I Bid You a Final Farewell

[An alternate setting, not historically researched; no getting back together after a breakup]

As the ninth princess of Jiangzhou, Jiang Jiu not only caused her birth mother’s death at birth, but was also treated as an ill-omened outcast by everyone. She didn’t even have a proper name and was mute. She could only live quietly in Sui Sui Pavilion with an old nanny and a young maid, and was often bullied by palace servants and her younger siblings.

By contrast, her full sister, Jiang Jianing, was seen as a heaven-blessed darling, born with the destiny of a phoenix. Everyone doted on her, and she shone like a little sun.

After Jiangzhou lost the war, Hanzhou agreed to accept its peace proposal on the condition that the eighth princess, Jiang Jianing, marry into its royal family. But in the end, it was Jiang Jiu who was sent away to marry in Hanzhou.

Jiang Jiu was terrified of the husband everyone called the “Rakshasa.” She thought he really was the bloodthirsty monster people described, a demon made flesh. She never expected him to be tenderhearted and handsome, or to tell her that he had already said he wanted to marry her back when they were in Jiangzhou.

She thought this was the beginning of her happiness. She never imagined it would lead to an even deeper abyss of tragedy.

In the very end, Han Xingyuan came to make peace with her, carrying the red-bean dice he had remade overnight. He thought they could start over, but he had forgotten that her heart had shattered long ago: beneath Miss Wanqi Yu’s feet, on the night Jingu died, and when Jiangzhou’s lands and rivers fell to ruin.

You’ve mistaken me for someone else, General. The one who loved you was A Ning. I’m Jiang Jiu, Jiu as in “forever.” Everyone Jiang Jiu loved is dead, and you’re the one responsible. You say we can go back, but we can’t.