Inside the Green Delights Pavilion, red candles flickered as Daiyu coughed up the last of her blood. She committed her poems to the flames, and her crimson pearl spirit quietly faded away amid the joyous wedding music as Baoyu married.
She had come into this life to repay her tears. Her parents died young, she had to depend on others, and she gave her whole heart to the wrong person. The Lin family’s considerable estate was quietly swallowed up, while her own frail body wasted away until she met the ill-fated end foretold by the line, “The jade sash hangs among the trees.”
When she opened her eyes again, her soul had returned to her seven-year-old self.
It was the day she was to bid farewell to Gusu, sail north, and enter the Rongguo Mansion.
In this life, she remembered everyone’s fate. She could see that beneath the Jia family’s dazzling prosperity, its foundations had long since rotted away.
The tears of the Crimson Pearl Immortal Grass had already been repaid to the Divine Attendant. From now on, she would no longer waste her life on love.
Living under someone else’s roof, she would tread carefully to protect herself. Beyond poetry and refinement, she would plan for her survival.
She would protect her frail body and preserve what remained of the Lin family’s bloodline and estate. She would avoid the trap of the “gold-and-jade match,” see the calculations beneath Grandmother Jia’s affection, look through Wang Xifeng’s greed, and understand the family burdens beneath Xue Baochai’s gentle facade.
Baoyu’s tenderness was a fleeting illusion. Turbulent currents swirled through the imperial court, while the storm of confiscation and ruin was quietly gathering in the distance.
The verdict of the Register of the Damned had already been written, but she was determined to defy fate and change her destiny.
When the Rongguo and Ningguo Mansions came crashing down, could she break free of her fate and find a new path beyond the Grand View Garden?
