Zi-ning folded all her clothes and packed them in a bundle, then she took them out again, rearranged everything, then shoved them back in. Rinse and repeat at least four times, each one filled with more frustration than the one before.

You did the right thing. Remember what happened the last time you trusted someone? He used you and betrayed you. You had to watch everyone you love die in front of your eyes.

Zhenghuan was not Ru-an, but her trust had been so far shattered in her previous life that she was afraid to take the risk. Afraid of being hurt once again.

Yet she could not shake that look of disappointment in Zhenghuan's eyes when he had heard her say that she felt nothing for him, when he had backed away from her and then turned to leave. She had wanted to call out to him then, but she hadn't.

It's time to go back to Huangcheng. There are still so many things you need to do there.

The people who had ruined her life before were still alive and well. Ru-an. Meiyan. Lady Min. Although she had made steady progress, she had yet to deliver the punishments that each of them deserved. Now that Yongxing was safe and the threat on his life somehow averted, it was time for her to return and press on with her mission.

Zhenghuan shouldn't have to bear that burden with her. He already had enough on his plate as it was.

A soft knock came at the door.

Zi-ning looked up and saw Bai Shengwu standing there, wearing a gentle smile on his face.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

"Of course. Is something the matter, Shengwu-ge?"

"That is what I came here to ask you, actually," the young official replied, walking over to her side. He glanced at the half-packed bundle lying on her bed. "Are you really planning to return to the capital?"

She nodded. "I only came here to pay Yongxing a visit. Now that I know that he's alright, it's about time I head back. Are you almost finished with your work here? Can I tag along with your party if you're also returning to Huangcheng?"

"I'm not sure someone will be very pleased about that," Shengwu replied, arching a brow. "Zi-ning, about this morning..."

"I'm sorry that you had to witness all that."

"No, don't be. Zi-ning, you know that I treat you the same way as I do Zhenzhu, like my own little sister. I'm just concerned for your future happiness, that's all." He hesitated for a moment, then he said, "I've heard that the crown prince has asked the king to make you crown princess. Is that why you are unwilling to accept the Shadow Lord?"

Zi-ning frowned. In the early days of her rebirth, she had intentionally tried to catch the attention of the queen and the princes so that she could leverage on that in her plan to bring Ru-an down, and she had intervened to save the crown prince's life so that he would remain an obstacle in Ru-an's way, but she never had any real intention of marrying into the royal family once again.

"I do not wish to become the crown princess," she replied.

Shengwu looked relieved by that answer. A smile stretched across his face. "That's good to hear. Life in the palace is complicated. If possible, I would not want you or Zhenzhu to be dragged into that whirlpool." He patted her on the shoulder. "Why did you reject the Shadow Lord then? I know that there are many rumours about him, calling him fearsome and ruthless because of his prowess on the battlefield, but from what I've seen over the past few days, Du Zhenghuan seems to truly care about you. He would not make a bad choice for you."

"I know," she replied quietly. "I am the one who is not worthy of him."

"Zi-ning, I'm not sure why you are being so harsh on yourself, but I think you should give yourself a chance—and maybe give the Shadow Lord a chance."

She knew that Shengwu meant well, but there was a hurdle inside her heart that she simply could not cross. Perhaps the scars she had suffered were so deep that they could no longer be mended.

"Han Zi-ning! Han Zi-ning!" a loud voice hollered. Zhang Mingshen ran into the room, sweating and panting.

Zi-ning blinked in surprise. Why would Zhang Mingshen be looking for her at this hour?

"You have some life-saving pill from the River Immortal, right?" Zhenghuan's deputy asked. "You're the only one who can save Zhenghuan!"

"What happened?" she asked, confused.

"We met with an assassination from the southern tribes. Zhenghuan is severely injured and he's lost a lot of blood. The weapons that were used were also smeared with poison, so that's only made it worse. We must hurry! The physician said that he doesn't have any more time to wait. If we waste too much time, then he'll die."

An explosion seemed to erupt inside Zi-ning's head. An assassination? Poison? Zhenghuan... would die?

That was impossible. Her first instinct was to reject the possibility outright, but the next moment, she remembered that Zhenghuan had died in her previous life, so he was not as invincible as she often believed him to be.

She dug through her bundle of clothes and pulled out the small box that contained the huanhun dan. Then, she followed Mingshen and ran out, praying that she would not be too late.

#

Mingshen brought her to the military camp situated near the eastern gate of Anyang, and Zi-ning's heart was suspended in her throat when she stepped into the tent that Zhenghuan was in. He was alone, lying unconscious on the bed. When she got closer, she could see the large patches of blood that stained his cream-coloured inner robes, long gashes shredding the fabric. She stifled a cry, rushing to his side.

She raised a trembling finger to his nostrils.

Nothing.

There was not the slightest hint of breath coming out from him.

Grabbing hold of his wrist, she quickly tried to feel for a pulse, her heart racing inside her chest.

Still nothing.

How could there be nothing?

"Zhenghuan!" Mingshen cried, falling to his knees and wailing. "I'm so sorry. We're too late..."

Zi-ning opened the box and pulled out the huanhuan dan, thinking to shove it into Zhenghuan's mouth in a desperate attempt to revive him, but Mingshen suddenly reached out his hand and stopped her.

"Don't!" he shouted. "Zhenghuan is already gone. It would only be a waste of your medicine. Keep it to save someone else who can be saved. That would be what he would have wanted." Mingshen got back up to his feet. "I'll leave you to say your goodbye," he said, slowly backing out of the tent.

Left on her own, Zi-ning sat down by Zhenghuan's side, staring down at his sleeping countenance. Putting the pill aside, she reached out and placed one hand on his lower cheek, his skin feeling unnaturally cold to the touch. Tears began to stream uncontrollably from her eyes. What was the point of having a huanhuan dan if she couldn't use it to save the ones that she loved? Why was it that she was still one step too late?

"Wake up," she cried, shaking him by the shoulders. This couldn't possibly be real. Any moment now, he would open his eyes and tell her that this was all a lie, just like he had back in Zhuiya when he had pretended to be gravely ill in order to bait the assassins.

But it had been different then.

Now, she could no longer even feel his pulse. He was truly gone.

Sorrow and regret flooded her heart and mind. What was the last thing she had said to him?

"There is nothing more between us. I'm sorry if I've done anything to make you misunderstand."

The tears continued to fall, trickling down onto the silver mask that he still wore upon his face. Reaching out, Zi-ning gently lowered the mask. If this was really their last goodbye, then at the very least she wanted to know what he really looked like. She wanted to see the face of the man who had slowly but surely broken down all of her defenses and stubbornly wormed his way into her frozen heart.

A gasp escaped her lips.

How could it be? How could it be him?

So their story had begun a long time ago, back on Taishan, long before she even knew who Du Zhenghuan was. Back then, she had saved a young man with a shocking splash of silver in his hair, when she had discovered him lying unconscious in the bushes. Their meeting had only been the briefest of interludes, over before it even began, and the only thing he had left behind then was a white jade pendant as payment for the debt he owed her.

Turns out he had never left all along.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered. There were so many questions in her mind, questions that she wanted to ask him, but it was too late. The thought wrenched at her heart, and the pain was far more than what she thought she was able to feel.

"Du Zhenghuan, wake up. Didn't you promise to be here for me? Didn't you say that you would be by my side, no matter what? You're supposed to be invincible! That's what everyone says about you. You're the Shadow Lord, aren't you?"

She had to admit that a part of her truly believed that he would always be there, that no matter how she pushed him away, he would still be within reach, like he had somehow always been since she was reborn into this life. Now she realised how selfish and unreasonable she was, using the pain and suffering from her past life as an excuse to reject all hope of a better future in this one—and hurting him irretrievably in return. Yet there were only so many second chances one could get, and she had already been given hers.

Zi-ning leaned forward and lay her head upon his chest, where his heart would no longer beat.

"You wanted to know the secrets I've been hiding?" She laughed bitterly. "There was no way I could tell you, because it's so absurd that you wouldn't possibly believe me. No one would. Who would believe that someone can be resurrected from the dead? Even I still think it sounds ridiculous. But that's exactly what happened. I came back. The first time around, I fell in love with the wrong man—you'd probably be able to guess who. For the sake of his ambition, I willingly became his spy and married another, all because of a single promise, a promise that he would one day marry me and make me his queen. But you know what? It was all a lie. He used me and then framed me for treason. He forced Ru-wen to his death, and then executed the entire household in front of my eyes. The one that he loved all along was Meiyan—Meiyan, whom I once believed was a real sister to me, but then came to spit in my face before I died, to let me know how pitiful I was for trusting her and her jackal of a mother."

Her tears were soaking through his robes, but still they would not cease.

"Zhenghuan, if you could hear all this now, what would you say? You would think that I'm some ghost? An aberration of nature? Or maybe just out of my mind. Sometimes I wonder if I've gone mad, that this is all a hallucination that I've living out. Yet I can't stop. There's so, so much pain and hatred inside me that I cannot let go of. Ru-an, Meiyan, Lady Min—everyone who had been so cruel to me before, who had trampled over my dead body to achieve their own selfish goals—I want revenge over them. I want them to pay the price for what they had done, for the blood that they spilled. Am I wrong? Did the heavens take away the one that I love as punishment for this path that I've chosen?"

"You're not wrong, Zi-ning," a soft voice replied.

She shot right up, alarmed by the reply. Zhenghuan's eyes were open, and he was staring back at her with deep sorrow.

"H-h-how..."

He reached out and took hold of her hand, his touch still cold but gradually gaining some degree of warmth.

"I'm sorry that you had to bear all that by yourself for so long," he said. "But not anymore. I promise."

Zi-ning pulled away, picking herself up on her feet. "You were just acting? There was no assassination, was there? This was all just a show that you decided to put on to trick me!" she exclaimed, the sadness from a moment ago giving way to raw anger. How dare he do this to her not only once, but twice?

She spun on her heels to leave, but he immediately reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

"Zi-ning, Zi-ning, wait," Zhenghuan called, before breaking out into a series of coughs.

She hesitated briefly, glancing back. The cross-folds of his inner robes had come apart slightly, clearly showing that there were no wounds on his chest whatsoever. She scoffed at her own foolishness. Clearly she had not learnt her lesson from her past life, if she had once again fallen for a man's lies.

"Let go of me."

"I'm not letting go. Zi-ning, I'm never letting go, and nothing you say or do is going to make me," he replied. Zhenghuan got up from the bed and pulled her into his arms, locking her in a tight embrace. "I'm sorry for tricking you like this, but I only wanted prove that what you said this morning was not entirely true, that I do have a place in your heart. You admitted it yourself—that you love me, don't you?"

"That doesn't justify what you did!" she retorted, struggling to free herself. The tear stains were still wet on her cheeks, and the fear of his death still fresh in her mind. "How is feigning your own death a good way of trying to prove your little hypothesis? You're full of lies! Exactly the same as all of them!"

"Zi-ning, I'm truly sorry," Zhenghuan said, burying is face against her shoulder. "If I had known what you had gone through before, how those wretched people had betrayed your trust, I would never have done something like this. This was my mistake. I'll do anything to make it up to you. I'm not the same as them. I'm not Ru-an."

Zi-ning closed her eyes, her throat closing up. He had heard everything that she had said, about what she had endured in her past life. Suddenly, a strong sense of shame washed over her.

"If you heard everything, then you'll know why we cannot be. I'm a monster, Zhenghuan, a vengeful spirit. I came back from the dead. I was Ru-an's woman before, and I was even married to Ru-wen. How can you be willing to accept someone like me?"

Zhenghuan slowly separated from her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, his intense gaze meeting hers, boring its way into her soul.

"Han Zi-ning, I don't care if you've been reborn once or twice or even ten times, or who you chose to give your heart to in your previous life. In this life, you met me, and I've decided that you're the only woman I will ever love. I know that after what you've been through, it'll be difficult for you to believe my words, so the only thing I can do is to show you that I mean what I say through my actions. If you are set on this path of revenge, then I will walk it with you. Will you at least give me a chance?"

The sincerity and earnestness in his words melted through the final vestiges of ice in her heart, and miraculously, it felt as if she was finally beginning to heal. Zhenghuan was right—in this life, fate had brought them together, first on Taishan, and then again when they met in the capital. This was something that hadn't happened in her previous life. She didn't have him back then. Even though opening her heart once again was a deeply frightening thing to do, she still wanted to do it anyway, because it was him.

Slowly, she nodded.