Before the Flowers Fade

[Bold and spirited daughter of a military family vs. outwardly cold, inwardly passionate man]

Ye Zhaoning had died once.

On a cliff in the northern frontier, she plunged a knife into the chest of the man who betrayed her, then threw herself into the abyss with her enemy in her arms.

As she fell, she had only one thought: if she got another life, she would protect the entire Ye family.

When she opened her eyes again, it was the night before the Flower Festival.

Her loved ones were all still there, and Liu Qingcheng, the adopted daughter who had lived in the Ye household for eight years, had yet to bare her fangs.

Thankfully, there was still time!

In her previous life, she was the legitimate daughter of a military family, but trusted the wrong man, and the Ye family's blade techniques gathered dust.

In this life, she would be her own blade.

That invisible noose: she would untangle it inch by inch with her own hands, drag the hand behind it out of the shadows, and repay every betrayal with the Ye family's blade.

But when she pried open the sealed letter in the Dali Court, untouched for ten years, a gaze looked back at her from the depths of the case files.

Pei Yan, the Dali Court's Assistant Minister and the youngest head of criminal affairs, was like a deep river flowing quietly, his blade hidden in its sheath.

He told her, “You can’t investigate this case alone.”

A descendant of a military family and an official of the courts.

She would use the blade of the battlefield to break his shackles,

while he would use the eyes of the court to show her what lay in light and shadow.

One civil, one martial, they made perfect allies.

In this life, she had never meant to stop for anyone again.

But there he stood among the old wooden shelves of the archives, sunlight slanting through the high windows and falling on the ten-year-old letter in his hand. He said to her, quietly,

“Miss Ye, together, we both stand to gain.”

He held out his hand, palm up, as if waiting for a blade to settle into its sheath.

The peach blossoms bloom every year. This year, it’s not too late.