After the palace examination results were announced, Xie Jing came to Luqiyuan to find Yu Tanqi.

The girl was wearing a green silk dress with a corset that outlined her slender waist.

She was standing by the pond feeding the koi, her skin transparent and white in the sunlight.

The hairpin that Jiang Shi gave her was still inserted in her black hair, shining with starlight, making the girl even more dazzling.

Xie Jing's eyes lit up when he first saw her, but soon dimmed because of the hairpin.

He clenched his fists slightly, trying to calm his emotions so that she wouldn't notice. "Sister Tan Qi."

Yu Tanqi raised his eyes to look at him and smiled: "Cousin Jing, why are you here?"

Xie Jing said, "I have something to tell you."

Seeing his serious expression, Yu Tanqi's heart skipped a beat. She pursed her lips and asked with feigned curiosity, "What do you want to tell me?"

Xie Jing looked at the koi in the pond and asked, "Are there any more feeds?"

"Yes." Yu Tanqi didn't understand why, but still gave him half of the fish feed.

The boy's fair and slender fingers gently touched her palm. His fingertips were slightly rough with thick calluses from years of holding a pen and writing.

Her palms were warm and soft, a softness unique to young girls.

Xie Jing lowered his eyes and casually scattered a handful of feed into the pond. The colorful koi swam over in a rush.

"I will be returning to Chenjun in a few days." He said lightly.

Yu Tanqi said: "Before cousin Jing goes back, I will help you prepare your luggage, as well as the gifts for grandma and the others. Please help me give them to grandma and the others one by one."

Xie Jing said, "My coming-of-age ceremony is coming soon. Will you return to Chen County on that day?"

Yu Tanqi hesitated for a moment, then smiled and said, "If nothing unexpected happens, I will naturally return to Chen County to attend Cousin Jing's coming-of-age ceremony."

It is reasonable and logical that Xie Jing is her cousin, and she should attend his coming-of-age ceremony.

Xie Jing stared at the chubby koi: "If you don't want to go back to Chen County, you don't have to."

Yu Tanqi was startled and said quickly, "Cousin Jing, what are you talking about? Why would I not want to go back to Chen County?"

Her heart was beating very fast. Could she have been exposed again?

After all, she is not the real original owner, so it is normal for her to be discovered by people close to the original owner.

She clenched her fingers nervously.

"I know you already know who wants to harm you, that's why you don't want to go back to Chenjun." Xie Jing turned and looked at Yu Tanqi, his eyes filled with heartache and worry. "Besides Jiang Xuan, you're also afraid that there are other people who want to harm you. But don't worry, Jiang Xuan has been arrested, she won't have the chance to harm you again."

Yu Tanqi's eyelashes trembled, "How did you know?"

"Because I'm your cousin, I know you. Over the years, you've never really felt at ease staying in the Xie family."

Xie Jing sighed softly, "No matter how good we are to you, you are still uneasy, because you know clearly in your heart that this is the Xie family, not the Yu family."

People who live under someone else's roof are always more sensitive.

If you are weak, you can express your feelings.

Unfortunately, he only realized now that Yu Tanqi had never truly integrated into the entire Xie family.

"Your uncle sent you to the Xie family because he felt sorry for you losing your mother at a young age and didn't want you to suffer any grievances if you married a second wife. He wanted you to receive your grandmother's guidance and the Xie family's protection so that you wouldn't be looked down upon or bullied when you get married in the future."

"You are very well-behaved. From your grandmother to the servants of the Xie family, everyone likes you very much. I like you too."

He implicitly expressed his feelings for her. After this separation, he didn't know when they would see each other again, so he wanted to indulge himself.

"You always say you're weak and rarely go out, but when your sisters invite you out, you never refuse. I now understand that it's not that you don't like going out, you just don't want us to have a bad impression of you. When you were very young, you were very lively and active."

Xie Jing said a lot, his expression and words were full of self-blame and heartache.

He wondered if he had noticed her inner uneasiness earlier, would she not have thought of coming to the capital to find her fiancé Jiang Shi?

He should have thought of it earlier.

But it's too late now.

The more Yu Tanqi listened, the more frightened she became. She didn't dare to look into Xie Jing's eyes.

The original owner was indeed sensitive. After her mother died, she had no choice but to come to the Xie family. While she was touched by the Xie family's kindness to her, she was also nervous and uneasy.

She knew clearly that her surname was not Xie, and no matter how good the Xie family treated her, she was just a cousin.

So she put away her temper and behaved well and obediently, just to make the Xie family like her more, so that she could live a better life.

She didn't dare confide her feelings to anyone for fear of being laughed at.

She always stayed alone in her yard reading, trying to calm her mind and stop her from thinking too much.

She is just a little girl, she is afraid and cowardly, so she protects herself by appearing well-behaved and obedient.

But she was also bold, otherwise she would not have set out to the Xie family in Chenjun with half of the family property and her maids and guards.

She knew that her father was doing this for her own good. In a world where men were superior to women and people were too harsh on women, she had to be taught and raised by female elders until she got married so that she wouldn't be criticized in the future.

The Xie family also always said that she was very much like her mother, the woman who seemed weak and gentle, but was bold and stubborn, which made them miss her to this day.

Yu Tanqi's personality is very similar to the original owner, so when facing foreseeable danger, she also likes to act innocent and harmless, letting the other party let down their guard, and then turn around and run away.

This is why she guessed that Jiang Xuan was the murderer who wanted to kill her and was determined to leave Chenjun. She was very self-aware. A seventeen-year-old girl dared to hire a killer and do things almost flawlessly. She thought she did not have the ability or the mentality to do so.

She is just an ordinary girl from the 21st century, open-minded and conservative in behavior, while Jiang Xuan is a native woman from feudal society, with terrible thoughts and perverted behavior.

At the same time, she was also afraid that the Xie family and the original owner's father would find out that she was not the original owner. She didn't want to die and was afraid that if she really died, she would not be able to return to the 21st century.

The ancients were just pedantic, not fools.

So she thought of the male protagonist. He and the original owner had never met, and he didn't know the original owner's temperament. She felt safe only when she was with him.

This sense of security is multifaceted and not absolute, but at least it can make her less frightened, fearing that her identity will be discovered one day and she will be arrested and tied up to be "exorcised."

The better the Xie family treated her, the more guilty she felt and the more she wanted to leave.

But she never thought that before she could feel at ease for a few days, Xie Jing suddenly said this to her.

She trembled and felt uneasy, almost thinking that Xie Jing had discovered that she was an imposter.

However, he finally just touched her head and gave her a gentle smile.

"It's okay if you don't want to go back to Chenjun, as long as you are happy. If one day you want to come back, I will personally come to take you back to the Xie family."