Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Song Shixing leaning against the wall, barely clinging to life.

In my previous life, I had been carrying a basket of steaming hot tofu when I passed by and found him.

I brought him home, spent everything I had to buy medicine and treat his wounds. Half a year later, he said he had to leave, but before he went, he left behind a jade pendant and a single promise.

“I will come back and marry you.”

I had only saved him. I had never wanted anything in return.

I was plain and insignificant, and I knew I was reaching far above myself, so I had never dared to dream of such things.

But his words were still branded into my heart. In my memories, they slowly grew into affection.

The night he left, bandits broke into my home and killed my parents. I hid in the narrow chimney, and only then did I escape disaster.

Reporting it to the authorities led nowhere, and from that day on, Great Zhou began to fall into chaos.

For the next three years, war raged everywhere and corpses starved by the roadside lay across the land.

I drifted from place to place like a wandering ghost.

Later, I finally learned where he was.

I had thought he would be as overjoyed as I was. I never expected him to only glance at me without the slightest ripple of emotion, then order someone to arrange a tent for me to rest in.

To say I was not disappointed would be a lie, but I was young and naive then, almost powerless to resist anything.

After that, I became a cook in the army. That way, I had chances to make food for him and bring him late-night meals.

In those days, I was always hoping that whenever he was in camp, I could bring him a bowl of food at night. In the quiet darkness, he would be there waiting, eating what I had made, while my eyes were filled with the sight of him.

It made me happy. It made me content.

But that day, after the Left Army won a great victory, the whole army drank in celebration. His deputy general, emboldened by wine, dragged me into a military tent and violated me.

I begged Song Shixing for help, but he only held his cup and watched, expressionless.

At daybreak, the deputy general apologized to him, and Song Shixing forgave him.

As for me, I dragged my broken body out of the camp. All I wanted was to return to the capital and be buried beside my parents.

Only then did I understand that from beginning to end, this encounter-whether by chance or by fate-had been me acting while he watched.

The only thing he had ever given was that one sentence before he left: “Wait for me to come back and marry you.”

It was only a sentence. It held no affection. I had read too much into it.

He was still the moon in the heavens, and I was worlds apart from him.

Yet on the day I wanted to die, he found me.

By then, he had already seized the realm and ascended the throne as emperor. Before all his civil and military officials, he said I had once saved him, and that he had promised to marry me as his wife.

“His Majesty is truly a benevolent and righteous ruler. Even the small kindness shown to him by a tofu-selling girl remains in his heart, and he fulfills his promise,” the officials said.

I once asked him, “Why?”

Why had he not saved me that night? And since he had clearly never loved me, why make me empress?

The red candles flickered, making his face look even colder in the dim light.

“You saved me, so I repay the debt. That is all.” He took off his red robe and walked out.

After that, he came to my chambers every night, but he merely sat with his eyes closed for two hours. When the time was up, he rose and left.

All the women in the world envied me. An ordinary woman, because she had encountered His Majesty, had come to enjoy endless wealth and glory.

Whenever I heard such words, I only smiled.

I had already understood Song Shixing’s purpose in making me empress. He wanted a reputation.

A reputation for benevolence and righteousness. A reputation that would make all under heaven willingly follow and support him.

A month later, I called out to him as he was leaving.

“I will help you one last time, but I hope you can truly repay me just once as well.”

“After I die, please bury me beside my parents.”

Song Shixing did not look back.

The next day, I summoned the man who had once been his deputy general and was now the State-Guarding General. I drank two cups of poisoned tea with him, and we died together.

I knew that man was domineering, tyrannical, and utterly lawless. Song Shixing had endured him for a long time, but having just ascended the throne, he could not kill an old retainer.

So I took my revenge, and I helped him too.

Before I died, I only wondered: if I had never met Song Shixing, what would my life have been like?

Or if I had been more confident, more powerful, what would it have been like?

But none of that mattered anymore. My life had begun again.

I had returned to the year I turned fifteen, and once more, beneath the bright spring light, I saw Song Shixing dying in that dark alley.