The Courtesan's Crown - Chapter 12
“These days without you, I missed you daily.” He kissed my cheek, voice low.
“Me too.”
Shen Huinian had separation anxiety. These days must have been hard.
“Let’s never part again, okay?”
“Nothing but death will part us.”
A breeze blew, crabapple blossoms falling like snow.
“I was once the fifth child at home. My father was a famous Suzhou scholar, proud and strict. When our home was raided, he ordered all women to suicide to preserve family honor. I feared him, so I took a gold hairpin to my chest, but Mother stopped me. She told me to live on, saying there’s hope in survival.”
“So even later, in the Spring Breeze Pavilion, no matter how hard, I never gave up. Now I see, Mother was right.”
“That day at the execution ground, I understood your words.”
“How did you find me here?”
“On the exile road, I often had nightmares. You sang me a lullaby in Suzhou dialect.”
He remembered those few lines I hummed years ago.
I kissed his chin. He kissed me back, breath hot on my skin.
He lost control, carrying me towards the inner room.
I only paused for a moment before putting on a heartbroken act: “Will the Third Young Master cut ties with me once he takes a wife? I can’t bear to part with the Third Young Master!”
“I…” He was stunned briefly, then his eyes blazed with joy, not knowing what to do with his hands and feet: “How long?”
“Almost three months.”
Shen Huinian looked at me, eyes moist.
“Wanwan, I love you,” he said hoarsely.
Returning to the capital, I bid Lin Ya farewell. Surprised, she asked why.
“My husband has come for me.”
Shen Huinian gave me the grandest coronation, declaring me his beloved to all, sharing his glory.
Accepting officials’ bows beside him, memories flashed-first meeting, exile north, rebellion… finally settling on the north: heavy snow, us huddling for warmth in a wooden hut, snowflakes drifting through broken windows.
I joked then: “Shen Huinian, bathing in snow today, we’ve aged together already.”
“Accompanying you through every morning and night, why would we need to stand in the snow to pretend we’ve grown old together?”
Now, spring sunlight bright and beautiful. Shen Huinian and I, blessed by all, would walk hand in hand, inseparable till death.
I whispered: “Only wish for, loving happiness, lasting as heaven and earth.”
(End)
