"I … I said that the traitor Xiao Shijing was beheaded by the Emperor …" The servant girl saw that her face was becoming more and more frightening. She only said this one sentence and did not dare to say anything else. She hurriedly grabbed the other person who was gossiping with her and ran away without looking back, as if there was a vicious beast chasing after them.

They did not know that when the mother beast behind them heard this, she instantly became weak and lost all of her vigor. It was as if her sharp teeth and claws had been ruthlessly pulled out. She was dripping with blood and the pain was bone-piercing.

Pei Ruan stood there in a daze. After a long while, she held onto the side of the table to steady herself.

She laughed softly, "Traitor … how could he be a traitor?

!

His life's ambition was to be a good general of the country. How could he be a traitor? "

Her face was full of tears as she looked up in disbelief.

The tears that flowed down her face washed away the traces of the thick makeup on her face. She was so vulgar and pathetic that it made people laugh. She looked both despicable and sorrowful.

She could not restrain herself from laughing. Her open mouth seemed to be unable to close.

Then, as if she was tired from laughing, she squatted on the ground and did not make a sound for a long time.

The hem of her dress fell to the ground. The flower pattern embroidered on the hem of her dress was stained with dust, but she did not care.

That person was closely tied to her past and, as always, firmly tied to her present.

Si Yue thought.

"Ridiculous!"

She cried out, like a mother beast that was furious because of her unwillingness. She suddenly stood up and forcefully swept the teacups off the table.

The cups fell to the ground. The sound was like thunder, and then the floor was a mess.

Si Yue looked at Pei Ruan in front of her as she cried bitterly. She had never seen Ruan Ruan so directly and intensely lonely and sorrowful.

She was like an outsider who had never experienced this before. She looked on coldly from the side and felt a strange sense of unease.

Si Yue walked forward and looked down at Pei Ruan, who was sitting on the ground without caring about her image.

She wanted to comfort her, but did not know what to say. She could only call out, "Ruan Ruan …"

"She can't hear you," a familiar voice said.

The scene in front of him was like a mirror. At this moment, it seemed to have been startled and rippled. In the next moment, it turned into a water mirror and accurately reflected Si Yue's appearance.

Si Yue's hand froze in mid-air before he retracted it.

He looked around in confusion. Strangely, he didn't feel panic at all about the unknown.

"Who are you?"

"Pei Ruan." It was a young woman with a gentle voice. She smiled.

"Hmm?" Si Yue was even more confused. He didn't understand why this woman had called his name.

"I mean, I'm Pei Ruan." The woman answered patiently. "I'm right in front of you."

Upon hearing this, Si Yue cautiously took half a step back. She had only just noticed her reflection in the water mirror.

She originally thought that it was just a reflection of her appearance, but now that she looked carefully, she realized that the person in the water mirror looked like her, but at the same time, was not her.

Si Yue pondered over the meaning of the woman's words. He vaguely grasped something in his mind, but he still found it hard to believe.

If the person in the mirror was Pei Ruan, then who was she?

Si Yue fell into an inexplicable confusion.

She subconsciously wanted to question the woman's words, but …

She absentmindedly looked at the woman smiling gently in the mirror. A voice in her heart told her that perhaps this person was telling the truth.

She couldn't help but walk forward and raise her hand to touch the person in front of her. However, all she touched was the cold, flat surface of the mirror.

The face was exactly the same, and the curve of her smile was exactly the same. She couldn't tell if she was an illusion or a real person. It was as if the inside and outside of the mirror were two different worlds. They were separated by a barrier. They were so close that they could feel each other's breath, but they also seemed so far away that they were strangers in two different worlds.

"Then, who am I?"

Si Yue asked the woman. If what the woman said was true, then there was already a Pei Ruan in this world. Who was she?

"Did you notice the difference?"

Pei Ruan smiled gently. He looked at her confused expression, but didn't answer her question. Instead, he threw an irrelevant sentence at her.

However, he didn't expect her to answer. Instead, he continued, "At that time, I chose to leave him." He paused. "And you chose to stay with him. You followed him back to the capital."

"What you saw just now was the life I experienced." Pei Ruan's expression was still gentle and smiling. However, his eyes seemed to recall something, and he suddenly blushed.

"Di, di."

As Pei Ruan's voice fell, Si Yue heard the strange sound again. Her originally dizzy and sluggish head suddenly felt a sharp pain.

It was as if the floodgates had been opened. Something was forcefully poured into her brain, bringing with it a strong sense of rejection and discomfort.

She squatted down, her hands desperately clutching her head. It was so painful that it felt like it was about to explode. She tried to lessen the pain. She bit her lower lip, restraining herself from crying out in pain.

Pei Ruan stood in front of her through the water mirror. He saw her suddenly kneel on the ground in pain. After a while, when he saw that she seemed to have recovered, he worriedly asked, "Are you alright?"

Si Yue slowly stood up. "I'm fine." Her face was pale, but the helplessness and confusion in her eyes had faded away. She had become calm.

She finally remembered who she was.

Her name was indeed Si Yue. She was the person who came to this world to fulfill Pei Ruan's wish. However, Pei Ruan didn't know what she wanted to do, so she erased all her memories and experienced this.

Si Yue straightened up and organized the large amount of memories in her mind.

Pei Ruan's father was the prime minister of the imperial court. He should have been rich and prosperous, but because of the suspicion of the emperor, he had no choice but to live in seclusion in the mountains with his wife and daughter.

Although they lived a poor life, it was also comfortable. Therefore, Pei Ruan did not feel dissatisfied or depressed after experiencing such ups and downs in life. Later, in the mountain village, she met the little brother of the Xiao family, who was their neighbor, Xiao Shijing.

Xiao Shijing's parents respected Pei Ruan's talent and asked him to teach Xiao Shijing. In addition, the two of them often went out to sea to do business, so they placed Xiao Shijing in the care of the Pei family. Later, unfortunately, they encountered a natural disaster at sea, and the two of them died at sea.

When the news spread to the mountain village, the Pei couple found out. They pitied Xiao Shijing for his young age, so they took him in and taught him carefully.

However, he didn't pass the imperial examinations like his parents had hoped. When he was sixteen, Xiao Shijing gave up on the path of studying literature. Without looking back, he left home and joined the army in the west.

Fortunately, he was made for martial arts. In addition, he didn't lack courage and strategy. Thus, he relied on his achievements on the battlefield to rise from a small soldier to the position of a general.

Three years after he left, the Pei family was robbed and killed by bandits. Pei Ruan was the only one who jumped into the river with injuries all over her body to escape the bandits' knife. In the end, she was rescued by a fisherman and sent to a medical center.

However, when she came out of the medical center, she was at a loss and didn't know where to go.

When the town's hoodlums saw that this young girl was unfamiliar and had no one to take care of her, they kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel.

She dragged out an ignoble existence in the brothel for nine years, while Xiao Shijing walked step by step to a height that she couldn't see.

Later, Pei Ruan died early from a cold and the two of them never saw each other again.

Si Yue sighed in her heart. She raised her eyes to look at Pei Ruan in the mirror again. "Have you thought about your wish now?"

"I …" Pei Ruan said hesitantly. "I want him to live." Her eyes were watery as she looked steadily at Si Yue.

"He shouldn't have died so early. He hasn't realized his ambitions …"

"Live?"

Si Yue interrupted Pei Ruan. "He was destined to die, whether it was in your previous life or this one."

"The third day of the winter lunar month." Si Yue's palm brushed across the smooth surface of the mirror and over Pei Ruan's raven black hair. "The day of his death." Si Yue calmly looked at Pei Ruan as she said this.

Pei Ruan stood in a daze.

"How could it be …" Pei Ruan was stunned.

She had thought that she would definitely be able to save him and ask Ah Shi to live well, but she hadn't expected such an answer.

"Life and death have long been decided." Si Yue looked at her confused and dejected expression and answered.

"So, have you thought about your wish?"

***

Si Yue opened her eyes and sat up on the bed. She raised her hand to rub her temples.

After all, she had been dreaming all night and had a lot of work to do in the dream. Her brain was still suffering from the aftereffects and she felt groggy. Even though she knew that she was awake, her reaction was still as slow as if she was in a dream.

"Miss, are you awake?" Bai Lan asked from outside the door when she heard a slight noise coming from inside the room.

Si Yue replied lazily, "Come in."

…

After putting on her clothes, Si Yue sat in front of the dressing table.

Prynne picked up the comb to tidy up her long hair that had fallen down her back, carefully combing it over and over without making her feel the slightest bit of pain.

"Miss, did you have another nightmare last night?"

Bai Lan caught a glimpse of her appearance in the mirror and couldn't help but stop what she was doing. She looked at her face worriedly.

She hadn't been sleeping well these days, and the sedatives she had prescribed didn't work.

Her complexion was already slightly paler than the average person, and the dark circles under her eyes that had accumulated over the past few days were even more striking. She had a languid and weary look, and her listless appearance made people feel uneasy.

"It's okay. I'll be fine in a few days." Si Yue waved her hand and didn't take it to heart.

Because of the various memories she had in her dream last night, she had some guesses about the nightmares from a few days ago. She guessed that they might be some kind of warning. Once she regained her own memories, they probably wouldn't appear again.

Therefore, she wasn't as worried as Bai Lan about it.

Bai Lan saw that she didn't care, so she didn't say anything else and continued what she was doing.

She had never been the kind of person who liked to talk. She only secretly reminded herself to be more diligent in supervising Miss to take her medicine.

Si Yue knew nothing about this.

***

"General, Song Tao and the others seem to be up to something recently. I don't know what they're planning. Should we …" Deputy General Liu Wu looked worried.

Liu Wu was Xiao Shijing's trusted aide. He had accompanied Xiao Shijing all the way and followed him loyally.

This northern expedition was dangerous, so he had volunteered to assist Xiao Shijing.

"Send someone to keep an eye on them first. Be careful not to alarm them." Xiao Shijing pondered.

For this trip, he had transferred the troops that originally belonged to the Zhao family. The foreign tribes in the west were eyeing them covetously and needed someone to guard them. He couldn't take any more troops with him.

Many of the generals he could assign now were specially arranged by Zhao Yan.

On the surface, they expressed obedience to him, but in private, they had other ideas.

If they were simply disobedient, he wasn't afraid. He was just worried that they had a deeper plan.