He Qingfu’s diary was already more than halfway read by Jiang Yan.
There really weren’t that many stories between them.
By the time He Qingfu’s consciousness crossed over, Jiang Chixi was already forty—not a little girl anymore. Her character was fully formed: decisive, courageous, able to bear the weight of a nation. Most importantly, her convictions were steadfast; she did what needed to be done, never swayed by He Qingfu’s presence within her body.
From the year she crossed over, He Qingfu spent more than two years making a replica of the wedding dress. Just as everything was about to be completed, Jiang Yan took human form and appeared before her, disrupting all of He Qingfu’s plans.
At that time, Jiang Chixi was already forty-three.
There was a year left before Jiang went to war, two years before her death.
In the final countdown of her life, He Qingfu found a crane yao to be Jiang Yan’s father consort, and a little peach blossom as her playmate. The three of them lived in the underground palace for a long time. He Qingfu shuttled ever more frequently between the palace and the underground, and as long as she was sure there were no emergencies that night, she would go to the underground palace and hold little Jiang Yan as she slept.
A soft, fragrant little girl who liked to snuggle up to me when she slept.
Jiang Yan paused briefly on a certain page.
On one day, He Qingfu had written in her diary: In all honesty, did I really not know at first that Yan Yan wanted me to sleep with her?
No, I knew.
I’m not as attentive as Chen Xihe and didn’t notice Yan Yan wanted to study, but I could tell she wanted to sleep with me. After all, every time I was about to leave, she always moved slowly, as if waiting for me to say something.
But I was afraid of that kind of closeness. The moment she pressed her cheek to my chest, I knew I could never hurt her.
I can’t hurt her.
But if I don’t hurt her, what will the world become the moment she enters the mortal realm? I don’t dare think about it.
He Qingfu analyzed herself earnestly:
Even if she only said a single word to the most ordinary palace maid, if anyone saw, it could trigger a butterfly effect—a butterfly effect spanning a thousand years. Many who shouldn’t survive would live, many who shouldn’t die would perish. The supernatural resurgence might be delayed or might come early. My parents might never exist, my grandparents might never exist, I might not exist, my crossing over might never happen, the world line would fall into paradox—
There are only two possible outcomes: either the web of cause and effect collapses and this world ceases to exist, or a parallel world develops and the original world sinks completely into supernatural resurgence.
This is no longer just about the survival of humanity. It’s something greater, more difficult.
So what should I do?
He Qingfu kept questioning herself: What on earth should I do?
Her handwriting pressed deep into the page:
All of this is my fault. Yan Yan taking form isn’t her fault—she knows nothing. All the fault is mine, for not considering the possibility of her transformation, so all the karma should be borne by me.
But what good is it for me to bear it? If everything ceases to exist, where would I bear this karma?
He Qingfu’s turmoil was plain to see.
She possessed a dazzling sense of morality, unable to decide life and death for another. The fact that she exhausted her lifespan to cross a thousand years proved she was a strong, exceptional, good person.
Reading this, Jiang Yan sighed.
She pressed down the edge of the notebook, fingertips rubbing the paper for a while.
Back then, she never noticed any difference between He Qingfu and Jiang Chixi, never realized there were two people in that body.
The main reason was that she was simply too young, had possessed consciousness for too short a time, and couldn’t even imagine things she’d never seen. So even if He Qingfu occasionally slipped and showed a softer side than Jiang Chixi’s usual severity, Jiang Yan never guessed the real reason.
At most, she thought the severity was an act—that this was her real mother.
The other reason was that even if He Qingfu revealed negative emotions, she would quickly smile again.
Jiang Yan had once asked her why she seemed unhappy.
He Qingfu’s answer was always that the neighboring countries were annoying, always trying to bully Jiang, but seeing Yan Yan made her want to smile.
She always soothed her, as if everything would be fine, as if she herself was always fine.
But only He Qingfu knew how much pressure she was under.
For all those long years, she digested every painful emotion alone, then went to the underground palace with a smile, holding little Jiang Yan in her arms.
Jiang Yan was silent for a long time. When she turned the page, two lines appeared before her eyes.
What must come will come.
How much happiness can I still hope for?
*
Jiang Chixi was Jiang’s second empress, ascending the throne when the country was at its peak.
Her mother hadn’t taken the throne by the usual route. At the time, the royal family was thin, and the only male heir was just three years old. To prevent the throne from falling into outsiders’ hands, the aging emperor defied all opposition and appointed Jiang Chixi’s mother as regent to assist the young emperor.
But when the old emperor died, that highly capable woman immediately placed her younger brother under house arrest and took the throne herself.
Public sentiment was in chaos. Ministers submitted memorials one after another, and scholars cursed her as a usurper, heartless, stealing even from her own brother. The criticism was fierce. Jiang Chixi’s mother strode into her brother’s bedchamber with a sword, dragged him by the collar into the great hall, and declared that if her brother died that day, it would be the ministers’ doing.
For every memorial, she drove her sword home.
The hall fell silent. Jiang Chixi’s mother sat on the throne and calmly began discussing disaster relief. Her talent shone, her methods were endless, and in just half a year, she won the people’s hearts.
The people returned to her, but many ministers remained unwilling, including some of great ability.
To stabilize the situation, Jiang Chixi’s mother didn’t launch sweeping reforms or kill those who’d opposed her. Instead, she used soft power, employing various means to win them over.
It wasn’t a bad method, but because she compromised so much, she lived her whole life with regret.
“Letting women serve as officials—I never succeeded,” she told Jiang Chixi before she died. “I wanted to proceed step by step, to let a woman shine in court, to show everyone it was possible. But I spent my life walking on eggshells, standing too high, and never truly saw their plight.”
“Creating opportunities from above, they can’t reach you. They have no path. So it must be changed completely.”
After Jiang Chixi took the throne, she changed the previous emperor’s ways, acting with thunderous decisiveness, holding the highest power and everyone’s fate in her hands. She spent years building a new information network among the people, cultivating many loyal confidants, spies devoted to her scattered everywhere.
To fully control certain officials, she even created opportunities for them to make mistakes.
Jiang Chixi established ties of interest with the neighboring kingdom’s eldest princess, letting her tempt certain officials, then seizing their lifelines and, with a generous attitude, giving them advice.
After a few years, she held evidence that could implicate entire clans. Those officials all became her claws and teeth, obeying her every command.
It was not easy for a woman to be emperor, but Jiang Chixi found much interest in the storms of blood.
The neighboring princess was formidable too—Chu Hanzhi. In Chu, her position was like Jiang Chixi’s mother’s had been. But after assisting the young emperor for a few years, Chu Hanzhi stepped down and returned to her princess’s residence.
But the grown emperor didn’t let her off. On his ministers’ advice, he didn’t marry her off to a consort, but instead decreed she wed a border general. That general was no good, and she suffered. After poisoning him to death, she was quickly married off to a second husband.
Now, this princess had been widowed three times and returned to the capital.
When Jiang Chixi was forty-four, Chu began testing her limits by every means, crossing the border again and again. Though there were no major clashes, minor skirmishes were constant.
During that period, Jiang Chixi slept only three hours a day, always attended by servants. He Qingfu had almost no chance to visit the underground palace—at first every two days, then every three or four.
One night, He Qingfu went to the underground palace, just wanting to see the little girl sleeping, but found all three yao awake.
“Mayflies are a wondrous species,” Chen Xihe said, eyes half-closed, telling a story slowly. “They only live a few months, but are born yao, needing no cultivation.”
“But their short lives doom them to misfortune. They die in layers upon the lake, and even as yao, they are tiny.”
Little Jiang Yan was wide awake, nudging Chen Xihe’s shoulder. “Is there a way for them not to die?”
“Of course.”
Chen Xihe said, “If they gain merit and reincarnate nine times, they can become one of the world’s most powerful yao, even equal to the beings in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.”
Little Jiang Yan nodded, enlightened.
After a while, she wanted a human story. “No more yao stories. Any fun human ones?”
Chen Xihe didn’t know, so he looked at Little Peach Blossom.
Tao Tao coughed, fluttered his petals proudly, and signaled for attention.
“I’ve heard so many strange stories at the Nation-Guarding Temple. Last time, I heard about the uncle who makes shoes at the village gate, and the aunt who sells rouge—they had a son with a chin this long.”
He gestured, “Longer than the old monk’s beard at the temple.”
Chen Xihe frowned. “Why was that?”
Little Peach Blossom spread his petals. “They say those two were brother and sister. The aunt who sold rouge was abandoned at birth and picked up by the couple who ran the rouge shop. She didn’t know, and who’d have thought she’d marry her own brother?”
Little Jiang Yan: “What does being siblings have to do with it?”
Little Peach Blossom explained, “They say if you’re too closely related, your children can turn out strange!”
Little Jiang Yan nodded again, enlightened.
He Qingfu smiled, sitting at the bedside, quietly listening to everyone talk.
Little Jiang Yan put her hand on He Qingfu’s leg, giving it a light pat. She didn’t show much excitement at her arrival—whether she came or not was fine. If she came, it was nice; if not, she wouldn’t ask.
He Qingfu felt comforted.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked.
“Not sleepy,” the little girl replied.
Tao Tao was more direct: “Because she knows you only come at night, so she sleeps during the day.”
Chen Xihe nodded in agreement.
“Yes, we all sleep during the day.”
He Qingfu smiled elsewhere, then turned back, pulling out a stack of arithmetic problems from the desk.
“Did you do your arithmetic today?”
“Of course!” Little Peach Blossom answered first. “And I finished faster!”
The little girl immediately frowned. “You didn’t call me when you started. By the time I wrote, you were halfway done.”
Little Peach Blossom hugged his petals, sitting on the desk. “Just admit I’m faster.”
The little girl snorted.
Chen Xihe took the arithmetic sheets. “Want to do more? Let’s solve some together. I’ll join in.”
When the papers were handed out, He Qingfu took one too.
The three yao and one human gathered around the stone table, each working on the problems. Chen Xihe made no effort to go easy, writing quickly. He Qingfu had wanted to let the two little ones win, but when she looked back, she found the little girl had already done more than her.
Little Peach Blossom was a bit slower, but the tip of his petal, dipped in ink, wrote swiftly.
He Qingfu: ……
She accepted the reality with difficulty, answering questions as quickly as she could. The problems Chen Xihe set included not just basic arithmetic, but pattern recognition and graphing.
Fifteen minutes later, little Jiang Yan put down her brush first.
She raised her paper high and slapped it onto Little Peach Blossom’s face. Little Peach Blossom kicked at the paper a few times, then finished the last two questions sprawled on the table.
When he finished, He Qingfu and Chen Xihe had just put down their brushes.
The little girl gave a small hum.
Though her tone didn’t rise, He Qingfu could sense her pride.
“The more you go easy, the worse you lose,” Chen Xihe shared his hard-won lesson with He Qingfu. “You have to do your best.”
After saying this, the crane yao put everyone’s papers together and checked the answers.
Fortunately, everyone was correct—no awkward mistakes.
He Qingfu unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
Then little Jiang Yan turned to Little Peach Blossom. “You said this morning that if you lost to me, you’d give me a present.”
“A bet’s a bet.”
Little Peach Blossom flicked his petals, a bit vain in his movements. “When the people of Jiang pray to me, I can’t really help, but to give them comfort, I sometimes let a petal fall.”
“Some believe that if they catch a petal, their wish will come true.”
“But I only have so many petals—I can’t just let them fall for anyone. I always pick the neediest people to give petals to.”
Little Jiang Yan cut in, “You talk too much.”
Little Peach Blossom was stumped.
After a few seconds, he quickly said, “At the end of spring, all my petals will fall. You can come and see.”
“I’ll give you a great peach blossom rain.”
“It’s for you!”