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“You… remember everything…?”
The daylight was glaring, and a deafening roar filled the air.
Li Yunli was too close to the explosion’s center, leaving her ears ringing painfully.
Before she could cover her ears, a scorching wave of heat surged forth like an inferno, slamming into the carriage. Through the blinding firelight, she could barely make out the carriage curtains flapping violently in the wind.
She clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, eyes streaming from the acrid heat.
Screams filled the air—agonized cries, desperate wails.
Suddenly, the carriage lurched violently as it began to overturn!
Li Yunli instinctively grabbed the window frame, coughing harshly.
The horses were panicking!
The coachman had already been thrown off, and the startled horses reared on their hind legs, neighing frantically in the fiery chaos. Thick smoke billowed from the explosion site, and the crazed horses veered sharply, dragging the overturned carriage across the ground.
“Clang!”
Shi Liu swung his blade, severing the reins in one swift motion. The now free horses bolted.
Kicking aside a broken carriage beam, Shi Liu ripped open the shattered carriage door and shouted anxiously inside:
“Your Highness!”
Li Yunli coughed, still covering her mouth and nose.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?!”
“I’m fine.” Struggling, she propped herself up and pulled away the tattered curtain covering her. Crawling out from the wrecked carriage, her throat raw from inhaling smoke, she rasped, “What happened?”
“It came from the palace gates! Broad daylight—who would dare cause chaos here?!”
Shi Liu clenched his teeth, staring grimly at the worst-hit area ahead.
Then he suddenly fell silent.
The sound of approaching soldiers filled the air.
Shi Liu gripped his sword tighter.
This attack had been too sudden—the city’s imperial guards should have been caught off guard, scrambling to respond. But the approaching troops were moving in too organized a manner.
This had been premeditated.
Li Yunli placed a steadying hand on his shoulder, her voice calm and firm: “Hold the line. We must endure this wave.”
“It’s not death I fear,” Shi Liu muttered, every muscle taut, his grip tightening on his sword. “But today, we are too few. I fear I cannot protect you, Your Highness.”
Li Yunli bent down, yanking open a damaged storage compartment in the carriage. From within the shattered wood, she retrieved a long, narrow wooden box.
“We do what we can, and leave the rest to fate.”
Flicking open the lock, she pulled out a bow and a quiver of arrows.
Shi Liu froze. “Your Highness… you were prepared?”
“Ahead!”
Li Yunli’s voice was sharp as an arrow.
Clang!
Blades clashed!
Shi Liu’s sword forcefully deflected an incoming strike, sweeping his leg to knock his opponent off balance.
“Yun!” A familiar voice, filled with urgency, rang out. Li Yunli glanced sideways to see Ji Wenxun, clad in light armor, sword in hand, rushing toward her. “You’re still alive, right?!”
Ji Wenxun had also been summoned to the palace for the spring hunt.
She swiftly leaped over debris, positioning herself back-to-back with Li Yunli.
“Ji Jiejie,” Li Yunli exhaled, regaining her breath. “You still worry for me?”
“As long as you’re alive.” Ji Wenxun panted, forcing a grin despite her pale complexion. “General Xiao warned me this morning that something was off in the city. I stalled the officials at the gates, sacrificed two carriages, but managed to stop them from entering.”
Ever since Li Yunli had confided her suspicions to Ji Wenxun, the latter had kept a close watch. Though she had entered the palace under official pretense, she had come fully armed and ready.
Turning slightly, she positioned herself protectively before Li Yunli. “The commotion here is too great. General Xiao’s soldiers will be here soon—I’ll hold them off until then!”
Li Yunli steadied herself, eyes sharp. “Is this the work of Prince Changling? Or…”
She stopped mid-question.
Beyond the masked assassins, she finally saw the larger force approaching, clad in uniform armor.
“Neither.” Ji Wenxun shook her head regretfully. “You once told me you didn’t suspect your 侍君 (Consort) of anything.”
But the soldiers storming in from the front—
Were the very same Wei forces Li Yunli had seen in her dreams of war.
Her expression betrayed nothing. Only the faintest curl of her lips—like a quiet, bitter mockery of fate.
She lowered her gaze slightly. “They’re advancing.”
Li Yunli staggered, her knees giving way.
A flood of memories—memories that didn’t belong to this life—overwhelmed her mind.
Perhaps the original owner of this body had suffered too much, and this similar crisis had finally awakened the buried past.
Or perhaps—
It was the truth she had never wanted to admit.
Pain shot through her skull, forcing her to crouch down.
She had once traveled south, a carefree and infamous princess with nothing but wealth, idle days, and a ruined reputation.
She had intended to indulge in reckless abandon, to drown in pleasure.
But on that journey, the very same disaster unfolded before her.
The Wei army, long hidden beneath the city’s waterways, had risen on the day of her grand feast.
Their leader—
The Third Prince of Wei.
The same man who had once been her consort in the Chang’an court.
Dressed in light armor, mounted on his prized stallion Treading Clouds, he had personally captured her before she could even react.
Years of whispered affection, of tender devotion—
All of it had been a lie, leading up to this one day of vengeance.
She had been utterly deceived—at the lowest point of her life.
The memories flooded back like a tidal wave, drowning her.
The cold winter of Yuanhe’s ninth year.
“King Wei, please—spare Ahan!”
Tears streamed down her face as she begged, her heart breaking with every word.
Dressed in black, Yun Chu roughly shoved her aside, gripping her chin with chilling force.
“Did you not say that your body and soul belonged to me? Why, then, do you still cling to your fallen kingdom? Starving yourself for their sake? What is the meaning of this?”
His fingers trailed over her chest, as if he wished to carve out the heart within and see if her words had been genuine. “The nights we shared, the sweet words you whispered—were they lies, just as I once deceived you?”
As he turned to leave, she clung to his leg, sobbing.
“King Wei! Li Han is my only blood relative! I beg you—let him go!”
“Let him go? Just because you beg?”
Yun Chu’s grip tightened as he forced water down her parched throat.
Hours later, he returned—placing a plate of blood-soaked osmanthus cakes before her.
“Eat these, and I will let Li Han live. From this moment forward, you will have no ties to the Li dynasty. You belong only to me.”
She ate them all.
But Li Han, the last emperor of their fallen kingdom—
Took his own life beneath the enemy’s banner.
Hearing the news, she had said nothing.
And then, she had fallen deathly ill.
From that moment, there was no longer any love between them.
Only an unbridgeable chasm.
Back in the present, Li Yunli’s vision blurred.
Her fingers loosened from her bow.
Across the battlefield, atop a familiar horse, Yun Chu stared at her, his expression stricken with horror.
“You…”
His voice shook.
“You… remember everything…?”