After winter began, the first heavy snow fell in utter silence.
Inside the traveling palace, basin after basin of startlingly bloody water was carried out from the copper basins. The palace servants dared not utter a sound. Forty-nine incense braziers burned ceaselessly day and night, filling the air with warmth. The red plum blossom bonsai on the windowsill had been coaxed into tender buds by the heat. Yet within the bed curtains, Gao Yuexing held a hand warmer, wrapped herself in blankets, and still felt her body growing colder and her spirit and consciousness drifting lightly, as if she was about to leave the mortal world.
The end was near.
She understood it in her heart.
Fate could not be reversed.
The bitter scent of medicine seemed to have seeped into her very bones.
Someone pushed open the door and entered.
It was an elderly woman. At the door, she removed her heavy cloak, revealing plain but elegant inner garments. She warmed herself thoroughly by the brazier before approaching the bed to check on Gao Yuexing, carefully touching her ice-cold hands.
Gao Yuexing mustered her strength to smile faintly. “Auntie.”
The kindly old woman’s eyes were filled with worry. She gestured with sign language to ask, “How are you feeling today?”
She was mute.
Even so, no one in the traveling palace dared show this old woman the slightest disrespect.
Everyone in the household knew that when His Highness Prince Xiang was young, he had been raised under the care of this mute aunt.
Prince Xiang’s birth mother passed away early, and the mute aunt was essentially a half-mother to him.
Whether Prince Xiang was establishing his residence outside the palace or moving into the Eastern Palace, he always kept the mute aunt by his side and treated her with the utmost respect.
Gao Yuexing’s pale face showed a faint smile as she said to the mute aunt, “Auntie, I’m afraid I won’t live to see His Highness one last time.”
The mute aunt held her hand gently, her heart aching.
Prince Xiang had been crowned Crown Prince for less than a year.
The grand ceremony for his investiture had yet to take place when a fire broke out in the Eastern Palace, destroying most of it. Reconstruction was still underway, so everyone still referred to him as Prince Xiang.
Six months ago, the tribes at the Western Frontier raised arms and invaded. Prince Xiang requested to lead the army to war.
While Gao Yuexing was left to recuperate in the traveling palace, she was attacked by assassins.
The poisoned arrow pierced through her abdomen, and it was already a miracle she had managed to survive for two more days.
Letters traveled slowly. Even with an urgent delivery spanning eight hundred miles, it would still take several days to reach the Western Frontier.
Gao Yuexing shook her head and said, “I won’t wait anymore. I’m leaving.”
The mute aunt gestured, “If you leave, His Highness will be heartbroken.”
Gao Yuexing replied, “I know. His Highness has me in his heart… but the one he cares for most should be that young lady who loves crabapple flowers, shouldn’t it?”
As soon as these words fell, the mute aunt’s expression changed abruptly.
In the past, constrained by her status, Gao Yuexing could think many things but could never speak them aloud.
As death approached, Gao Yuexing no longer had anything to hold back.
In the end, she still couldn’t let it go.
—”Auntie, since His Highness has someone else in his heart, why did he marry me in the first place? Was it because I look like the girl who loves crabapple flowers?”
The mute aunt froze for a long time upon hearing this, then anxiously began gesturing something.
But Gao Yuexing could no longer see. It was as if a veil had fallen over her eyes, obscuring everything; all she could see was a vast expanse of white mist.
She had beautiful eyes.
On their wedding night, His Highness had once praised her, saying the radiance in her eyes was unparalleled, even outshining the Eastern Sea pearls that adorned her ears.
Now, those beautiful eyes were lifeless. And yet, she was only twenty years old, in the prime of her life.
Even her beloved pearl earrings had been removed. Her hair was tied simply with a plain pin, unadorned by ornaments. The only accessory she wore was a white jade bracelet on her wrist. Its luster was rich and fine, a testament to years of close care. The bracelet was intricately carved with a phoenix holding a ruyi in its beak, its craftsmanship so exquisite it was breathtaking. However, the bracelet was slightly small, clearly something she had worn since childhood and never removed. Fortunately, she was slender and delicate, and even as she grew, it still fit her wrist perfectly.
Gao Yuexing gently stroked her bracelet, closed her eyes, and faintly recalled the year she first met His Highness Prince Xiang.
The bandits in the Shu region had always been rampant.
When Gao Yuexing’s father was reassigned to Shu, the entire Gao family traveled with him. Unfortunately, their convoy was ambushed by bandits.
Her carriage was surrounded.
Even now, she could vividly recall the scene: amidst the chaos, His Highness Prince Xiang rode toward them in a flowing white robe, trampling a ground littered with fallen blossoms and dead leaves, leading his men to swiftly dispatch the insolent mountain monkeys.
Clutching a dagger tightly in her hand, Gao Yuexing lifted the carriage curtain to peer outside, only to meet his clear, pristine eyes.
Prince Xiang was only three years older than her, and he was even more handsome than the rumors had described.
She boldly stared at him for a long while, her heart pounding wildly, until her grandmother scolded her, and she reluctantly let the curtain fall.
Her heart was racing. It was the first time in her life she had ever lost composure.
She thought it was just a fleeting encounter, like a dragonfly skimming the water’s surface.
No one could have expected—
Three days later, an imperial edict crossed mountains and rivers to arrive, decreeing that the second daughter of the Gao family be betrothed to Prince Xiang—Li Fuxiang.
Li Fuxiang!
Li Fuxiang…
Gao Yuexing’s pale lips moved soundlessly, forming the name she could never let go of, the name she held closest to her heart, as she closed her eyes.
The last meeting with His Highness that she had hoped for never came, yet in a way, it felt as though it had.
…
When one dies, the body should be sealed in a coffin and buried.
Even if one’s senses remain, what one hears should be mourning and lamentation.
Yet Gao Yuexing’s ears filled with noise once again. The first sound she heard was a string of silver-bell laughter.
—Utterly audacious!
Gao Yuexing opened her eyes, curious to see who was laughing over her grave.
At the very moment she opened her eyes, someone shook her shoulders. “Ah Xing, wake up! You’re slacking off and oversleeping again. Look, is this the crabapple flower you embroidered? Why does it look like a crawling insect? Stop lazing around, or Mother will start preaching to you again.”
The world regained its color.
Warm sunlight streamed into the room through paper windows, and even the tiny dust motes floating in the air seemed to radiate warmth.
Gao Yuexing felt a little dizzy.
She could feel the softness of the bedding beneath her.
In front of her bed stood a very pretty little girl, no older than ten, with delicate features and an elegant demeanor.
The little girl tilted her head and said, “Ah Xing, you’re finally awake.”
Gao Yuexing stared at the incredibly familiar face, utterly disoriented, unsure what time or place this was.
—It was her eldest sister’s face as a child.
Gao Yuexing’s eldest sister, Gao Yuemin, was her full sibling, born of the same father and mother.
Dazed for a moment, Gao Yuexing suddenly sat up and grabbed her sister’s hand.
Gao Yuemin yanked her hand free, pouting and glaring at her with wide almond-shaped eyes. “That hurt! Ah Xing, what’s wrong with you?!”
Gao Yuexing gasped for breath, realizing that something was amiss.
She recalled the searing pain that came with every breath during her time bedridden from her injuries.
But now, though her body felt weak, there was a distinct lightness, a sense of being alive.
She lowered her head.
Her hands were soft and pudgy, entirely different from her former delicate but slender ones.
She raised her hand to touch her face.
It was plump and tender, softer to the touch than silken tofu.
It was the face of a child.
Instinctively, she reached for her wrist but found it bare. It seemed that, at this point in her life, she had yet to wear the jade bracelet that had accompanied her for more than a decade.
Gao Yuexing’s gaze grew steady and profound, but when she spoke, it was with the childish, tender voice of a child: “What year is this?”
Gao Yuemin, still a young girl herself, didn’t notice anything unusual. She tilted her head and replied naturally, “Jingle Year Twelve. Ah Xing, did you sleep yourself silly?”
The Twelfth Year of Jingle.
Clear skies, high clouds, a prosperous age on the horizon.
In this year—
Gao Yuexing was six years old.
Her elder sister, Gao Yuemin, was ten.
Calmly, Gao Yuexing used her left hand to pinch her right hand.
A bright red mark immediately appeared on the tender white skin.
The pain was real.
Inside the body of this six-year-old girl, another soul had been transplanted, switching places like flowers grafted onto a new stem.
Gao Yuexing had somehow inexplicably returned to more than ten years ago.
Her elder sister poked her again and said, “Ah Xing, stop being lazy! Quickly fix that crabapple flower of yours—it looks like a crawling insect. Mother will check it when she returns from paying respects to Grandmother.”
Following her sister’s gesture, Gao Yuexing looked over.
At the top of the embroidery basket lay a silk handkerchief casually spread out. On one corner, crooked and wobbly lines formed the vague outline of a flower.
If not for her sister’s comment, Gao Yuexing herself wouldn’t have recognized it as a crabapple flower.
In this lifetime, the two words “crabapple flower” were something Gao Yuexing could not bear to hear.
They were taboo.
If someone were to ask whether Li Fuxiang treated her well in her previous life—
The answer would be yes.
Very well.
He was attentive and considerate, always gentle and affectionate, treating her with respect and never allowing her to suffer the slightest grievance, whether in public or private.
Amid the envious or resentful gazes of the noblewomen in the capital, Gao Yuexing knew she should be content.
But she couldn’t help it—there was always a thorn lodged in her heart, and that thorn was the crabapple flower.
Behind the traveling palace, Li Fuxiang had planted a sprawling forest of crabapples across the mountains. When the flowers bloomed, the crabapple blossoms swayed in the wind, creating a sea of fiery red that looked like flames from afar.
The jade-like river reflected even brighter birds, and the mountains, lush with greenery, seemed to burn with the colors of the flowers—so dazzling it was impossible to look away.
Gao Yuexing was deeply conflicted.
On the one hand, the crabapple flower was a perpetual sting in her heart; on the other hand, she couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the crabapple forest. She even felt a faint joy deep within, so much so that she was reluctant to leave the traveling palace and return to the capital.
She picked up the silk handkerchief and carefully stroked it.
A familiar sensation washed over her.
…
Though the crabapple flower embroidered on this handkerchief was only half-formed, crooked and awkward, the rough and simplistic stitches—
There wasn’t another like it under heaven.
Oh, wait.
Perhaps there was.
—The handkerchief that His Highness Prince Xiang had secretly treasured for years could rival this one in its lack of craftsmanship.
Gao Yuexing could never mistake it.
Li Fuxiang’s attachment to that handkerchief was plain for all to see. He never hid it from her.
On more than one occasion, Gao Yuexing had stared at that handkerchief, her heart filled with unbridled jealousy.
Even if it was just half a flower, even if it were entirely unraveled and shredded to pieces, Gao Yuexing would still recognize it.
Her hand holding the handkerchief began to tremble.
She tried hard to recall what had happened when she was six years old.
But to her astonishment, she discovered that the memories of her sixth year were completely blank.
Seven years old, eight years old…
Nine years old…
With her eyes closed, Gao Yuexing sifted through her past recollections.
She vaguely remembered the scenes from before the end of her sixth year, and she clearly recalled the birthday banquet held for her ninth year.
Yet from six to nine years old, those three years were entirely missing from her memory.
It was as though someone had plucked them away, leaving no trace.
How could this be?
What exactly had happened during those three years?
Gao Yuexing climbed down from the high bed, walked to the window, and tiptoed to push it open.
A branch of a crabapple flower quivered slightly, reached inside the window, and lightly tapped the bridge of her tall nose.
Dew condensed into frost.
Corroding bones and soul.
TL: No spoilers for now, I’ll post a review on Novelupdates once I’m done with the file.