I married the man matched to me by the Heavenly Dao. Our compatibility was 98.7%, and the whole city said we were made for each other.
On our wedding night, he handed me a copy of the Tactical Coordination Regulations. "Miss Jiang, the battlefield is merciless. Please observe Article Thirty-Eight."
I smiled and agreed, but clenched my mother's final letter in my sleeve: "The Heavenly Dao is a fraud. Do not trust your match."
But neither of us could have imagined what would happen.
On a border mission, he was ordered to exterminate the "beastfolk rebels," but I found human military insignias among the corpses.
When we were ambushed in a mine, a poisoned arrow struck his leg, and he shielded me with his body. "Go!"
I tore open my own spiritual meridians and sent the poison in my blood into our pursuers. It turned out that my talent could do more than save lives. It could kill, too.
At the elders' council tribunal, we were branded "traitors to humanity."
He tore up the military order in front of everyone and pointed his sword at the lofty elders.
"If protecting humanity means turning a blind eye while children die..."
"Then I, Lu Lin, will betray humanity today!"
At last, I crushed the amber my mother had left behind, and memories flooded back:
The so-called matches made by the Heavenly Dao were a deceit devised by ancient gods to save the world.
The so-called hatred between species was a thousand-year lie spun by the powerful to keep their hold on power.
And we, nine couples whose love crossed the boundaries between species, were the last key to rebooting the world.
Later, I stood between the two armies, threads of light connecting me to thousands.
Before me, he raised a golden wall, his voice shaking heaven and earth:
"If you want to lay a hand on my wife, you'll have to get past this sword of mine, the one that has slain my comrades!"
