This voice was too gentle. Looking at the person across from her, Luo Wanqing felt momentarily dazed.
The time since they’d parted wasn’t long.
Since being imprisoned, she had carved a mark on the wall each day. This morning, she had just counted—there were already sixty-one marks.
Sixty-one days, just over two months, but seeing him now and observing his features, she was surprised to discover that she felt as if she hadn’t seen him for most of a lifetime.
His face had become blurred in her memory. Only seeing him at this moment did the details gradually match up with those nearly vanished contours, suddenly awakening her memories.
Only then did she remember—this was Jiang Shaoyan.
“Please sit.”
Jiang Shaoyan withdrew his gaze and looked at the tea before him.
Hearing the reminder, Luo Wanqing finally collected her thoughts. Gripping the dagger, she sat across from Jiang Shaoyan with feigned composure.
Her mind was in complete chaos. Countless pieces of information from her past life intertwined with emotions from this life, plunging her into extreme confusion.
She lowered her head without speaking. Jiang Shaoyan looked down at the unfurling tea leaves and said softly: “Zhang Boer told me that Miss seemed very different from usual today. Now that I see you, it’s truly as he said. Miss has suffered here.”
With that, Jiang Shaoyan raised his eyes inquiringly, his expression calm: “I wonder what Miss wanted to say by seeing me?”
He wasn’t like this before.
Hearing these words, Luo Wanqing looked up at him.
He watched her quietly, his amber eyes seeming to veil something that made them unclear. But she was certain he was very calm, without any desire to question her further. Perhaps he didn’t even care about the answer to this question.
Was this how lovers acted?
Before, when he saw her—forget being as disheveled and thin as now—even if she was just bruised, he would be anxious and worried. How could he be so composed, saying so indifferently that she had “suffered”?
She carefully observed all his changes. After Jiang Shaoyan waited a while, he finally reminded her: “Miss?”
“Why aren’t you anxious?”
Luo Wanqing blurted out, and Jiang Shaoyan’s movements paused.
Luo Wanqing stared at him, speaking rapidly and questioning continuously: “Why were you here but wouldn’t see me? You say I suffered—why aren’t you sad? Worried? Why don’t you think of doing something for me?”
“Is Miss here to hold me accountable?”
Jiang Shaoyan seemed to understand. He looked up at her, his gaze neither sad nor happy, explaining blandly: “Shaoyan is incompetent and dares not face Miss. The Luo family’s case…”
“Stop lying to me!”
Luo Wanqing shouted fiercely.
Her whole body trembled as those ten years-those ten years of family destruction, displacement, and bitter waiting for news of his death—rapidly occupied her mind. She stared fixedly at the person before her, her teeth chattering: “You’re not unable to save my Luo family—you don’t want to save us, isn’t that right, Third Prince?”
Hearing the title “Third Prince,” Jiang Shaoyan’s movements paused. He seemed to restrain some emotion, looked up at Luo Wanqing, his tone slightly cold: “Who told you?”
He didn’t deny it.
With the last bit of hope shattered, Luo Wanqing found herself unable to speak.
She suddenly realized that whether Jiang Shaoyan was deceiving her, and even what kind of person Jiang Shaoyan was—good or bad, kind or evil—none of it mattered anymore. What mattered most now was saving her family.
If that dream was real, she absolutely couldn’t let her family face the fate of being exiled to Lingnan and dying on the exile road!
And the person most likely to change this was precisely Jiang Shaoyan.
The reason he wanted to frame the Luo family was simply because His Majesty wanted to bestow a marriage. He wanted to curry favor with the Zheng family, fearing she might be deeply infatuated and cause trouble using the imperial edict, or perhaps not wanting to bear the name of ingratitude and damage his “reputation.”
As long as this matter was resolved, perhaps the Luo family’s case would have a chance for reversal.
He could send the Luo family in, and he could pull them out. They were just merchants—their life and death were merely a matter of his single thought.
So she couldn’t fall out with him. No matter how much she hated, resented, or wanted to kill him at this moment, she couldn’t fall out with him.
Realizing this, even though she was already filled with the impulse to draw her blade, she still steadied her mind.
She controlled her emotions, forced herself to reach for the teacup in front of her, and took a light sip. Using this moment, her mind raced, reviewing all the information she could still remember from the dream.
After sorting through her thoughts and organizing her words, she put down the teacup and said with feigned calm: “Who told me doesn’t matter. I already know about you and Zheng Biyue, and I know His Majesty wants to bestow a marriage between us, which is why you’re so eager to move against the Luo family. It’s unnecessary.” She looked up. “There’s a better solution to this matter.”
“A better solution?” Jiang Shaoyan repeated, seeming to understand something, and asked knowingly: “What does Miss want to do?”
“I’ll break off the engagement.”
Luo Wanqing analyzed and deconstructed the information from her dream, saying calmly, “The Supervision Department is here now. Do you think no one knows that you and Zheng Pingsheng framed my father? Doing things will always leave traces. All you want is to cleanly align yourself with the Zheng family. Rest assured, I know I’m not a suitable match. As long as you release my family, I’ll immediately find someone to marry and will never cause further entanglement.”
“Find someone to marry?”
Jiang Shaoyan listened noncommittally, lowered his head to sip his tea, and said indifferently: “You don’t want me, a prince, in front of you, but then casually find someone to marry at the last moment. His Majesty won’t believe it.”
“Then I’ll say my heart belongs to another,” Luo Wanqing immediately responded. “My engagement with you was arranged by our parents—I don’t like you at all. I already have someone I like. Now that I know your identity, I don’t want to break up a good couple. Isn’t this reason enough?”
“Someone you like?”
Jiang Shaoyan’s movements paused. He raised his eyes, his amber gaze carrying cold killing intent: “Miss already has someone she likes?”
Seeing that look, Luo Wanqing’s heart jumped.
In an instant, that sentence from the dream suddenly surfaced in her mind—the road to the frontier is long and arduous, I hope Miss will preserve her chastity.
She suddenly realized something and looked up at Jiang Shaoyan in disbelief, staring at him without continuing her words.