His Grave Mistake, My Second Life - Chapter 10

By the time Zhou Yanzhi reached the capital of the Southern Kingdom, I had already celebrated my first New Year here.

The side palace hall was spacious and slightly chilly.

Zhou Yanzhi stood with his back to me, his silhouette as desolate as a withered tree in late autumn. At the sound of footsteps, he spun around.

In just a few months, he had become skeletal. The dark circles under his eyes were deep, and the former elegance of the Lord Apparent was gone, replaced by the look of a string stretched to its breaking point.

“Huiyin!” he rasped, lunging forward, his eyes drowning in remorse and a near-death plea. “I’ve finally found you!”

I stopped a few paces away and gave a distant nod. “Lord Apparent Zhou.”

He looked as if he had been struck. His face paled as he rushed to explain, “Don’t call me that! It’s me! I remember everything now! I was blind, I failed you! It was my own hands that pushed you into that wedding sedan!”

“You are my wife! Twenty years of marriage should not end like this! Come with me! I will risk death to…”

“Zhou Yanzhi,” I interrupted his confession. “Your wife is Jiang Lingyi. The imperial edict is clear. As for me,” I continued, “I have already granted you both your wish by leaving. My life is now in the Southern Kingdom.”

“No! That was a mistake!” he cried, his eyes bloodshot. “I was blind to my own heart! I refused to admit that I love you! Huiyin, come back with me! We can start again…”

“Zhou Yanzhi,” I cut him off again, each word clear and precise. “I don’t love you anymore.”

Tears welled in his eyes. “Huiyin, I deserve to die a thousand deaths. I’m begging you… give me a chance to atone…”

“Enough. Zhou Yanzhi, let it go.” I looked at him. “Wallowing in regret is meaningless. I have found my path here in the Southern Kingdom. I love the vastness of these grasslands, I love the smiles the people show me.”

“All I have ever wanted in this life is for the people of the Jing and Southern Kingdoms to suffer less from the chaos of war. This is my path, my choice. You should go back and live your life. There is no need for any more regret.”

“You are my regret!” he roared. “Watching you leave me is my regret! Failing to hold onto you is my regret! Huiyin… give me one more chance… just one…”

His hoarse pleas echoed in the hall. I stood still as ice, my heart unmoved.

Only when he was exhausted, his voice choked with sobs and his eyes filled with shattered tears, did I speak again.

“Zhou Yanzhi, you said you remember everything. Then do you remember… in our past life, we had a child?”

He froze instantly, his pupils trembling as he stared at me in confusion.

I watched the color drain completely from his face. “It was you who imprisoned me in that villa after Jiang Lingyi’s death. It was you who allowed your subordinates to humiliate me. And it was you… who personally ended its life. It was gone, just like that. And I… could no longer bear children.”

“There is the life of a small child between us. I believe… he would not want to see us entangled with each other again.”

“A… a child…” A broken sound escaped his throat. He stumbled back into a pillar and slid down its cold surface to curl up on the floor. He clutched his head with both hands, a suppressed, animalistic whimper forcing its way from the depths of his throat.

I gave him one last look.

“Take care.” The two words fell softly. Without any further hesitation, I turned and walked resolutely out of the hall.

Helian Yi was already standing under the eaves in the evening light, a dusting of snow on his shoulders, his gaze locked on me.

I walked toward him and brushed the frost from his shoulders. He responded by wrapping my cold fingers in his large, warm hand.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Mm,” I leaned against him. “It’s all in the past now.”

He said nothing more, only squeezed my hand tighter and, without argument, took off his heavy cloak and wrapped it around me.

“The snow is getting heavier. Let’s go back to the palace.”

After that night, Zhou Yanzhi never appeared in the Southern Kingdom again.

Scattered news came later, saying he had fallen gravely ill. After recovering, he became a man of few words, dedicating himself entirely to military and political affairs. He and Jiang Lingyi lived as strangers, and he never took another concubine his entire life.

The nights in the Southern Kingdom were still cold, the wind and snow still fierce.

But my heart had put down deep roots in this land.

Many years later, on a similarly snowy day, I closed my eyes for the last time in the warmth of Helian Yi’s hand, passing away peacefully.

This life began with a mistaken marriage but ended in fulfillment.

The name of the Princess of Jing eventually became a symbol of peace in the Southern Kingdom.

A fate that began with sacrifice blossomed into something with a meaning that transcended a political marriage.

I had granted Zhou Yanzhi his “perfect ending,” and I had also forged my own path, free of regrets.

The snow has not yet ceased, but the promise of spring is near.