After Shangguan Hanshan stayed the night at the Changle Palace, he had that nightmare again.
In the dream, he saw Wanwan, the woman he missed day and night.
Wanwan was holding a tiny baby bundle in her arms.
He stumbled and rushed over to her, his face streaked with tears.
“Wanwan, we have a daughter! I’ve found her, and I will make it up to her—”
Before he could finish speaking, Jiang Feiwan slapped him hard across the face.
She was crying, sobbing uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.
“How could you abandon our daughter? Yet you claim someone else’s daughter as your own? Yanyan died such a miserable death! My heart aches so much! I hate you so much! I hate myself so much! Why did I give birth to her, only to not be able to stay by her side? To let her be bullied like that?”
Jiang Feiwan buried her face in her hands and wept.
Her ethereal, weightless body drifted all around Shangguan Hanshan, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t catch her.
“Wanwan, it’s all my fault. I didn’t investigate properly. I deserve to die!”
He slapped himself across the face with all his strength.
“Stop it!”
Even though Jiang Feiwan was just a spirit, you could still see the heartache in her eyes.
That made Shangguan Hanshan feel even more pain.
His beloved Wanwan loved him so much.
Even though he had made an enormous, unforgivable mistake, she still couldn’t bear to see him suffer.
“Wanwan, I’ve found our daughter. Is her name Yanyan? She just refuses to see me…”
Jiang Feiwan looked down at the bundle in her arms, her eyes overflowing with maternal love.
“She doesn’t even know you yet. Do you want to come and see her?”
Shangguan Hanshan scrambled over on his hands and knees.
“Ah!”
He jolted awake on the bed, drenched in cold sweat.
In the dream, inside that bundle, a pale, lifeless baby’s face still seemed to be right in front of him.
Its eyes were forced open, and there was a huge, gaping hole on its forehead, blood gushing out continuously.
Dying with eyes full of resentment.
No wonder Wanwan was in so much pain.
He dug his hands into his hair and yanked hard.
Who was it? Who killed his daughter?
Was the Yanyan who was alive now real or fake?
“My lord, we found it.”
A shadow guard suddenly appeared.
Shangguan Hanshan stopped his movements.
“Prepare a bath and incense.”
He washed away every speck of dust meticulously, changed into a plain, clean gauze robe, and tied his hair up with just a simple black wooden hairpin.
The shadow guard quietly and carefully shaved his face, removing all the beard he had grown for twenty years.
When he looked into the bronze mirror, he saw that the twenty years of time had carved the sixteen-year-old youth from back then into a decisive and ruthless king.
But the only things that hadn’t changed were his deep love for Jiang Feiwan and his respect for Old Master Jiang.
After burning incense, he made sure his feet didn’t touch the ground and was carried out of the palace in an eight-person sedan chair.
When Shangguan Luoyue saw her adoptive father being so solemn, her heart was filled with anxiety: Could it be that her adoptive father had actually found that wretched woman?
She quickly stepped forward, stopped beside the sedan chair, and asked respectfully:
“Your Majesty, is there some important matter for this trip?”
Shangguan Hanshan inside the sedan chair turned cold.
“Since when do I need to report my whereabouts to you?”
Terrified, Shangguan Luoyue knelt on the ground. “Your daughter wouldn’t dare! It’s just that the envoy from Beiluo has arrived today, and we probably need to discuss important state affairs. Luoyue is foolish and wouldn’t dare make a decision alone.”
Shangguan Hanshan gave a cold laugh. “You can’t even handle such a small matter. What ability do you have to take over Daxia?”
“Your Majesty’s criticism is correct. Your daughter will do her utmost.”
Shangguan Hanshan suppressed the urge to strike her dead with one palm and left in a huff.
Shangguan Luoyue stood up and watched the sedan chair’s retreating figure, her expression dark and unreadable.
Was it just her imagination? She felt that her adoptive father’s attitude towards her was even worse than it had been in Daxia.
Though she was extremely curious about her adoptive father’s whereabouts, she didn’t dare send her own people to follow him.
Her adoptive father’s shadow guards were unfathomably powerful. If they discovered her, she would surely die.
Just as she was fretting, someone came to report:
“My lady, the Eight Killers are dead.”
“Useless! Idiot! He couldn’t even kill a weak, defenseless woman. You might as well just shut down the Huamanlou operation right now!”
——-
Shangguan Hanshan arrived on the outskirts of the capital.
It was a vast cemetery.
He finally found Old Master Jiang’s grave, kneeled before it solemnly, and kowtowed three times, his head hitting the ground hard.
“Father-in-law, your son-in-law broke his promise.”
Back then, after Old Master Jiang learned of his identity, worried that he would bring trouble to Jiang Feiwan, he gave him almost all the cash he had and told him to go back to Daxia.
He hadn’t wanted to go and had even told Jiang Feiwan about it.
Jiang Feiwan patiently explained things to Old Master Jiang several times before he reluctantly accepted him.
Shangguan Hanshan had never liked the struggles and intrigues of royal power.
He just wanted to find a place without people, to spend the rest of his life drifting on rivers and seas.
But unexpectedly, fate made him meet the most wonderful woman in the world, Wanwan.
He was so content. As long as he could be with Wanwan, he could give up everything.
But then, when he saw the matchmaker pulling Old Master Jiang aside to find Wanwan a husband, and Wanwan’s face turning red, not daring to reveal his identity…
The belief he had always held steadfast to cracked for the first time.
Could he really just drag Wanwan into a life of hiding for the rest of their days, unable to give her a proper title, never able to stand openly by her side?
If they had children someday, wouldn’t Wanwan be scorned and criticized for getting pregnant before marriage, for not being virtuous?
Thinking of this, he broke out in a cold sweat.
He had to give Wanwan a title! The most honorable title in the world!
Taking the silver that Old Master Jiang had given him, and with only one loyal servant left, he prepared to leave without saying goodbye.
But Old Master Jiang saw right through him.
He said, “Go. And don’t come back. Let Wanwan live out her life in peace.”
But he came back anyway.
It was just too late when he did.
“Father-in-law, I’m a worthless man. I harmed Wanwan and couldn’t protect Yanyan. Father-in-law, I’m so useless. If only I could have come back a little faster, I could have taken you both to live a good life. Father-in-law, punish me!”
He kneeled by Old Master Jiang’s grave all morning.
Until he heard the shadow guard report, “My lord, at exactly Shen period, third quarter, the young lady will enter the palace alone.”
He scrambled up from the ground, using extreme lightness skill to race back towards the palace.
But unexpectedly, at a resting point along the way, he heard the news that “Huo Ci” had agreed to marry the princess…
——-
Just as the carriage arrived at the military camp, before Jiang Xingyan could even get out, sunlight suddenly poured down over her head.
Looking up, she saw that the carriage roof had been ripped off.
Wang Qi cried out in pain, “Ah, my carriage!”
An enraged voice drowned out his lament:
“Hey, you there, Huo! You’re going to die today! Prepare to meet your end!”
Just as Shangguan Hanshan’s hand closed around Jiang Xingyan’s neck, the little girl started crying.
“Waaah! The mean grandpa is here again! Uncle Shu, hurry and protect Mama!”
Shangguan Hanshan panicked, his hands flailing, not knowing where to put them.
“Don’t cry, Yaya. Grandpa is just joking around with ‘him.’ There, there, don’t cry…”
Jiang Xingyan’s heart stirred.
Grandfather… she missed her own grandfather, too.
Yun Chunfeng patted the little girl’s head, and when she stopped crying, he flipped his wrist and popped a candy into her mouth.
The little girl sucked on the candy, sniffling, and finally stopped crying.
Shangguan Hanshan shot him a dirty look. Trying to show off, are you?
“Mama, hold me.”
Jiang Xingyan took the little girl into her arms, rubbed her nose against hers, and patted her back gently to soothe her.
Shangguan Hanshan was both angry and anxious. Suppressing his boiling murderous intent, he patiently explained to the little girl:
“Yaya, ‘he’ is not your mother. ‘He’ is the bad person who abandoned you. And now ‘he’ wants to climb higher by marrying some so-called princess. Just let Grandpa kill ‘him’ to get back at him for you and your mother, okay?”
The corner of Jiang Xingyan’s mouth twitched.
Was this any way to teach a child?
The little girl stretched out her chubby little hands and waved them in the air, trying to shoo Shangguan Hanshan away.
“Mean grandpa! Bad grandpa! Daddy’s getting a new wife, and Mama doesn’t care about him anymore. Mama doesn’t like Daddy now. Mama likes Uncle Shu.”
Yun Chunfeng cleared his throat softly, his cheeks flushing red.
That’s his good little Yaya. All the treats Uncle Shu usually gives you weren’t for nothing.
Jiang Xingyan felt a bit embarrassed too. She reached out and gently tapped the little girl’s nose.
“You little smarty-pants.”
Shangguan Hanshan was dumbfounded watching their interaction.
He felt as if his brain were a wet, soggy piece of clothing being wrung out by two palace ladies doing laundry, each pulling one end in opposite directions.
Could it be… that he still hadn’t woken up from his dream?
