In the damp cell, the torchlight flickered on the stone walls, casting menacing shadows on the iron bars.

"Miss Su, you may leave now."

The guard stood outside the prison gate, holding a set of plain cotton clothes in his hands. There were no embroidery or decorations; they were the most ordinary clothes for commoners.

In the corner, Su Ruodan slowly raised her head.

Her long hair was disheveled and her once flamboyant face was as pale as paper, only her eyes still held an unyielding obsession.

"……What???"

Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.

"The northern border has been pacified, and the remaining enemies of the enemy country have been eliminated."

"His Majesty has granted a general amnesty, so you no longer need to be imprisoned."

The guard placed the clothes by the fence.

The iron chain swayed violently, and Su Ruodan suddenly lunged at the railing, her withered fingers gripping the iron bars tightly, her knuckles turning bluish-white.

"A general amnesty?! Why would there be a general amnesty?! And he made me stay here for so long, and now he's just letting me go?!"

"You won't even see me?"

Her voice trembled, and she was very emotional.

“Your father resigned from his official post and started a school in Qingzhou. Your whole family is waiting for you in Qingzhou. If you want to go home, we have prepared a carriage and a driver for you to take back.”

The guard did not answer her question, but simply told her in a matter-of-fact manner.

"I don't believe it!!!"

Su Ruodan suddenly screamed, her voice echoing in the cell.

She shook the iron bars frantically, and the wounds from the shackles on her wrists bled again.

"He clearly...!!!"

The words were on the tip of her tongue but stopped abruptly! She bit her lip hard until she tasted blood.

Memories flooded back. In her previous life, Yin Jiuxiao seemed to have done nothing more than imprison her and fulfill her demands for gold, silver, jewels, brocade, silk, and imperial cuisine.

But in this life, nothing exists anymore, and he would even consider killing her unnecessary.

Su Ruodan suddenly laughed, a laugh more unpleasant than crying: "I... don't even have the right to be resented."

The guard watched her quietly, then suddenly took out a jade hairpin from his sleeve—the very hairpin he had kept hidden away years ago in case she was contemplating suicide.

He put it on his clothes.

"Miss Su, if you were..."

"roll!!"

Su Ruodan, in a fit of rage, stepped forward and kicked aside the clothes and jade hairpin, shattering the hairpin on the ground.

The guard sighed and turned to leave, still hearing suppressed sobs behind him.

The cruelest punishment, it turns out, is not hatred, but forgetting.

Su Ruodan lived two extraordinary lives, but in the end, she and Yin Jiuxiao didn't even become enemies.

From beginning to end, the other party never took her seriously.

After being released from prison, Su Ruodan wandered aimlessly around Beijing.

But she was still unwilling to give up. She curled up beside the stone lion outside Xuanwu Gate, snowflakes falling on her cracked fingertips and melting into icy water mixed with blood.

"Let me see His Majesty!!"

"Tell him that it is Su Ruodan who requests an audience!!"

After waiting for an unknown amount of time, she suddenly lunged at the guards who were changing shifts, her voice hoarse as if sandpaper was being rubbed.

The guard kicked her in the back of the knee: "Crazy woman! I told you His Majesty doesn't know you, so why would he see you! Get out!!"

She fell heavily onto the snow, her palms cut by pebbles, but she felt no pain.

At dawn, she tried a different approach.

Taking advantage of the moment when the guards were changing shifts, she suddenly rushed towards the palace gate, her withered fingers gripping the cracks in the vermilion door tightly: "Yin Jiuxiao! You saw me! Come out!!!"

With a bang, the iron mace slammed into her back. She vomited blood, but still clung to the crack in the door, her fingernails splitting and leaving ten hideous bloody streaks on the palace gate.

"His Majesty!"

"You clearly said..."

Her piercing screams startled the birds, but what did he say?

Did you make any promises to her?

It seems like it didn't happen in either of my two lifetimes.

It was her, still clinging to him as her obsession.

When the guards pried her fingers apart, she suddenly felt dizzy.