As Before, the Fragrance of Orchids: I Watched Over Her for Thirty-Four Years After My Death

Lin Jinqi did only one thing in his entire life: silently guard a secret he could never speak aloud. On the day the Shen family was wiped out, he was seventeen and knelt before his grandfather, pleading in vain. The letter breaking off the engagement had already been sent, and blood stained the warning letter hidden in his sleeve. When he returned from the battlefield, he recognized her among the third-class maids in his own residence, but chose to pretend he didn't know her. For the next twenty years, he burned every piece of evidence that could prove her identity and secretly cleared away every danger in her path. He traded the old wounds of war for her lifelong safety, until he was fifty and breathed his last. After his soul left his body, he stayed by her side for thirty-four years, watching her bear the burden of the Lin household alone and write a book with white hair to clear the Shen family's name. At eighty, she wrote his name on the last page of The Shen Family Record and closed her eyes with a smile. At last, he could take her hand and whisper, "Jialan, you've waited long enough."