chapter 6
I spun around.
Tang Su sat on horseback, his expression cold and remote. He did not carry the air of a youth barely twenty, but that of a man who had endured the rise and fall of two lifetimes.
My eyes narrowed in understanding.
“Hide from you? Tang Su, just how important do you think you are?”
Our previous life had been too ugly. Nothing remained between us but drawn swords and taut bowstrings.
Tang Su stared at me, his expression unreadable and fragments of emotion shifting in his eyes.
After a long moment, he gave a scornful laugh.
“You, of all people, should know what I am capable of.”
He raised one hand. More than a dozen shadow guards surged out of the trees and pinned Nan Jingche to the ground.
I gritted my teeth. “Let him go!”
Tang Su yanked me back and forced my head around.
“Stop looking at him. It hurts me.”
The hand at my waist tightened.
“And I am impotent, am I? Would you care to test that claim now?”
So he had been the one eavesdropping outside the courtyard that day.
“Get away from me!” I growled.
“Don’t touch Ningshu!” Nan Jingche came back to his senses and struggled desperately.
Tang Su tilted his head, his face dark with menace.
“Who gave you the right to call her Ningshu?”
“What chance does an idiot like you have against me?”
He had not expected Nan Jingche to possess such excellent natural strength. Nan Jingche suddenly broke free, snatched up a sword, and charged Tang Su.
“Can’t you see she is unhappy?”
“If you cannot understand human speech, then I happen to know a little fighting!”
Unfortunately, Tang Su knew considerably more fighting than he did.
“You dare challenge me with brute strength alone?”
Tang Su wiped his poison-coated knuckle guards and looked at me with faint self-satisfaction.
He fought dirty and carried plenty of hidden weapons.
Nan Jingche took several wounds.
Sniffling, I bent down and struggled to hoist him onto my back.
Tang Su frowned.
“Must you anger me for his sake?”
I turned my head and pulled my lips into a miserable smile.
“At least he was willing to fight for me. What about you?”
“You had all that skill, yet you never helped me once.”
Tang Su went still.
After our marriage in my last life, Mother refused to see me again.
Our dynasty placed the highest value on filial duty. Whenever I went out, people accused me of betraying the woman who gave me life. They said I was not even equal to Shen Miaoyi, who had never formally been adopted.
Whenever Tang Su heard them, he merely pulled my veiled hat lower over my face.
In the end, he stopped letting me leave the house at all.
The evening wind blew, cold enough to make everything feel unreal.
I trudged forward beneath Nan Jingche’s weight, mud sucking at my feet.
“You always said I was full of schemes. He is innocent and pure-hearted, so we are a perfect match. Why are you interfering now?”
Tang Su’s lashes trembled helplessly.
He reached out to me.
“Ningshu, I came back in this life to make amends to you.”
“After you died, I learned the truth. I had been blind in both sight and heart.”
So when I lay dying, he had sent men after the medicine being delivered to Shen Miaoyi.
They discovered that she was not ill. Under brutal interrogation, her people revealed the entire truth.
But what did that change?
Nothing could be undone.
When Tang Su finished, a thin redness rimmed his eyes.
“In this life, I never agreed to marry her. They misunderstood.”
“I sent my mother to propose the moment I could. I simply never imagined…”
“Never imagined I came back too, did you?”
I cut him off, my voice catching.
“Tang Su, you say you want to make amends. Have you ever considered that I still hate you?”
“As far as I am concerned, death and life should never bring us face to face again.”
Tang Su stiffened.
After a long moment, he laughed bitterly under his breath.
“Good. Good! Hatred is fine too.”
“I am glad you still feel something for me.”
He waved, signaling the shadow guards to advance.
My heart clenched, but then someone came galloping toward us in the distance.
“Xiaoshu!”
Tang Su narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue. “How tiresome.”