Days later, Hua Shu finally woke.
Her eyes were painfully clear as she looked at Hua Che and Hua Ling sitting by the bed. "Who are you?"
Hua Ling pressed her lips together and smiled through her tears. "I'm your sister."
Hua Shu touched her head, murmuring, "Sister." Her memory was a blank white sheet.
"Who is he?" she asked, turning vaguely to Hua Che.
Before he could answer, she scrambled up, feet bare, and darted for the door. "Xiao Limo! Limo! Where is he? Where did he go?"
Hua Che caught her. He gripped her shoulders. He wanted to say Xiao Limo is dead. The words stopped in his throat. What came out instead was: "Shu'er. I'm right here."
The sentence tasted like ash. As soon as it left his mouth, a crushing relief washed over him, followed instantly by a knife twisting in his chest.
Hua Shu stopped fighting.
She looked him up and down. She called him, over and over again, "Limo. Limo."
Hua Che answered her with absolute gentleness. Inside, he was bleeding out.
Hua Ling wiped her face and turned away. Who was left to blame?
Hua Shu leaned against him, studying his face with careful apprehension. "Limo. I forgot everything that happened before. You aren't angry with me, are you?"
Hua Che's heart seized. "I will never be angry with you."
She beamed and buried her face against his chest. "Limo, I must have loved you so much. I've forgotten everything else in the world, but I still remember your name."
Hua Che turned his face away. The smile that forced its way onto his lips was hollow.
She took his face in both hands and turned him back. "What's wrong?"
He wanted to say: Shu'er, I am not Xiao Limo. I am Hua Che. I can protect you for the rest of your life. I love you too. I love you so much.
But Hua Che could not save her the way Xiao Limo had.
"Nothing, Shu'er," he said. "I'm fine."
* * *
Hua Shu called him Xiao Limo when she was happy. She called him that when she was sad, when she was hungry, when she was annoyed. She never stopped.
Hua Che had infinite patience. He answered every time.
Hua Ling watched them. "Brother," she asked softly, her voice breaking. "Are you really going to spend the rest of your life as another man's shadow? The longer you wait... if Sister suddenly remembers—"
If the lie broke, what would happen to her?
It took Hua Che a long time to answer.
"The moment Shu'er collapsed... I swore an oath. If she survived, I would do anything. Everything she asked."
If Xiao Limo was the only reason Hua Shu had left to live, then Hua Che would be Xiao Limo. For the rest of his life.
Hua Ling fell silent. Her hatred for their father hardened like glass.
* * *
The Emperor aged a decade in a single night. His health crumbled. He survived on medicinal broth. In his rare moments of lucidity, he muttered over and over: "Where did I go wrong?"
Pitiful. Wretched.
Hua Che never took the throne. He kept his promise to Hua Shu, taking her out to see all of Da Qi, without regret, without complaint.
Princess Hua Ling, stripped of her older brother and sister's protection, grew up the hard way. She forced her way onto the throne and became Empress. She named her era Qi.
In the first year of Qi, Hua Ling issued an edict summoning Xiao Lifeng to the palace.
"You will be my Imperial Consort." Her voice was soft, but the command was absolute.
Xiao Lifeng gritted his teeth. "I beg Your Majesty to rescind the order."
Hua Ling beckoned him closer. "I grant you permission to return to the battlefield. To serve the empire."
Da Qi could not survive without the Xiao family. The Emperor had never understood that. Hua Ling did.
Xiao Lifeng's eyes darkened. "I dare not."
"I am not the late Emperor."
...
By the fifth year of Qi, the borders expanded. Neighboring nations bowed in submission.
Empress Hua Ling ruled with a clear mind and a steady hand. Ministers were loyal; the people cherished her. She passed into history a legend.
* * *
When Xiao Limo was ten years old, he found a toddler crying in the streets of Luoyang. She wore a pink skirt and her hair was tied up in rings. She stood shaking in the crush of the crowd, tears streaming down her face. Xiao Limo had been born to the highest privilege — the second legitimate son of Lord Xiao. He had known nothing of the world's suffering until he looked at that little girl and thought: She looks so sad.
He walked over. "Little girl."
She was sharp. She looked up with eyes like a deer's, bright with tears, and grabbed his sleeve. Her lower lip wobbled, and the tears came faster. "Big brother, I'm lost."
He smiled. "Don't cry. What's your name?"
Her nose was red. "They call me Little Taotao."
He nodded, trying to look very serious. "Let's walk around. We'll see if you remember where your house is."
Her face crumpled again. "Little Taotao really doesn't know where home is. Please don't make me try."
She was so adorable something inside him melted. "Alright. I'll take you to get something to eat."
Once full, the toddler immediately went on strike. She stood in place, refusing to move another step, and held out both arms in demand. "Big brother — hug."
Xiao Limo crouched. "Aren't you afraid I might be a bad person?"
She thought about it for a long time. "Are you a bad person?"
He suppressed a laugh. "No."
She clapped her hands. "I didn't think so either."
She climbed onto his back. Afraid of falling, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. He adjusted her weight, thinking: If we can't find her parents, we'll just keep her at the manor. How much could she possibly eat?
He hadn't expected her to trust him enough to fall asleep against his shoulder. He walked as slowly as he could to keep from waking her. But just as he was looking for a place to sit down, she stirred. He set her down and took her hand as they walked into the market.
Children love noise and spectacle. She was no different. Her eyes locked onto a white jade figurine hanging at a stall in the distance. "Big brother, I want."
He looked at the dense crowd. He moved her into a relatively quiet corner and pointed a stern finger. "Stay right here. Don't move. I'll go buy it."
Her face split in a grin. He ruffled her hair, found the gesture incredibly satisfying, and waded into the crowd to pay for the figurine.
When he came back, the corner was empty.
His heart seized. He clutched the white jade tight, running back and forth, calling her name. She had vanished entirely — as if she had never been there at all.
He stared at the figurine, a hollow knot forming in his chest. I didn't even get to take her home.
He begged his father to set the manor's people searching. That was how he finally learned she had been taken into the Imperial Palace and made a princess. Only then did the tightness in his chest ease.
* * *
The second time he saw her was the Emperor's Longevity Festival.
He recognized her the moment she stepped out. She had grown up. Those deer-bright eyes still held the same spark, but now she was Princess Hua Shu — radiant, bathed in the Emperor's unmeasured favor. Dressed in red, dancing, smiling until the entire hall seemed to light up. He caught himself staring, struck by a strange, sudden pride. My little girl grew up. He didn't realize he was shaking his head, then nodding, smiling like a complete idiot.
Xiao Limo, the Young General famed for his cold detachment, sat grinning at the air. Xiao Lifeng stared at his elder brother in open shock. Lord Xiao cleared his throat loudly. "Limo. What is amusing you so entirely?"
The smile snapped off his face. He scrambled for his teacup and drained it to cover his panic. His father and brother exchanged a look. Was I seeing things?
* * *
The Emperor's suspicion of the Xiao family was an open secret. Lord Xiao often reminded his sons: "The sons of the Xiao family are born to protect Da Qi. As long as you keep your heads down and stay out of politics, the Emperor will see it."
But Xiao Limo knew the truth. It wasn't the Xiao family the Emperor feared. It was him — the brilliant Young General.
Xiao Limo forbade his younger brother from joining the army. He feared the Emperor was making moves to exterminate their entire clan. His father was old, and posed no threat. By the fifteenth year of Jingyuan, Xiao Limo had made a decision. He would play the fool to strip the Emperor of his fear.
In the sixteenth year of Jingyuan, the imperial edict arrived.
He was to marry Hua Shu.
When the silk unrolled in his hands, he began to shake. Hua Shu is marrying me.
That very afternoon, he could not stop himself. He took the white jade figurine and slipped over the wall of the Princess Residence. It was his first lapse in discipline since the act began. He wanted to throw open her door and say: I'm the one who found you. All these years later, you're marrying me. We're meant to be together.
He hid in her room for hours. When she finally returned, she was furious. She vented her anger to her maid: "That old fool of an emperor — making me marry an idiot..."
He listened to her complaints with a quiet smile. Hua Shu. I am not an idiot. You marry me, and I will be good to you for the rest of my life.
I won't let you have any regrets. I am not an idiot.
* * *
She married him. She had forgotten him completely — the reluctance was written plain on her face — but he drank it in like sweet wine.
He discovered quickly that playing the child had its advantages. He liked teasing her. He liked watching the frustration flare up and die back again. Most of all, he liked calling her "Sister." The moment that word left his lips, her claws retracted and she turned impossibly soft.
He caught her staring at him more and more. She had changed, but the core of her hadn't. She was as unguarded with him now as she had been as a child. Sometimes she would watch him and murmur, "Did I know you before this?"
Every time she asked, he would reach out — just like that first day — and stroke her hair. She would tilt her head back, accepting the touch implicitly. "Limo, go wash some grapes for Sister."
Because he liked grapes.
After a few months, he found that holding her actually made her blush. Her ears would turn red. It was breathtakingly cute.
Perhaps it really was fate. She leaned on him automatically. She couldn't do without him.
Half a year into the marriage, Xiao Limo's love for her had grown so deep it frightened him. The feared commander of the Xiao Family Army now spent his days fetching tea and running errands in the Princess Residence. His father pulled him aside once: "Are you still my son?"
He had smiled back without hesitation. "I'm Shu'er's man."
* * *
Princess Hua Ling was a constant nuisance. She came around far too often, and actually had the audacity to suggest buying male companions for Hua Shu. The indignity! Xiao Limo would have gladly thrown the little sparrow bodily out the gates.
Once Hua Ling finally left, he pulled Hua Shu onto his lap. It was a preemptive strike.
He looked at her with huge, worried eyes. "Sister. You aren't going to abandon me, are you?"
If she said yes, he was going to bite her.
She gripped his sleeve. She bit her lip and changed the subject seamlessly. "Where do you want to play? I'll take you anywhere."
She wouldn't say no. He felt the victory spark in his chest. He pressed his face into the side of her neck. She stiffened, tried to get up, but he held her firmly in place.
"Sister. Limo likes you so much."
"Sister. You can't leave me."
"Sister. So soft."
She caught his face between her hands and looked down at him. His eyes shone with unfiltered sincerity, the words slipping past every defense she had erected. Slowly, she nodded. "I won't leave you."
The promise drifted over him like warm rain. His gaze dropped to her mouth. She tensed, her breathing turning shallow as she gripped his sleeves tighter. She was trembling. He didn't know what she was waiting for, but he saw the tension, and he took a slow breath, settling for pressing a long kiss against her cheek instead.
"Sister," he murmured, his voice roughening. "It is very uncomfortable."
Hua Shu coughed and turned her head toward the door so fast her neck must have snapped. "Xiao Tao! Bring jasmine tea. To cool him down."
He pressed his lips together, swallowing a grin. Yes, cooling down was probably required.
When Xiao Tao found Hua Shu later, she was sitting rigidly in her chair, cheeks flushed, hands pressed to her burning face.
"Princess... why do you look so disappointed?"
Hua Shu jerked her head away. "I am not! Disappointed? Ridiculous."
* * *
A few days later, he asked her to take him boating.
He thought boating was romantic. He wanted to do every single romantic thing in the world with her. But before he could even finish making the plans, the little sparrow Hua Ling came crashing back in. And from her frantic half-sentences, Xiao Limo learned one thing with absolute clarity: Hua Che loved Hua Shu.
Hua Ling wanted to drag Hua Shu to the palace. He said no.
It was the first time he had ever used that tone of voice with her. She left anyway.
He stood over the shattered pieces of a teacup he had thrown to the floor. The helplessness was suffocating.
"Hua Shu." He dropped the act.
She froze, her back to him. When the door finally clicked shut, she turned slowly around — but the room was empty. An illusion.
The panic set in hours later. What if she never came back? He badgered Xiao Tao until the maid cracked and went to the palace to ask around. As soon as she learned Hua Shu was at the Eastern Palace, he dragged her out the door at a near run.
He found Hua Che in bed. Hua Shu sat beside him. And Hua Che had her arm gripped in his hand.
Any sympathy Xiao Limo might have had for the injured Crown Prince vanished into thin air.
He leveled a black glare at Hua Che. "Sister hasn't slept beside Limo for two nights."
Hua Che bit back with obvious disgust. "The feared Young General of the Xiao Family Army — reduced to this idiocy."
Xiao Limo barely held back a scoff. When I was cutting down enemy commanders on the battlefield, you were playing in mud.
He brought her home and pulled her against him, stroking her hair. "Sister. Limo missed you after only two days."
He wanted to tell her the truth. He was on the verge of dropping the mask when she did it for him. "Xiao Limo. Stop performing."
She knew.
Of course she knew. How could a woman as brilliant as her not figure it out?
But the memory of Hua Che holding her arm flared up hot in his blood. The jealousy drove him. "Are you going to tell your father?"
He knew she wouldn't. He trusted her with his life.
She looked back at him levelly. "Your father served faithfully... your elder brothers spent their lives on the battlefield. The Xiao family has given everything to this empire. Where precisely is your crime?"
He stared at her, thunderstruck. He had believed she wouldn't betray him. He hadn't realized she understood him.
It was the pressure of the unsaid, finally breaking loose. The edges of his vision burned. He fought back the tears. "My brothers... they were taken prisoner. They starved themselves. They never surrendered."
His voice broke on the first word. It was the buried, infected wound inside him, and he was ripping it open in front of her because she was the only one who saw the blood.
He wept against her shoulder. Her hand moved softly, rhythmically across his back.
When she finally spoke, she said she was leaving Luoyang. Because the Emperor didn't trust her. Because: "I will only drag the Crown Prince into the crossfire."
He didn't believe it was just for the Crown Prince. He knew she loved him. He felt it.
It was the second time he lost control. He gritted his teeth and accused her of doing it all for Hua Che.
She shook her head and held onto his sleeve.
He stopped, the anger leaching out of him instantly. "Don't leave me, alright?"
She stood there for a long time. Finally: "Take care of yourself."
* * *
She was gone.
He spent every hour thinking about her. He sat at the desk in his study, lifted a brush to read military reports, and found he had written nothing but her name.
He started painting her instead. Every moment came back to him effortlessly — her anger, her soft indulgence, her laughter, her scolding. Soon the walls of his study were covered in her face. Just her. Only her.
Then the north fell.
The Emperor had suppressed the Xiao family at every turn; the Xia had smelled blood in the water. The collapse was inevitable. But Xiao Limo was a son of the Xiao. Defending Da Qi was what he was.
He put his armor back on. He was going. But first, he wanted to go to Guyang. Just to see her.
He closed his eyes. "Shu'er. I miss you."
And then she was standing right in front of him.
He thought it was another hallucination. It wouldn't have been the first time. The hope always shattered.
He kept wiping his sword, refusing to look up.
"Limo."
The sword hit the floor with a terrifying clatter.
He reached out, his hand shaking so hard he almost pulled it back when he touched her cheek. It felt hot enough to burn. She reached up and covered his hand with hers, pressing it firmly against her face.
"You're going to war?"
The smile broke over his face, bright and real as morning. "You came back."
She threw her arms around him. "I missed you."
He rested his chin on her head, exactly the way he used to. "I missed you too."
Before she could say anything else, he pulled out the letter of release. "If I come back, you are my wife. If I don't... you go free."
She wouldn't take it.
She said the exact same words he had used against her months ago: "Don't abandon me."
He stopped. He pulled her against him so tightly it hurt. "I'm the one who found you. All these years later, you're marrying me. We're meant to be together."
When she heard the story, she pressed her hands to her mouth, chest heaving. The shadow in her dreams had been real. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He caught her, crushed her to him, and kissed her back with everything he had — deep and starving.
"I'll wait for you," she promised.
It was her promise, but he made it his own. He would come back alive.
* * *
He saved the north. They returned to Luoyang, and she was desperate to leave, to run away. He knew what she was afraid of — but all under heaven is the Emperor's land. Where could they hide?
The Emperor summoned him.
As they walked through the towering red walls of the palace, he knew. He hadn't been afraid of dying on the battlefield, bathing in blood to protect his people, but looking into the Emperor's eyes, he saw the killing intent. And he tasted fear.
He had promised Hua Shu he wouldn't leave her. He lowered his head and asked the man on the throne: "Why must I die?"
"This empire belongs to the Hua family. Xiao Limo, you must die."
When the ruler commands it, the subject must die. But Xiao Limo wanted to live. He looked at the poisoned wine, turned on his heel, and walked for the door.
He should have known. It was an ambush. The Imperial Guards poured in from every side, burying him, pinning him to the ground while they forced his jaws open and poured the venom down his throat.
He choked violently. It was the first time in his life he had ever been truly terrified. The toxin was fast. The edges of his body began to fall numb. Blood bubbled up from his throat, spilling over his lips.
He fell to the floor, agony tearing through every nerve. His voice was barely a rasp. "Your Majesty... I beg you... let me see Hua Shu one last time."
The Emperor froze, then stumbled away without looking back.
Xiao Limo's hand slipped from the hem of the dragon robe to the stone floor.
Shu'er. I broke my promise. In the next life, I ask only to be your husband again. To not be broken this way. To never let you go.
* * *
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