Yu Wan was kept as a stand-in for the late princess consort in a secluded residence of the Prince Regent’s manor for three whole years.
A bowl of herbal medicine made her forget who she was. A face that looked just like someone else’s made her endure both his favor and his coldness. Only after falling into the water and regaining her memories did she discover that the man who had taught her to play the zither and occasionally shown her tenderness was the very person who had ordered the extermination of the entire Yu family five years ago.
More absurdly, the “calming tonic” he gave her was slowly eating away at her life.
Yu Wan neither cried nor made a scene. She simply hid away half of the jade pendant passed down through the Yu family, then planned a great fire before the poison could claim her. The blaze burned away her identity as a stand-in, along with Pei Changyuan’s self-deception.
Among the ruins, Pei Changyuan found the medical notes she had left behind. He went mad as soon as he opened the first page: the young woman doctor who had saved his life amid the chaos of war five years ago was Yu Wan.
When he tracked her down in Jiangnan, she was sitting beneath a loquat tree, peeling loquats.
“Your Highness,” she said, looking up with clear eyes, “I don’t want to be anyone’s stand-in anymore.”
Later, a plainclothes man began delivering baked buns to people every day at a Suzhou alleyway. When the neighbors asked what he was after, he looked toward the half-open door at the end of the alley and said:
“I’m waiting until she’s willing to let me in.”
