Chasing Jade: Reborn, Qianqian Meets Qi Min Again at the Overflowing Fragrance House

In the end, Qianqian became Empress Dowager Yu, holding power over the court and ruling from behind the curtain.

She had everything she could ever want, yet it all felt meaningless.

All this boundless glory could not fill the emptiness in her heart, a void no one could fill, year after year.

As the young emperor grew up and the regent assisted him, undercurrents stirred in the court, and the power struggles of years past played out once more.

Her old friends were gone, the dreams of the past could not be found, and nothing was like it had been in her youth.

Tired of political intrigue, she cast aside her phoenix crown, left the imperial palace, and traveled far and wide, reveling in the freedom of the world.

Everyone said she had gotten what she wanted and was now free and happy. Only she knew that

that name, long buried by the years and spoken by no one anymore, had become an obsession etched into her bones, haunting her dreams night after night.

When she returned to the old Eastern Palace, she rescued that person, at the place where her nightmare began.

So many years after his death, revisiting the old place unexpectedly stirred a sense of longing.

She should have hated Qi Min with all her heart: hated how he had taken her by force, hated those years when she was trapped like a bird in a cage, hated how his obsessive love had bound her for half her life.

But since he left, she had traveled across thousands of miles of the realm and met countless gentlemen,

yet no one else had ever made her feel so afraid, so heartsick, so deeply moved.

Nor had anyone loved her to the very marrow of their bones as he had.

Yu Qianqian seemed tired. She closed her eyes and sighed softly. If she and Qi Min could share a grave after death, that would still make half a life well spent.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back at Yixiang Tower in Lin'an. Incense smoke curled in the air, and the account books were just as before. It was the place where she had felt most free in her youth.

She suddenly laughed, the corners of her eyes stinging.

You said we wouldn’t meet again in our next lives, Qi Min. You liar.

In this life, love and hate repeat, fate comes full circle, and in the end, neither of them can escape the bond destiny has ordained.