Epilogue
Pei Zhao married Jiang Qinghan.
The very woman he had once pursued himself—yet now that the day had come, he looked strangely hollow.
At the wedding banquet, Wen Xueyi sat among the elders’ seats in a soft pink gown, looking even more delicate and lovely than the flowers.
Pei Zhao watched her, and regret crashed over him all at once.
Not long ago he had a dream.
He dreamed of things from childhood.
His father had taken him to Jianghuai to seek treatment from the already-retired Imperial Physician Wen.
There he met a little fairy.
They played together and had so much fun.
His father asked whether he would like to marry her when he grew up.
He asked what “marry” meant.
“It means becoming one family, the way Father and Mother are.”
The young Pei Zhao nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Then I want to become one family with the little fairy.”
But afterward his illness was cured and he returned to the capital.
The capital was bustling, full of exciting things.
Very quickly those memories faded.
When he grew older, because people kept mocking him for having a country fiancée, he began to resent Wen Xueyi, whom he hadn’t seen in years.
So many years apart—she had grown up in the countryside.
Even if she had been pretty as a child, surely now she was just an ordinary village girl.
Whereas Jiang Qinghan came from a prestigious family, elegantly raised, with stunning features.
Only someone like her was worthy of him.
Only now did Pei Zhao truly feel regret.
But regret was too late.
After marriage he and Jiang Qinghan quarreled countless times.
She accused him of treating her differently than before the wedding—hysterical, completely losing the gentle demeanor he had once liked.
He grew tired of looking at her and gradually stopped going to her room.
He took many bedwarmers.
Their eyes, noses, mouths—each had some part that resembled Wen Xueyi.
He could never stop thinking of her.
His father had once compared their birth charts and said they were a match made in heaven.
Five years into the marriage, unable to bear his coldness any longer, Jiang Qinghan poisoned him slowly.
By the time it was discovered, the toxin had already seeped deep into his lungs and re-awakened the strange illness of his childhood.
This time there was no brilliant physician like old Master Wen to cure him.
He divorced Jiang Qinghan, but was left disabled—never able to enter official service for the rest of his life.
So many years passed.
Pei Du and Wen Xueyi grew even closer, and they even had a lovely daughter as pure and beautiful as snow and jade.
In the dead of night he woke countless times thinking:
If only back then he had not run off to Jiangnan, had not chased after Jiang Qinghan, but had instead married Wen Xueyi…
Would everything be different now?