Shen Yanhui died once.
She died on the seventeenth day of the eleventh month in the twenty-third year of Chengping, on a day of heavy snow. Someone handed her a white silk sash. Someone else set a fire. Before she closed her eyes, she heard Pei Changyuan call her name. He was the man she had been married to for three years. Separated by iron bars, he never got the chance to say anything.
When she opened her eyes, she was sixteen again. The imperial decree arranging her marriage would arrive tomorrow. Her father was still stationed at Yanmen, her older brother was still full of youthful confidence, and Dongqing was still alive.
This time, she had returned with the whole answer sheet in hand: she would save the entire Shen family, uncover the mastermind behind the frame-up, and find out whether the man who had been too late had also returned with his memories, living his life over again.
He was the emperor's eyes and ears, an imperial inspector in embroidered robes, and the man she had hated again and again in her previous life, yet could never quite hate until the day she died.
This time, he took an arrow for her, returned her old handkerchief, and said, "I'm sorry. In this life, I'm here to repay you."
She asked him just one thing: "Pei Changyuan, are you here to repay a debt this time, or to collect one?"
Mountains and rivers cannot ferry us across. Only this heart can.
Theme: Amid the perils facing the nation and the love and hatred in our personal lives, learn to trust, take responsibility, and let go, protecting those we love and the land that lies behind us.
