Lan Shan Jun was born an orphan and grew up in Huailing, raised on food from a hundred households. She learned how to slaughter pigs, planning to one day open a butcher shop. Who would have thought the heavens would play a cruel joke on her.

At sixteen, she was taken back to the Duke of Zhen Guo’s manor in Luoyang and became the legitimate second daughter who had been lost long ago.

At first, she thought this was heaven’s mercy, seeing how pitiful it was for her to slaughter pigs. But ten years passed. She trembled in fear while fawning over her family, desperately scheming to marry, enduring years of cold stares. When she was finally sent to a pitch-black courtyard where no sunlight reached and locked away, she suddenly realized: coming to the capital from the countryside should have been heaven’s punishment for slaughtering too many pigs, not a blessing.

Another year passed. Unable to see the sun, unaware of the passage of days and months, surviving on cold, spoiled food and enduring endless torment, she still refused to yield and dared not die.

The only comfort in her misery came in the darkness, when her hand brushed against a book.

The window had not been fully sealed, and a sliver of spring light still seeped through.

She slowly moved closer to the window, using that sliver of light to read—

It was a journal. Inside were the reflections of a youth from age six to sixteen. His words were full of passion and ambition. He believed himself to be a sharp sword, waiting only for his king to draw him from the sheath.

She recognized the writer. It was Yu Qingwu, the same person who had gone up the execution platform the day she was sent away from Luoyang.

So when she returned to her sixteenth year, and met Yu Qingwu for the first time, she felt he was a pitiful paper friend.

Later, she struggled to take control of her fate again in Luoyang, ignoring the voices around her. In the spring sunlight, she caught brief glimpses of his inner hesitation, his agonizing yet unwavering ambition and how he resolutely chose a path leading to death. An anger welled up inside her.

How similar their fates were! Neither of them should die as pawns of the powerful.

She and he both deserved to live.

—

Before meeting Lan Shan Jun, Yu Qingwu wrote in his journal: Master. The world. The people.

After meeting Lan Shan Jun, Yu Qingwu wrote: Shan Jun. Shan Jun. Shan Jun.

His heart moved with hers, and with his head lowered in pleading, he said softly, “Shan Jun, I’ve tried to restrain myself.”