The rural night sky was a deep blue. Moonlight fell like the finest silk across the earth. The soil under their feet was cool and tender, and the narrow field paths curled like silver serpents into the darkness.
The wind was brisk.
"Of course I have someone I like. Doesn't General Shen?"
The wind carried the words to Shen Changyin's ears. Before her mind caught up, her body instinctively stepped back, widening the distance.
The thin glass cup seemed nudged by a curious cat's paw, teetering at the edge of the table.
Xie Yu saw the instinctive retreat and wasn't offended. She simply stood still with a faint smile.
From the distant village came faint sounds of lively celebration.
Shen Changyin lifted her thick, dark eyelashes. Her expression was strangely calm.
"Your Highness, it seems your ability to lie has improved."
Xie Yu blinked.
"Who said I was joking?"
Shen Changyin's eyes were cold and remote, yet certain.
"You don't have anyone you like."
The glass cup at the edge of the table wobbled, about to fall, but somehow stopped and did not crash down.
Xie Yu looked slightly regretful.
"I'm hopelessly in love with her."
"Since that's the case, as Your Highness's future spouse and political partner, I want to know what kind of person she is. That shouldn't be too much to ask."
Shen Changyin stepped closer, pressing forward.
"Ask," Xie Yu also stepped forward, not avoiding Shen Changyin's gaze for even a moment.s
"What is her personality like?"
"Gentle and generous, calm and considerate."
"Her family background?"
"A scholarly family from the water towns of Jiangnan."
Shen Changyin's questions grew faster.
"Your Highness has lived in the palace all year round. When did you meet her?"
"That night, before I saved you, I saved her first."
"And where is she now?"
"Thanks to you, her family judged the capital to be dangerous and called her home. She left ten days after the rebellion."
"Separated by a thousand miles, does the Third Princess still love her?"
Xie Yu paused, but answered quickly.
"A feeling as firm as gold isn't shaken by distance."
"How did the feelings begin, and by what were they determined?"
"Uh…"
Xie Yu tried to picture some romantic scene, but she had never truly liked anyone. For a moment, she was stuck.
Shen Changyin stepped closer again, as if she had seized victory, as if she had uncovered a riddle.
"One. Word. At. A. Time.
This person doesn't exist."
Xie Yu lifted her head.
"Love begins without warning and deepens without end. On that starry, chaotic night, when your troops rampaged and seized power, I saw her for the first time. I had nothing on me but the moon, and so I pledged myself to her under its light."
"You were still carrying the white jade pendant from your engagement with the eldest Miss Shen of Jiangnan."
"My heart was already set. I can no longer promise myself to Miss Shen. I can only apologize."
"If so, then when I forced you into marriage, why didn't you speak of this love?"
"You wield overwhelming power and oppression. My beloved is a mere commoner—if I spoke, it would only bring her trouble."
Shen Changyin took a step back, laughing out of sheer fury.
"So Your Highness cannot live happily with her beloved today, and that is my fault."
"As long as you know."
Under the sparse stars and thin moon, the silence between them deepened until even insects and birds sounded louder.
Neither wanted to speak first. After a long moment, Shen Changyin turned toward the village and walked ahead.
Xie Yu followed a few meters behind, unhurried.
She looked at the tall, slender back ahead of her, at the strands of hair swaying in the village night wind.
A sly smile suddenly appeared on her face.
Her steps grew lighter as she entered the village to greet the villagers again.
"Girl," the village head's wife called to her, "your little Shen already spoke with us. She wasn't feeling well today, so we let her go rest first."
"Thank you, Auntie." Xie Yu nodded, sighing with practiced reluctance.
"I may not love her romantically, but we grew up together. I'm no heartless stone—she has long been like family to me."
"When my family grows distant from me, how could I not feel hurt?"
"Ah, true enough." Old Li and the others sighed. "Having someone she likes isn't a crime."
They pulled Xie Yu over. "Come, drink. Drink enough and you won't feel sad."
Xie Yu sat again at the table.
She'd been carrying serious injuries, and shouldn't have been drinking. But earlier that day, to avoid suspicion, they concealed the deep wound on her waist and abdomen and only told the villagers she had hand injuries and had been beaten.
Facing these seasoned retired death-soldiers, Xie Yu didn't dare refuse too much. She mentioned twice that she was injured, but they insisted, and Old Li even patted her chest promising it was fine—so she simply started drinking.
She rarely drank. Last time at Mingyan House she got drunk—first because she hadn't known the rose distillate contained alcohol and drank it too fast, and second because it also contained an aphrodisiac that sped up her loss of control.
Now, drinking the homemade village brew, she felt nothing unusual. Even drinking until midnight left her only slightly tipsy, while Old Li and the hunters were the ones who collapsed.
Most villagers had already gone home. Only the drinkers remained, so she asked for their addresses and carried each person home in turn, receiving praise from their families at every door.
Only after that did she return to the room she shared temporarily with Shen Changyin.
She pushed the door open. In the dim, pea-sized candlelight, Shen Changyin was already lying in bed, seemingly asleep.
She was slender, and even her sleeping posture was neat—lying against the wall, occupying very little space, leaving the rest of the bed empty and tidy, as if waiting for someone to lie down.
Xie Yu glanced at the scene, then quietly backed out and knocked on the village head's wife's door.
"Auntie, I'm sorry to disturb you so late. But since everything is clear between us now, and I'm determined to marry another, I shouldn't share a bed with her and risk delaying her future."
"If you have any old bedding to sell me, I'll make a pallet on the floor."
The village wife glanced toward their room and understood.
"That's right. Girl, you're a good person."
"Come, I'll get you some quilts."
A short while later, Xie Yu returned with a mat and quilt, made a pallet, and lay down.
Before lying down, she looked once at Shen Changyin and noticed she hadn't moved at all—still lying silently on the bed, her blanket perfectly smooth, like a stone statue rather than a living person.
Xie Yu didn't care whether she was asleep or pretending. She lay on the pallet and fell asleep within ten minutes.
As night deepened, the oil lamp dimmed.
Shen Changyin sat up silently, left the bed, and stood beside Xie Yu's pallet, watching her.
Her movements made no sound—not even the rustle of a quilt. She was like a ghost.
When Xie Yu had entered earlier, she hadn't been asleep. She had been waiting. But the other woman never came.
There was no warmth beside her. Only cold bedding.
Moonlight seeped through the paper window, casting a bright strip across Xie Yu's sleeping face. She looked obedient when she slept—the kind of obedience that softened the heart.
But when those eyes opened, when those soft lips parted to speak with that near-taunting look—she became unbearably hateful.
As she watched, Shen Changyin knelt beside the pallet. Her back remained straight, her head refusing to bow, but her hand lowered to Xie Yu's forehead.
A little warm. The wound must still be infected.
Her hand slowly slid down, covering Xie Yu's eyes, then her mouth, and finally met her other hand at the neck.
Her long, pale fingers tightened little by little, like the smallest cage in the world—one that could trap the other woman's life in her grasp.
Time passed uncertainly. Xie Yu's face flushed, breath weakening, her brows knitting in discomfort even in sleep.
At that moment, Shen Changyin's hands suddenly withdrew. She hid them behind her, breathing fast and ragged, realizing the hair at her temples was wet with sweat.
She tried to stand, bracing on the bedding, but her legs gave out and she sank back to her knees.
One hand pressed against her chest, feeling her own rapid breathing. She didn't know what was happening to her.
It was as if the act of choking Xie Yu had given her some inexplicable sensation.
A tingling spread from her fingers to her whole body, bringing with it a deeper, heavier craving.
She pressed her left hand to her chest, as if touching her own body could bring comfort—but the comfort felt like poison.
Her gaze fell on Xie Yu's arm outside the quilt. On that long, well-shaped hand that had once held hers tightly, once mingled blood with hers.
She lifted that hand gently and laid it onto her own left hand. The unfamiliar warmth pressed against her palm, then through her palm, spreading to her chest, her breasts, her whole body.
She closed her eyes, lowering her head like someone devout—or a sinner lost in desire.
Moonlight fell on her hair like the judgment of the night.
She didn't know why she felt this way. She didn't know why she was like this.
She was supposed to only feel hate.
Long ago, she had hated the one who pushed her fate into a bottomless abyss.
Hated that this person wasn't as hateful as she should be—was even good, in some ways.
Hated that she had died so early in the previous life. If she had lived, would fate have changed?
Now it should also be hate. Hate that she saved her. Hate that she was so alive now, yet would wither later.
Even tonight, it should have been only anger—anger at losing control of this person.
Anger enough to harm her.
But that anger had morphed into another vivid desire.
She restrained herself. She did nothing more. She only held the other hand against herself through her own palm and the thin village clothing.
Even so, the waves inside her rose again and again, layer upon layer, but never reached a peak. She was like a stranded fish—each wave easing her thirst a little, yet never returning her to the sea.
Each time it ebbed, the desire grew sharper.
Enough time had passed. Even without the awaited wave crest, she opened her eyes—glittering with moisture—and placed Xie Yu's hand back where it had been.
Xie Yu was still sleeping soundly, her cheeks slightly flushed from the alcohol.
How could she wake? And even if she did, she likely wouldn't understand what had just happened. She would only ask with concern, "Is your heart feeling unwell?"
In her previous life, she had died at twenty-nine. After rebirth, three years had passed, but her body was only eighteen. Of course she would not understand Shen Changyin's tides.
Moonlight was bright, and the tide had fully receded. The fish lay lonely in a puddle.
Shen Changyin suddenly sat back, then stood, stumbling several steps away, as if only now realizing what she had just done.
Had she made a mistake?
Was Xie Yu too dangerous?
Should she never have kept this person by her side?
She gulped for breath. Even now, the lingering echo of the tide remained in her body, and yet she thought:
After we return to the capital, let this dangerous person go.
—
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