Chapter 2
If Lu Zhao had truly loved Shen Changning in our previous life,
why had he never shown the slightest sign of it before she married?
The customs of the Great Zhou were liberal. It was common for unmarried young men and women to pledge themselves to each other in private.
Exchanging poems and arranging excursions together were more ordinary still.
But Lu Zhao had never done any such thing.
Nor had he shown the least sorrow after Shen Changning married.
Then, when the entire Shen clan was condemned to death,
if Lu Zhao had genuinely loved her,
why had he chosen that moment to conceal his strength, standing by while every member of her family died?
Only after he had completed his preparations for rebellion did he pretend it had all been for Shen Changning.
Did he not know she was in Lu Heng’s hands at the time?
Did he not know that once his proclamation was issued, Lu Heng could never let her live?
No. He knew.
He had done it deliberately.
The loyal and honorable Shen family had been slaughtered until Shen Changning was its sole survivor.
Lu Zhao intentionally provoked Lu Heng into killing the last member of the clan.
He did it to inflame the people’s outrage,
making his uprising appear all the more righteous and legitimate.
Yet my elder sister had actually believed such an obvious ploy.
I could not help recalling some of the popular storybooks I had read in my previous life.
In them, protagonists who had once been foolish beyond belief and suffered persecution
would be transformed after rebirth, suddenly becoming extraordinarily clever.
Everyone who had once looked down on them would be forced to see them in a new light.
Even then, I had found it strange.
Did a fool become intelligent merely by dying once?
Was death some miraculous elixir?
Now I knew. No matter how many times fools died, they remained exactly as foolish as before.
I looked at my elder sister and said quietly,
“The Third Prince claims to love you, and at least he sends you novel gifts every day;
“when you fell into the water, he even risked himself to save you.
“The Crown Prince has scarcely met you more than a few times.
“He writes two casual lines of romance in a proclamation,
“and you truly believe he loves you so desperately that no other woman will do?”
If every man in the realm wrote a few essays and inserted a line or two of romance,
would she promise herself to every one of them?
Shen Changning widened her beautiful eyes and glared at me, brimming with indignation.
“He was even willing to rebel for me.
“How could he go that far unless his love for me ran bone-deep?”
Her words made me laugh in anger.
Lu Zhao had rebelled for her?
He had plainly rebelled for supreme imperial power.
How could my sister be so innocent and so stupid?
I sighed deeply and, for the sake of the last shreds of sisterly affection between us, tried once more to persuade her.
But Shen Changning gave me a searching look.
“Chang’an, are you in love with Lu Zhao too?
“You were husband and wife in our previous life.
“But from what I know, yours was not a loving marriage.
“I have always been the only woman in Lu Zhao’s heart.
“I know you may resent that.
“But Heaven gave me the chance to be reborn so that Lu Zhao and I could make up for losing each other.
“This time, no matter what happens, I will not let him go.”
I stared at her.
An endless chill filled my heart.
Before my death in our previous life, I had not been entirely free of resentment toward her.
If she had not been so consumed by love, if she had not ignored her family’s objections and insisted on being with the Third Prince,
the Shen family would never have met such an end.
But I had desperately reminded myself
that it was not her fault. She could not have foreseen the outcome either.
Even as cold blades sliced into my skin, I had worried
whether my sister, trapped deep within the palace, might somehow escape disaster.
After being reborn, I had sworn all the more fervently to protect every member of the Shen family.
But now I understood that, in her heart,
the lives of several hundred members of our family mattered less than her petty rivalry with Du Yuerong.
She had not returned to save her family.
She had returned to reclaim a romance she had missed with another man.
I had thought Shen Changning merely foolish.
Now it seemed that birds of a feather did indeed flock together.
She and Lu Heng were plainly cut from the same cloth.
Selfish and coldhearted, they treated everyone who cared for them as tools and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.
I looked at her, the faintest smile curling my lips.
Then I enunciated each word with painful slowness.
“In that case, Sister, I hope you get exactly what you wish for.”