Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The year Fu Yanli saved me, I had just turned fifteen.

That day, I was gathering firewood in the woods when an arrow came flying out of nowhere and struck me square in the chest.

If the jade pendant at my chest hadn’t blocked it for me, I would have gone to meet the King of Hell long ago.

I was rescued and brought back by an exceedingly handsome man.

He told me his name was Fu Yanli, and that he was the emperor’s fifth son.

His birth mother had been of low rank, and she had died young.

He was perhaps the only prince who had to fight the wild cats in the cold palace for scraps of food.

I stayed by his side within those layers of palace walls, enduring five years of storms with him.

When the emperor was attacked, I took a blade for him. When a prince fell into the lake, I jumped in after him. I played the fool and acted simple-minded, coaxing the nobles in the palace until they were all delighted with me.

I watched as he became, step by step, the son the emperor valued most, and my own status rose along with his.

Even the respectable families of the capital had to greet me properly when they saw me, calling me “Miss Xi.”

I had no surname. Jianxi was my given name.

Grandfather said I had drifted to him on the water.

No name could have suited me better.

But the happiest moment of all was when Fu Yanli knelt before the Son of Heaven and declared, with every word ringing firm, that he wanted to take me as his wife.

In the blink of an eye, seven years had passed.

On the day I left the capital, the only thing I still had on me was that jade pendant.

And even it was missing a corner.

I walked out of the Crown Prince’s residence with my bundle on my back. The guards at the gate exchanged a wary glance, then immediately put on ingratiating smiles. “Is the Crown Princess going to Charity Hall again?”

Charity Hall…

All these years, rain or shine, Fu Yanli and I had always gone to Charity Hall on the fifteenth of every month and spent the day there without fail.

Sometimes we brought clothes. Sometimes we stayed to play with the homeless children.

Unfortunately, later on, he grew busier and busier.

Busy with the errands His Majesty assigned him. Busy maneuvering among the officials of the court.

After that, he never went with me again.

That made sense.

Now that Fu Yanli was the noble Crown Prince, there were countless matters he had to weigh and consider.

How could he still have the heart to care about those children in Charity Hall?

How could he still have the heart… to care about me?

I nodded and said with a smile, “I’ll be staying a few more days this time. There’s no need to come looking for me.”

Those people in the palace were probably overjoyed.

Day and night, they had been hoping I would stop disrupting this fine marriage.

The Crown Prince’s residence was very close to the imperial palace.

So close that I seemed to hear the bells and chimes ringing beyond those red walls, the music drifting sweetly through the air.

Mixed in with the lilting voices of opera performers.

Listening closely, it seemed they were singing, “Ten lifetimes of cultivation bring two people to share a boat; a hundred lifetimes bring them to share a pillow.”

It was terribly lively.

Before I had gone more than a few steps, cheers from the common people suddenly rose outside the palace gate tower.

I turned back to look.

On the tall tower in the distance, a newlywed couple stood in crimson wedding robes embroidered with dragons and phoenixes, smiling as they scattered wedding sweets and copper coins below.

Fu Yanli suddenly looked in my direction.

The palace gate tower was ablaze with lantern light. I rubbed my eyes, trying to see more clearly.

But all I saw was him smiling as he held his new bride in his arms.

Just as he had smiled on the night he and I were married.

Only, our ceremony had not been nearly as grand as today’s.

Back then, it was the Fifth Prince, who had defied the emperor, marrying a woman of unknown origins.

Now, it was the current Crown Prince taking a noble daughter of a prestigious Yangcheng family as his consort.

My memories came in fragments, flickering bright and dim.

It felt like another lifetime.