marriage. As for the rest of the Yu household, keeping them alive was enough; everything else was outside the scope of his plan…

But Yu Lingxi said she wanted to go back to marry.

Ha, she was willing to go back and marry Xue Cen.

The gentle smile faded completely. The jade hairpin he had not yet had a chance to give her pierced the wound in his palm, bloodying it as if awakening from a dream of fleeting glory.

He snorted softly, a dark, gorgeous color slowly spreading in his eyes.

He remembered when he was still Guard Seven, the young lady had told him: that her heart held many important people, and each one he killed was like stabbing her heart. If he killed them all, her heart would die too…

You see, Guard Seven still remembered all these teachings.

So he wouldn’t kill Xue Cen—how could he bear to stab her heart?

Ning Yin smiled as he inserted a cool object into her hair bun, adjusted its angle, and said hoarsely, almost madly: “How about I offer my life as a wedding gift?”

Yu Lingxi was stunned, not daring to touch whatever he had placed in her hair, not daring to respond.

“Wei Qi,” she frowned, calling him by their most familiar name.

“Is that not acceptable?”

Yesterday’s wound had reopened, his palm dripping with fresh blood. He used his clean sleeve to wipe the blood stains from the side of Yu Lingxi’s hair, saying softly, “After all, this life was picked up by the young lady.”

“You won’t die; you can’t die.”

Yu Lingxi’s eyelashes trembled suddenly, then she looked up more firmly. “Because you are Ning Yin, the strong, intelligent, invincible Ning Yin I know.”

I once granted you four wishes.

Yu Lingxi said in her heart: First, to treat you as an honored guest, providing shelter and protection to the best of my ability; second, a Qixi Festival wish for “everything to go as you wish, year after year of peace”; third, to promise not to marry for now, staying at the Yu mansion for the rest of my life; fourth…

Fourth, to allow you to take one treasured thing from the Yu mansion, and you took me.

Yu Lingxi said “sorry” in her heart—the last two wishes, she would have to break her word.

Her rebirth had changed the course of fate, with everything developing in unpredictable directions.

With his great undertaking unfinished, if the relationship between the Yu family and Ning Yin were brought to light, it would be a disaster for both families.

All she could do now was to steady her father and brothers, maintain a low profile, and send Ning Yin back to the path he was meant to take.

Until, like in her previous life, he would be unencumbered, unstoppable, with the world under his feet.

The morning sun rose from behind the rooftops, dispelling the darkness in the room.

Yu Lingxi’s eyes sparkled with light as she finally made a graceful curtsy, a complete gesture of respect.

When she stood up again, her eyes held a gentle tranquility.

“Goodbye, Wei Qi.”

Her farewell smile was as beautiful as ever as she stepped back and walked toward the door.

As her fingertips touched the door, a sudden hoarse cough came from behind, as if suppressed in the throat, threatening to cough up internal organs.

Yu Lingxi didn’t turn around; she couldn’t turn around.

Qing Lan had already arranged everything and was waiting in the corridor.

She seemed to use all her strength to walk toward Qing Lan, saying wearily: “Let’s go back.”

The door closed, dividing the room clearly between light and shadow.

After the violent coughing subsided, Ning Yin slowly straightened up, his pale lips tinged with a hint of blood.

“Playing the pitiful one doesn’t work anymore, does it?”

His figure was immersed in shadow as he gazed at the vanishing shadow beyond the door, clicking his tongue in considerable disappointment.

In the past, the young lady would certainly have run back with a frown, both distressed and anxious, mumbling: “How did you get into such a state?”

Ning Yin tugged at the corner of his mouth, then suddenly frowned as a sweet, metallic taste rose in his throat.

He swallowed it back, indifferently wiping away the crimson at the corner of his lips.

With no one present, who would feel sorry for his show of weakness?

Perhaps nourished by that mouthful of blood, the pallor of his face gradually gained some human warmth, his lips blossoming into a brilliant crimson, making his entire person impossibly handsome and beautiful.

Like a bird returning to its forest, his Lingxi bird had still flown away.

No matter, he had said before: if one day the bird grew tired of his branch, he would seize a piece of sky to keep her captive—

Chained, even if she used gentle words and soft pleas, he would never let go.

Ning Yin laughed coldly.

He wouldn’t pity her at all—after all, wasn’t he born a bad seed?

……

All along the way, Qing Lan was concerned about Yu Lingxi’s state, wanting to speak but holding back.

The early autumn sun was bright and scorching, yet Yu Lingxi couldn’t feel any warmth or light.

She didn’t know how she had walked out of the post house. Outside the hidden back door, Yu Huanchen almost immediately stood up and rushed toward his sister.

“Suisui!”

Yu Huanchen’s voice held both worry and relief.

Covered in cold dew, not daring to blink an eye, he had kept watch here for an entire night.

He had witnessed those assassins returning in the night to test Ning Yin, but according to their agreement, he couldn’t intervene without revealing himself.

Yu Huanchen didn’t know how he had endured that half night.

He was filled with regret, countless times regretting that he had indulged his sister in leaving the mansion, that he had softened and agreed to give her two days to say goodbye. He worried not only that Suisui might be harmed but also that in a moment of impulse, she might not return, which would bring unprecedented disaster to the entire Yu household.

But Suisui had returned, crying as she came back.

“Brother.”

Yu Lingxi only called out these two words before her voice choked, and the tears she had held back the entire journey finally flowed out.

She quickened her pace, throwing herself into her brother’s arms without regard like a drowning person desperately seeking a piece of driftwood.

“Brother, I feel somewhat unwell.”

Yu Huanchen instinctively stroked the top of her head but felt a strange, blood-stained hairpin.

“Suisui will meet many interesting people in the future, and experience happy things,” he naturally averted his gaze and consoled her in a low voice. “You will be happy and blessed until old age.”

“Is that so?” Yu Lingxi smiled.

But she felt that her two lifetimes, like the path from the post house to the back door, had come to an end.

Yu Huanchen had prepared a discreet carriage in advance to take his sister back to the mansion.

Yu Lingxi thought that her complexion must be very poor at this moment because even her stern and resolute father did not utter a word of reproach, only sighing gently: “It’s good that you’re back. Good daughter, go to your room and rest well.”

No one knew what pressure the Yu family had endured during these two days.

Yu Lingxi returned to her quarters and sat on the bed for a while.

She remembered the object Ning Yin had placed in her hair and sought out a bronze mirror. Carefully removing the item to examine it, she discovered it was a polished, smooth white jade hairpin with spiral cloud patterns.

No, to call it a white jade hairpin wasn’t quite accurate.

The base color of the jade was indeed the finest quality white jade, yet peculiarly, a red mist-like, gorgeous blood color spread over the cloud patterns—elegant but not plain, brilliant but not vulgar.

This was a rare coloration that a thousand pieces of gold couldn’t buy, not to mention that every carved detail on the hairpin was exquisitely unparalleled.

For some reason, Yu Lingxi recalled Ning Yin’s words from her previous life: “I’ve heard that jade nourished by human blood is considered a truly rare treasure.”

Yu Lingxi closed her eyes, pressed the hairpin against the place over her heart, and slowly curled up on the bed.

……

Yu Lingxi fell ill, developing a high fever that night.

Since her rebirth last autumn, she had intentionally nurtured her health and rarely suffered such ferocious illnesses.

The high fever came and went, leaving even the palace physicians at a loss. Only Yu Lingxi herself knew that the root of her illness was in her heart.

She was too exhausted.

In the year since her rebirth, she had done everything possible to avoid one disaster, only to find a second and third waiting for her… endless schemes to deal with, countless dangers, leaving her mentally and physically drained.

Occasionally she thought, let it be.

Yet thinking of her father, brothers, and family whom she had struggled to save, remembering someone who smiled and called her “precious,” she ultimately couldn’t bear to give up.

The only fortunate thing was that with such a serious illness, the bestowed marriage was naturally put on hold for the time being.

Deep in the night, the small maid serving the medicinal soup fell asleep at the table, exhausted.

Yu Lingxi’s consciousness was repeatedly tormented between an ice cellar and raging flames, seeking a sliver of clarity in the cracks.

Her body felt as heavy as iron. She opened her eyes hazily and seemed to see someone sitting outside the curtains.

An extremely familiar silhouette.

He didn’t speak, only silently watching her through the gauze curtains, like an ice sculpture steeped in the night.

Yu Lingxi felt she was hallucinating. For some reason, she wanted to cry, wanted to call out to him, but her dry throat couldn’t produce any sound.

She couldn’t hold on and slipped back into a muddled sleep.

When she woke up, the area outside the curtains was empty, leaving only a sense of desolation.

By the time her condition finally stabilized, it was already the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Tang Buli came to the Yu mansion to see her, finally bringing a ray of brightness to Yu Lingxi, whose taste buds had been ruined by bitter medicinal soups.

From Tang Buli’s mouth, Yu Lingxi learned in bits and pieces about the many things that had happened during the half-month of her illness.

For instance, Old Lady Tang had been chronically ill and had chosen a husband for her granddaughter from among the sons of prestigious families; the betrothal gifts had been sent some days ago.

Tang Buli sneered at this marriage but could do nothing about it.

The Tang family had no male heirs, and those sons of prestigious families with empty titles who condescended to pursue her only wanted to take advantage of a family without male descendants.

For example, Ning Yin had successfully passed the test and returned to the palace, regaining his status as a prince.

Also, the Crown Prince was working to marginalize him, causing the Seventh Prince to maintain a very low profile in the palace…

“By the way, next month is the autumn hunt. All important civil and military officials and sons of prestigious families are on the invitation list. Would Suisui like to go and see?”

Tang Buli peeled a pear for Yu Lingxi while glancing at her. “The Seventh Prince will be there too.”

Yu Lingxi raised her eyes in surprise.

Tang Buli cut a piece of pear and stuffed it into her mouth, smiling: “Since I entered the door, haven’t you been constantly, whether intentionally or not, inquiring about the news of the Seventh Prince? Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”