Yuzhao frowned, looking at Qiu Long beside her, her beautiful eyes containing a hint of secret panic and confusion. Qiu Long was also looking at her hesitantly. 

　　The two understood each other tacitly and exchanged a silent glance. 

　　Since the general had spoken, the soldiers, though verbally presumptuous, could only obediently comply. 

　　They sized up Yuzhao and Qiu Long, their minds racing, but ultimately they couldn’t bear to send them back. 

　　Why give away beauties that had already fallen into their hands! 

　　They had already taken them out of the refugee pile, so there was no way they would send them back. 

　　They might as well hide them! 

　　As long as they weren’t discovered by those above, the battlefield was chaotic, and who would care so much. 

　　Thinking this, the soldier pointed his spear at Qiu Long and shouted, “You! Take her and come with us!” 

　　. 

　　Yuzhao and Qiu Long were locked in a remote woodshed. 

　　The room was dark and gloomy, with no light at all. From outside, they could occasionally hear the sound of patrols, the heavy iron boots hitting the ground, shaking the earth and extremely intimidating. 

　　Qiu Long looked at the dark surroundings, listening to the chilling sounds outside, and tightly hugged Yuzhao’s arm, her voice trembling with unease, “Miss… what should we do next?” 

　　First, the carriage leaving Youzhou met with disaster, and the two barely escaped from the bandits. 

　　They originally wanted to seek refuge with the army stationed nearby, but Youzhou happened to fall a few days ago. The people in the city fled Youzhou in a panic, and the two were almost separated, captured as refugees, and eventually ended up here. 

　　After much wandering, they had returned to Youzhou City. 

　　During this time, they had witnessed too many ups and downs. 

　　They had personally seen an entire city engulfed in flames, heard the screams and cries that echoed through the clouds, smelled the overwhelming stench of charred remains and corpses, and also witnessed how those homeless refugees slaughtered each other. 

　　They looted the food from them, snatched their children and wives. Although they were all equally pitiful people, they were still divided into different classes, with the weak being bullied by the strong. Qiu Long had personally seen several men dragging a woman and wantonly humiliating her, while the surrounding people cowered in fear, and even her husband dared not stand up to resist. 

　　Qiu Long had already used up all her courage to resist the soldiers just now, and now her voice was already tinged with sobs. “Miss… I’m scared…” 

　　”Will we die here…” 

　　It was too terrifying, this feeling was too helpless. For fifteen years, Qiu Long had grown up by the Miss’s side, exposed to the stable and trivial life of a noble lady. The biggest things she had experienced were nothing more than accompanying the Miss to get married and being driven out of her husband’s house after her husband’s death. She had never seen such a cruel world. 

　　To call it hell on earth was no exaggeration. 

　　Yuzhao didn’t speak, but simply held her gently in her arms. Her calm and gentle embrace gave Qiu Long the last bit of comfort. 

　　In the silence, Qiu Long heard a faint voice, “I wonder how Mother and the others are doing…” 

　　Qiu Long suddenly raised her head, her eyes red, and said indignantly, “They drove the Miss out of the house, she’s no longer the Miss’s mother! We can barely protect ourselves now, why do you still care about their family!” 

　　If that family hadn’t been so ruthless in driving them out, how could they have fallen into such a state! 

　　Yuzhao lowered her head and said softly, “…but she is still Wenyin’s mother.” 

　　Qiu Long was stunned and fell silent. 

　　She saw Yuzhao take out a jade pendant from her slender neck, place it in her palm, and gently caress it. 

　　It was the only thing her husband, Meng Wenyin, had left her. 

　　The day she was driven out of the Meng family, the Meng family smashed and burned everything in the Miss’s box that was related to Meng Wenyin, and forbade her from taking a single item. 

　　The Miss begged bitterly and only managed to keep a jade pendant. After being robbed by bandits, she had personally seen how the Miss had given up several boxes of things just to save this jade pendant. Now, in order not to lose it, she simply wore it on her body, just to look at it every day. 

　　Qiu Long turned her head, suddenly unable to bear to look. 

　　She sniffed, her heart aching, and said in a hoarse voice, “The master is already gone, and now he can’t protect the Miss, nor can he protect his family. You don’t need to blame yourself, it’s not your fault. Although the Meng family is not prominent in Youzhou, they are not commoners either, they should still have the ability to protect themselves, they shouldn’t be…” 

　　As if suddenly thinking of something, Qiu Long turned her head sharply, her voice trembling, “Miss… just now they mentioned General Xie…” 

　　”Could it be, could it be…” 

　　It seemed that mentioning that name was ominous. Qiu Long’s face was pale, and she couldn’t bring herself to say the person’s full name. 

　　Yuzhao raised her head after hearing this, her heart also trembled. 

　　She held the jade pendant in her hand and slowly exerted force until she felt the sharp pain from the corner, then she said calmly, “It shouldn’t be him.” 

　　Now that the three kings were in chaos and the feudal lords were also rebelling, there were many generals with the surname Xie in the world, and the one they knew was stationed in Lucheng, thousands of miles away from Youzhou. 

　　It couldn’t be him. 

　　It must be another army with the surname Xie. 

　　How could there be such a coincidence in the world? 

　　Reunion 

　　The soldiers detained them here and, for some reason, did not return. In the dark woodshed, Yuzhao and Qiu Long huddled together for warmth. 

　　Yuzhao fell asleep in extreme exhaustion. 

　　Perhaps it was because Qiu Long had mentioned that person. In her drowsy dream, she returned to the lush green time when apricot blossoms filled the branches, fifteen years old in Chang’an. 

　　She saw Xie Qi again. 

　　. 

　　Speaking of Chang’an, Yuzhao was not actually from Chang’an. 

　　Yuzhao’s ancestral home was Hangzhou, and she had spent nearly fifteen years in the water towns of Jiangnan. 

　　Yuzhao’s original surname was Shen. 

　　On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, Shen’s father sent her to Chang’an as a gift. 

　　That was the first time in Yuzhao’s life that she went to Chang’an. 

　　That year, she left home for the first time, traveling from Hangzhou to Chang’an, which took more than three months. 

　　She also realized for the first time that the city of the Son of Heaven, which the people called extremely prosperous, was so far away. 

　　The Wang family was in Chang’an, and Wang Qingjia, her uncle whom she had never met, was in the Wang family. He and Yuzhao’s deceased mother were siblings. 

　　On the day of her arrival in Chang’an, Wang Qingjia personally greeted her father and daughter with his family. 

　　Wang Qingjia did not seem to be very warm with Shen’s father. After exchanging a few polite greetings, he turned his attention to Yuzhao. 

　　Yuzhao remembered that her uncle patted her shoulders vigorously that day, and without saying a word, his eyes turned red. 

　　Behind Wang Qingjia stood a shrewd and noble beautiful woman, who looked to be in her early thirties and still had her charm. 

　　Beside the beautiful woman followed a handsome young man and two delicate girls, who were all curiously looking at her. 

　　Shen’s father had carefully told her about the Wang family along the way. When Yuzhao saw the people, she knew that this was her aunt Sun, and the three children around her were her three children. 

　　The handsome young man was her cousin Wang Yulou, and the two girls were her sisters Wang Ruzhi and Wang Yilan. Yuzhao greeted them with a smile. 

　　Chang’an City was more prosperous than Yuzhao had imagined, and the Wang family was larger and had more rules than she had imagined. 

　　When she first arrived at the Wang family, it was not what Yuzhao had imagined. 

　　After staying in the Wang family for a few days, Shen’s father left alone, leaving Yuzhao alone here. 

　　Before leaving, Shen’s father carefully told her many things, which Yuzhao wrote down one by one, but she was still hesitant and afraid in her heart. She vaguely felt that her father would not come back to pick her up. 

　　Sure enough, a few months later, Shen’s father died of illness, and Yuzhao became completely alone. 

　　The Wang family did not let her go back to help with the funeral. When they told her the news, Shen’s father had been dead for more than a month. 

　　Yuzhao was devastated and cried for three days and three nights, completely falling ill and lingering on the sickbed for several months, and since then contracted the root of a cold. 

　　Wang Qingjia, as an uncle, did not treat her badly, and sent her tonics and medicines like running water every day, never caring how much it cost. 

　　After several months, Yuzhao’s body finally recovered. 

　　The first thing she did after she recovered was to have the maid help her to Wang Qingjia’s study, kneel in front of Wang Qingjia, and thank him for his kindness. 

　　From then on, the Wang family had an extra well-behaved and polite cousin. 

　　Because she was living under someone else’s roof, Yuzhao acted carefully in the mansion, not daring to make a mistake, and usually lived in the Huanshui Pavilion arranged for her by Wang Qingjia, and never went out easily. 

　　Wang Qingjia changed her name and changed her surname Shen to Wang. 

　　Soon after, Wang Qingjia was promoted and became more and more busy with government affairs, and the number of times he stayed in the mansion became very few. 

　　When Wang Qingjia did not come, his aunt Sun, who was warm on the surface but cold at heart, became even more negligent towards her. 

　　As the mistress of the house, Sun had been married to Wang Qingjia and had been respectful to each other. Although Wang Qingjia had taken several concubines, he had not had any children for so many years, which shows that Sun was good at managing the family and was decisive. 

　　After Yuzhao came to the mansion, Sun only symbolically visited her once or twice, instructing the servants not to cut short on food, clothing, and supplies, and then devoted all her attention to her own children. 

　　The two sisters also did not like her. 

　　At the age of fifteen or sixteen, when they were like flowers, it was the time to compete for beauty and be strong. They were not friendly to this sudden cousin and had a lukewarm attitude. 

　　Only her cousin Wang Yulou came to visit her from time to time. In the coldest season, he ordered the servants to bring her charcoal and winter clothes, and also regularly brought her some books and calligraphy, urging her to study hard. 

　　When he took his two sisters out of the mansion to play on weekdays, he would always bring Yuzhao along. 

　　On the day of Wang Yulou’s coming-of-age ceremony, Sun held a grand banquet in the mansion and invited many guests.