Xia Yiren's POV
I can't breathe in this room.
Plum Blossom Pavilion. The servants keep calling it beautiful, keep telling me how lucky I am to have such fine quarters. But all I see is my prison from my first life. The same silk curtains where I hid poison vials planted by Ling Meihua. The same table where I wrote letters I never sent, letters she later forged with my handwriting. The same bed where I slept the night before my arrest.
The same window I looked through when guards came to drag me away.
My hands shake as I touch the wooden frame. I remember this exact spot. I stood here screaming as they bound my wrists, swearing I was innocent, begging them to let me explain.
No one listened then either.
Young Miss? My new maid—a girl named Lianhua—peers in nervously. Do you need anything? Tea? Something to eat?
I shake my head. What I need is to escape this nightmare, but that's not an option.
Leave me, I say, and she scurries away.
Alone, I sink to the floor and press my hands over my chest. The soul bond mark burns there, phoenix and dragon intertwined, a constant reminder that I'm chained to Yijun whether I want it or not.
And through the bond, I feel him. Even from across the palace, his emotions bleed into mine. Confusion. Worry. Determination. He's thinking about me, trying to understand why I hate him so much.
Good. Let him wonder. Let him suffer the way I suffered.
But the bond won't let me enjoy his pain because every spike of his hurt echoes in my own chest. We're connected now, two halves of a cursed whole, and there's no escaping it.
I need air.
The gardens outside Plum Blossom Pavilion are dark and quiet. Most palace residents are asleep, but I can't rest. Every time I close my eyes, I see the execution block. Feel the blade. Hear my own screams.
The bond pulses with sudden awareness. Yijun feels my distress through the connection.
No. I don't want his concern. Don't want him anywhere near me.
But the bond has other ideas. It pulls at me, an invisible thread connecting my heart to his, growing tighter the more I try to resist.
I sense him moving. Leaving his chambers. Walking toward me.
The bond is drawing us together like magnets we can't fight.
I should go back inside. Lock my doors. Refuse to see him.
Instead, my feet carry me deeper into the garden, toward the small pavilion by the lotus pond. The same pavilion where we used to meet in secret in my first life, where he told me he loved me, where we planned a future that never came.
Footsteps crunch on gravel behind me.
You couldn't sleep either, Yijun says quietly.
I don't turn around. The bond won't let me. Your emotions keep bleeding into mine.
I know. I feel yours too. He moves closer, and through the bond, I sense his exhaustion. You're terrified. In constant pain. And you hate me with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
Good.
Why? The word comes out frustrated. What did I do to you? We met for the first time today. Before that, we'd never even spoken. So why do you look at me like I'm a monster?
Because you are, I want to scream. Because you'll become one. Because duty will turn you cold and you'll sign my death warrant with the same hand that once touched my face.
But I can't say any of that without sounding insane.
I just do, I say instead.
That's not an answer.
It's the only one you're getting.
Through the bond, his frustration spikes. He walks around to face me, and in the moonlight, he looks younger than I remember. More vulnerable. His formal robes are gone, replaced by simple sleeping clothes. His hair is loose. He looks less like the Crown Prince and more like a confused eighteen-year-old boy trying to understand why fate chained him to someone who hates him.
It would be easier if he looked like the cold Emperor from my memories. This version is harder to hate.
Talk to me, he pleads. Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.
You can't fix this.
How do you know if you won't even try?
Because I've already lived through it! The words explode out before I can stop them. I've already watched you choose duty over me. Watched you sign my death warrant. Watched you sit there cold and silent while I screamed my innocence
His face goes pale. When? How? We just met
In another life. I laugh bitterly. In the future. In the past. Does it matter? The point is I know how this ends, Yijun. The bond makes you think you care now, but when the evidence appears—when it looks like I betrayed you—you'll abandon me just like before.
Through the bond, I feel his horror mixing with disbelief. You're saying you're from the future? That we've done this before?
I'm saying trust is earned, and you've already proven you can't be trusted.
But I haven't done anything yet!
Exactly. Yet. I meet his eyes. That's the problem. You haven't done it yet, but you will. And no matter what you promise now, when that moment comes, you'll make the same choice. Because that's who you are—an Emperor who puts the empire above everything else.
His jaw clenches. Through the bond, I feel his desperate need to prove me wrong warring with his duty. Even now, even hearing that he'll betray me, part of him is already calculating whether he'd make the same choice again if the empire truly demanded it.
See? I want to say. You're already choosing duty over me, and we've barely spoken.
I want to believe you, he says finally. About coming from the future, about knowing what happens. But you have to give me something. Tell me what to watch for. Let me help prevent it.
Why? So you can change a few details while the ending stays the same?
So we can both survive! His control cracks. Through the bond, I feel your nightmares. I see flashes of your execution. I know someone framed you and I know I failed you. But if you won't tell me who or how or when, how am I supposed to stop it?
He has a point. I hate that he has a point.
Ling Meihua, I say finally. The girl in pink from the selection. She's the key to everything.
The one you stared at like you wanted to kill her?
Because I do want to kill her. She orchestrated my execution in my first life. Befriended me, gained my trust, then destroyed me piece by piece.
Through the bond, Yijun's determination hardens. Then I'll have her removed from the palace tomorrow—
No! I grab his arm. Don't you understand? If you move against her now, they'll just replace her with someone else. We need to catch her in the act with proof so perfect even your grandmother can't ignore it.
My grandmother?
I shouldn't have said that. But it's too late now.
The Empress Dowager was part of it, I admit quietly. She approved my execution. Said emotions made emperors weak and I was a distraction you didn't need.
His face goes white. Through the bond, I feel his world tilting. He's always trusted his grandmother's judgment. Learning she'd approve killing his soul-bonded mate shatters something in him.
I don't believe it, he whispers. But through the bond, I feel his doubt. He does believe it. Or at least, he believes it's possible.
Believe what you want, I say tiredly. I'm going back to my room.
Wait. He catches my hand. If what you're saying is true—if we're going to survive this—we need to work together. You have knowledge of the future. I have power in the present. Combined—
We still fail. I pull my hand away. Don't you get it? I've already tried this. I've already lived through it. The ending doesn't change just because you promise to try harder this time.
But you changed something already. His voice is urgent. You came back. You remember. That's already different from before. Maybe this time—
This time I know not to trust you. I turn away. That's the only difference that matters.
I walk back toward Plum Blossom Pavilion, leaving him standing alone in the garden.
Through the bond, I feel his heartbreak. His desperate hope crumbling. His growing fear that I'm right and we're both doomed.
Good. Let him feel hopeless. Let him understand what it's like to see the future and know there's no escape.
I'm almost to my door when the bond suddenly screams a warning.
Danger.
Not from Yijun. From someone else. Someone watching us.
I spin around, scanning the dark gardens. Yijun senses it too—I feel his alarm spike through the connection.
A shadow moves near the eastern wall. Too deliberate to be a servant. Too careful to be a guard.
Someone was listening to our entire conversation.
Someone now knows I remember the future.
Someone knows about Ling Meihua.
Through the bond, Yijun and I lock eyes across the garden, sharing the same terrible realization:
We just gave our enemy the perfect weapon to destroy us both.