Chapter 3 Extra Chapter 3 (Yan Wan Part 1) Yan Wan's Last Cycle...
Chapter 84
"His Majesty……"
The eunuch rushed forward anxiously, his face full of worry.
Liang Yue raised his head in a daze, looking at the empty bedroom. He held a military map in his hand, not knowing how he had returned from the Ye family. It was as if his soul was floating outside his body, leaving only a shell, wandering between heaven and earth.
He staggered and waved his hand weakly.
The eunuch hesitated before stepping forward, but finally stopped, left the bedchamber with concern, and closed the door behind him.
—Has His Majesty's headache flared up again?
Liang Yue walked to the bedside, reached out to hold onto the bed frame, and slowly sat down. The military map in his hand was crumpled into a ball, but the writing was still clear, and the elegant and beautiful characters were already etched into his mind.
He murmured softly, “My name is Yan Wan. I was born in the sixteenth year of Jingyou. I am the eldest daughter of the Marquis of Zhongyong, Yan. I have an elder brother, Yan Shanhe, and a younger brother, Yan Danqing. When I came of age, the Northern Yan was in turmoil and war was about to break out on the border. My parents sent me back to the capital ahead of time and raised me under the care of my grandmother’s friend, Lady Zhao Lanjun.”
"In the thirty-fifth year of Jingyou, she married Prince Yu, Liang Yue, and in the same year, she helped Liang Yue ascend the throne and made him empress..."
Liang Yue's hoarse voice disappeared, and his vision was obscured by the water. In the haze, he seemed to see a woman standing in front of him, smiling and talking to him. He couldn't see her face clearly, and he couldn't remember her appearance, but the sense of familiarity was etched into his bones and would never be forgotten.
"Ah Wan—"
Liang Yue managed to utter a sound, instinctively reaching out his hand. However, as tears rolled down his cheeks, his vision gradually cleared, and his hand touched nothing. The shadow had vanished completely, and the light that had burned in his eyes gradually faded, leaving him sobbing uncontrollably.
That was his wife, his empress, the most important person in Liang Yue's life.
But he had completely forgotten her. How cruel fate is! It took away his wife and his memory, erasing all those years of mutual support, acquaintance, and love.
She did so much; she clearly existed.
Inside the empty bedchamber, Liang Yue clutched the letter to his chest, collapsed onto the bed, and his mournful and desperate cries echoed throughout the hall.
Tears streamed down his face, falling onto the pillow. He tried desperately to recall the events, which brought him excruciating pain and made him lose consciousness, unable to remember anything.
He seemed to be falling into boundless darkness, retracing his steps, searching for his way home.
-
How did Yan Wan meet Liang Yue?
They met when they were young. At that time, Liang Yue was still the heir apparent. Every winter, he would return to the capital with the former Prince Yu to pay homage to Emperor Xianzong. In reality, it was a time when Emperor Xianzong would make things difficult for Prince Yu and his son.
Having experienced the coldness and warmth of human relationships, the late Prince Yu could only ask Liang Yue to endure it.
Endure and you will live; do not endure and you will die.
In Liang Yue's childhood memories, he disliked the North because the winters there were very cold, with icicles hanging from the eaves, endless snow, and red walls and green tiles that made him afraid to look up...
He stood shivering in the Imperial Garden, then was pushed into the water. Unable to struggle, he watched as the son of Emperor Xianzong's favorite minister laughed and joked on the shore, seeing this landlubber struggling in the water.
"What are you doing?!"
A childish rebuke, accompanied by the nanny pulling him up, clean and warm clothes, and ginger soup brought by the palace servants—it was the first time Liang Yue had felt the warmth of winter in his youth.
He looked up and saw Yan Wan as a child, wrapped in a fox fur cloak, sternly reprimanding the people on the shore. She had a stern face and was listing the people's faults one by one.
Years later, Liang Yue still remembers it clearly.
As time went by, the coldness of the lake water was forgotten, and all that remained was Yan Wan's use of classical allusions to silence those people.
Yan Wan is younger than him.
Even in her youth, Yan Wan was already quite formidable. If anyone dared to argue back, relying on the Emperor's tacit approval, the even more unscrupulous and lawless Yan Danqing would burst out like a firecracker, brandishing a wooden stick and wildly waving it at the boys, forcing them to scatter.
One of them "reasoned" and the other "used force," and they worked together seamlessly. Even when the Emperor looked at the two little children and thought of the Yan family, he could only shake his head and say nothing more.
That year was the warmest winter in Liang Yue's childhood memories. The icicles weren't sharp weapons to poke people, but rather "targets" for their martial arts competitions. The heavy snowfall wasn't just cold; it also allowed them to build snowmen and have snowball fights. The ice on the lake was so smooth that they could slide very, very far away...
Liang Yue's gaze followed Yan Wan's movements.
When they were young, they didn't understand love. Liang Yue thought Yan Wan was very nice and would protect him. Yan Wan thought Liang Yue had a good temper. She was often furious with her younger brother, but Liang Yue always smiled and made them both happy.
Even if the other children don't play with Liang Yue, it doesn't matter. Yan Wan, Yan Danqing, and Ye Changming are enough to make it lively.
What's more, there's also the adorable little sister Ye Xiren, with two pigtails sticking up on her head, who's still unsteady on her feet but waddles along behind them, stumbling with every step...
Youth is truly wonderful.
When he arrived in Beijing in winter, he was no longer filled with fear and apprehension; he gradually began to look forward to it.
Unfortunately, Emperor Xianzong later became increasingly incompetent and stubborn. He believed that the Prince Yu's heir was too close to the Yan family, so he forbade the Prince Yu's family from returning to the capital. The Yan family also took Yan Wan back to the border and never saw each other again.
On the day they parted ways in the carriage, they said goodbye with tears in their eyes, promising to meet again in the future. At the gate of Beidu, Ye Xiren, held in Ye Changming's arms, cried her heart out.
Liang Yue lowered the carriage curtain, holding a handkerchief embroidered with the character "Wan" in her hand, and sat in the carriage silently shedding tears.
The old Prince Yu patted his head and said softly, "You are still young. When you are older, after our generation has passed away and the grudges have been settled, perhaps..."
He didn't continue speaking, and Liang Yue couldn't remember anything else. All he could recall was the sadness of parting.
Yan Wan was free-spirited. Although she was reluctant to leave, she preferred to go with her parents to the vast northern border rather than stay in the capital and be confined to her boudoir.
They parted ways then, hoping to meet again.
Wild geese traversed north and south, and they exchanged letters during those years.
Yan Wan knew the scenery of the Hushui River and the southern landscape, while Liang Yue was familiar with the vast northern grasslands and borderlands. In their letters, they only talked about the past and present, never about love. But as time passed, they tacitly agreed that one would not marry and the other would not be married...
"We will meet again someday." Liang Yue looked north.
Yan Wan looked back south: "We'll meet again, him and me."
However, none of them expected this.
When they met again, the imperial court was hastily moving south. Yan Wan had gone through several cycles of massacres, desperate defenses, and scheming before finally bringing the young emperor to the southern capital!
The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by the weight and pain of the national crisis.
That day, after enduring hardships and suffering, Yan Wan arrived outside the Southern Capital only to find that Liang Yue, the Prince of Yu, had arrived on horseback with his men. The imperial envoy had come in a sorry state, and to the south lay the Prince of Yu's territory. The change of dynasties could happen in an instant...
She almost instinctively stood in front of the young emperor's carriage, her eyes wary.
Liang Yue either didn't notice, or he saw it but didn't care.
He simply dismounted, removed his armor and took his sword, and then spotted her in the crowd. He smiled brightly, flicked his sleeves, and knelt on the ground.
"Your subject, Prince Yu, Liang Yue, respectfully welcomes Your Majesty to the Southern Capital!" Liang Yue's kneeling was his stance.
Yan Wan breathed a sigh of relief, but was also annoyed by her own speculation.
She is no longer the same as before.
Liang Yue's eyes were still only on her. Noticing her change, he asked anxiously and uneasyly, "Awan, is it—my fault for not going to be with you?"
Ah Wan went through so much; the Yan family suffered one misfortune after another, and she lost one relative after another, while he remained in the south guarding the border, never going to look for her...
“Of course not.” Yan Wan immediately shook her head, her eyes clear. “If you had gone to the capital before, the late emperor would have thought you had ulterior motives and wouldn’t have let you live. You stayed in the south and raised batches of military rations for us, stabilizing the south. This was the right decision.”
Liang Yue did not do nothing. Whether at the border or in the northern capital, the grain he sent was always a glimmer of hope in desperate situations. Yan Wan felt very warm whenever she thought of it.
Upon hearing this, Liang Yue breathed a sigh of relief and smiled again.
—They finally met again.
In the Southern Capital, Yan Wan went through the cycle twice more. Liang Yue vaguely sensed something was wrong and asked her about it.
Yan Wan paused for a moment, then suddenly tried to explain the cycle.
She thought Liang Yue wouldn't believe her and would think she was crazy, but to her surprise, after a moment of stunned silence, Liang Yue suddenly pulled her into his arms, patted her head, and burst into tears with heartache.
In that instant, Yan Wan's eyes reddened.
She knew she had company.
Even if her companion forgets her after the restart, he will believe her as long as she tells him. She tells him again and again, and he believes her again and again, accompanying her through this bizarre experience.
Unbeknownst to them, in those worlds where Yan Wan had witnessed massacres, this Prince Yu, who was neither skilled in martial arts nor adept at warfare, received the news and immediately raised a Southern Army, rushing towards Chi Zhanlan Ce's Northern Yan Army without hesitation...
Then, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, it was crushed under the wheels of the Northern Yan army, time and time again.
Once the cycle begins, Liang Yue will forget everything completely.
Later, probably out of sympathy for Yan Wan going through all this alone, with each cycle, some traces gradually appeared. Although there was still no memory, some fragments of what they had experienced together flashed by.
Liang Yue was not as decisive as Yan Wan, but as he grew up, he was no longer protected by Yan Wan. Nandu was a place he had lived in for many years, and he could stand by Yan Wan's side and face the storms with her.
Looking back on those desperate days filled with love, Yan Wan still feels a warmth deep in her heart, supporting her through each failure and restart.
Liang Yue was the same.
In the twelfth cycle, Yan Wan decided to support Liang Yue.
He was not a particularly outstanding emperor; his literary and military talents were merely average. However, he was willing to make the most advantageous choices for the country and was able to withstand pressure and turmoil.
Thus, Liang Yue became the Emperor of Liang, and Yan Wan became the Empress of Liang. Dressed in his imperial robes, and with Yan Wan by his side, he learned to be an emperor and continued to save the crumbling world.
Liang Yue only had one disagreement with Yan Wan in his life.
This is also the last time.
That was Yan Wan's fifteenth time in the cycle. She was already in a semi-invisible state. As long as she didn't make a sound, no one would notice her. Liang Yue sensed something was wrong and forced her to tell the truth again, which led them to make different choices.
Yan Wan wanted Chi Zhanlan to enter the capital and capture him in order to help Chun Zhou win the victory.
Liang Yue wanted peace and genuine peace talks, to completely eliminate all risks and not allow any possibility of failure. They had a big argument and could only let Chi Zhanlan Ce enter Nandu first, and then discuss the follow-up...
Just like Ye Xiren's previous experiences in the cycle, the court couldn't understand why Chi Zhanlan Ce wanted to engage in fake peace talks.
Their disagreements and weaknesses both stemmed from this point.
Chi Zhanlan Ce has always been a cunning and insightful person who is extremely intelligent and can immediately seize weaknesses to break through!
In this round, Chi Zhan Lan Ce did not have much of an advantage, but he seized on the difference between Liang Yue and Yan Wan. Yan Wan wanted to defeat Chi Zhan Lan Ce to help Yan Dan Qing gain a greater chance of winning.
Liang Yue only wanted Yan Wan to live.
Chizhan Lance's entry into the South was not for negotiation, but for seeking peace, unlike Ye Xiren's more than twenty cycles. Jiang You, holding the advantage of Daliang, forced Chizhan Lance to agree to countless conditions, and the front line continued.
In that cycle, facing a hopeless situation and his own dying body, whether Chi Zhanlan Ce was truly sincere in negotiating peace when he entered Nandu is now impossible to verify.
However, Yan Danqing was still in Beidu, and the army was pressing down on the Northern Yan army. Chi Zhanlan's plan was to seek peace, so that the Great Liang did not have to make any decisions that would harm itself. It was the Northern Yan that made concessions step by step, and the treaty was only beneficial to the Great Liang.
Yan Wan has experienced the previous fourteen cycles and the deaths of her family members. Her hatred for Chi Zhan Lan Ce is deeper than anyone else's. Moreover, if such a person is allowed to live, who knows what other schemes he might have?
Yan Wan could not stop Liang Yue from negotiating.
On the third day of the third lunar month, with the help of Ye Changming and Ye Xiren, she joined forces with her own forces to assassinate Chizhan Lance.
However, Chi Zhanlan Ce, who had seen through their differences, was waiting for her to make her move. Lu Qian suddenly switched sides and sided with Northern Yan, while Yan Wan fell into the trap...
"Let her go!" Liang Yue roared in fury and charged toward the Northern Yan embassy.
Chi Zhanlan Ce, with his hair disheveled, laughed loudly: "Fine, but I want peace talks. I want Yan Danqing to withdraw his troops, come back, let our Northern Yan army go back, and sign a peace treaty!"
"Dream on!" Yan Wan gritted her teeth. "Your Northern Yan is already at your last gasp. There is absolutely no way that the Great Liang will withdraw its troops. You bunch of Yan traitors deserve to die."
She looked at Liang Yue with a sharp gaze:
"Ah Yue, our Great Liang now holds the upper hand. The Empress of Great Liang died at the hands of Chi Zhan Lan Ce, which is the best reason to kill him. Remember, drive out the Yan traitors and protect our Great Liang!"
Chi Zhanlan Ce laughed loudly, a knife pressed against her neck. He coughed twice, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, his voice hoarse: "Do you think it's worth it to die together with me?"
"I'm afraid that's not entirely true. With your abilities to foresee the future, can your fate be the same as mine? If you die, will everything truly end?"
Yan Wan was taken aback.
She looked at Chi Zhanlan Ce in disbelief.
The madman in front of me, through his previous setbacks, had deduced that someone in Daliang had "foreseen the future." He then personally went to Nandu and, through the repeated anomalies, the disagreements between Liang Yue and Yan Wan, and Liang Yue's concern for Yan Wan, glimpsed part of the truth.
He set his sights on Yan Wan and kept a close eye on her.
Because he knew that this was a "hurdle" he had to overcome, but it was also a "lifeline" for his Northern Yan state.
"Emperor Liang, are you willing to let her die with me?" Chi Zhanlan Ce's voice was seductive, his eyes sincere. "I only want peace talks. My heart condition is severe, and I am on my deathbed. Without me, Northern Yan is destined to not last long. I only ask to preserve them. Whatever conditions Great Liang wants, I will agree to..."
Yan Wan was about to say something when Moller knocked her unconscious.
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Author's Note: Two chapters will be updated together!
Let everyone read Yan Wan's story in one go!
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