Qui Kui felt a pang in her heart, as if she was about to cry, but she held it back. “I will learn to cook well and become a capable person.”

This instinct made Jiang Yanyi sure that Qui Kui had been bullied.

After comforting Qui Kui, she didn’t make a scene.

She packed a pot of braised chicken and added two bowls of rice into a food box for Yang Xiu to take to the sealed government office.

In the evening, everyone in the shop had dinner together.

Jiang Yanyi quietly observed the new chef and assistant cook, as well as the serving staff.

When only Yang Xiu and Bing Shao were in the shop before, both had only been on the receiving end of Okra’s “bullying.”

If the newcomers were looking at Okra with disdain and secretly ostracizing her, Jiang Yanyi absolutely could not tolerate it.

She was also worried that Chef Yao had scolded Okra for being clumsy; after all, Chef Yao had a fiery temper and would scold anyone when he was angry.

So, Jiang Yanyi didn’t directly ask Chef Yao about Okra.

After dinner, Jiang Yanyi privately asked Aunt Guo.

Aunt Guo had spent a long time with Okra and knew her relatively well. “That girl may be a bit silly, but she is hardworking and straightforward. When the owner isn’t around, she practices her knife skills alone, and sometimes Master Yao will give her a bit of guidance. He wouldn’t get mad at her.”

After Aunt Guo said this, the new people in the shop became Jiang Yanyi’s main suspects.

She asked Aunt Guo to help in the kitchen tomorrow to see if anyone was squeezing Okra out.

---

The dish of braised chicken did indeed calm Duke Chen’s anger.

However, when he returned, he brought a guard from the Wang family and had the guard kill all the chickens he was raising, asking Jiang Yanyi to handle the preparation.

Jiang Yanyi was stunned by this move from the old man.

There was definitely too much chicken meat to eat at once, so she used one old hen to make soup and prepared the rest—chopping off the feet and wings to make marinated chicken.

For the leftover meat, she planned to make Kung Pao chicken tomorrow, hoping to sell it all.

If it didn’t sell, she could also make smoked meat for preservation, so nothing would go to waste.

Due to the events of the day, Jiang Yanyi found it hard to sleep that night.

She simply got up and dragged out the box where she kept her money from under the bed, counting the silver coins inside: “One tael of silver, two taels of silver, three taels of silver…”

Every time she gathered one hundred taels, she would go to the bank to exchange them for banknotes.

As she was quietly counting, a sudden noise came from the window, as if something had hit the top of it.

Sitting cross-legged on her mat, Jiang Yanyi stopped counting the silver and listened intently to the noises outside.

Soon, something hit the window again, like someone throwing small stones at it.

Jiang Yanyi picked up a lamp and walked to the window, hesitating for a moment before pushing open the window shutters.

The oil lamp illuminated only a small area, and outside was dark, but thankfully the moonlight was bright tonight.

Another stone hit the window frame, and Jiang Yanyi squinted to adjust to the light, only to see a figure sitting on the courtyard wall.

The silver moon hung like a hook, and in the night, the outline of the person was unclear; he was silhouetted against the deep blue sky, as if he were sitting on the tip of the moon.

He gestured for Jiang Yanyi to come outside.

In the stillness of the night, Jiang Yanyi silently closed the window and extinguished the lamp in the room.

Only then did she cautiously step out of her room.

The moonlight was bright, and after adjusting to the light, she could see the path without a lantern.

However, Qui Kui was sleeping in the adjacent room, and the room around the corner belonged to Chu Yanguo.

The snow crunched under her feet, making her feel jumpy.

Finally, she reached the wall and looked up to quietly ask Feng Shuo, “Why did you come over?”

Feng Shuo jumped down from the wall. “I missed you, so I came to see you.”

In fact, every night after finishing his official duties, regardless of how late it was, he would climb up on the wall and stare at Jiang Yanyi’s room for a while before going back to rest.

However, tonight he happened to notice that the light in Jiang Yanyi’s room was still on, so he took a chance and threw two stones at her window, and indeed, she hadn’t fallen asleep yet.

Worried someone might find out about them, Jiang Yanyi glanced around like a thief and said, “It’s so late, why aren’t you sleeping?”

The cold air outside was biting, and she pulled her neck into her fluffy collar, looking both pitiful and adorable.

Feng Shuo restrained the impulse to pinch her cheek, a hint of a smile in his eyes. “Aren’t you still awake?”

He noticed Jiang Yanyi’s concern and reached out his long arm to gently wrap around her slender waist, leaping over the courtyard wall.

Suddenly feeling weightless, Jiang Yanyi was startled and clung tightly to his slim waist.

It took her a moment to come back to her senses after landing. “Next time, please warn me before you jump!”

Feng Shuo responded to her words, saying, “Hold on tight.”

Jiang Yanyi looked up in confusion. “Huh?”

Feng Shuo said, “I’m taking you to the rooftop.”

Jiang Yanyi was so frightened that her hair almost stood on end.

She quickly wrapped herself around Feng Shuo like an octopus.

Feng Shuo stood still for a moment and then said, “Put your feet down; I can’t use my strength with you like this.”

Jiang Yanyi felt both scared and embarrassed. “I’m afraid.”

Feng Shuo: “…”

After a lot of effort, the two finally reached the rooftop.

Feng Shuo wanted to pull Jiang Yanyi to sit on the thick layer of snow on the roof, but she refused stubbornly. “We’ll catch a cold!”

Feng Shuo pressed her down and wrapped her tightly in his fox fur cloak. “With my fox fur cloak underneath, you won’t catch cold.”

The effectiveness of Feng Shuo’s fox fur cloak against the cold was indeed remarkable.

Once Jiang Yanyi was wrapped inside, she felt no chill at all.

However, the rooftop was high, and the cold wind was even more biting, making her face suffer.

Jiang Yanyi wished she could bury her head in Feng Shuo’s cloak, shivering as she asked, “Why did you bring me to the rooftop?”

Feng Shuo raised his chin slightly, the silver moonlight reflecting in his eyes. “To see the moon.”

Jiang Yanyi really couldn’t understand his thought process. “In this freezing weather, what’s there to see about the moon? It’s not even a full moon tonight…”

“Even if it’s not a full moon, I still want to see it with you.” Feng Shuo’s words were low, filled with an indescribable tenderness.

Jiang Yanyi admitted she was being silly; she was unexpectedly charmed by his words, feeling like a frizzy cat suddenly being smoothed down.

She no longer complained about her dissatisfaction, curling up in his cloak, resting her head against his broad shoulder.

Together, they gazed at the crescent moon hanging in the night sky.

Everything in the world was silent, and the scene before them was a dark silver white; it felt as if time had come to a standstill.

Suddenly, Feng Shuo turned his head to her and said, “Jiang Yanyi, I don’t want to wait anymore; I want to marry you.”

Jiang Yanyi was momentarily stunned, caught off guard by his words: “Why suddenly bring this up?”

Feng Shuo looked at her dazed expression and let out a soft sigh in his heart.

Turning his head, he lightly pressed his cool lips against her forehead, his eyes filled with an undercurrent of emotions that Jiang Yanyi couldn’t see: “I want to tie you to me; in this lifetime, you won’t be able to escape.”

Jiang Yanyi turned to him, saying, “You make it sound like you’ve done something wrong.”

Feng Shuo reached out and tousled her already messy hair even more. “When it comes to you, I have no guilt at all.”

He gazed at the crescent moon in the sky and said, “Recently, I’ve been having a dream, in which you died, but I didn’t recognize you. The city of Xizhou fell, and corpses were strewn everywhere…”

Every time he woke from the dream, cold sweat would trickle down his spine, and a chill would seep into his bones.

Everything in the dream felt too real; he couldn’t even distinguish between dream and reality.

The boundless sense of unreality and anxiety nearly consumed him.

As Jiang Yanyi listened to Feng Shuo recount his dream, a storm brewed in her heart.

What he dreamed was likely eight or nine parts of his original fate.

Perhaps it was time to lay everything out for him.

Summoning her courage, she said, “Feng Shuo, what if I said it’s all true?”

Feng Shuo’s gaze instantly turned sharp, and the hand wrapped around her waist unconsciously tightened: “What do you mean?”

Jiang Yanyi looked into his eyes and said, “Do you remember what I said before? I said I’m not the same Jiang Yanyi from the capital.”

Her heart raced.

At this moment, she wasn’t even sure what would happen after she revealed everything.

Perhaps her loved ones would turn against her, but she also knew it was time to inform Feng Shuo of these truths.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she continued, “The real legitimate daughter of the Jiang family died on the very first day she arrived in Xizhou after hitting a wall.”

Feng Shuo’s eyes held a weight that Jiang Yanyi couldn’t understand.

He gently caressed her cheek and asked, “If that were true, then am I dreaming right now?”

Jiang Yanyi shook her head: “This world, in my previous life, is just a book. What you saw in your dream is the original ending from the book. I don’t know how I ended up in this body after dying in my original world. What you see and experience now is real, but it diverges from the original trajectory of the book.”

Feng Shuo found it absurd, but he had suspected something from the beginning.

The Jiang Yanyi who arrived in Xizhou was a completely different person from the one in the capital.

Now, it seemed to make some sense.

But it felt rather laughable; everything he had fought for over twenty years—the suffering, the joys—was merely predetermined by someone else’s few written words.

Feng Shuo closed his eyes and asked, “So who exactly are you?”

“My real name is also Jiang Yanyi. In my previous life, I was a tavern owner, more or less.”

Feng Shuo said, “So from the very beginning, it was you I met?”

Jiang Yanyi could feel his embrace stiffening.

In ancient times, people revered spirits and gods; to them, she was akin to a wandering ghost.

Perhaps this embrace could no longer be hers.

A sharp pain pierced her heart, like a dagger stabbing in, stirring up a torrent of blood.

Jiang Yanyi straightened up.

She was clearly smiling, but the sadness in her eyes was undeniable. “Yes and no. This body isn’t mine. I wasn’t this beautiful in my original form—ordinary to the point that… you might not recognize me if I blended into a crowd.”