Shen's Previous Life
"Ahhh—!"
The maid who had been holding the rogue shrieked. Blood streamed from the wound on the back of her hand as she ran out of the room.
The guards outside immediately locked the door.
Shen Changyin held a shard of pure white porcelain. Red blood gathered drop by drop at its tip and fell onto the expensive Persian carpet.
She was breathing hard, eyes alert, still shaken.
After the maid who had been applying her makeup ran out, she encountered someone outside and began crying urgently. "She refuses to cooperate with the makeup at all."
The person she was speaking to finally replied. The voice was young, almost childish, yet calm. "Bring in two guards. Bind her hands and feet. Fix her head in place."
"Go treat your wound quickly. Then come back and continue."
The door opened.
Shen Changyin instinctively tightened her grip on the porcelain shard. The moment someone entered, she raised her voice:
"I am an academician of the Hanlin Academy, Third Place in the last imperial examination—Shen Yu. Whatever you intend to do, you've taken the wrong person."
Little Wan walked up to her. She was in the middle of adolescence, lanky and frighteningly thin, her skin a wheatish tone.
"This is the Crown Princess's residence," she said.
"So no matter how high your rank is, it's useless."
Shen Changyin slid the porcelain shard deeper into her sleeve and attempted negotiation. "I don't understand. What use am I?"
She forced a smile. "My status is low. I was born and my mother died soon after—I've always been considered ill-fated. How could I possibly bring luck to the Crown Princess?"
"You and Her Highness have matching birth charts. That's enough," little Wan replied.
She did not wish to waste more time. With a flick of her fingers, two strong guards stepped forward, firmly restraining Shen Changyin, controlling her limbs, pressing her into a seat before the dressing mirror.
Shen Changyin felt the porcelain shard pressing against the skin of her wrist, but she restrained herself from acting rashly.
She knew her strength. She could not fight two guards. She could only wait—wait until they believed she had submitted, then look for a chance to break free.
So she stopped struggling and obediently allowed the bandaged maid to return and paint her with bright, vivid makeup.
"Done."
After half an hour, the two or three maids who had dressed and styled her finally straightened.
Little Wan, who had been quietly waiting in the room, cast her a look.
The mirror faithfully reflected Shen Changyin's face—skin cold-white like new snow, brows like distant mountains, pupils dark and unfathomable as a deep pool.
Her pale lips had been forcibly painted a deep red. The delicate features that had previously been restrained by scholarly frailty now emerged with near-perfect beauty.
Even little Wan paused in surprise.
"She will like you," little Wan said. "And you will like her. Our Third Princess is a very good person."
"You'll be happy together."
Shen Changyin remained silent, as if she had heard nothing.
Her fingers hooked again around the porcelain shard.
After the makeup was done, it was time to change into the wedding dress. Shen Changyin walked obediently into the inner room. Fortunately, only two maids of moderate vigilance followed her.
She first hid the porcelain shard beneath her old clothes. Then, shielded by the new wedding dress, she discreetly retrieved it again.
Every movement was cautious, terrified of being discovered. Fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
Finally done.
She stepped out. The maids praised her beauty.
Little Wan, still youthful, leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed. Her expression was grim as she kept glancing toward the main courtyard.
In this side courtyard, several matrons hired temporarily were preparing the wedding rituals.
The marriage rite had been arranged in haste. The Crown Princess's residence would not normally keep such elderly matrons. These had all been transferred from the palace and from various princesses' estates.
They worked while chatting.
Each served her own mistress. None cared whether Xie Yu lived or died. Instead, they felt a strange excitement about this marriage rite.
There was no chief steward overseeing them here. Little Wan was only a girl. They felt no restraint and gossiped more and more freely.
They speculated about both parties' identities, about how many guests had arrived, and eventually about Xie Yu's illness.
A matron from the Fifth Princess's residence said, "She was so arrogant two years ago—strong as an ox. How could she suddenly fall ill?"
She lowered her voice slightly. "It's heavenly punishment. Heaven won't tolerate her becoming Crown Princess. That's why she won't survive. What a pity another person has to be dragged down with her."
As soon as her words fell, little Wan—still leaning against the door—pulled a throwing knife from her sleeve and hurled it straight at her.
The old matron died instantly.
Blood splattered onto the others. They screamed.
Little Wan's eyes were cold with hatred. "Anyone who says another word will share her fate."
A living life was gone in an instant.
Shen Changyin was startled. Her breathing quickened.
Little Wan turned back meaningfully toward her. "Finished dressing?"
The maids beside Shen Changyin nodded.
"Do you have anything you want to leave here?" Little Wan asked.
Shen Changyin shook her head and said as calmly as possible, "I'm ready."
From this courtyard to the wedding hall, they would pass through a garden. The winding paths had narrow stretches where only one person could pass. That would be her final chance to escape.
She had prepared herself.
Hearing her answer, little Wan said only, "Let's go."
Shen Changyin walked out with the maids, heart pounding.
As she stepped over the threshold, little Wan suddenly spoke.
"Leave the porcelain shard."
Shen Changyin stopped. Her blood turned cold.
But she showed nothing. She simply loosened her hand. The shard slipped from her sleeve and fell to the ground.
Little Wan stepped aside. "It's for your own good."
Only in the garden did Shen Changyin understand.
Every concealed corner had someone watching. Every possible escape route was guarded by soldiers or figures in black.
It was a net from heaven to earth.
There was no chance of escape.
She had no options left. But as they neared the wedding hall, she made one final attempt.
She shoved aside the maid beside her and sprinted toward the main gate of the residence.
She hadn't taken more than a few steps before she was slammed to the ground. Rough gravel scraped her forehead, carving bloody lines into her skin.
She was forced to bow in the wedding ceremony.
Forced to be sent into the bedroom draped in red and white curtains.
In the heavy scent of medicine, she felt as though she were dreaming.
Everything was unreal.
But one thought was painfully real—
Her future. The future she had painstakingly built over more than a decade through caution and calculation.
Gone.
She stared at the red and white fabrics filling her vision, unfocused.
At certain moments, she thought of the figure three years ago wearing a straw hat.
She thought of herself standing proudly before the notice board, writing policy essays with bold confidence.
Time passed.
Her so-called newlywed wife handed her a letter.
Then immediately fell critically ill.
Resuscitated. Carried out of the bridal chamber.
Shen Changyin knelt where she was, feeling everything happen both too fast and too slow, like a dream.
And like someone inside a dream—
she could not control her body, nor the direction the dream would take.
She didn't know how long had passed before she finally regained consciousness. The room was empty; she was the only one left inside.
Guards were still keeping strict watch in the courtyard.
The letter lay quietly on the floor.
Her eyelashes trembled slightly. In the end, she reached out and picked it up.
It was a suicide note. She had only read halfway when hurried footsteps thundered into the courtyard.
Imperial guards rushed into the room. The moment they saw her, they seized her. Everything happened so fast that Shen Changyin had no time to react. Her mouth was covered, her head hooded, and she was stuffed into a carriage.
Someone yanked out her hand, forced her palm open, and pushed her sleeve up.
Then came the cold edge of a blade, slicing horizontally across her wrist. Blood dripped, drop by drop, into a bowl.
She was pinned down, unable even to curl her fingers. She could only feel her body temperature slowly draining away. In the end, even the pain became dull.
Those people took her blood and left. They sent her back to the bridal chamber without even calling anyone to bandage her. They simply left her lying on the floor.
Shen Changyin stared at the ceiling.
After a long while, her body temperature gradually returned. She had not died. Struggling upright, she picked up the suicide note again.
And continued reading quietly.
The next morning, a shriveled corpse wrapped in white cloth was delivered back to the Crown Princess's residence.
The residence was furious and silent.
The steward and the maids came to Shen Changyin and asked her what should be done.
She was still lying on the floor of the bridal chamber. After slowly climbing to her feet, she found it absurd.
Yesterday she had been a woman with no rights, forcibly bound and brought here. Today, just as the suicide note had said, she was able to command everyone in the residence.
The deceased had handed over all authority in the residence to her without reservation and had instructed the steward beforehand.
"Crown Princess, Her Highness's body has arrived. Please preside over the arrangements."
Shen Changyin asked tiredly, "Where is that young girl from yesterday?"
She was asking about little Wan. Little Wan had clearly been someone with strong opinions, the Crown Princess's confidante.
The steward lowered her voice. "Little Wan an is sharpening blades with others. She wants an explanation."
An explanation? That meant she was planning to seek accountability from the empress?
Like striking a stone with an egg.
Shen Changyin's head throbbed. She asked another question first. "What about my official position?"
The steward became even more cautious. "The Hanlin Academy has issued a notice congratulating you on becoming Crown Princess."
Which meant she no longer retained her post as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy.
The steward quickly added, "But all the people and property in this residence are at your disposal. Her Highness made arrangements long ago."
She almost pleaded. "Please preside over matters and let Her Highness be laid to rest soon."
This had already been explained clearly in the suicide note.
That body, while alive, had chosen the way most unbearable for the soul to find peace—cremation.
What kind of person would be willing to have her bones ground to ashes?
Probably a strange one.
The suicide note itself was strange. Shen Changyin could barely understand the last few paragraphs and could only guess at the writer's meaning from fragments of phrases.
She let out a cold laugh and said to the steward, "Cremate her."
Since the Crown Princess herself did not care, Shen Changyin did not care whether she would be left without a whole body.
The steward was shocked but could not stop her.
The next morning, on an open field outside the capital, a cremation furnace was set up.
The white-wrapped corpse lay quietly before it.
Shen Changyin stood pale-faced in front of the furnace, beside the body. To this day, she had not lifted the cloth to look at the woman's face.
Following her instructions, the steward brought the bamboo box from Xie Yu's bedchamber. She hesitated. "It seems to be filled with letters."
"Would you like to open them?"
Shen Changyin shook her head. "Her suicide note clearly instructed that these letters be burned with her. Why should I read them? Send them in together."
Numerous officials from the Ministry of Rites, imperial guards, and several Daoist priestesses lingered at the edge of the field, monitoring her every move, recording everything, ready to report back to the empress.
When the body and the bamboo box were pushed into the furnace and the fire was lit below, the air above the furnace warped in the heat.
Shen Changyin could clearly sense the Ministry officials relaxing.
They gradually dispersed, leaving only the people from the residence and Shen Changyin to wait.
In the end, some ashes were gathered and placed into a white porcelain urn.
Shen Changyin told the steward, "Prepare horses secretly. Be ready at any time."
The steward did not understand but complied.
During the first month after Xie Yu's death, the residence was busier than ever.
People from the Ministry of Rites came every day to tell Shen Changyin she must observe mourning rites. The entire capital was watching her.
She could only act discreetly.
Three months later, the capital all knew that the "Crown Princess" had caught a chill and could not leave the house, hiding indoors every day.
No one noticed that a low-profile carriage quietly left the residence and sped northwest.
Following the route map given in the suicide note, Shen Changyin eventually found the crooked-neck willow tree.
In the vast wilderness, such a tree truly existed.
Following the instructions in the note, she personally buried the urn beneath the tree.
She stepped back a few paces, gazed at the lush crooked-neck willow, then turned and left without hesitation, returning to the capital.
The Crown Princess was dead. As the widow left behind, Shen Changyin's official career had already been cut off, and she was not permitted to leave the capital freely.
Ideals and freedom were now untouchable things.
But at least she had inherited more than enough wealth.
The steward served her with utmost dedication, sparing no expense in providing the finest food and clothing.
Kesi silk worth its weight in gold, woven with gold and silver threads and peacock-feather threads; shimmering gauze that required dozens of weavers half a month to produce a single bolt—all of it adorned her.
Exquisite and cruel kingfisher-feather hair ornaments came in sets upon sets; scattered hairpins and dangling ornaments were too many to count. When laid out together, the gemstones reflected one another in dazzling brilliance.
Top-grade tea, off-season fresh fruits, seafood transported across thousands of miles packed in ice, and chefs who had once worked in the imperial kitchens—every dish was prepared with the utmost refinement.
She had once barely recognized such things. Now she could use them at will.
The starving bastard who once had to steal dried goods from others' courtyards to survive was now living such a life.
She found it absurd and once asked the steward how much money remained in the accounts to support such lavish spending.
The steward was stunned, then brought out thick stacks of land deeds and shop account books. "We also have several enterprises. Her Highness called them factories. That's where the real profits come from."
Shen Changyin flipped through them, growing more alarmed the more she read.
The steward added, "These were all established by Her Highness over the past few years. Wherever she went, she built one."
"She put great effort into making them operate independently. Each year they only send dividends to the capital. The rest of the money is distributed among the workers or used to aid the local poor."
"Please don't look down on it. Even if we only receive dividends, ten noble households in this capital combined could not match our wealth."
As Shen Changyin slowly reviewed everything, she gained a new understanding of the Third Princess—whose military authority had once reached its peak but who had often been criticized for being overly merciful.
If that woman had not fallen gravely ill, Shen Changyin would certainly have chosen to serve under her.
Perhaps this world truly should have such an empress.
But it was useless to think of that now. She no longer had the qualifications to serve as an official.
From that day on, she gradually grew accustomed to the excessively luxurious food and clothing.
Over time, she was refined by this overwhelming inheritance.
The woman who once could eat fish without removing the stench or half-cooked rice porridge began to criticize the chef's skills and the freshness of ingredients. She learned which rare ingredient required which pairing to achieve perfect harmony.
She could now distinguish between two bolts of cloth both claiming to be brocade—identifying which was finer, more comfortable, and, of course, more expensive.
Her study was filled with ancient books she purchased. These once-unreachable collectibles now merely served to pass the time.
In the calm days, she did not forget one thing.
She wanted to find the woman in the straw hat. She wanted answers.
But every search led nowhere, as if that person had never existed.
Though regret lingered, life went on.
Three years passed in calm—almost happiness.
At the end of the third year, the empress caught a chill and did not attend court for seven days.
The court and the capital were thrown into uproar. After all, the empress's robust health over these years had been obvious to all. She was already over sixty, yet her energy surpassed that of many officials in their forties.
No one had expected her sudden collapse.
Shen Changyin heard the news but paid little attention.
She believed it would have nothing to do with her.
Until the second night after the empress awakened, when imperial guards quietly surrounded the residence.
An inner attendant held the imperial edict, accompanied by royal shadow guards and imperial physicians. They barged in openly, claiming they were there to regulate her health.
Of course Shen Changyin refused.
But it was an imperial edict—personally delivered by a large contingent of imperial guards.
Facing the bright yellow silk decree, she suddenly thought of little Wan.
Three years earlier, on the third day after the Crown Princess's death, little Wan had led all the fighters in the residence, hijacked the Grand Princess's carriage, hidden inside it, and stormed into the palace.
Her blade had already been pressed to the empress's throat, yet she had not struck. She had stubbornly demanded an explanation—about Xie Yu's cause of death.
She never got her explanation. The empress lied and stalled for time with clever words. The royal shadow guards shot little Wan dead with a single arrow.
Everyone she had brought into the palace was wiped out.
Jiang Fang and Physician Zhang, who had been providing disaster relief in Jizhou, hurried back—only to find this scene.
They had no choice. To obtain the empress's "forgiveness" and prevent her from venting her anger on the entire Crown Princess's residence and the Northwestern Army because of Little Wan's actions, they ceded nearly seventy percent of the military power that had originally belonged to Xie Yu.
Then they took what remained of their forces and returned to the northwest. After that, they never came back to the Central Plains.
Before leaving, they came to see Shen Changyin once.
Jiang Fang's expression toward her was complicated. In the end, she could only bow deeply. "I don't know whether she still had the strength to explain things to you on the wedding day. But I can promise you—this so-called wedding to bring good fortune was absolutely not her intention."
"I must also apologize on her behalf. I hope you understand—she was a very good person."
"We are returning to the northwest. We may never meet again. Please take care of yourself in the capital. If you encounter trouble, contact us. The Northwestern Army will certainly help with all its strength."
Shen Changyin's thoughts at the time were identical to the thoughts she had now when facing the imperial edict.
In the face of imperial power, what could you possibly do?
After Xie Yu's death, even the Northwestern Army—which had once controlled more than half the nation—had been forced to retreat to the two frontier provinces and hand over nearly seventy percent of its troops to the empress.
This was imperial authority.
She looked at the edict before her, glanced at the anxious steward, lowered her eyes, and said softly, "This subject receives the decree."
She went into the inner chamber. Two imperial physicians cut open her wrist and drained more than half a bowl of blood before leaving.
Shen Changyin watched quietly as the residence physician applied herbal paste to her wound and wrapped it in bandages.
The physician's heart ached as she comforted her. "In ten or so days it will heal. Apply scar-removal ointment afterward, and no trace will remain."
But five days later, the imperial physicians returned again, bringing many blood-tonifying medicines. Beneath the previous wound, they cut another gash.
This became routine.
Every five days the imperial physicians came—bringing supplements and leaving with more and more fresh blood.
The residence that had once brought her peace was now merely a place where the empress raised medicinal ingredients. It was Shen Changyin's cage.
She grew gaunt at an alarming rate.
She had never considered herself strong, yet she suddenly realized how vibrant the life force flowing in her body had once been.
Imperial guards remained outside the residence day and night. Shen Changyin stared at the unchanging flowers and trees in the courtyard—and soon began to vomit.
She started planning her escape.
She disguised herself as a maidservant from the residence, using procurement as an excuse to leave. From there she intended to flee the capital.
Six hours later, pursuers appeared behind her.
Three days later, she was captured, pressed into the mud, and sent back to the capital.
She was forced to kneel on the carpet in the empress's study. The empress was furious, demanding to know how the imperial physicians and Daoist priestesses had "guarded her medicinal ingredient."
A Daoist priestess quickly soothed her. "From now on, it would be better to keep her in the palace."
"Although her birth chart was highly compatible with the Crown Princess's, and thus she can also nourish Your Majesty, she is not the Crown Princess herself. The effect of her pure blood is already much weaker."
"I have happened upon ancient texts describing how to refine a medicine woman. Why not keep her in the palace and turn her into one?"
The empress nodded. "Then do so."
The following years became Shen Changyin's hell.
Medicines entered her mouth, and she herself became medicine.
Blood-tonifying foods were fed to her; then the dagger for bloodletting was laid across her wrist.
Cut after cut, until there was no intact place left on her wrists. They reopened wounds that had not yet healed.
The flesh at her wrists became fragmented—like diced meat cut by a chef in the imperial kitchens.
Shen Changyin understood clearly that those who bled her did not hate her. The Daoist priestesses, the imperial physicians, the empress—none of them hated her.
They simply did not regard her as a person. They did not even consider her a living being with sensations.
They handled her the same way they handled every medicinal herb.
Days passed, each second as agonizing as a lifetime. Gradually, she became a more effective medicine woman.
The empress's graying hair slowed. The wrinkles on her face diminished.
In great delight, her maternal affection surged. She secretly summoned her daughters to show them how this life-prolonging medicine was produced.
They sat around the grand hall. Fine wine and delicacies filled the tables.
Shen Changyin was bound hand and foot in the center of the hall, blood dripping steadily from her wrists—from the beginning of the banquet to its end.
The princesses received her blood with delight, thanking their mother for her benevolence.
The empress beckoned gently, urging them to drink quickly.
There were many such banquets. Sometimes the Sixth Princess, having consumed too much Five-Stone Powder, would lose control. She would grab Shen Changyin's bleeding hand and bite directly into it.
This was Shen Changyin's life.
In such a life, she could not help but hate.
She hated these people. She hated herself for ever entering their world.
She could not stop herself from hating Xie Yu. She could not stop herself from hating her own birth chart. She even hated her mother. She hated everything in this world.
Her hatred grew to the point where she wished she had never been born.
If one is born only to suffer, then why be born at all?
After two years and five months of this life, she finally found a way to send a message beyond the palace walls.
It was addressed to the Northwestern Army.
Half a month later, many figures dressed in black infiltrated the palace at night and rescued her.
Only then did she learn that this was the last group of secret police and special forces Xie Yu had left behind.
They were exposed while passing through Zhangzhou. Two-thirds of the soldiers died protecting her so she could escape.
There were more assassinations afterward.
By the time they reached the Northwestern Army's garrison, only a little more than a dozen soldiers remained by her side.
Jiang Fang and Physician Zhang came to receive her.
"You can stay here," Jiang Fang said, leading her to a courtyard. "This is where she used to live."
Shen Changyin could not help asking, "What happened to the people in the Crown Princess's residence?"
The steward and the maids had treated her well. She had been taken away suddenly—she could not help worrying.
Jiang Fang reassured her. "The steward was clever. Once she knew you had been taken into the palace, she dismissed the maids overnight and sent word to us. We sent people to retrieve some things from the residence."
"So when the empress's soldiers returned to the Crown Princess's residence, it was basically empty."
Jiang Fang casually pushed open a door. Inside was a storage room piled with countless items brought back from the residence. "We weren't sure which things were yours and which were hers, so we put them all together. You can sort through them later."
Shen Changyin nodded.
She spent two peaceful months with the Northwestern Army.
Her weight never returned. She was still little more than a skeleton.
But she was content enough.
Until one day, while rummaging through the storeroom in search of a pair of ruby earrings she once wore, she came across a series of notebooks that had belonged to Xie Yu.
She still hated her—hated the inexplicable compatibility of their birth charts that had become the starting point of so much suffering.
Yet by some strange impulse, she began reading the notebooks.
They were old, recording events from five or six years ago when Xie Yu had fought the Hu tribes in the northwest.
By the end, she found herself reading with keen interest, attempting to provide her own solutions to every problem Xie Yu had encountered.
Until she reached the section titled "Interrogations," detailing the torture of prisoners of war.
Her hand froze.
Then it began to tremble.
She reread it again and again—every word, every line of reasoning revealed between the sentences.
It was a way of thinking she knew.
A way of thinking she had once day and night wanted to defeat.
The way of thinking she had written countless policy essays to refute.
The person she had searched for countless times…
The northwestern sun was high and bright. Sitting in a courtyard with gray-white earthen walls, she laughed and cried at once, until she trembled uncontrollably and vomited.
Her hatred did not diminish.
She hated that the other woman had never married yet had left her back then. She hated that she had refused to reveal her true identity. She hated that they had missed each other, wronged each other. She hated that the woman who had once been her confidante had later become the one who pushed her into the abyss. She hated that her illness had ended too quickly, that she had died too soon, leaving her alone to suffer.
She hated that if they had recognized each other, if the illness had never happened, perhaps they would now be living in quiet happiness.
Her hatred surged like a flood.
And in some subtle corner of her heart, another unnamed emotion began to grow.
A month later, the Hu tribes that had been driven away six years earlier returned.
Jiang Fang, Physician Zhang, Old Jin, Zhu Ting—all went to fight. Though Shen Changyin could offer suggestions, her body could not withstand the jolting of horses. She could not even reach the front lines and could only wait anxiously in the courtyard.
They fought to the death and did not retreat.
A month later, the Hu retreated.
All four of them died on the battlefield.
There was no one left in the Northwestern Army capable of making decisions.
The court swiftly sent officials to take control.
Then the Fifth Princess arrived at the frontier.
She dismounted before the courtyard where Shen Changyin now lived, holding a riding crop with easy confidence, and walked inside.
Shen Changyin, gaunt and withered, sat beneath a jujube tree shedding its leaves, holding an old notebook.
The Fifth Princess tilted her head with interest. "I've always wondered—she had never even met you. How could she bear to leave so many good things to you?"
She frowned slightly.
"That's not right. I've thought it over again. My third sister was a true hero. If she had seen what you look like now—half human, half ghost—she would never have left anything to you."
"She left it to you precisely because she didn't see you," the other replied.
Shen Changyin looked at her quietly. "Your Highness the Fifth Princess, are you finished?"
The Fifth Princess did not grow angry at being interrupted. Instead, she said gently, "You handled my third sister's remains back then, didn't you? Mother empress wants her ashes for a purpose. Tell me where you buried her."
Shen Changyin smiled faintly. "You want to know?"
The Fifth Princess opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, a deafening explosion shook the heavens and earth. Sand and gravel filled the air.
The violent impact made her vision go black.
When she opened her eyes again, the courtyard was empty.
She frowned. "Gunpowder?"
How could it have such power?
There was no time to dwell on it. She let out a cold laugh and summoned her subordinates from outside. "She's escaped. Go after her."
—
For the next three years, Shen Changyin relied on the inheritance Xie Yu had left behind and fled from one end of the land to the other.
In many places, people who had once known Xie Yu were willing to lend her a hand. That was how she managed to remain at large for a full three years.
But in the third year, she was finally captured.
The Fifth Princess had already determined that Shen Changyin had buried Xie Yu's ashes somewhere in the northwest, though she did not know the exact location. So she brought Shen Changyin there as well, interrogating her day after day, attempting to force the location out of her.
The torture was repeated again and again.
Shen Changyin fainted countless times, only to be splashed awake with water and made to endure more punishment.
At one moment, she beckoned to the Fifth Princess. When the princess stepped forward, Shen Changyin—blood staining her teeth—smiled and said:
"Your third sister once told me that torture will never yield the truth."
She lunged forward and bit down viciously on the princess's ear, nearly tearing off the earlobe.
The Fifth Princess screamed and lashed her with a whip, striking her until she lost consciousness, only then managing to pull free.
Rage was followed by even harsher torture.
Later, even the princess herself began to feel that such methods would not produce results. She also feared killing Shen Changyin before getting any answers.
So she changed tactics.
She released Shen Changyin from the dark dungeon and moved her into a separate courtyard.
Half a month later, on a snowy night, Shen Changyin escaped by some unknown method.
She fled for three full days.
The Fifth Princess had originally intended to catch her immediately, but news arrived from the capital—the empress was gravely ill.
Panic seized her. The struggle for succession was imminent, and she had yet to form a clear plan.
That moment of hesitation allowed Shen Changyin to gain more distance.
But once she recovered her composure, she decided to settle this matter first. With Mother empress gravely ill, it would be best if she could immediately obtain her third sister's ashes. But if she could not, she could delay no longer.
On a snowy night, she finally caught up to Shen Changyin.
Beneath a crooked willow tree, she shot her through the heart and turned away without looking back.
Behind her, Shen Changyin leaned against the crooked willow and closed her eyes.
She and the willow were covered by the same blanket of snow.
In the winter of the thirty-fourth year of empress Rongchang of Great Yong, Shen Changyin died beside her wife.
When she opened her eyes again, it was the nineteenth year of empress Rongchang.
That year, her future wife was still a young girl.
Alive.
And she was alive too.
—
Author's Note:
I'm writing it, I'm writing it, I'm writing it.
The chapter where Little Xie wakes up is being written, but it wasn't ready to post yet. It might be posted at midnight after I finish, or tomorrow morning.
The timeline mind map is also being made.
Love you all.
— Little Wan
When the body was brought back, Little Wan lifted the covering and looked. She saw that Little Xie's throat had been cut open and her blood drained dry. That was why she insisted on seeking justice.
After her rebirth, Little Shen actually did not know that Little Xie had died so miserably. She had only thought Xie Yu had died of illness.
—
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