Chapter 18

The next time I saw Pei Huai was when I was eight months pregnant.

For several months, I hadn’t met with him at all.

I knew he watched me from not far away every day, but I ignored him.

But this day, I took the initiative to walk up to him.

He was overjoyed and talked to me about many things, while I listened quietly, rarely responding.

In the end, he said he was going off to war and would be back in about a month.

I looked up and asked softly, “Will you be able to make it back on the day I give birth?”

He nodded without hesitation.

“I will, I promise I’ll come back.”

I smiled.

He was so dazed by the sight that he stepped forward and took my hand, his voice choked with emotion: “Niaoniao, I know I was wrong, but I truly love you. From now on, let’s live well together, just the two of us.”

I looked at him for a long time.

When he started to feel guilty and wanted to change the subject,

I nodded. “Alright.”

His face was full of joy as he carefully stroked my belly, looking at me again and again, as if he wanted to etch me into his memory.

He only left, extremely reluctant, when the soldiers came to urge him.

I watched his departing figure and suddenly called out to him:

“My dear Pei, come back soon.”

In that moment, my smile was incredibly gentle.

It was as if I had returned to the innocent look I had when I first married him.

So in just that instant, his eyes reddened and he nodded heavily:

“Niaoniao, wait for me.”

But Pei Huai never expected that would be the last time he saw Shen Niao.

He fought on the front lines, driving the enemy back again and again.

The common people hailed him as the God of War, yet he often found himself staring blankly at a sachet.

“Niaoniao, wait for me.”

He brought it to his lips and kissed it gently, his eyes filled with longing, as if Shen Niao were right before him.

Suddenly, the tent flap behind him was lifted, and a soldier rushed in, hands trembling violently as he held up a letter-

“Marquis, the Marquis’s wife suffered massive bleeding during childbirth. The young master is safe, but… but the Marquis’s wife-”

Pei Huai’s face changed dramatically, his voice trembling: “How dare you curse Niaoniao! I’ll kill you!”

As he spoke, he raised his sword to strike, but the soldier only kowtowed, his forehead turning red with blood, yet he did not change his words.

“The Marquis’s wife is truly critically ill, Marquis!”

Pei Huai’s sword suddenly fell to the ground.

With a crisp clang.

“Niaoniao!”

He cried out her name in agony, then dashed out like a madman.

Three days and three nights.

He did not rest for a moment, exhausted six horses to death, and finally arrived at the Marquis’s Estate in Jing City.

But it was all too late.

White silk hung in the Marquis’s Estate, white lanterns one after another, stabbing his eyes with pain.

He didn’t believe it!

He refused to believe Shen Niao would leave him.

“Niaoniao, Niaoniao!”

He shouted his beloved’s name in despair, hoping to see a young woman in pink come out smiling to greet him.

“My dear Pei, why did you come back so late?”

But he waited for a long time.

Niaoniao never came out.

She must still be angry with him, but it didn’t matter, he would go find her himself.

Niaoniao had promised him, once he returned, she wouldn’t be angry anymore, and they would live their days together.

He already knew he was wrong.

From now on, he would have plenty of time to make it up to Niaoniao, little by little.