Chapter 4

Xiao Heng seemed even more excited than I had expected.

It made sense. After years of hunger and exposure, someone was suddenly willing to take him in and give him shelter. Naturally, he was overjoyed.

I brought him home. After bathing and changing, he stood shyly before me.

“Second Miss.”

I looked up and was struck by his beauty.

In my last life, I had only seen Xiao Heng at twenty, dressed in imperial robes, dragging his sick body through one coughing fit after another.

He had never looked like this, standing before me, clean and fresh.

Tall and straight, with handsome features, he looked every bit a young man from next door.

I didn’t ask his name. He probably wouldn’t give me his real one anyway, so I decided for him.

“From now on, you’ll be called Jing’an. Jing for the brightness of a lovely spring day, and an for peace throughout the land.”

Jing’an was the courtesy name he had chosen for himself after ascending the throne. Few people knew it.

I thought he would like it.

Yet he looked at me with that same astonishment again.

“What did you… say, Second Miss?”

“Jing’an. Don’t you like the name?”

“I do. I like it very much.”

I smiled happily. He looked so adorably dazed that I couldn’t resist reaching out to pat his head.

Then I remembered who he was and snatched my hand back.

The tips of his ears turned a little red.

I made him sit at the table, had the kitchen prepare a few simple dishes, and personally ladled out a bowl of steaming millet porridge for him.

“Have some porridge first. But this is the only meal I’ll serve you.”

“From now on, you’ll be like the other servants here. You won’t lack food or clothing. Every day, you’ll sweep my courtyard and water the flowers and trees. Oh, and I keep several beautiful roosters out back. Feed them rice twice a day, and be careful not to get pecked. Hmm… that’s all I can think of for now.”

“If anyone bullies you, tell me. If you need anything else, you can tell me that too, and I’ll see what I can do…”

Xiao Heng held the porridge without drinking. Something shifted in his eyes.

“Second Miss, why are you so good to me?”

Why indeed?

I rested my chin in one hand and winked at him.

“Because you’re handsome.”

His face went red at once, and he began gulping down the millet porridge.

It burned his mouth. Too embarrassed to spit it out in front of me, he grew red from face to neck in his distress, then forced himself to swallow.

I quickly called for a bowl of cool water.

It took a while before he recovered.

Looking both frustrated and ashamed, he said,

“You must think me ridiculous, Second Miss. I—I…”

I couldn’t help it. I leaned against the table, laughing until my shoulders shook.

Was this what Xiao Heng had been like at sixteen or seventeen?

Yet as I laughed, sadness crept in.

If only I had been able to save him in our last life.