Chapter 69 #3
Alexander met his gaze. He could have deflected. Should have. But—
“It will be a gift,” he replied. “For a wife I failed to keep. And in two weeks, I’ll stand before the X?en court and the emperor and try to win her back.”
For a moment, silence swallowed the shop. Neither Su Lian nor her husband spoke.
It was Ru Rong, at last, who leaned forward with a spark in her eye. “The X?en court? Emperor? This sounds like a tale worth hearing.”
And so, Alexander told it. As afternoon faded, conversations wove through the shop like threads on a loom.
Snacks multiplied—boiled peanuts, stuffed rice cakes, freshly steeped tea.
The sharp edges of negotiation softened into gentle curiosity.
Between questions about foreign roads and limyerite caves, Alexander spoke of his veiled bride.
By dinner—ginger-laced broth, fried greens, sesame-scallion noodles—the tale had taken root.
MeiMei listened from her mother’s arms, eyes wide.
Ru Rong murmured approval or dismay at all the right moments.
Even Xian Jun nodded when Alexander described the moment JingYi chose to leave Blackwood-Veyrde.
“X?en women are practical,” he said. “They have to be. When their emperor spent decades grinding them into the dust, there was no room left for dreams. Survival doesn’t allow for sentiment.”
He gave Alexander a measured look. “If she walked away, something vital must’ve been broken. I didn’t need the details to know you’d been a fool.”
The words stung, but the shame was not undeserved. He had been a fool the first time—too consumed with duty and appearances, too slow to understand the treasure he’d held.
Su Lian broke the hush, her tone contemplative.
“To think that the woman you’re trying to win back is the Omega High Princess JingYi .
. .” Her eyes lit up. “We saw her earlier at the market fair, from a distance. Everyone was talking about her, said she’s opened a clinic inside her Magnolia Palace. ”
She poured more tea. “She treats both nobles and servants alike, from royal consorts to wet nurses, no appointment needed. That’s not the custom there, but she defies it anyway.”
Ru Rong nodded, tapping a finger against her temple.
“They also say she has the entire body mapped out in her mind. Not just the common Meridian pathway, but every pressure point, even the obscure ones buried deep in the muscles. The ones passed down from old texts most never read. She can bring someone back from convulsions with a single touch to the side of the heel.”
“Or stop a heart attack by pressing between two ribs,” Su Lian added. “So they say.”
Alexander listened, awe stirring beneath the ache in his chest. That was his wife they were speaking of. His JingYi.
At the edge of the conversation, MeiMei piped up with a cheeky grin, eyes glinting. “You’ll definitely need to know more characters than just ‘dog’ to win her back.”
That earned chuckles from the adults. For a heartbeat, Alexander felt the tension in his shoulders ease, a genuine, if weary, amusement breaking through. Then reality reasserted itself. He turned to Su Lian, his expression sobering.
“Madam Su,” he said. “I’m at your mercy. Will you sell me the crystal?”
She exchanged a glance with her husband, then looked back at him. “Before I answer, I must ask one thing.”
She nodded toward the counter where the gem still lay, catching and scattering flecks of light. “There are other shops on this street, many with fine limyerite, not imperfect like this one. Why this stone?”
Alexander looked at the crystal, then back at her. “Do you know what causes that imperfection?”
Su Lian shook her head. The room went still.
“It’s exceedingly rare,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen a few. That kind of fissure forms when a crystal’s growth is interrupted and, somehow, begins again. Like a heartbeat that falters, then, against all odds, finds its rhythm again.”
There was silence, until Ru Rong broke it. “A sign of resilience?”
Alexander’s throat squeezed. The image of JingYi came to him again—the woman who’d walked beside him down the aisle asking for nothing but a chance. Who had soothed village children and elderly, ground herbs and healed wounds, and looked at him—not with awe or fear, but with devastating honesty.
He smiled. “Precisely.”
Then, he added, “Because that crack is not a flaw. It is a mark of survival, of something broken yet healed. And if I am to stand before the emperor and ask for her hand, it must be this stone. No other will do.”
He would present this crystal—not as tribute, but as truth. Something imperfect. Scarred. Worthy.
Just like her. Like him. Like them.
His fingers curled slightly at his side, and for the first time in days, a sense of clarity steadied his breath. Whatever came of that audience . . . he would not leave without trying, not this time.
His heart thudded in his ribs as Su Lian sighed and exchanged glances with her family.
Then, she turned to him and said fondly, “It seems the time has come for this gem to leave our family.”