Yu Mei guided Xie Ming into her room and drew back the curtains. "Should I bring your lunch here, Madam? You still look tired."
"No." Xie Ming sat on the edge of the bed. "I don't want to eat. I'll rest a moment first."
"Then I'll tell the kitchen to keep something warm for you."
Xie Ming nodded, barely listening. Her eyes moved around the room, still unfamiliar.
Slowly, everything settled over her like a reminder of her new life. A new body. A new world. A husband who looked at her as if she'd stolen his fortune out from under him. Servants who flinched at her as though she were some kind of villain.
And yet, life here wasn't so bad.
No Empress Dowager to remind her of her place. No consort stealing every ounce of warmth while she faded into the background. No pond. No thought of a man who never came.
"It's not so bad here," she said quietly.
Yu Mei, halfway out the door, glanced back. "Madam?"
"Nothing." Xie Ming lay back and curled onto her side. "Wake me before dinner."
"Yes, Madam."
The door clicked shut.
Exhaustion hit her all at once. Before she knew it, her eyes had closed, and sleep took her.
.....
In the evening, Jin Liwei returned home. "Did she come home? Has she settled in?" he asked, handing his coat to the butler.
"Yes, Master. Madam has been resting since the afternoon."
"Still asleep?"
"Yes, Master."
"Did she have dinner?"
The butler hesitated. "Not yet. We tried to wake her, but she was deeply asleep. None of us dared push further."
Jin Liwei understood their hesitation well enough. Xie Ming had never been known for her patience with anyone who woke her early.
Still, he wasn't about to be blamed for starving his own wife. With a sigh, he headed for the stairs.
The butler assumed he was retiring to his own room. He looked twice when Jin Liwei stopped instead outside Xie Ming's door.
Jin Liwei stood there a moment, hand halfway to the knob, telling himself this was purely about the medication schedule and nothing else.
He knocked. No answer. He called her name. Nothing.
He frowned and opened the door carefully. "Xie Ming." The word died in his throat when he found the room dark, and her curled on the bed, blankets half kicked to the floor, folded into herself like someone trying to be small enough not to be noticed.
She looked more fragile like this than he'd ever seen her. It pulled his frown deeper.
As if she's been through something unbearable. He scoffed under his breath and told himself to be the bigger person about it.
He crossed the room to cover her with the blanket. Nothing more.
That was when he heard it.
"No…" Her voice cracked. "I didn't do it… I'm innocent…"
He stopped, blanket in hand.
Tears slid from beneath closed lashes. Her brows drawn together, mouth trembling around words that refused to fully form. Watching her sob like this in her sleep, something in his chest ached, sharp and sudden.
He pressed a hand to his own chest, frowning. What is this. He took a slow breath, and the ache eased, just slightly.
"Xie Ming." She didn't stir.
He reached out and patted her shoulder gently, trying to wake her without startling her. Instead, her hand shot up and caught his wrist, gripping it tight, pulling it beneath her cheek as she turned toward him.
He froze, caught off guard, and had no choice but to kneel beside the bed to keep his balance.
He stayed there, unwilling to wrench his hand free and risk waking her too roughly.
This close, he noticed the tear tracks on her cheeks. Carefully, almost without deciding to, he reached up with his free hand and wiped them away.
Up close, her features settled into something softer than he'd ever paid attention to before. Gentle brows, no longer pulled tight with whatever temper she usually wore. Fair skin, smooth under the low light.
If she would just stay like this, and not spout nonsense, she wouldn't be so unbearable after all.
That was when her eyes suddenly opened.
Sharp. Alert. Fixed on him like a blade drawn without warning.
"What are you doing?"
The coldness in her voice sent him reeling back so fast he landed on the floor.
By the time he'd recovered enough to look up, she was already sitting upright, smoothing her hair back into place, straightening her collar with brisk, unhurried hands, as if the girl sobbing moments ago had been someone else entirely.
She looked at him, plain and questioning, as though he were the one who owed an explanation. "What are you doing here? Didn't you say you wanted nothing to do with me?"
Jin Liwei stared at her, momentarily speechless. Then he scoffed, sharp with something close to anger. What was he thinking, feeling sorry for her? Pitiful, was she? Not in seven lifetimes would the two of them ever get along.
He stood, straightening his clothes with more force than necessary. "Who even wants to talk to you." He paused.
"I simply came to call you down for dinner. It's late, and you're still asleep." His voice hardened. "Or would you rather I let the world hear that Jin Liwei starves his sick wife all day?"
Xie Ming glanced past him toward the window. Dark already. She'd slept longer than she realized.
Her stomach chose that exact moment to growl. She'd only managed breakfast before leaving the hospital. No lunch since.
"Oh." She blinked, faintly caught off guard by her own hunger. "I didn't realize it was so late." She looked up at him. "I'll come down once I've washed my face." A pause. "Have you eaten yet? If not, let's eat together."
Jin Liwei, already halfway out the door, stopped in his tracks.
They never ate together. He took his meals in the dining room. She took hers in her room. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. But since she'd asked, he had no real reason to refuse.
He cleared his throat, covering the pause. "Then don't take too long. I won't wait forever."
With that, he left the room.
Xie Ming watched him go and frowned. Why is he so moody? Does he really need to react so strongly. She shrugged it off and got up to wash her face before heading down.
.....
Downstairs, Jin Liwei waited at the dinner table, where a generous spread had already been laid out. Dish after dish, carefully chosen, heavy on vegetables and easy on the stomach, everything the doctors had recommended for her recovery.
He sat with his tablet in front of him, pretending to read his work documents, though his thoughts kept drifting back upstairs, to her tear-streaked face and the way her eyes had gone from soft to sharp in the space of a single breath.
Get a grip, Jin Liwei, he told himself, for what felt like the tenth time that evening.
Footsteps on the stairs pulled his gaze up despite himself.
She came down in a plain white dress, her hair loose, one hand trailing the railing. Every step was slow, deliberate, carried with an elegance that had nothing clumsy or grating about it.
She looked different.
Stop staring, he told himself. His eyes didn't listen.
Xie Ming, unaware of his gaze, took her seat without a word, and her eyes went wide at the spread in front of her. Weeks of hospital food had left her with low expectations. This looked like a feast in comparison.
She didn't bother with formalities, just picked up her chopsticks and started eating, trying the stir-fried greens first, chewing slowly, savoring something simple and familiar.
She said nothing, complained about nothing, only ate with the quiet, unhurried dignity of someone who had never once needed to perform gratitude to earn a meal.
He watched her over the edge of his tablet, and something in his chest settled into a rhythm he didn't quite recognize. Quiet. Almost content. Just from watching her eat in peace instead of picking apart every dish that didn't suit her mood.
Can amnesia really change someone this much? Not just how she speaks, but how she sits, how she eats. Everything.
Neither of them spoke through the meal. When she finished and rose to leave, he finally broke the silence.
"Wait."
She turned, a question in her eyes.
"Do you not remember anything? At all?"
"What kind of question is that." Her voice stayed even. "Do I look like I'm performing for you?"
It caught him off guard, how calm she sounded.
He set the tablet down. "Since we've agreed on six months, there are terms you'll need to keep. You hold the title of Mrs. Jin Liwei during that time. No relationships with other men. Respect toward my family. Managing this household properly."
He paused. "No more clubs, no more scandals. I've spent enough time cleaning up headlines because of you."
"Though this marriage is only in name," he went on, quieter now, "you still have responsibilities as Mrs. Jin. I won't allow the reckless behavior from before. Otherwise we proceed with the divorce immediately, whether you have your memories back or not."
Xie Ming listened, something in her chest going cold and familiar. A loveless marriage, rules for the wife, none for the husband. She'd lived this once already. She had no intention of living it twice.
"Agreed." She met his eyes, calm and unhurried. "But the same applies to you."
His brow lifted slightly. "What do you mean?"
"No relationships with other women." Her gaze didn't waver. "And if you bring a consort into this household, I promise you, her life will not be a pleasant one."
Consort. He almost laughed. What era does she think this is?
But he remembered the doctor's warning, her tendency now toward strange, old-fashioned words, and let it go.
"Fine," he said. "You have my word for it. Anything else?"
She studied him a moment, faintly surprised he'd agreed so easily, then rose from the table. "That's it. As long as you treat me with respect, there's nothing else I need from you. If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave."
"There's one more thing." He stopped her.
She paused.
He hesitated, which was unlike him. "Earlier. In your room." His jaw tightened slightly. "You were having a nightmare. I only meant to wake you properly."
It wasn't quite an explanation. It wasn't quite an apology either. He only didn't want her mistaking it for something it wasn't. He hadn't meant to be warm toward her.
Xie Ming held his gaze a long moment. Then she smiled, faint and unbothered.
"I didn't ask for an explanation." She turned toward the stairs. "Thank you for waking me for dinner."
She climbed the stairs without looking back, and this time, he was the one left staring after her, wondering what exactly had just happened, and why he'd felt the need to explain himself to her in the first place.