Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Beneath the covered walkway, the cold wind cut like a blade.

Concubine Lin’s pulse still lingered in my mind, and for a moment, I didn’t know how to begin.

Gu Jiuyuan seemed to see right through me. Calmly, he said, “Lady Song, please speak freely.”

I let out a soft sigh. “Her Highness Concubine Lin’s body… I’m afraid she won’t make it through this winter.”

Gu Jiuyuan closed his eyes. After a very long silence, he said, “For her, that may be a release.”

The candlelight was dim. The young man’s shadow fell across the ground, so fragile, so terribly alone.

I couldn’t help asking, “And what about you?”

He looked at me, his pitch-black eyes filled with confusion. “Me?”

I swallowed the ache in my chest and asked, “If the last person in this world who cares about you is gone too, what will you do?”

He froze. A long while later, he said blandly, “As it was before, so it will be after.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid that won’t be up to you.”

As they grew older, any prince with even the slightest chance of inheriting the throne would inevitably be dragged into the struggle for power.

Whether he fought for it or not, the humiliation and suffering he had endured before would only grow worse in the future.

He might not even be able to keep his life.

Gu Jiuyuan seemed to understand what I meant, and he fell into a long silence.

Then he smiled, full of self-mockery. “But Lady Song, someone like me has never had any choice.”

A gust of wind blew through, and the candle went out.

Everything around us sank into murky darkness.

Gu Jiuyuan rose to fetch a fire striker, but I caught hold of his sleeve.

The young man turned back to look at me.

A thin line of daylight slipped through the crack of the window, favoring, of all things, his brows and eyes.

In those black eyes of his were inquiry and resistance, yet he did not shake off my hand.

I heard my own voice say,

“Gu Jiuyuan, do you have any wishes?”

Calling him by his full name was terribly disrespectful.

Yet he did not take offense. He only smiled. “They cannot be fulfilled.”

I did not let go. I looked at him stubbornly. “Say them anyway. What if they can be?”

He shook his head. “Forget it.”

He stepped forward to leave, but I refused to release him and tumbled to the ground in a sorry heap.

Gu Jiuyuan faltered, then bent down to pull me up.

But I refused to get to my feet.

I held his hand and pressed on obstinately, “You’re only sixteen. You shouldn’t live like an old man at the end of his days. You must have wishes of your own. If you won’t even say them, then who could ever help you make them come true?”

The young man, forced to the end of his rope, finally revealed the faintest trace of blood and fire.

“I want White Rainbow Piercing the Sun to become an auspicious omen. I want Qixia Palace to truly bask in light and sunset glow. I want heaven and earth to prostrate themselves at my feet-Lady Song, who could help me fulfill that? You?”

His ringing words echoed through the empty courtyard.

There seemed to be flames burning in Gu Jiuyuan’s eyes and brows, his aura as sharp as a long blade stained with blood.

But in the next instant, he looked at me and smiled again, cold and thin.

“Lady Song, if you came here to test my true thoughts, you may go back and report them now. It’s just that my true thoughts are worth nothing.”

So he still believed I had some ulterior motive toward him.

Of course. He was a wolf cub who had suffered every cold look imaginable.

When he encountered warmth, he would only suspect there was a trap hidden within it. He would never believe it was offered with a sincere heart.

I took a deep breath, caught his wrist, and looked up at him.

It was a posture of looking up in reverence.

Not even before the Buddha had I ever been so devout.

“Gu Jiuyuan, whether you believe me or not… I came to help you get what you wish for.”

The young man narrowed his eyes. Suddenly, he bent down and stared into mine.

As if scrutinizing me, and also searching me.

The cool scent of cedar snow on his robes overtook all my senses, leaving me able only to drown in those black eyes of his, and to recall, again and again, the scene at the end of my life.

Do you know what kind of loneliness and despair that was?

When everyone had turned against me and abandoned me, only you-someone who had never even known me-hurried over to see me one last time.

I did not know what sort of fate had tied us together before that, and I was destined never to find the answer.

But Gu Jiuyuan, I promised you that if there was another life, I would repay you.

And now, this was my new life.

The wind and snow had just ceased. All creation was still.

The young man, puzzled, reached out and wiped away my tears.

Only then did I realize I had been crying.

He was silent for a long while. Then he looked into my eyes solemnly and said softly, “Lady Song, I have no way to repay you.”

I let out a gentle breath and told him earnestly, “Gu Jiuyuan, you already have.”

When you never even knew it.