"Lianshui," he said again, as if saying the name out loud helped confirm something only he could see.
His voice was low, distant—like it belonged to another time entirely. Then his eyes met mine, and I saw it clearly: the mix of hope, caution, and something heartbreakingly fragile. It wasn't just curiosity. It was something deeper, something searching.
"How did you know that name?" he asked, his tone softer now, as if bracing himself for what I might say.
I told him the truth. "You said it when you were delirious. You called me that while you were burning with fever."
He looked away almost instantly, the tension in his jaw tightening as his shoulders sank slightly. Whatever flicker of hope had been in his expression a moment ago dimmed, and he exhaled—not in relief, but with quiet disappointment, like he'd been hoping for something else. Something more.
He walked across the room and sat down heavily, as if the air had thickened around him. After a moment, he spoke, his gaze fixed somewhere past the far wall.
"I think you already know who she is."
I did.
I'd suspected it from the moment he called me by that name. From the way he looked at me—not as someone new, but as someone he had once known.
Still, I said it aloud. "She's the owner of this body, isn't she?"
He nodded, not looking at me. "Yes. But… she's no longer here."
I hesitated. "What happened to her?"
He didn't answer right away. When he did, he turned his gaze on me, steady and quiet.
"You tell me," he said. "You're the one wearing her face."
The guilt hit me fast, hard, and with no warning. I looked down at my hands, unsure of what to say. Shen Kexian's expression softened slightly, like he sensed the weight of my silence.
He let out another sigh, but this one was slower. Tired. "We were betrothed. It wasn't arranged. It wasn't political. We chose each other. She was… bright. Gentle. Smarter than me, though she'd never admit it. We were together. We were planning the wedding."
He paused, his voice thickening with the memory. "And then one day, she vanished. No letter. No fight. No signs of where she went. One day she was there, laughing in the garden, and the next—nothing."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it held the answers he'd never gotten. "I looked for her. I pulled every favor, sent scouts, posted rewards. There wasn't a single lead. She was just… gone."
My chest tightened.
"I was starting to accept it," he went on. "That I'd never know what happened. That I'd have to mourn someone who hadn't died. And then I got word—one of my contacts in the capital told me Wei Wuxian had a new consort. That she looked like Lianshui."
He looked up at me now, but his gaze wasn't sharp. It was hollow. "But she didn't act like her. That's what they said. 'She doesn't talk the same. Doesn't move the same. Looks like her… but doesn't feel like her.'"
He sat back, and a faint, humorless smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "So I came to see for myself. Watched from a distance. Listened to the palace whispers. Waited for a slip. And then I heard about your powers—how you said you came from somewhere else. How you were… different."
He shook his head slowly. "And I realized you weren't her. You weren't pretending. You weren't hiding. You were just… someone else."
The quiet stretched between us, thick and full of everything neither of us knew how to name.
"I went back to the West after that," he said. "Tried to forget. Tried to accept it. But then the stories came again. That you were controlling water. That you were doing things she could do. And I started wondering… maybe she wasn't entirely gone. Maybe she was still in there. Somewhere."
"She could move water?" I asked, quietly.
He shook his head. "Not move it. Not like you. But sometimes… water would react around her. Subtle things. The surface of a basin would ripple when she was near. Raindrops would collect oddly around her. Streams would flow slower when she walked beside them. Especially when I was nearby."
He paused, his voice softening like he wasn't sure he should be saying it.
"We never really questioned it. I didn't think it mattered. She didn't have a golden core. There was no reason to look deeper. I thought… maybe it was just her."
My thoughts spun, threads starting to pull tight.
"Then I heard you could move water too," he continued. "More than her. With force. With will. It wasn't just reaction—it was power. And I started to wonder."
His voice dropped lower. "What if it wasn't coincidence? What if it was connected somehow?"
He looked up then, and I wished he hadn't.
His face—so carefully composed until now—was raw. Eyes rimmed with something old and quiet and deeply painful.
"You have no recollection of me," he said, barely above a whisper. "Not even a shadow. And I… I waited for you to look at me like she used to. Even just once."
My chest tightened.
He smiled, but it wasn't happy. It was the kind of smile people wear when they've already given up.
"It's like if you saw Liu Ming Yu again," he said, "but he didn't remember you. Not your name. Not your voice. Not your face. And worse—he was already in love with someone else."
The words struck deep. Too deep.
My breath hitched.
Because just hearing it—just imagining it—put the picture in my head. Ming Yu standing in the garden with someone else. Holding someone the way he held me. Laughing. Eyes soft. Voice tender. But none of it for me.
He wouldn't even recognize me. The image bloomed fully in my mind, vivid and cruel. I understood exactly what Shen Kexian had been feeling all this time.
My throat tightened. The words barely made it out.
I couldn't stop the tears.
They slipped out before I could blink them back, warm and uninvited.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
And I meant it. Deeply. For being the wrong person in the right face. For taking up space in someone else's memory. For hurting him without ever meaning to.
Shen Kexian stepped forward slowly, as if he wasn't sure I'd let him, but I didn't move away.
"It's not your fault," he said softly. "None of this is."
His voice was calm again, but gentler than before.
"It's my feeling," he added, brushing a thumb beneath my eye, wiping away a tear I hadn't even noticed. "My burden to carry. You didn't ask for it."
He smiled, the edges sad but sincere.
"If you don't mind me hanging around a little longer," he said, "I just want to protect her. I don't know if she's still in there—or if she's really gone—but... just for a while. Let me stay close to you. That's all I'm asking."
I didn't answer, but I didn't push him away either.
That seemed to be enough.
He let out a long breath, then, as if flipping a switch, tilted his head and gave me a mildly offended look.
"Also," he added, "I'm still waiting for your apology for launching yourself into my ribs like an amateur stunt performer."
I blinked. "You told me to dodge."
"Yes. I told you to dodge the sandbag. Not ricochet into the furniture like an angry deer."
"You set a trap with a sandbag, Kexian. What did you think was going to happen?"
"I thought," he said primly, "that you'd have slightly better footwork by now."
"You got stabbed by rooftop assassins and I'm the embarrassment?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I got stabbed quietly. With precision. You took down a side table and a lantern and nearly yourself."
Despite everything—my shoulders shook with a laugh I hadn't expected.
He smiled, and this time it wasn't sad.
Just warm.
Steady.
And maybe—for both of us—that was a start.
***
That night, I sat at the vanity and stared at my reflection for a long time.
Candlelight flickered behind me. The room was quiet, but my thoughts weren't.
A beautiful girl looked back at me.
Her eyes were uncertain. Tired. Full of questions she didn't have the courage to speak aloud. I studied her face, the delicate lines, the shape of her mouth, the curve of her jaw. All familiar now, but not mine.
"Lianshui…" I whispered, watching my own lips form the name.
"What happened to you?"
The question felt too big for the room, too heavy for the mirror.
"How did I end up here, in your body?"
No answer, of course. Just the soft sound of my own breathing, and the distant crackle of a dying candle flame.
"Are you still in me?"
The words left my mouth before I realized I meant them. I wasn't sure if I was asking the real Lianshui or the echo of her memory I'd carried since Shen Kexian first looked at me like I was someone else.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I didn't ask for this. But I'm here."
I stared into the mirror.
"Do you still love him?"
The moment the words were spoken, I felt it—the tightness in my chest, that quiet, aching pull every time Shen Kexian looked at me like he was seeing someone he'd already lost. I knew the answer.
There was something inside me—hers, mine, both—that still longed for him.
And that terrified me.
Because I loved Ming Yu.
That part was never uncertain. Never faded. He was the one I chose. The one who made this strange, stolen life feel real.
"So where do we go from here?" I whispered to my reflection.
She didn't answer. She just stared back, silent and conflicted.
"You love him," I said. "And I love Ming Yu."
My voice broke slightly.
"It doesn't seem like we have a way out."