Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ning Zhen had returned from the border. The moment I heard the news, I went straight to the Ning residence to look for him, only to be told that he and Miss Yan had gone to the riding grounds.

So I hurried to the riding grounds as well, and there I saw the two of them on horseback, chasing after a fleeing rabbit.

Their laughter rang out bright and easy, and for a moment, it brought me back to the day I first met Ning Zhen.

They moved with perfect understanding, surrounded by an atmosphere no one else could enter, and every so often, they would look at each other and smile.

The fleeing rabbit bounded right in front of me. Then a long arrow shot through the air, pinning it to the ground. Blood stained its white fur red. Before it could even struggle, it went still.

I stared blankly at the rabbit, then lifted my eyes and met Ning Zhen’s gaze.

“Rong Xi.” Ning Zhen looked at me in surprise, then swung down from his horse.

“Why are you here?” Instinctively, he glanced at the woman beside him.

I looked at the person at his side and asked in a trembling voice, “Who is she?”

I had imagined our reunion countless times. I would ask him whether he had been well all these years, whether he had been injured… or I would tell him that I had missed him so much. Perhaps I would simply break down and cry.

But I had never imagined it would be like this, that I would question him in this tone, asking who the woman beside him was.

It should not have been like this.

As soon as I spoke, tears blurred my vision.

But Ning Zhen did not coax me as he used to, nor did he wipe away my tears. He only looked at me with a cold expression and said, “It has been three years. Many things change.”

Yes. It had been three years.

I wiped my tears dry and raised my eyes, studying the man before me. The longing in my gaze almost overflowed.

He was much stronger now, and much darker from the sun. There was a scar the length of a little finger near his brow bone, and the air around him had become sharp and cold. Years of war had made him no longer the boy he had once been.

In a small voice, I said, “But I waited for you for three years.”

He stood right before me, yet I felt as if he were impossibly far away. Desperate to break through the distance between us, I hastily reached out and grabbed the hem of his robe.

“Ning Zhen, have you forgotten what you said…”

Ning Zhen lifted his head. He did not look at me. Instead, he said to the young servant beside him, “See Miss Rong home.”

The words died on my lips. I did not know how to say them aloud. It had clearly been him who said that once he returned, he would marry me.

So Ning Zhen had not forgotten. It was only that too much time had passed, and his heart had already changed.

In the end, he never told me who Miss Yan was. I turned back and saw the two of them saying something to each other. The young lady glared at him in anger, while Ning Zhen leaned closer with a smile and flicked her on the forehead.

So intimate. So painfully glaring.

A dense, prickling pain suddenly spread through my heart. The blazing sun beat down on me until I nearly fainted. Wave after wave of pain crashed over me, and before I lost consciousness, I heard the young servant cry out in alarm.

“Miss Rong…”

Then, in the next instant, I fell into an embrace scented faintly with orchids. I reached out and clutched his sleeve with all my strength, but the two words on my lips-Ning Zhen-would not come out.

My elder brother often said that people should not debase themselves.

In his early years, he liked a young woman so much that he even wanted to break off the engagement arranged for him in childhood because of her. He poured his heart and soul into treating her well. Aside from me, I had never seen him care so much about anyone.

My mother said his head was full of romance and that he would never amount to anything, but he did not care. He even stole the jade ruyi from our home and gave it to that young woman.

My father gave him a thorough beating for it, but he acted like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

Later, the young woman accepted his gifts, then turned around and married someone else.

Because of this, he went to her husband’s family and demanded to see her once, only to be driven out.

After that, he fell into despair. He accepted the family’s arrangement and married the girl he had been betrothed to since childhood. These past two years, he seemed to have settled down somewhat.

Later, that young woman’s husband unexpectedly fell from his horse and died. She came looking for my brother again. In the end, my brother could not bring himself to say anything cruel to her, but he did not pay her any attention either.

He said a person ought to have some self-respect. She couldn’t just come back and ask you to clean up her mess, and you go running over like an eager little fool.

I thought he was right.

My mother was bitterly disappointed in both of us. When Ning Zhen went off to war, I waited for him and ignored every marriage arrangement my family made for me. When the quarrels got bad, I even said I would become a nun.

Clutching her chest and wiping her tears, my mother said, “The children I gave birth to, every last one of you, have nothing in your heads but love. Is it really so important that it has to be that person and no one else?”

I was stubborn to the bone. “No one but Ning Zhen will do.”

There was nothing they could do with me. Now that Ning Zhen had returned, they could finally breathe a little easier. My mother urged my father to send my betrothal card to Ning Zhen’s estate that very night.

By the time I learned of it, it was already noon the next day. After collapsing that day, I had been unconscious for a long time, drifting in and out through countless nightmares.

When I woke, I saw my brother and my mother keeping watch by my bed, their eyes red-rimmed.

Yuzhu helped me sit up. The way she looked at me was filled with worry.

“Ning Zhen returned your betrothal card,” my mother said. She seemed to be holding in a breath she could not let out.

My mind stayed blank for a long while before I understood what those words meant. My mother’s face was grim, and she continued, “Ning Zhen is glorious now, a great general. Perhaps he no longer thinks families like ours are worthy of him.”

I looked at Yuzhu, asking her with my eyes what had happened.

She shook her head, then said in a low voice, “Last night, the general personally delivered the betrothal card. He wanted to discuss the marriage between you and that man.”

She hesitated for a moment before adding, “The card was sent back this morning.”

I froze. Then my eyes reddened, and I looked at my brother.

Rong An’s gaze was full of concern. He gave me a soothing look and mouthed, “It’s all right. Don’t worry.”

My father had served as an official for years. He was upright and incorruptible, a man of spotless integrity, and the emperor’s teacher besides. Anyone who saw him had to show him at least some respect.

But now, because of me, his dignity had been trampled on like this.

I threw off the covers and got out of bed. Ignoring everyone’s cries behind me, I ran out of the estate and headed straight for the Ning residence. I knocked for a long time, but no one opened the door. The servants inside only said, “The general is not here. Please return, miss.”

I was unwilling to leave. I hid on the steps behind the stone lion. Pedestrians came and went, and whenever someone glanced at me by chance, I felt unbearably ashamed.

It was not until night that Ning Zhen finally arrived, late and unhurried. In his hand, he was holding Miss Yan’s hand.

I stood up from behind the stone lion. Perhaps I had crouched there for too long, because the instant I rose, dizziness washed over me.

He looked at me, only stunned for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “Why are you here?”

I lowered my gaze and looked at their joined hands.

“So she’s the girl you like?” The bright, valiant young woman beside him tilted her head and studied me, then smiled. “She’s very pretty.”

Ning Zhen shot her a helpless glance. A hint of a smile flickered across his face, and his voice carried a faint indulgence.

“Don’t tease.”

Then he looked back at me. “Was there something else?”

Those words chilled me so badly that I trembled all over. I looked at him and asked, “You returned my betrothal card?”

He looked at me, then nodded. “Yes.”

I nodded too. I still wanted to ask something, but to preserve what little self-respect I had left, I only straightened my back and looked into Ning Zhen’s eyes.

“Ning Zhen, I apologize for disturbing you today. It will not happen again.”

As I turned to leave, the woman behind me caught my hand. She was very beautiful. There was a large scar across her brow and eyes, like a brilliant blaze of azaleas.

She fixed the hair bun that had gone crooked for me, smiled, and said, “Your hair was crooked. There. Now you’re beautiful.”

In that instant, I could not bring myself to feel the slightest dislike for her.

“Thank you,” I said softly.