Chapter 9

The door closed. The room fell silent again, except for the continuing commotion outside.

Suddenly, soft taps came at the window.

I got up and opened it.

Gu Qingyi stood beneath the sill.

Her hair was disheveled, her face covered in ash.

“Awan!” Her eyes were red with urgency. “I’ve come to take you away!”

I froze.

This lady of the Grand Secretary’s household, who once couldn’t even sweep, had returned covered in mud and sweat.

For me.

I hesitated no longer.

I tore off the cumbersome crimson bridal clothes, threw them down, stepped onto the bed, and climbed through the window.

Gu Qingyi immediately caught my hand and pulled me toward the back courtyard.

A fresh hole had been dug in the earthen wall. The soil was still loose.

I looked down at her hands.

Blood and mud covered them. Blood seeped from beneath her nails.

“You…”

“Don’t ask. Crawl!”

She pushed me toward the hole.

I bent and went through, overwhelmed by a hundred feelings.

It was so much like before.

Only this time, she was taking me away.

As we emerged, the courtyard erupted. Pursuing footsteps came close behind.

Gu Qingyi dragged me into the nearby fields.

Shouts drew nearer.

We dropped flat among waist-high wheat and held our breath.

Before long, Shen Zhiyan’s hoarse, urgent voice came from beyond the field.

“Zhenniang! Why are you running?”

“We finally have a chance to be together. A good life is right before us. Why… why would you abandon me?”

Every word carried disbelief and unwillingness to accept it.

Gu Qingyi turned toward me.

I pressed my lips together and gripped her bloodied, muddy hand more tightly.

He kept calling, questioning, then pleading.

At last, his voice broke into ragged breaths.

“Come out… Zhenniang, come out. Whatever it is, we can discuss it…”

Suddenly, he began coughing violently, as though he would cough his lungs out.

A dull thud followed.

He had fainted.

The servants cried out in alarm, hurried to lift him, and carried him back into the courtyard.

Only the rustling wind remained.

The sounds beyond the wheat dwindled and stopped.

I released Gu Qingyi’s hand and found my palm wet with sweat.

We lay there, barely breathing, for a long time, until a pale gray line appeared on the horizon.

Only when we were certain no one remained did we help each other up and move, bent low, through the wheat.

In the east, a red sun rose over the broad fields.

Facing the dawn, we went steadily forward, one step at a time.

**Epilogue**

Six months later, in Jiangnan, Gu Qingyi and I opened a little bookshop in a small town.

Ink mingled with a faint fragrance of tea. Our days were quiet and peaceful.

Her handwriting grew ever more graceful and had long since surpassed mine.

She handled all the shop’s accounts and correspondence, everything in perfect order.

One warm afternoon, I was sitting in the sunlight outside when I looked up and saw a familiar face.

The old broker with the triangular eyes.

She recognized me too. For a long time, she stood still. Then she came over with an awkward, apologetic smile.

“What a coincidence, miss.”

Calmly, I invited her in and poured her tea.

Holding the cup, she studied me a while and sighed.

“I’ll tell you the truth today. That Young Master Shen paid me beforehand. He told me to take you out of the city and pretend to sell you. In fact, I was to deliver you to that estate outside the city. He had already arranged everything.”

My hand paused around my cup.

So, from the moment he returned to this life, he had planned my road.

In the way he considered best, he had arranged everything.

Including helping Prince Xian, bringing down the crown prince, and overturning the course of our previous life.

But he had forgotten one thing.

He had forgotten to ask whether I wanted it.

Worse, he should never have drawn so many unrelated lives into danger to fulfill his own obsession.

When the struggle for succession erupted, how many innocent people had died where the weapons fell?

And the Gu family.

Had the crown prince not fallen, their home would not have been confiscated. Gu Qingyi would not have ended up with me in this little town, hiding her name and living in obscurity.

Those things alone made any future between us impossible.

The broker sighed again.