Xinyi Daoyi, who was poking the campfire with a broken arrow, looked up at the words. Sparks crackled and exploded, illuminating Jiang Songyi's profile in a flickering light—the same expression she had on the day she shot the assassin leader.
"It was Jiang who overstepped his bounds." Jiang Jinzhao looked at the white jade hairpin dangling in his sister's hair. It was his birthday gift the previous year. Raindrops trickled down his chin and into his collar. He suddenly remembered that in his previous life, Jiang Songyi had clutched this very hairpin before her death.
Thunder roared across the sky. Jiang Songyi shook his hand away, and the blood-stained handkerchief fluttered into the muddy water. As she turned, her skirt brushed against Xinyi Daoyi's quiver, and a memory of the master and disciple drinking together on a snowy night in their previous life suddenly surfaced—the master had said, "The sharpest sword should be hidden in the softest sheath."
"Mount your horse," Xinyi Daoyi suddenly said. His dark cloak rustled in the wind, and his gesture of reaching out to support Jiang Jinzhao revealed the elegance of a scholar. Jiang Jinzhao glanced at the old arrow scar on the crown prince's palm and suddenly realized that this frail prince had likely already walked through countless hails of arrows.
As Jiang Songyi climbed onto her horse, Yanzhi pawed her front hooves nervously. She gripped the reins tightly and stared at her brother's bloodied right hand. A scene from her past life overlapped with the present—the day before the Autumn Examination, when Jiang Jinzhao had held her hand and said, "Songyi, this injury is worth it for my success in the imperial examination."
"Hold on tight." Xinyi Daoyi's voice brought her back to reality. He guided Jiang Jinzhao's hand around his waist, the movement so familiar that it seemed like they had practiced it a thousand times. Jiang Songyi suddenly remembered that her master had held her hand in the same way in her previous life when he taught her to ride a horse.
The rain poured down. Three men and two horses galloped through the dense forest, Jiang Songyi always lagging half a horse's length behind. She stared at her brother's drooping right hand. The rain had washed the bloodstains a pale pink, reminiscent of the blood-stained banknote he had thrown her that year.
"There's a cave ahead!" Xin Yidao suddenly reined in his horse. Jiang Songyi saw a large, dark red stain on his back and was shocked to realize that he had used his body to cushion the rubble as he tumbled down the cliff. The image of her master vomiting blood from the poison in her previous life suddenly flashed through her mind, and she nearly fell off her horse.
As Jiang Jinzhao was pushed into the cave, he heard his sister's heartbreaking cries. Turning, he saw Jiang Songyi peeling back the prince's clothes, her white fingertips pressing against the hideous bruises. The scent of jasmine in her hair, mingled with the scent of blood, was strikingly similar to the scent of their farewell at the execution ground in their previous life.
"You promised to be a wise ruler!" Jiang Songyi's crying voice mixed with thunder.
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