In the early morning, dew bent the blades of grass. Within the droplets hid a tiny sun just rising.
Xie Yu carried a sickle in one hand and a bundle of pig grass in the other as she walked along the country path. She came face to face with a middle-aged woman carrying two empty wooden buckets on a pole.
"Auntie, heading to fetch water?" she greeted.
"Yes, Dayu. You finished cutting pig grass this early? A hardworking girl like you is rare! Where's your cousin? Isn't she the one raising the pigs? Why are you doing it every day?"
"She's cleaning the pigpen at home. She's hardworking too."
They chatted for a bit before parting. Xie Yu lifted the grass and walked past several homes where smoke curled from the chimneys as breakfast was being cooked, eventually arriving at a spacious farmhouse.
She pushed open the wooden gate, tossed the pig grass into the pen, walked into the main room, and nudged the person lying face-down on the mat pretending to be dead. "Get up and clean the pigpen. I've already cut the grass. How are you still asleep?"
"Mmmhh."
The person on the floor sat up. It was a delicate-looking scholar. She complained, "I never wanted to raise pigs. I just want to farm!"
"You? Farm successfully? If you were any good at it, would you have ended up with an entire cart of vegetables no one bought except me?"
Xie Yu poured herself some water and drank from the chipped clay bowl with a huff.
This delicate scholar was called Jiang Fang. She used to be a talented scholar from a farming-and-study family, but had no interest in taking the civil exams and only wanted to farm.
When her two mothers were still alive, they forced her to continue schooling. After both passed away, she gave up on the exams entirely and devoted herself to agriculture.
Unfortunately, she had no talent for it. Her yearly harvest barely fed herself, and even the vegetables she grew turned yellow, full of bug holes.
Two days ago at the market, she couldn't sell a single stalk of greens. Xie Yu had seen the scene and bought the whole cart, even tipping her extra silver and promising to teach her a planting secret.
As part of the exchange, Jiang Fang let Xie Yu stay in her home, calling her a cousin who was visiting.
When she heard officials were searching for strangers, Jiang Fang worried Xie Yu would be exposed. She never expected the opposite—Xie Yu was more welcomed in the village than she was.
Supposedly a fake cousin, Xie Yu claimed she used to visit as a child. That made many young villagers rack their brains until suddenly they all remembered: "Ah, so it was you. We played so well together back then."
Even the elders adored her. She played chess with them, had a polite tongue, looked proper, and was quick at cutting pig grass.
Jiang Fang poured herself water. "When will you teach me farming?"
"Today. Didn't you make me a little notebook? Bring it."
Jiang Fang threw her the small hand-stitched notebook and handed her a charcoal pen.
Xie Yu sat at the table drawing and writing. "I'll jot some things down. You clean the pigpen and then we'll head to the field."
Jiang Fang obeyed.
When they finally reached the field, Xie Yu instructed her to divide the land into nine small squares, three by three.
Jiang Fang frowned. "What is this? I've never seen any farmer in the village do this."
"You also look a few years younger than me, and you don't seem like someone who grew up on a farm. How do you even know how to plant crops?" she asked, suspicious.
"Now you start doubting whether I can farm? Isn't it a little late for that?" Xie Yu complained. "Your anti-scam awareness is way too weak. Too bad there's no anti-fraud app for you to download."
"What?" Jiang Fang didn't understand her last sentence.
"Never mind. I didn't grow up farming, but my grandmother farmed her whole life. I watched her work in the fields since I was little. Besides, I have my own methods for figuring out how to take care of crops."
"And honestly, are you really worried someone in this world could farm worse than you?"
A critical hit.
Jiang Fang obediently divided the plot into nine small squares. She stood at the ridge, looked at the basket of seeds she brought, and sighed: "But my seeds aren't good."
They were planting spring wheat.
In this era without agricultural research institutes, farmers mostly used saved seeds from previous years. After several years, Jiang Fang's seed quality had deteriorated year by year.
"What exactly can you do to help me grow good crops?"
"Broadly speaking? Science. More specifically, the controlled variable method." Xie Yu raised a brow, then explained because she knew Jiang Fang wouldn't understand:
"This plot divided into nine squares ensures that the soil and sunlight are the same across all of them. The remaining factors—watering, fertilizer, pest control—can be applied in different amounts to each square."
"When it's time to harvest, whichever square grows the best wheat, you'll know exactly how much water and fertilizer to use. And you can save seeds from that square."
Xie Yu handed the notebook to Jiang Fang. It already listed how much water and fertilizer each square should receive. "Record everything clearly in here."
"Ohhh." Jiang Fang suddenly looked enlightened. "Makes sense. And it's not even hard. Why didn't I think of this before?"
Xie Yu shrugged.
Modern middle-schoolers know what controlled variables are, but ancient people often lacked this type of thinking, so they couldn't make that mental leap quickly.
"Sigh." Jiang Fang sighed again. "But it's still troublesome. If only we lived in the northern outskirts. I heard the Valiant Army and the Third Princess are distributing seeds this year. Supposedly the harvest is incredible, even growing well in the northwest—that place is drier than us."
Xie Yu suddenly looked up. "Who's distributing seeds?"
"The Valiant Army, and the Third Princess. Any farmer in the northern outskirts can buy their seeds at a low price, even those who aren't their tenants. Lots of my relatives bought some—planning to try out two acres."
So it was Shen Changyin distributing seeds.
The entire northern outskirts—such a massive amount.
Could Shen Changyin really hand out seeds that easily?
How early must she have started preparing to stockpile so many seeds in the northwest?
Xie Yu lowered her eyes.
And why… Why was she putting in so much effort? Just to distribute seeds to farmers?
Xie Yu pressed her lips together. She was just about to tell Jiang Fang to start planting when she saw someone running toward them along the ridge, waving frantically.
Looking closely—it was the twelve-year-old girl from the village:
"Big Jiang-sister! Fang-sister! The village chief wants you—right now! It's urgent! Bring your sickles and hoes!"
"I still have to tell the others! Hurry!"
"What happened?" Seeing the panic on the girl's face, Xie Yu immediately straightened up and gripped her hoe tightly.
"Water robbery! A fight's about to break out!"
—
They rushed to the village entrance and found two or three dozen young girls already gathered, with more people arriving one after another.
Looking again—even nursing women, elderly grandmothers, and fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girls were hurrying over with sickles and wooden sticks.
What is this?!
Xie Yu could hardly suppress her instinct to maintain public order.
She knew this was going to be a village battle.
She had grown up in modern times—after she was born, inter-village fights over water sources had basically disappeared. But she had studied such cases back in the police academy.
Two villages could mobilize hundreds of people, using every weapon available. Even in the 20th century, water-robbery fights sometimes involved homemade landmines and matchlock guns.
The young girls fought in front, but the elderly, women, and the weak were never idle—those who could fight fought; those who couldn't acted as logistics.
In these water battles, serious injuries were normal. People could even die.
Spring rain is as precious as oil. Especially in the north, spring irrigation water was vital. This year wasn't a severe drought, but rain had been scarce.
Xie Yu saw that the woman standing in the center—surrounded by the village chief Granny Jiang and a few elders—was the aunt she had met that morning while carrying water. Now the woman's hair was messy, clothes torn, several wounds on her forehead bleeding and scabbing.
She had gone to fetch water that morning and been beaten by people from Li Family Village across the river. After hearing that, her village mobilized immediately—they absolutely refused to let others monopolize the spring irrigation water.
A major fight was about to explode.
Jiang Fang, weak as a chicken, trembled as she held her sickle.
Xie Yu bumped her with an elbow, signaling her to move back.
She herself blended into the crowd, planning to watch first and act as needed.
When they reached the riverbank, Li Family Village had also arrived in full numbers.
Xie Yu counted the heads—both sides were about equal.
She looked at the waterwheel in the river—this year was dry, water levels low. Even the wheel could no longer turn; the bamboo channels had long dried up.
And this area was downstream.
She was still thinking when both village chiefs shouted, and the two sides immediately waded into the river and charged, starting the fight without warning.
Caught in the middle of the crowd, Xie Yu was nearly trampled to death.
She cursed loudly.
Seeing the fight intensify, she knew if this continued, someone would die—and then the grudge would last generations.
She grabbed a long stick, climbed onto the waterwheel, found a spot with stable footing, and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"STOP! ALL OF YOU, STOP FIGHTING!"
No more being gentle with the masses. Whoever was fighting the fiercest—she hit with her stick. Each strike is precise.
But before the two sides calmed down, she was injured.
She had tapped the fighting Granny Jiang lightly with her stick—being careful because it was an elder. But Granny Jiang, without even seeing who hit her, scooped up a mud-covered rock and hurled it at her.
Xie Yu dodged the rock but was splattered with mud. She roared:
"GRANNY!"
The fighting finally stopped. Everyone looked up at her.
Xie Yu used the fiercest tone she could muster:
"So you want to fight for water, right?! Even if you win, then what? Can you guard this river every single day and stop the other village from fetching water?"
"And even if you could—what then? The losers won't be able to irrigate their fields. They'll harvest nothing. Do you expect them to starve?"
"If the winners have grain, you think the losers won't steal it? You think they'll stick to sticks and hoes? They'll come with knives!"
"You think you matter?!" someone on one side yelled.
Xie Yu smacked her knee, stomach, and chest—three hits in three seconds. The girl immediately went down.
Silence.
"Now—everyone step back to your own side of the river," Xie Yu commanded. "It's a dry year. Water must be saved. Lock the waterwheels. There isn't enough water for wasteful flood irrigation."
"Later, the two village chiefs will report the acreage of both villages. Water will be allocated based on land size. Each village can draw only a set number of buckets per day, and you will irrigate using ladles."
"Each side will send two people to supervise the water use. I'll also come check from time to time. Nobody is stealing water."
Someone disagreed. Xie Yu bared her teeth, letting out a low growl.
Everyone instantly quieted down.
"And another thing," she said, standing on the waterwheel and looking upstream. "We're downstream. There are villages upstream with their own wheels. They've already used up most of the water. Of course we don't get any. Each of your villages will send ten people—we're going to Fang Village upstream this afternoon."
The villagers stared at her.
Then someone snorted, trying not to laugh.
"She's like the Valiant Army," one aunt said. "I heard they divide water like this in the north too."
Xie Yu froze.
Others began shouting playfully:
"Da-Yu, go be an official! You'd make a great magistrate!"
"Yeah! If our Da-Yu takes the exam and becomes our county head, it'd be perfect!"
Yeah right.
Her face burned. She muttered under her breath and hopped down from the waterwheel.
But she didn't leave.
A fight was like a fire—it needed to be watched closely, or it might reignite.
She stayed until both sides retreated and took only the allotted water.
That afternoon, she led a group upstream to force Fang Village to stop their waterwheel.
Fang Village, of course, resisted. Xie Yu, of course, used the threat of force.
In the end, everything was resolved.
But Xie Yu was exhausted.
When she returned to Jiang Fang's house, she collapsed face-first onto the woven mat, limbs spread like a starfish, and let out a long, heavy sigh.
This—this was why she didn't want to become an official. Or hold power.
Too exhausting.
Jiang Fang, who had finished planting all nine squares, came back and saw her lying there. Feeling sympathetic, she said:
"Tired, right."
"Sigh, I really wonder when the Valiant Army will start managing our southern outskirts too. When will the Third Princess look after us as well?"
The Third Princess was already managing it.
Xie Yu rolled over.
And the people in the northern region were under Shen Changyin's administration.
Jiang Fang was still sighing. "People always say officials should behave like parents, but the northern region actually treats its people that way."
Xie Yu didn't reply.
She was still angry that Shen Changyin had used her name to initiate military farming.
But if she judged the matter of military farming by itself, she shouldn't be angry at Shen Changyin at all. She should actually appreciate it, even praise her, because Shen Changyin truly treated the common folk well.
It was just like that first night after she transmigrated. Shen Changyin had deceived her, but the woman's control over troops and her ability to command was undeniably legendary and awe-inspiring.
Xie Yu scratched her hair.
Ah—
This person was infuriating.
"Right, it seems the Valiant Army is going into the mountains to wipe out the bandits soon. But the garrison here… they're just lazing around every day, eating and sleeping, not doing a thing."
Xie Yu suddenly sat up. "Bandits? We have bandits nearby?"
"Of course." Jiang Fang said it as if it were the most natural thing. "Not sure if they'll come down to rob us this year. In the past, they mostly robbed travelers."
Of course they will come. This year is a drought.
Xie Yu jumped up and hurried straight to the village chief's home.
She had to immediately organize the able-bodied villagers for training, in case the bandits attacked.
She had seen the fight earlier that morning. The damage was serious, but the fighting skill on both sides had been painfully awful. Chickens pecking at each other.
After confirming that the nearby garrison was indeed full of useless people whose behavior hardly differed from the bandits themselves, she sought the village chief's approval and decided to begin training the able-bodied villagers starting the very next day.
She also instructed people who went to town to sell vegetables to keep their eyes open and see if they could gather any information about the bandits.
A few days later, one afternoon, she was in the village center conducting training.
"Groups of three. If you encounter bandits, one attacks, one covers, one supports."
She divided the villagers.
"You all have farm work during the day, so I won't assign daytime patrols. If you see bandits, don't say anything, don't resist, just run here immediately and strike the gong. Use all your strength."
"The rest of you, when you hear the gong, rush here at once. Understood?"
Everyone nodded.
"But some bandits prefer to sneak in at night. So I'm arranging night patrols. Still groups of three, each group only patrols for one watch. Four groups rotate so no one gets too tired to work the next day. If bandits come, the nearest group will support at once."
Once she finished assigning tactics, she began selecting individuals and teaching them how to fight—using a hoe to strike a person required a different posture than using it to till soil.
A woman who sold vegetables in town came running over with her little daughter in tow.
While selling vegetables in town, they overheard some suspicious talk near a herbal tea stand.
Bandits were people too. They had relatives, and quite a few even had families living at the foot of the mountain. After stealing goods, they sneaked down to deliver things home.
And in that tea shop were two wives of bandits. Though the women spoke in low voices, they didn't notice the little girl playing nearby with mud. They were talking freely about what they planned to do with the money and grain from their next robbery, and every word was overheard.
Xie Yu listened carefully to the little girl's mumbled retelling and learned that the bandits' first target wasn't Jing Shui Village but the neighboring Li Family Hamlet.
But the bandits' movements were unpredictable. There was no rule stating that if they robbed one place, they wouldn't rob another. Jing Shui Village would do best to join forces with Li Family Hamlet.
She then went to ask the village chief further questions.
It turned out the bandit stronghold wasn't particularly large. They had about one to two hundred people. The group was formidable but not to the extent that the military absolutely needed to intervene.
She formed a plan—simply scaring the bandits away wasn't enough.
It wasn't the first theft you worried about, but the thief who stayed fixated on you. Spring plowing had just begun. When the lean season arrived and food shortages worsened, the bandits would only become more aggressive.
It was best to eliminate the entire bandit stronghold in one strike.
With that goal in mind, she quickly developed her strategy.
Soon enough, the day of the bandits' attack arrived.
It also happened to be the final day of her one-month agreement with Shen Changyin. Shen still hadn't found her, and none of the scouts had even suspected Jing Shui Village.
She was certain she could remain hidden until the very end. Certain she was about to win.
—
At dawn that morning—
Xie Yu and Jiang Fang gathered fifty able-bodied villagers from both settlements. Armed with weapons, they planned to head up the mountain early. When the bandits left their fort to attack, leaving it undefended, they would strike the stronghold.
The remaining villagers stayed hidden in the villages.
If the bandits panicked and fled uphill, the fifty-person vanguard would shut the stronghold gates and fire arrows from within.
Xie Yu was confident she would succeed. She trusted her aim and understood the advantage of attacking from higher ground.
The group formed ranks, and the villagers shouted excitedly, eyes blazing.
"Dayu, let's go. Lead us into battle. We'll win for sure."
"Exactly. We have Dayu and me. We'll definitely beat those half-starved bandits."
"Dayu is Dayu. Who do you think you are?"
They immediately began joking, morale high.
Xie Yu stood before them, smiling. "Move out."
Villagers lined the road to send them off. Right before she stepped out of the village, her pace slowed for a moment.
She looked back at their bright, trusting eyes and quietly sighed.
She waved over a twelve-year-old girl and slipped a small note into her pocket.
"If the bandits come, you run. You know how to ride the village chief's donkey, don't you? I know you've been sneaking rides. The chief knows too."
"Go to town. If you see someone with red cloth wrapped around her arm, give her this note. If you can't find one, go to a tea shop or something and ask the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper will know how to contact them. Tell her she'll get fifty taels if she delivers the message within one incense stick's time."
She straightened up, waved, and led her people into the mountains.
Thankfully she had experience from her first escape. Their speed was good, though exhausting.
Around eight in the morning, Xie Yu's group reached the woods beside the stronghold and took cover.
Many villagers leaned against trees, gasping for breath, massaging their legs.
Xie Yu simply breathed steadily and quietly, gripping her long blade.
Around nine, just as expected, the bandit stronghold gates opened.
Dozens of bandits poured out, some on horseback, some on foot—about a hundred and fifty people—and they descended the mountain.
The time was right.
She took a deep breath and gave a series of hand signals.
Action.
The operation went smoothly. They seized the stronghold, locked the gates, and armed themselves further with the bows stored inside, then waited for the bandits to return.
Close to noon, while Xie Yu rested against the high wall of the stronghold, she suddenly heard the thundering beat of hooves.
She stood and shouted, "They're coming."
She drew her bow and fired.
The bandits moved quickly. The villagers hadn't managed to kill many earlier. Now about a hundred and twenty remained, still fierce and charging with terrifying momentum.
Xie Yu kept firing. Even though she and a few hunters had the advantage of height, everyone else was just for morale. The pressure on her was immense.
Her hands were steady, her perception sharp. With every movement, a bandit fell.
Everything seemed to be going so well… until suddenly, fear stabbed through her.
What if she missed?
If even one bandit survived because her arrow went astray, what if that one was the reason the stronghold fell?
Would the villagers die because of her?
Was her strategy even right? Could they really wipe out the bandits with the high-ground advantage?
She wouldn't end up harming the people who entrusted their lives to her… right?
It felt like someone lifted her from a warm bed and threw her into a bottomless abyss. She kept falling, falling, falling.
Her heart pounded so violently it felt like it might burst from her throat.
But her hands stayed steady.
Until more footsteps sounded in the forest.
Her breath hitched. One arrow went astray.
Were there more bandits?
But no.
She focused, and between the trees she saw countless armored soldiers with red cloth tied around their arms.
Shen… the Valiant Army had arrived.
She exhaled a long breath and lowered her bow. Her arms tingled from being lifted too long.
Warmth returned with the circulating blood.
Only then did she hear the villagers beside her complaining in annoyance. "Why are they coming now?! We were almost done. Why show up at this exact moment?"
Xie Yu glanced down. Only twenty or thirty bandits remained. Caught between two forces, they instantly broke and fled.
She looked at their retreating backs, then at the lively villagers surrounding her.
She hadn't harmed them.
She suddenly laughed—brightly, freely—her heart feeling as light and open as the mountain wind.
The battle ended quickly.
They opened the stronghold gates, and both villagers and soldiers of the Valiant Army began carrying everything down the mountain.
Those who remained in the village soon arrived to help.
Jiang Fang, a scholar who couldn't even restrain a chicken, had been shooting arrows nonstop. Now she was completely exhausted.
Xie Yu didn't even need to explain.
Every step she took felt like walking on clouds, and going downhill made her legs turn weak.
The two of them didn't dare walk any farther. They found a patch of ground covered in dry leaves in the small grove, lay down side by side, looked up at the sky, and rested.
The strong young girls who went up the mountain were all picked up by their own families. Seeing the state the two girls were in, the villagers wanted to carry them down on their backs.
The two of them hurriedly waved their hands, saying it wasn't necessary, that resting for a bit would be enough.
After all, they were young and still cared about their pride—being carried down was too embarrassing.
After lying there for a while, the people on the mountain gradually thinned out.
Jiang Fang said, "I think I've had enough rest. Want to go?"
Xie Yu sighed and waved her hand. "You go ahead. Someone's coming to get me."
"Ha? Who do we even have at home who'd come get us?" Jiang Fang laughed.
But she suddenly heard slow footsteps crunching the dry leaves nearby.
A young woman dressed in white stood in front of them.
"I told you," Xie Yu said lazily as she looked at Shen Changyin, "I've got a control-freak guardian coming to pick me up."
Shen Changyin stood before them, expressionless, looking down at the small space between the two of them.
Jiang Fang suddenly sensed danger.
She looked at Shen Changyin's flawless face, then at Xie Yu, and realized the atmosphere was wrong.
She slid sideways to put some distance between her and Xie Yu, but the feeling only got worse.
She leapt to her feet.
"Goodbye." And she shot down the mountain like a streak of smoke.
Xie Yu stared at her running speed, amazed. "People really can unleash their hidden potential when escaping for their lives. She's faster than me."
She looked up at the expressionless Shen Changyin and patted the dry leaves beside her. "There's space now. Want to sit and rest?"
Shen Changyin didn't move.
"Oh, right, I forgot you're a germaphobe," Xie Yu said.
The beautiful, cold face in front of her lowered its gaze, like the serene statue of a bodhisattva in the dilapidated temple where Xie Yu lived. "You shouldn't have sent word to me."
Today was the last day of their wager. As long as Xie Yu didn't send that message, she would have won.
Xie Yu looked at the drifting blue sky through the gaps in the leaves. "Yeah, I should've known better. Who knew I was this competent? Turns out I didn't need your help at all."
"Do you regret it?" Shen Changyin asked.
"A little. But I had no choice. I had to make sure they stayed alive. Had to make sure they had something to eat. The mountain bandits rob us of grain every year—I want them to stop starving."
Xie Yu's voice was clear and crisp, yet Shen Changyin heard another voice beneath it.
—I want everyone in this world to stop starving.
That voice was familiar—her own voice. Yet foreign—because it sounded like her voice from long, long ago, bright and eager.
She lifted her eyes, and once again the hallucination appeared—though she had clearly taken calming medicine before coming to see Xie Yu.
The blood-stained, tattered figure changed as those words echoed.
The blood faded; the expensive but ruined clothing rebuilt itself into clean, plain garments; the features subtly shifted.
And standing before her was her younger self—the version of her who had just passed the imperial exam as Third Rank Scholar.
That young version of herself moved her lips, restless with ambition: "I want everyone in this world to stop starving."
That voice mixed with Xie Yu's, circling endlessly in her ears like a spell.
She closed her eyes, dug her nails into her palm, forcing herself to calm down and ignore the hallucination.
She lowered her head again. "Now you've lost."
"Yeah, I lost." Xie Yu sighed. "But honestly, that agreement of ours never had any legal effect."
The young woman who had just finished a battle, still lying there in the dry leaves, suddenly asked seriously, "Shen Changyin, how long do you need?"
"What?" Shen Changyin was puzzled.
"How long? For what you want—the supreme power you're aiming for. How long will it take you to get it?"
Shen Changyin considered carefully. "Three years."
"Okay. Then I'll give you three years. After three years, we'll separate. But during those three years, you can use my name to expand military settlements, seize power, whatever. I don't care."
"As long as you stay like this—like you were today, or like you were last month in the northern suburbs…" Xie Yu paused, searching for a word. "Be a good official."
Shen Changyin stared at her. Their eyes reflected each other like sky reflected in a lake. Finally she said, "Alright."
"But I still have one more question." Xie Yu didn't get up. "Why me?"
Was it because she had no power and was easy to control? Or because she had delivered herself into Shen Changyin's hands?
But neither of these reasons fully explained Shen Changyin.
The unreadable woman extended her hand—pale with a faint blush at the fingertips—and held her palm out, the lines delicate and clear.
"Your Highness, you're a fake Taoist. You don't read palms, and you don't understand fate or marriage."
What kind of reason was that?
Yet Shen Changyin said nothing more.
In the words she didn't say, there was something like this:
If you went to a real Taoist and asked about our fate together, you'd be surprised.
She glanced at her own hand, then at the Xie Yu lying on the ground, realizing she should probably help her up.
But she didn't.
She withdrew her hand.
Curled her fingers.
Let them brush against her palm inside her sleeve.
After hesitating for two or three seconds, she was about to reach out again—
but Xie Yu had already patted the ground and stood up on her own.
"Let's go." Xie Yu walked quickly past her, black hair brushing by.
They maintained a polite distance as they silently returned to the carriage.
"Do you need something to eat?" Shen Changyin asked first.
"No." Xie Yu gave a polite smile.
There was only one long bench inside the carriage. Shen Changyin sat in the middle, so Xie Yu chose a spot at the very edge, leaning her head against the wooden wall.
With every bump of the carriage, her forehead tapped lightly against the wood. It didn't hurt.
Shen Changyin looked over at her, then at the distance between them.
Feeling her gaze, Xie Yu said, "I'm all dusty. Keeping some distance lets you stay cleaner."
Shen Changyin turned away.
Xie Yu soon fell asleep, maybe from exhaustion, maybe because the rhythmic little taps were oddly soothing.
Shen Changyin allowed her gaze to drift for a moment, watching Xie Yu's features, her trembling eyelashes like butterflies ready to take flight.
She looked forward again.
The carriage curtain fluttered gently in the wind.
Then that blended voice—the spell—returned. And once Xie Yu closed her eyes, the hallucination slowly shifted back to the blood-soaked version.
She watched it walk toward Xie Yu, smear fresh blood beneath the sleeping girl's eyes like rouge on a bride.
"She's so annoying," the hallucination said. "I hate her the most today. She said so many stupid things."
The pale, sickly fingers dragged the blood across Xie Yu's cheek, down her neck, slowly drifting toward the neckline.
"Stop," Shen Changyin said. "Stop it."
"She hurt me. She angered me again today. Why can't I do this?"
The hallucination stared directly into her eyes. "She hurt me. I can do anything I want to her. You can too. We can—together."
Shen Changyin pulled a thin dagger from her sleeve and sliced her wrist. Blood welled up instantly, and the sharp pain shattered the hallucination.
Shards of illusion vanished.
She bandaged the wound, wrapping the white cloth layer by layer.
All around her was silence, as if the entire world had shrunk to this small carriage.
She finally looked again at Xie Yu—her defeated opponent, her fiancée, her wife who would one day die early—still sleeping peacefully, forehead tapping lightly.
She should've reached out earlier, should've helped her up, Shen Changyin thought.
So she gently reached out, cupped the sleeper's cheek, and pulled her closer.
Their foreheads touched. Soft lips hovered inches away. Their hair intertwined like vines.
The other person's breath brushed against her skin.
Shen Changyin thought, The hallucination was right. I should do something. I can do anything I want to her.
Whether it served her interests or not—whether it was about power, marriage, her face, her eyes, her lips— whether it was here in the carriage or later in the bedroom—Xie Yu owed her.
This was the power she had won.
Shen Changyin gently set Xie Yu's head onto her own shoulder.
—
T/N: Hi everyone, I just wanted to let you know that from now on, chapters will be published daily. The reason is that I didn't expect there to be such a big difference in the number of chapters between those who support me on Patreon and those who read for free.
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