Playing Hard to Get

Playing hard to get? Turning him down? Why does everyone say I’m pretending to refuse while secretly welcoming his advances...

I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

Because in my world, there is only me.

Until he appeared...

That year, the two kingdoms went to war. His heroic bearing reached the palace, and he broke through the capital like a force no one could stop.

That day, he led his army in a breach of the palace walls. My father, whom I had seen only once, knelt at his feet and begged for mercy.

All my sisters wept and wept...

Only I did not kneel. I smiled calmly. Death was just a process to me...

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked with a gentle smile that never reached his eyes.

I said nothing, but a palace maid beside me said, “She’s mute.”

He lifted my chin and stared me down, domineering and arrogant. “Speak...”

“To live, what joy is there? To die, what pain is there?”

He smiled as if he understood. “Your name.”

“Xihe.”

The day I was born, all the flowers that had been blooming so brilliantly withered overnight. Father glanced at me once, then left. Only Mother stayed by my side, but our happiness didn’t last. She died of illness six years ago. After that, I wandered the palace every day. Everyone called me the foolish princess. I was a bad omen, a monster...

“Someone, take her away.” He smiled faintly. His white robe was stained with blood, and his handsome face looked eerily bewitching in the sunlight.

There was no need for him to say more. I understood what he meant. But none of that mattered. I was simply curious: I was a princess of a fallen kingdom, and he was a general from a neighboring country. Why had he taken me in?

I was neither foolish nor stupid. My heart was still as water. It had once been calm and undisturbed, but after meeting him, for some reason, it began to ache...

Could it be that we knew each other in a past life? But I don’t remember ever meeting you...

Have I forgotten something, or have you?