True story
The wind in the forest suddenly stopped, and even the chirping of insects disappeared.
Xu Qingyao's words "lost" were as light as a feather, yet they made Xiao Zhouyan's breath catch in his throat.
He saw the cracks appear in the icy shell beneath her eyes, revealing a blankness she had never shown to anyone before.
At this moment, she was no longer the fugitive who resolutely jumped off the cliff, but rather... a lost child.
"get lost?"
He repeated those two words in a very soft voice, as if afraid of disturbing the morning mist and also afraid of disturbing her fragile state at that moment.
Xu Qingyao's fingertips unconsciously curled up, touching the rough stitches on the cuff.
This is proof of her existence as "A Yao," but this disheveled disguise is so similar to the dusty wedding dress she wore when she crawled out of the dog hole of the Marquis's mansion.
She recalled Xu Qingyao from the original novel, who was imprisoned in a deep courtyard and ultimately perished in a fire.
The humiliation of being framed, the endless torment, and the towering flames during the ransacking of her home—these were all part of her destiny.
But she was on the run from the very beginning.
"I can't tell... which paths I should take." Her voice was hoarse, carrying a hint of grievance that she herself didn't even realize. "It seems... no matter which path I choose, it's wrong."
Xiao Zhouyan's gaze fell on her slightly trembling fingertips, as if he could see her again on their wedding night, clutching the cuffs of her wedding dress, her knuckles white. At that time, he thought she was nervous, but now he understood that she was gathering the courage to escape.
"In Wolf Howl Valley," he suddenly spoke, his voice steady yet carrying an undeniable force, "you saw me die?"
Xu Qingyao suddenly looked up, her eyes darting away.
How could he have known?!
"There's no need to deny it."
He took a half step forward, the hem of his dark robe brushing against the dew-covered grass, carrying the coolness of the night dew, just like his eyes at this moment, "When you were unconscious, you kept shouting 'Don't go to the Northern Frontier'."
Moonlight brushed across the unhealed arrow wound on his shoulder armor—
That was left three days ago to save her.
Those chaotic fragments of memory surged up again: the broken military flag on the snowfield, the Li Kingdom arrow stuck in his chest, Chen Rou's cold smile standing on the city wall... and even deeper, the fear stemming from the original plot—his being cut off from supplies and besieged for three months...
"Is it a prophecy?"
He asked calmly, as if discussing tomorrow's defenses.
She finally nodded, her throat tightening: "Many... fragments like this. Some... are related to you."
She avoided the term "original work," instead using "fragments" to describe the vast and suffocating storyline.
Xiao Zhouyan suddenly laughed, not mockingly, but with a pained and knowing smile, the corners of his mouth curving with a hint of helplessness: "So you didn't want to leave me."
He reached out and gently brushed away a small, withered leaf clinging to her temple, his movements as tender as when he removed her heavy phoenix crown in his memory. "Are you afraid of repeating the mistakes of some...storybook?"
This action made Xu Qingyao freeze.
She recalled Xiao Zhouyan from the original novel, who was driven mad by jealousy and imprisoned and tormented her. He was completely different from the man in front of her who brushed away the dust for her and even tolerated her stealing snacks.
"Unfortunately, the wrong method was used."
He sighed softly, his breath brushing against her bangs. "You should know that I would rather die in the northern frontier than see you go into danger alone in this way."
He spoke very softly, with an indescribable bitterness in his voice, not mockery, but heartache.
The hooting of owls echoed in the distance, and Xu Qingyao was transported back to her wedding night with its candles burning brightly. Her heart pounded like a drum as she counted down the time it would take for the drug to take effect.
“Xiao Zhouyan.” She suddenly called him by his full name, her voice filled with a desperate attempt, “If… if we follow a predetermined story, we should be a resentful couple right now.”
“A bitter couple?” He interrupted decisively, his gaze as hard as tempered steel, staring straight into her eyes. “If I, Xiao Zhouyan, truly despise someone, I won’t even drink the nuptial wine with her.”
His fingertips twitched almost imperceptibly, as if he could still feel the warmth of the white jade cup from that night. "And I would never... watch her sneak a bite of the snacks and then think about bringing her something even fresher next time."
Xu Qingyao's breathing became completely disordered.
The scorching heat of the fire in the original story still seemed to be dancing on my skin, but the sweet aroma of the bag of plum blossom candy he gave me on our wedding night lingered more clearly on my nose.
"I……"
"There's no need to answer now."
He interrupted her, his voice deep and powerful, carrying a calming quality, "But remember—"
A sudden gust of wind swept through the woods, causing his dark cloak to flutter like a red candle swaying in the night.
Looking at the boundless darkness behind him, Xu Qingyao suddenly felt that perhaps from the moment she chose to elope, and he clearly sensed it but never truly stopped her, that so-called dead end in the original story had already been left behind by them.
"No matter what endings you've seen or what stories you've heard," his voice pierced the wind, landing clearly and firmly in her heart, "what we are writing is the only true story."
A petal of osmanthus blossoms drifted down from an unknown tree and landed precisely on her slightly trembling wrist.
There should have been scars from the shackles in the original story, but now they only reflected the cold moonlight of Nan Yue and his deep, focused gaze.
Moonlight condensed into dewdrops on the osmanthus petals, which slid down Xu Qingyao's wrist.
As she looked at the glistening droplet disappearing into her sleeve, she suddenly recalled the lines from the original novel describing those hands: "The gold bracelet on her wrist still bore the patina of burning smoke."
But at this moment, her wrists were empty, with only shallow marks from the thorns she had scratched during her escape.
"The only true story..."
She repeated the sentence, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the hard object in her sleeve—a disguise pill that the system had just redeemed.
Just like the "sleeping soundly" in her arms on her wedding night, they were all tools she used to escape.
Xiao Zhouyan's gaze swept over her slightly twitching sleeve.
He recalled the unusually sweet aroma of the nuptial wine that night, and her trembling eyelashes as she feigned composure.
At the time, he thought the girl was just shy, but now he realizes that she was making a desperate escape.
"Did you know?" He suddenly took out an oil paper package from his pocket, and the sweet aroma of honey quietly spread out. "Zui Xian Lou has launched a new dessert, plum blossom cheese with pine nuts inside."
Xu Qingyao stared blankly at the bag of sugar cakes.
Just like the package he slipped into her hand on their wedding night, even the creases in the oil paper were similar.
"you……"
Her voice was stuck in her throat.
“I keep thinking,” he placed the oil paper package into her palm, his fingertips inadvertently brushing against the thin calluses on her hand, “if I had told you directly that night that the dog hole in the Marquis’s mansion led to the pastry shop in the West Market, wouldn’t you have been spared the trouble of finding the sleeping potion?”
Xu Qingyao's tears fell unexpectedly onto the oil paper, spreading dark stains.
Her schemes, which she thought were flawless, had actually been seen through by him all along.
"Why..." her voice trembled, "Why didn't you stop me?"
Xiao Zhouyan gently brushed her eye with his fingertips, a gesture exactly the same as when he wiped away crumbs from her dessert.
“Because I want to know,” he looked into her tearful eyes, “what’s so special about the place my bride would rather crawl through a dog hole to get to.”
The torches outside the woods drew closer, and the footsteps of the guards startled the roosting birds.
Amidst the fluttering of wings, he bent down to pick up the fallen osmanthus blossom and tucked it into her lapel.
"Now I know."
He reached out to her, his palm calloused from years of wielding a sword, and stained with morning dew from picking osmanthus blossoms. “You are not going anywhere, but to break free from a predetermined fate.”
Xu Qingyao looked at the hand.
On their wedding night, when he handed her the nuptial wine, she counted down three, two, one as he fell down.
At this moment, his equally slender fingers hung in the moonlight, waiting for her to take them.
"System," she whispered in her mind.
[Insufficient energy; unable to predict the consequences of choices.]
She suddenly smiled.
Yes, since it's already the "only true story," why ask about the ending?
Just as her fingertips finally touched his warm palm, the morning light pierced through the clouds.
Xiao Zhouyan closed his fingers, holding her hand tightly, as if catching a long-lost osmanthus flower.
“Let’s go,” he said, leading her toward the gradually brightening sky, “to see what kind of ending this story will have.”
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