Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My steps faltered for only an instant before I quickly walked on.

I didn’t look back. I wouldn’t hesitate.

But my heart felt as if it were being torn apart.

He said he wanted to marry me, making me fall in love. He kept me by his side, making me imagine things I never should have. He forced me into the position of empress, leaving me no choice but to cling to life.

Then he snuffed out every last thought I had without a shred of mercy.

During that month, I often wondered what, exactly, I was in Song Shixing’s eyes.

A tool, perhaps?

From the day I saved him, maybe he had already planned it all. If one day he became emperor, making a plain commoner girl like me his empress would surely earn him the praise of the whole world.

For him as the new emperor, reputation was the foundation he needed to secure the realm.

My existence was nothing more than an insignificant stepping stone he had picked up along the way.

In this life, I didn’t want anything to do with him again.

My tofu stall was set up at the street corner, and the neighbors all crowded over to buy. Before long, I had sold out and packed up to go home.

When I passed that alley again, Song Shixing was already gone. Only the mottled bloodstains he had left behind remained on the ground.

Had his men rescued him?

“Qingya.” My mother jogged into the alley to meet me, and I quickened my pace as well. “Mother, I sold all the tofu.”

She had no mind to respond. She only grabbed my hand and hurried me home, then shut the door with a mysterious air.

“Qingya, your mother went looking for you earlier and saw a young man on the road, wounded and dying, so I brought him back.” As she spoke, she stuffed a string of coins into my hand. “Your father and I will look after him. Hurry and fetch a doctor.”

The shoulder pole slipped from my shoulder and fell to the ground. My voice trembled as I asked, “Did you save him in the alley by Sizhu’s home?”

My mother nodded. “What is it? Why do you look so pale?”

In a panic, I pushed open the bedroom door. At a glance, I saw Song Shixing lying unconscious on the bed.

How could this be?

I stood at the head of the bed, silently studying Song Shixing’s face.

In my previous life, when I took care of him, I often looked at him like this, marveling that there could be someone in this world born so beautiful.

Song Shixing had been the most exquisite, handsome person I had ever seen in the narrow, barren life I led before.

But after living through an entire lifetime, I understood that a person’s appearance and heart did not necessarily match.

My thoughts settled, and I said in a low voice, “Throw him out.”

My parents were both stunned. My mother lowered her voice. “If we throw him out, he’ll die.”

“If we don’t throw him out, we’ll die.”

My parents were clearly frightened by my words. I turned and explained, “There are already signs of unrest outside the capital. The world will soon descend into chaos. A man of unknown origin who is this badly injured will bring disaster down on our heads.”

“Then… then we’ll listen to our daughter,” my father said.

Together, we went to pull Song Shixing up. Each of us grabbed an arm and dragged him outside. Just as we reached the bedroom door, Song Shixing suddenly opened his eyes.

His gaze met mine, and in that instant, a thick, murderous intent burst from the depths of his eyes.

“We brought you back by mistake, but now we don’t want to save you.” Forcing down my panic, I told him each word clearly.

Song Shixing’s face turned ashen. I believed that if he were not truly weak at this moment, after being treated like a rag mop, he very well might have raised his blade and killed my entire family.

“I have money.” Song Shixing closed his eyes, unwilling to face the humiliation of being like a lamb awaiting slaughter. “Once my wounds heal, I can give you even more compensation.”

“No.” I wanted money, but I wasn’t going to trade my whole family’s lives for it.

Seeing that I wouldn’t budge, Song Shixing stared hard at me. His ornate robe swept a clean trail across the floor as my mother ran to open the side door.

The three of us were just about to work together and throw him out.

Then three men in black appeared outside the door, each just as covered in blood, each gripping a long blade.

One of them pointed his blade at us, while the other two rushed over nervously to catch Song Shixing, whom we had already lifted into the air and were about to toss out.

After the time it took to drink a cup of tea,

Song Shixing was lying on my family’s bed again. This time, there were three more people with him.

The physician came, left some medicine, and went.

After Song Shixing drank the medicine, he gave me an ingot of gold and said in an icy voice, “We will leave tomorrow. Until then, I suggest you behave yourself.”

I took the gold and turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at him.

“Your life is worth more than one ingot.”

Song Shixing froze for a moment, then gave a mocking smile, as if to say that a common woman like me really did have eyes only for gold and silver.

Petty. Short-sighted.

“Is this enough?” Song Shixing tossed me his money pouch.

Right in front of him, I took every last coin from it, then threw the empty pouch back to him and reminded him, “Remember to leave tomorrow!”

“Wait.” Song Shixing stopped me.

I didn’t turn around, but I did stop and wait for him to speak.

“We need food.”

I opened the door and went out, then cooked four bowls of noodles for them. As Song Shixing ate, images from my previous life surfaced before my eyes.

On so many nights in that life, I had brought him midnight snacks. He had eaten just as quietly as this. We never spoke, while my heart was filled with nothing but fantasies of the future.

Suddenly, he looked at me and asked, “Is there an old gentleman surnamed Lang living nearby?”

My heart skipped a beat, because Song Shixing had asked me the very same question in my previous life.

What had I said back then?

I had said I knew Mr. Lang, that he often came to buy tofu from my family. The very next day, Song Shixing had asked me to take him to find Mr. Lang.

Later, Lang Qinghe became his military strategist.

But when I was in the army, I never saw Mr. Lang. I had asked about him, too, and heard that he had always been helping Song Shixing command the Right Army. Together with Song Shixing’s Left Army, they supported each other from afar, and when the two armies moved in concert, they were invincible and unstoppable.

“I don’t know.” This time, I shook my head without the slightest hesitation. “People move in and out around here all the time. I don’t know that many of the neighbors.”

Song Shixing stared at my face, weighing something.

After a while, he suddenly said, “If I find out you lied to me, I’ll kill you.”

“Do whatever you want.” I gave him a derisive smile. “Killing a few unarmed civilians-I believe you’re very good at that.”

Song Shixing gave a soft sneer. “I never knew there was a woman among the common folk as hard-hearted, money-grubbing, and cunning as you.”

“Likewise.” I took the bowl from in front of him, opened the door, and went out.

While I washed the bowls, Song Shixing stood at the window the entire time, watching me.

After finishing the chores, I returned to my room and realized with a start that a fine layer of sweat had broken out across my back.

If I couldn’t change the ending of my previous life, then what was the point of living this life all over again?

What exactly should I do?