Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I was so angry I wanted to kick him.

“Who loves you? Shen Qi, your conceit is laughable.”

His expression made it clear he did not believe me.

His memories of our previous life still ended in the year when I loved him most. No matter how viciously I spoke to him now, he saw every word as a denial of my true feelings—playing hard to get, saying one thing while meaning another, doing anything to attract his attention.

So I gave him a solid kick.

Caught off guard, Shen Qi toppled off the high bridge into the clear stream below with an enormous splash.

In the quiet woods around the imperial retreat, a mountain stream plunged into a deep pool, passed beneath an ancient bridge, fell again in a small waterfall, then wound slowly through the picturesque landscape toward the distant palaces.

I stood high above Shen Qi and looked down at him as he floated there in a daze.

“Young Master Shen, please drift downstream before you climb out. I would hate for anyone to see the two of us returning from the same place.”

My actions made it perfectly clear that I wanted nothing to do with him. To disgust him further, I added, “You know, when I died in our last life, you were devastated…”

Shen Qi recovered and gave a contemptuous sneer.

Clearly, he thought I was ridiculous.

I could not be bothered with him any longer. When we returned to the capital, I looked at the familiar yet distant home I had not seen in a lifetime, and my tears would not stop.

My family did not understand. Assuming the journey had exhausted me, they ordered the cooks to prepare a table overflowing with my favorite dishes.

I had been raised delicately, with a fussy palate and only the finest food, clothes, and furnishings. After marrying into the Shen family in my previous life, however, I had almost never eaten anything I liked. The table was always covered in dishes I hated. Beside it sat that old woman with her falsely pleasant smile, delighted that she had upset me, while Shen Qi pretended not to notice.

Later, the political tides shifted. The entire Duke Rong household was condemned and executed. The Shen family fell as well, and I followed Shen Qi into exile in a harsh, impoverished land. We were poor. The same few dishes appeared on the table day after day, and they were never anything I enjoyed.

Only later did I learn that my sister had liked them.

Or rather, Shen Qi remembered her liking them.

When they were children, my sister had shared food from her meal box with him. Shen Qi had learned early to read people’s faces, so he quietly observed which dishes she chose.

But my sister’s tastes had not remained unchanged. She had merely enjoyed those foods during one brief period of childhood.

Shen Qi remembered them for the rest of his life.

It had been so long—so very long—since anyone had cared for me this way. Every dish on the table proved that someone remembered what I loved. My sister even peeled a shrimp for me with her own hands.

Too lazy to reach for it, I leaned over and took it straight from her fingers. As I chewed, tears of happiness welled up again.

I burrowed into my sister’s arms like a piglet, begged to be fed like a shameless puppy, clung like a cat, and chattered like a bird.

I bestowed my attention impartially, attaching myself to every member of the family until even my nursemaid laughed at me.

In private, I hid and cried for several days.

The happiness was simply too much.

Late in my previous life, I had rarely cried. Even when I died, I had not so much as blinked. It was as if a lifetime of tears had been hoarded for these few days. I had been given another life and the chance to mend every regret.

I was happier than words could say.

My easy, carefree days returned. One morning, dressed beautifully for an outing, I stepped outside and ran straight into the Shen family’s marriage delegation.

Shen Qi’s mother was there, along with several Shen elders, a matchmaker, and—breaking convention—Shen Qi himself.

He bowed to my father and said he had long cherished my elder sister. In the urgency of rescuing her at the imperial retreat, he had compromised her reputation, and he intended to take responsibility. He had therefore come to the Zhu family to ask for her hand.

He never once looked at me as I glared daggers at him.

That was why he failed to notice me quietly sending a servant out through the gate.

“Go tell my sister’s childhood sweetheart.”