Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I returned to the Eastern Palace just as the first light of dawn spilled over the gates of the General’s Mansion.

A relationship that could never see the light of day could only survive in the dark, when no one was there.

It had today, but no tomorrow.

Zhaoyang Palace summoned me.

My elder sister was dazzlingly beautiful, nothing like me at all.

I knelt before the hall until noon.

Only when I was on the verge of collapsing did my elder sister finally have someone invite me in.

I knew she was not at ease either.

First, she asked, “How did you spend last night, little sister?”

I said that as sisters, our hearts were one. However she spent it was how I spent it.

She smiled. “The Crown Prince is always gentle with others.”

Then she asked, “Did you know, little sister, that Young General Xie has taken a concubine?”

I said nothing.

The darker my expression grew, the better my elder sister’s mood became.

Propping her cheek on her hand, her gaze swept past me and drifted toward the palace gates, toward layer upon layer of halls beyond.

“No one will love anyone forever, much less when that love could cost them their life.”

That was how the Crown Prince treated my elder sister.

So in my elder sister’s mind, Young General Xie must treat me the same way.

After leaving Zhaoyang Palace, I ran into Xie Liuzheng before the eastern gate, mounted on a fine horse with a silver saddle.

He sat tall and powerful in his official robes, his features sharp and untamed, a sword at his side.

The blade had not left its sheath, yet it carried the austere killing intent of a weapon meant to behead generals and capture kings.

He looked at me.

I boarded the carriage back to the Eastern Palace.

Snow drifted through the depths of winter.

The wheels clattered on, leaving him and the eastern gate far behind.

Between the two of us, one had to stay clearheaded.

“Stop the carriage.”

I rapped on the carriage wall. “Back to Zhaoyang Palace.”

But I could not do it.

Snow had fallen on his official robes.

He was still standing there.

“You have returned, Lady,” he said.

“I left something at Zhaoyang Palace.”

I sent my maid in to look for it.

“General, did you take a concubine?”

I could not hold back. I asked in the end.

“Yes.”

He chuckled and took a rolled sheet of paper from his robe. “Do you want to see what she looks like?”

I did not want to, but I looked anyway.

The curled edges of the paper were stained with yellow sand from beyond the frontier.

Stroke by stroke, it depicted my face.

He had not taken a concubine.

He had simply carried this portrait against his chest day and night. Even when the war was urgent, when he was gravely wounded and barely clinging to life, he had still held it there and told the men under his command that all the gold, silver, and fertile fields awarded to him for sealing victory at Mount Langjuxu were to be left to me.

So those around him assumed there truly was a concubine the General longed for day and night.

I turned my head aside, unable to keep looking at the portrait.

My maid would be back soon.

“Xie Liuzheng.”

I gazed into the depths of the palace. “This is a crime punishable by nine familial exterminations.”

I had forgotten. Young General Xie’s nine families had long since been buried on the battlefield.

“Nine familial exterminations?”

His eyes lit up, as if he had suddenly thought of a path he had never considered before.

“Then does that mean you and I can die together?”

I turned to look at him.

My elder sister did not understand.

He was a hopeless romantic who did not care whether he lived or died.

He said life was short.

If he was not to die on the battlefield, then he wanted to die in my arms.

The one place he could not die was within the rules of propriety and ritual.