Edited by Kiseki
Chapter 9 part 1

The next day, a decree came from the palace. It said that because of my marriage to the third prince, I needed to go live in the palace and learn the etiquettes until the day I marry. The emperor’s intention was very clear. As long as I lived in the palace, he wouldn’t need to be afraid that father Song would do something against him when he was outside fighting the rebels. Because if father Song did something, the first one to die would be me. What a perfect plan.

After the eunuch who delivered the decree left, I went into father Song’s room. He stared at the decree, his expression unreadable. I squatted against his bedside and whispered, “Father, if you’re still alive, the emperor won’t do something to me. So you have to take good care of your body, live a long life, and annoy the emperor to death.”

Father Song sighed loudly. He raised his withered hand and gently placed it on my head, touching me like when I was a kid.

“Our Yun Xiang has also grown up.”

I quietly accompanied father Song for a while until he couldn’t bear it anymore and wearily fell asleep. Only then did I leave the mansion. I climbed onto the red carriage and went into the palace.

I didn’t get to see the emperor. The head of eunuchs brought me to an empty room for concubines. On the other side of the wall must be the cold palace because every night, I could hear a woman’s sobbing. I found her crying beautiful, like a lullaby. Every night, I slept very soundly while listening to her crying.

The days in the palace were boring, but they went by quickly. It was like the time when I was in Yue Lao’s temple. Then, I was only worrying about how I could afford good wine and lamenting about stingy Yue Lao. Now, however, my mind would always go back to that snowy night when Lu Hai Kong proposed to me. I blushed.

The day of the marriage was nearing. At the entrance of my place, more guards were patrolling. At night, I couldn’t hear the woman’s sobbing anymore. There was only the sound of the guard’s footsteps, making me more depressed than when I was in the north.

It was a snowy night again. I couldn’t sleep, so I had put some clothes on and walked to the window. I opened the window and just happened to see a man in black making the guards faint.

I blinked. The figure of that man seemed awfully familiar to me.

“Hey…”

I had just opened my mouth when the man in black reflexively turned to the window. He stretched out his hand and covered my mouth.

“Silence.”

His face was covered with a black cloth, so the sound was a bit muffled, but I had known him for more than ten years, how could I not recognize him?

He listened for a moment, and then pulled away the black cloth that was covering his face. A pair of black pupils reflected the snow.

“Yun Xiang, it’s me.”

I patted his hands to indicate that he could let go.

“En, I know.”

Lu Hai Kong really didn’t want his life anymore. He was a rebel leader; how could he quietly sneak into the palace?

I didn’t hesitate and stretched out my hand. I squeezed his cheek really hard. His face turned red from the pain.

He made some sisi sounds of pain, but he didn’t pull my hand away. He only said, “Yun Xiang, it hurts.”

“Lu Hai Kong.”

I looked at him for a moment before saying, “Don’t you want to live anymore?”

He also looked at me, saying, “I do, but I also want you.”

It was obviously an indecent sentence, but coming from him, I didn’t hear any indecent meaning. It felt like a child full of positive energy, swearing that he would study hard.

I was silent, so Lu Hai Kong said, “It’s not that I’ve lost my mind, nor is it that nobody had tried to discourage me….”

He paused for a moment. He looked like he was remembering some terrible things. He drooped his eyes slightly and continued, “But when I heard you were kidnapped…”

“Nobody kidnapped me,” I interrupted him. With and cold and clear voice, I said, “I left you a letter. I was willing to come back.”

Lu Hai Kong didn’t look at me and continued to say, “The soldiers at the gate told me that you left on someone’s shoulder, and that you were treated roughly…”

Seeing him with such a helpless look, I couldn’t bring myself to be heartless. I deeply inhaled the cold air and said, “Lu Hai Kong, I left you a letter. You knew that I left willingly.”

His lips trembled as if he wanted to refute me, but for me and for himself, he tried to hide it. In the end, he fell silent. He curved his lips and smiled without a trace of humor in his eyes. He said, “Yun Xiang, you don’t always need to be so honest.”

“Go back. Protect yourself well.”

“Why?”

He stood outside the window and looked at the ground.

“Knowing each other for sixteen years, accompanying each other in life and death for five years…Yun Xiang, I know you must have a reason.”

How could I tell him? What father Song did that year was self-protection? I abandoned him for my father, his father’s murderer?

Living together for five years in the north, we hadn’t mentioned a word from the past. Because in this lifetime, my blood and his hatred were the most deadly friction between us.

I also curved my lips and smiled. I made a helpless appearance and said, “Lu Hai Kong, you don’t love me as a woman.”

Lu Hai Kong hesitated. Slowly, his face turned green. He gritted his teeth and said, “Song Yun Xiang, even at this moment you don’t want to open yourself to me. You still don’t believe me!”

Outside, I heard many footsteps coming. My heart tightened. I urged Lu Hai Kong to go. Lu Hai Kong looked at me for a moment with a face full of disappointment. Finally, he turned and gathered some internal energy. He disappeared into the darkness.

Just when he left, the imperial guards arrived. They saw the guards lying on the floor. One of them came to the window and asked, “Where is the rebel?”

“Rebel?”

I yawned.

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“Why are all the guards on the ground?”

I raised an eyebrow and grunted. “I was sleeping like a dead man. The sound of fighting woke me up.”

The chief knitted his eyebrows before he barely bowed to me and said, “Miss Song, I beg your pardon, but I was ordered to search for the intruder.”

He finished his sentence without looking at me. He waved at the other guards and yelled, “Search!”

They kicked my door open and turned the place where I slept into a mess.

I looked at them coldly when they left without finding anyone.

I closed the door, tidied the bed, and laid on it. My mind kept going back to the words Lu Hai Kong said before he left. Open myself? Believe in him? This brat had grown up and kept saying shit that nobody understood.

I hugged the blanket tightly and gave it a few punches. Little wife’s sorrow had finally appeared!

I could almost see Emperor Li’s bearded face shaking with laughter. In my heart, I hoped that the mud horse would crush Emperor Li’s face. While pounding on the blanket, I was laughing in my heart. You had seen enough, seen enough, seen enough!

  • mud horse is slang for F*** your mother in Chinese


21 Comments

  1. Awwww…..so sad yet touching…..don’t tell me her father died because lu Hai kong killed him?
    thanks for the chapter! Though this lifetime is rather sad….

  2. Thank you for the translation! Been waiting for so long. This really made my day. Cant wait for the 2nd lifetime.

  3. It is so sad. T_T
    Pitiful Lu Hai Kong. The one who were left behind are the one who suffers most.
    I wonder what the next lifetime will be. I will miss LHK firever.

  4. Waaaaa I didn’t expect this feels trip at all!!! 😭😭 poor, poor LHK! He really did love her, and she didn’t want to see it! Hopefully the next lifetimes would be better huhuh. Cried like a monkey in this one

  5. I’m crying like a child, too…
    Please don’t tell me that I need to cry like this at the end of all of their lifetimes…

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