Chapter 9

I could accept that.

Xie Ruo’an, apparently, could not.

He wrote to me constantly. Because I had spared his life more than once, he was certain I still had feelings for him.

He promised to make me empress.

As for Chu Ying, he sighed in his letters,

she had not been trained from childhood, after all.

Even managing his household had exhausted her over the years.

How could she ever preside over the imperial inner palace?

My lips curled. I burned them all.

By then, Xu Xingzhi was thoroughly familiar with the terrain of the Central Plains.

He led his army to take one city after another.

The realm was now divided between him in the south and Xie Ruo’an in the north.

In my previous life, the river had divided them.

Now the boundary had shifted a long way north.

At last, the day came when the two armies met in battle.

We struck first.

I knew Xie Ruo’an too well. He had just personally conquered the last commandery in the west. He would certainly hold a feast to celebrate.

And that was without counting the gaps between changes of guard, which of his generals had the weakest defenses, where an opening could be found…

In that battle, drums thundered, banners loomed over the city, and infantry advanced like a wall.

We won.

Xie Ruo’an fled with Chu Ying.

In the darkness, he had only a few hundred personal guards left.

They fled in disarray. By the end, only a handful remained.

They were trapped in a mountain pass.

I looked down at him.

Firelight shone on armor and lit his disbelieving eyes.

His eyes strained wide with fury. “You—!”

But I did not want to hear any more.

I raised my bow and drew the string.

The arrow flew like a shooting star and plunged straight into his chest.

He fell at once.

Yet he did not look at me.

Instead, he stared behind him in astonishment.

Chu Ying held a swaddled baby in one arm. Her other hand was bloody, and tears streamed down her face.

In his back, not far from where the arrow had passed through, a dagger had also pierced his chest.

It was all over.

Only then

did I feel the bitterness I had carried from my former life dissolve at last.

I let Chu Ying and her child leave.

Before we parted, she bowed gracefully and told me

that marriage to Xie Ruo’an had brought her little joy. Household affairs were endless, her mother-in-law severe. After scarcely more than three months of lessons, she had often made mistakes and been criticized. Then Xie Ruo’an had been badly wounded…

It was merely my former life all over again.

“This child will never know who their father was,” she said. “You may rest easy, my lady.”

After a moment’s silence, I said,

“If you wish it, Wu Commandery is your home.”

With Xie Ruo’an dead, the remnants of his forces no longer posed a serious threat.

A year later,

the Xu clan took control of the realm, and Xu Xingzhi formally proclaimed himself emperor.

I was crowned empress and married him once more.

That night, warmth filled the brocade-curtained bed. We each truly cut off a lock of hair and bound them together as husband and wife.

Five years later,

peace had settled over every region. After decades of turmoil, there was still so much to rebuild.

Sadly,

years of campaigning had broken the emperor’s health. His illness had become too deep-rooted to cure.

That same year, the empress followed him in death.

Before dying, they left an edict: emperor and empress were to be buried together, with simple funeral rites.

That year, Xu Zhiyuan ascended the throne.

Weiyang Palace had a new emperor and empress.

Among the common people, meanwhile, there was one more ordinary married couple.

Spring came again.

I held our daughter while Xu Xingzhi drove the carriage toward Wu Commandery to visit my family.

Flowers lined the road in glorious profusion, and the spring sunlight was bright.

In this life I had seen all the splendor the world could offer. In the last, I had swallowed my grief in silence.

Now it came down to one thing: do not let the beauty of this life go to waste.