Chapter 8.1

Although she knew she probably wouldn’t be so unlucky as to fall, Su Jiao nimbly made her way down with her things.

She returned the letter to the rear hall, rubbed her frozen palms together, and headed to the front hall.

The rear hall of Yongning Hall had never been tidied up. No matter how much had happened today, she still had to go sleep in the front hall.

Su Jiao had steeled herself thoroughly, yet the moment she stepped over the threshold and her eyes met Xie Yan’s, her heart still couldn’t help but skip a beat.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapping a silk cloth around his slender fingers, his every movement pleasing to the eye — that is, if Su Jiao hadn’t remembered exactly how those hands had severed someone else’s fingers.

She hesitated at the doorway, reasoning with herself inwardly.

Today’s events had their cause. Besides, wasn’t Xie Yan perfectly normal on ordinary days?

She didn’t need to fear him the way one feared a tyrant.

Thwack —

The book in her hand was slapped face-down onto the table. Xie Yan, sitting at the bedside, looked over.

Because the high fever had only just broken the night before, Xie Yan’s face still carried a trace of pallid weakness. Though his expression remained cold and silent, he was worlds apart from the man who had worn a face of frigid severity during the day. Su Jiao’s heart eased, and she stepped over the threshold.

“Not resting yet?”

Xie Yan gave a small nod, and the room fell quiet again.

Su Jiao wanted to go straight to the inner side of the bed to sleep, but felt somewhat awkward undressing in front of him.

In their past life, the two of them had gone nearly two or three years barely sharing a bed — let alone that this was Xie Yan from five years ago.

She twisted at her clothes, racking her brains for something to say to ease the atmosphere.

“Let me have another look at the wound on your leg.”

She had been in a daze for the first half of the day, and spent the latter half busy in the rear hall with the matter of the family letter — she had momentarily forgotten about his leg injury.

Su Jiao walked over and pulled back his trouser leg, revealing a bandaged knee that had already been cleaned.

“A festering wound can’t be bandaged…”

She grew anxious and moved to tear it off.

Xie Yan raised his hand and stopped her.

“It’s not festering anymore.”

He said quietly.

“It was cut out.”

Those three short words fell, and after a moment of shock, Su Jiao’s breath caught in her throat. She turned to look at him — Xie Yan’s complexion was even paler than when he had woken during the day. After having flesh cut away, he had lain in bed nearly unable to move. It had clearly been an excruciating thing, yet not a trace of vulnerability showed on his face, and even his tone was light and offhand.

Had he known that Emperor Jia would never allow anyone to enter, and so decided to cut the problem off cleanly?

Su Jiao couldn’t say what she felt in her heart. She suddenly found that this version of him bore a striking resemblance to Xie Yan five years later.

He would never sit in place waiting for some pitiable charity that might never come — he would quietly sever every weakness and handle that others might use against him.

She stood where she was, watching Xie Yan by lamplight, and in a trance felt that this moment of him overlapped somewhat with that last meeting between them at his sickbed five years later.

She had died before him, so she never knew how things unfolded afterward.

Between her father and Xie Yan — who would have prevailed?

The situation had collapsed far too suddenly. All of Great Zhao had come apart like a tray of loose sand, and even at the very end, she hadn’t known which regional prince had raised an army in rebellion.

By rights, in the third year of Zhaoning, none of the princes of the same generation as Xie Yan remained, and he had already dealt cleanly with several imperial uncles. For a prince of a different surname to rebel would be without name or justification — so how had the situation been grave enough that her cautious, miserly father would throw everything aside to follow the rebel’s cause?

Was he truly that confident?

Su Jiao let out a sigh, then thought that no matter what, that tyrant had walked out of rivers of blood and storms of blades — he couldn’t possibly have died.

He was probably living freely somewhere in the aftermath, and had likely branded her, Su Jiao, a traitor just like her father — letting the common people curse and condemn her at will.

Thinking of Prime Minister Yun’s cold words before Qianqing Palace in her past life — “Your father has abandoned you” — a weight pressed against her chest, and she still couldn’t quite come back to herself.

In her past life, she had always thought her father was simply strict, so she had been obedient and compliant, following his wishes in everything just to earn one word of praise from him — never expecting that he wasn’t strict at all. He was, in truth, coldhearted.

Her gaze fixed distantly on the wound on Xie Yan’s knee, and she couldn’t pull herself back for a long while.

“Why are you crying?”

Xie Yan noticed her slightly reddened eyes staring fixedly at his knee, and his throat moved.

Was it because of the wound he had gotten from kneeling in the Buddhist hall?

“It’s… it’s nothing.”

Su Jiao came back to herself and realized she had shed tears. Just as she moved to wipe them, a clean handkerchief was held out before her.

She thought of when she had first been reborn — Xie Yan had offered her a handkerchief in just the same way then too.

The Xie Yan of five years ago had truly been a good person. Setting aside the unhappiness of the three years that came later, he had genuinely shown her no small amount of care.

She took the handkerchief and looked at him, and suddenly let out a quiet laugh.

“Your Highness must take good care of yourself and live a long, long life.”

Hm?

Xie Yan looked at her slightly reddened eyes.

Was she afraid that if his injury was too severe and he died, she as his wife wouldn’t know what to do?

“Afraid I’ll die?”

“Yes, afraid.”

She rubbed at her eyes and tilted her head up to look at him, her tone unusually sincere.

“If you were to die, what would I do?”

In an instant, the cold set of Xie Yan’s face softened by an almost imperceptible degree.

He lowered his eyes.

“If I were to die, how about I permit you to dissolve the marriage?”

Su Jiao was immediately overjoyed. The words were right at the tip of her tongue, just about to be agreed to, when she caught a glimpse of him and cautiously swallowed them back down.

What husband would say something like this out of nowhere? He hadn’t agreed when she first brought it up the day she was reborn.

“Why bring this up so suddenly?”

“Just asking offhand.”

Thinking that the matter of seeing her brother still had no resolution, Su Jiao rubbed her nose, brushed aside that small twinge of guilt, and smiled warmly.

“We are husband and wife, and so we are family. Where Your Highness is, there I shall be.”

…

Until the lamps in the room had been put out, Xie Yan lay on the bed unable to fall asleep for a long while. His mind kept drifting back to that smiling face, and to her one heartfelt wish for him to live a long life.

Just days ago she had been bringing up the dissolution of the marriage — and in no more than two or three days, she had changed her words entirely. Which of them was actually true?

A person who could cry at the sight of his injured knee was, in truth, not so different from the Su Jiao he had first married.

Yet he always felt that behind her warm and gentle smile lay a few degrees of pretense — even though she had flatly denied wanting to dissolve the marriage, it didn’t seem like she truly meant it.

Xie Yan turned his head. The seventeen-year-old Su Jiao slept peacefully at his side. He had had Chang Lin look into it — everything about her was the same as he remembered from his past life, having grown up quietly and properly in the Su family before being selected by Emperor Jia to marry into the imperial palace.

His slender fingers closed around the back of her neck. Xie Yan was just about to do something when a knock sounded at the door.

The moment Chang Yi entered, he raised his hand and pressed Su Jiao’s sleep acupoint.

“How did it go?”

Chang Yi had returned sooner than he had expected.

He had taken some injuries on his body, and knelt on one knee as he reported in a low voice.

“As you said, Deputy Minister Su’s study does indeed have several hidden compartments, and there are many guards posted outside. This subordinate deliberately went when Deputy Minister Su was away from the manor.”

Xie Yan’s expression showed no surprise.

“Did you find it?”

At those words, Chang Yi was silent for a moment.

“Your Highness, please forgive me. This subordinate did choose the most lightly guarded moment, and used a diversion to draw away all the guards outside, but…

Just as your subordinate was about to reach that hidden compartment, someone entered.

It was the Su manor’s eldest young master.”

Su Wei?

The moment Chang Yi mentioned that name, he felt the air above him grow cold where Xie Yan’s eyes had been.

A heavy, dark pressure settled over him, and after a long pause Xie Yan asked.

“Did he discover you?”

“This subordinate reacted early enough not to be found, but most likely the young master knew this subordinate had staged a diversion, and rushed back from outside in such haste on account of that.”