What is death?
Xie Yu had rarely thought about this question before. She was too young, too healthy. Thinking about death would have seemed foolish.
Until the moment death truly came.
She discovered that death is not sleep.
It is annihilation.
Sleep does not bring fear.
Death does.
She once read a theory: if brain-machine interfaces were ever invented, and a person's brain experienced the process of death in a virtual world, her body in the real world would also die.
Death is that indescribable. That terrifying.
Until she regained consciousness once more.
When awareness returned, she was not in any familiar place—not the palace, not her Crown Princess residence.
She was on a barren plain.
The very plain where the crooked willow tree stood.
She tried to move her fingers, wondering if she was now a ghost.
But she discovered she did not even possess the substance of a ghost.
She did not even have eyes.
She was simply a collection of the five senses.
She could see, hear, and smell—but she had no eyes, no ears, no nose.
Another question quickly surfaced.
Am I in the world inside a dream—or outside it?
Probably the dream world.
That pitiful girl who had been forced to marry her for good fortune had truly buried her ashes beneath this willow tree. That must be why she had "awakened" here.
She tried to move.
As the thought arose, the scene before her shifted.
Though she had no physical body, this could still be called movement.
Soon she drifted toward the capital.
In this state, she moved very quickly.
Once there, she glanced at a courier station's official bulletin and discovered that four years had already passed since her death.
She returned to her residence and found it empty.
Confused, she gathered every scrap of gossip from teahouses and taverns—especially the so-called royal secrets drunken middle-aged women loved to chew over.
Only then did she learn that her wife—the girl married to her for good fortune—had, for some reason, been taken into the palace.
So she followed her there.
She followed behind the empress.
She did not know why, but merely seeing the empress filled her with rage. She wanted to harm her.
At that moment, she wished she were truly a ghost, that she possessed some yin energy, so she could curse the woman to death.
After the thought arose, she paused, puzzled.
Where did such malice come from?
She froze.
How did I die again?
She only remembered being brought to the palace for treatment.
And then?
She could not recall.
Then she saw Shen Changyin.
Wrists bleeding.
Lying in the center of the great hall.
Emaciated, as if only bones remained.
Her wife.
Her lover.
The one she had searched for so long.
The one she had once told herself she would fight for.
She lay there quietly on the ground.
How strange.
Can a disembodied consciousness like mine still feel something being torn apart?
Why do I not even have eyes?
Without eyes, how can I cry for you?
Why do I not have hands?
Without hands, how can I fight for you?
She nearly fell into despair.
What did I do wrong?
Why must I be like this—only able to watch Shen Changyin suffer, unable to do anything?
For years afterward, she remained by Shen Changyin's side.
Every moment brought her immense pain, yet she could not leave.
When Shen Changyin was on the brink of death, she stayed beside her, urging her to live.
But Shen Changyin could not hear her.
When Shen Changyin finally began to flee, she encouraged her tirelessly.
But she could not hear her.
When Shen Changyin reached the barren plain and quietly lived in a courtyard, sitting beneath a jujube tree with few leaves, she wanted to shield her from the harsh sun.
But she still could not.
Eventually, she discovered something.
When she tried to embrace Shen Changyin, the other woman would feel a faint breeze brush past her.
That was the only thing she could do.
Be a trace of wind.
Nothing more.
She watched the flesh tear at Shen Changyin's wrists. She watched her soul shatter. She watched, on a snowy night beneath the willow tree, as Shen Changyin's heart was pierced through.
She could do nothing.
She was the greatest failure in the world—a clown who once claimed that loving someone meant fighting for her, yet could not fulfill that vow.
She was only a breeze, gently blowing snowflakes onto the body of the one she loved, covering her.
She looked at her lover—
But suddenly the scene before her faded.
In its place emerged a formation drawn in blood.
It felt achingly familiar.
The metallic scent of blood rushed into her awareness.
When the formation fully revealed itself, she finally saw—
At its center lay herself.
Eyes open in death.
The memory she had deliberately buried because it was too painful finally returned.
Ah.
So I died like that.
The thought came quietly.
Then a powerful force pulled her away.
Darkness.
This time, it was true sleep.
Not death.
She rested lightly, gradually sensing sounds from the outside world.
Gradually hearing breathing and footsteps close at hand.
Gradually feeling the sunlight shift across her face as the sun rose.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes.
Shen Changyin was sitting beside her bed.
Tears flowed before she even realized it.
When Shen Changyin saw her wake, she immediately covered her own mouth with her hand.
But her tears fell too—like pearls from a broken string, sliding down her cheeks and onto her hand.
After being unconscious for nearly a month, after nearly ten years without embracing Shen Changyin, after being drained of blood and dying once, Xie Yu finally woke up.
So many things had happened inside the dream.
So many things had happened outside the dream.
What should her first words be?
Xie Yu looked at Shen Changyin.
Her wife was dressed in white. Haggard and exhausted. Pale and thin. Yet she still sat upright, her posture straight, her hair meticulously arranged without a strand out of place.
She looked like a statue carved from white jade—though weary, at least on the surface she appeared whole.
After her rebirth, her wife had accomplished so much. She had become strong. She had become the Regent whose power dominated the court. She had become her wife and given her love.
And yet even larger tears rolled down Xie Yu's face.
She struggled to sit up and reached out to embrace Shen Changyin.
"How did you do it? How did you piece yourself back together?" she asked through tears.
"How much suffering did it take? How hard was it?"
Humans—whose bodies follow their brains into death.
Humans—whose depression becomes illness, whose illness traps them deeper in depression.
Humans—whose childhood shadows linger for life, who suffer from war trauma, who carry post-traumatic stress until even in peacetime they raise a gun at home and die.
Humans are fragile.
Truly fragile.
Fragile enough that even a single devastating blow can destroy them.
How had her wife managed it? After everything. After her soul and body had both been torn apart. After even Xie Yu, merely watching, had nearly broken down.
She should have shattered long ago.
And yet she had pieced herself back together.
Shen Changyin let her cry. She stroked the long hair falling over her back and gently patted her shoulder.
Only when Xie Yu was sobbing too hard to speak did she softly ask, "You know about my rebirth?"
Xie Yu lifted her head from her shoulder and nodded, her eyes red.
After experiencing two worlds, rebirth was no longer difficult to deduce. Why Shen Changyin's army bore traces of modern discipline. Why she seemed almost prophetic in certain matters. Why she harbored such deep hatred toward the Xie family.
But before experiencing those two worlds, Xie Yu had once tried to guess at Shen Changyin's past—yet she had never dared imagine something so painful, so dark.
How could she have guessed?
From the first time they met, although Shen Changyin sometimes behaved unusually, she was always calm, always strong enough that she seemed incapable of losing.
She joked. She enjoyed good food. She wore fine fabrics. She teased Xie Yu. She fell in love.
Those were the behaviors of someone healthy—someone who had not been shattered by catastrophe.
Given that, how could she have imagined the truth?
Sitting on the bed, her voice thick with tears, she said with more hatred than when she herself had been drained of blood, "Why didn't you just destroy the world?"
Shen Changyin actually laughed softly. "Then how would I have fallen in love with you?"
Xie Yu sniffed. "You could have abducted me by force. I'd fall in love with a world-ending demon."
Shen Changyin touched her head. "How did you suddenly realize I was reborn?"
Xie Yu replied, "In the dream, I went back to the previous life. I debated with you. I even married you once already."
Shen Changyin froze for a moment, then gradually worked through the logic of time and space. She pressed her lips together. "But when you were gravely ill, you were in so much pain."
Xie Yu said, "Even so, I doubt I suffered more than you."
Two women who had both met terrible ends looked at each other and smiled faintly.
Shen Changyin asked, "Do you remember what you wrote in your will?"
Xie Yu replied, "You mean the last few paragraphs?"
Shen Changyin nodded and shifted to sit beside her, leaning against the bedpost. Xie Yu moved closer, resting against her shoulder, her voice still nasal from crying.
She recalled slowly, skipping the long, practical arrangements for personnel and property, and recited only the final lines:
"After my death, the estate and its wealth may be taken by you as you see fit. I have only one final wish and hope you will fulfill it."
"In my chamber is a bamboo box containing a letter written to my lover. I searched for her for many years—until death took me—and never found her. I ask that you cremate the letter with me and bury my ashes beneath a crooked willow tree in the northwestern desert. The specific location is noted at the end of the letter."
"That is all I request. What follows is likely the rambling nonsense of someone about to die."
"In truth, I am not afraid of death. Even execution would be no more than losing my head and leaving a scar. And in my case, I am dying of illness."
"It is only a pity that the fish by the river outside the city are delicious, and I will never taste them again. In the courtyard stands a great crabapple tree. Each spring it blooms pink. I always meant to dye a robe with its blossoms, but I kept forgetting."
"This estate will likely be yours one day. I recommend you try it next spring—dyeing a garment with crabapple blossoms."
"…"
"Actually, I am a little afraid of dying."
"I request one resurrection ticket."
When she finished recalling it, Shen Changyin leaned her forehead against hers.
"When I was very young, members of my clan told me my life was destined only for suffering. They told me to accept it. I refused. I wanted good food, fine clothes, respect, high office."
"When I was used as a living test subject for medicine, many palace maids told me it was simply my unfortunate fate and that I should accept it. I refused. I wanted to escape."
"After I lived again," she tapped her forehead lightly with her finger, "there was something wrong here. I often saw another version of myself. That version told me to accept it too—that my only mission in rebirth was brutal revenge. That I had no right to desire anything else."
"But I refused that as well. When I died in the snow, I thought—if there is another spring, I want to pick flowers and dye clothes with you."
"After I was reborn, that other self told me I had only two paths: hate you and kill you, or forgive you and let you go. But I didn't want either path. I refused both."
Xie Yu straightened from her embrace and looked at her. "So in the end you recruited soldiers in the northwest and spent three years preparing before forcing the palace coup?"
Shen Changyin nodded.
Xie Yu lay back down, and they continued piecing together the rest.
"You didn't immediately kill my sisters."
Shen Changyin replied, "First, I needed enough power to bear the consequences of killing them. Second, I was afraid that if I killed them too soon, you would fear me."
Xie Yu nodded. She admitted that without knowing the whole story, she really would have been afraid.
Shen Changyin added, "Revenge was a dessert that would inevitably appear on my table. I wasn't in a hurry. I wanted you to become Crown Princess. I wanted to push you onto the throne. That was more important."
Xie Yu asked, "Because the others in my family are barely human? Why didn't you choose to become empress yourself?"
Shen Changyin replied, "First, placing someone surnamed Xie on the throne was simpler than taking it myself. Second, I think you may be better suited to rule."
"I would probably become a tyrant," she muttered.
Xie Yu said, "Do you remember how enthusiastically you once supported torture?"
"You would absolutely be a tyrant."
Shen Changyin smiled and did not argue.
"By the way," Xie Yu asked, "while I was asleep, what did you do with the remaining members of the Xie family?"
Shen Changyin replied, "The Second Princess and the empress are still alive."
Xie Yu raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You left two for me."
"They were connected to your coma. But I couldn't figure out their exact intentions."
Xie Yu said briskly, "Ah, it's like this. The empress fears death. When she grows old, she wants to transfer her consciousness into a younger body and continue living. She gave birth to me to cultivate a suitable body for herself."
"The one organizing this was originally an old priest. But you killed her the day after your coup. No one else could take full responsibility."
"As for the second sister—unexpectedly, she's a rather skilled priest. Or perhaps an early chemist, if you prefer. The empress believed in such arts herself, but she wouldn't tolerate her daughter becoming too powerful in them. Probably afraid of being outmaneuvered."
"As you and I grew closer, the empress became increasingly eager to seize my body. But since the old priest was gone, she had to make do with the second sister and have her complete the ritual."
"Their approach differed from the old priest's. The old priest used blood formations. The second sister seemed to rely mainly on drugs, performing the ritual from within her palace chambers."
"But the first attempt failed," Shen Changyin added. "You and the empress were both unconscious for three days. Afterward, you remained comatose, but the empress woke up and flew into a rage."
"Later she activated a spy planted in our estate and had her force-feed you medicine. That day you terrified me—your body was ice cold, your breathing and heartbeat almost gone."
Xie Yu calculated. "The first dose sent me into the dream. My soul traveled back to the previous life. The second dose—while in the previous life—I fell into a coma there and became gravely ill."
Shen Changyin said, "And then the empress captured me and made me marry you to counteract the misfortune."
With most of it sorted out, they both felt exhausted. They rested with their heads touching.
The room was peaceful.
The heavy scent of medicine had not yet faded, but it no longer felt oppressive—only reassuring.
Xie Yu realized something.
Though it was the same room, cared for by the same attendants, the scent in this life was different from before.
In the world outside the dream, her bed was more fragrant.
Over time, the faint floral scent and bitter medicinal aroma clinging to Shen Changyin had slowly overtaken the room's original smell.
For this small difference, Xie Yu suddenly began to cry again for no reason at all.
Tears fell silently, soaking into her collar. It took Shen Changyin a moment to notice. She turned her head and kissed the corner of her forehead, asking worriedly, "What's wrong? Does something hurt?"
Xie Yu sat up and turned to look at her. After waking from such a long coma, the last of her rationality had been spent sorting through the events of her past and present lives.
Now, as she wiped her tears, she completely lost control.
"Do you know how long it's been since I saw you? I searched for you for so long."
"After I died, I finally found you and stayed by your side—but you couldn't see me."
She became unreasonable.
"Why couldn't you see me? What right did you have not to see me?"
"What right did you have not to let me hug you? Every time I tried, I could only hold air…"
She cried irritably, inexplicably angry, inexplicably resentful, everything bursting out at once.
She was aware that crying like this distorted her face and made her look ugly, so she buried herself in Shen Changyin's collar like an ostrich, refusing to lift her head no matter what.
Shen Changyin kept patting her shoulder. "It's my fault. I should have met you sooner."
After a while of coaxing, the storm gradually passed. Xie Yu grew quiet against her chest.
"Little Xie? Did you fall asleep?" Shen Changyin asked softly.
Suddenly, Xie Yu lifted her head.
Like a climbing serpent, she moved upward to kiss her—kissing her neck, kissing the line of her jaw.
Shen Changyin indulged her, allowing the kisses, stroking Xie Yu's head and hair as she did. Her own eyes slowly closed, her head tilting back slightly.
After a long stretch of kisses, Xie Yu abruptly stopped.
Shen Changyin opened her eyes hazily.
Xie Yu looked straight into her eyes, serious and direct.
"Bed."
—
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