Breaking a Sparrow

In A Que's memory, she had only made an enemy of Ji Xun three times.

The first time, hearing that he was a crown prince who bullied people with his power and had broken two fingers of her foolish second brother, she called him shameless, arrogant, and a cripple in front of everyone. For that, he slapped her twice, and her father confined her to the house for three months;

The second time, she persuaded the emperor to take a concubine for Ji Xun, thinking that if he had a new "wife," he would stop coming after her. But Ji Xun found out. He punished her by making her kneel, then secretly came to bring her osmanthus cakes. In the end, they got into a fight over a disagreement, raising such a racket that the whole household was turned upside down;

As for the third time,

it was also the most brutal. It was the day news arrived that her second brother had been sent to the frontier, where he died, pierced by countless arrows and trampled into the mud. She could endure no more. At last, she raised a hairpin and blinded Ji Xun in one eye. She ran and fled, without realizing she had climbed onto the bird tower Ji Xun had built for her, higher and higher.

That day, her sleeves flew wildly in the wind. Looking down, she saw Ji Xun's face twisted with anguish, blood pouring from his right eye. For the first time, the entire Eastern Palace wailed for her, shaking the heavens.

She wondered: had Ji Xun gone mad?

But her foot slipped, and she fell straight down.

*

It was as if she had dreamed a very, very long dream.

The dream was soaked in blood. Her second brother held her and said softly, "A Que, it doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't hurt. Your brother will take you to pick flowers."

In the dream, her brother made her the prettiest flower crown and told her she was the loveliest girl in all of Chang'an.

Then she skipped back to her youth. There was her childhood sweetheart, and she was still the impoverished daughter of the Xie family. She dared to trade barbs with the Great Yan hostage, and feared neither the blades of Gu Cangshu. The immortal-like elder brother from the back mountain always chatted with her, his smile warm; even the eunuch who always wore a cold expression and ordered her about no longer seemed so hateful in her memories, and held her as tears fell.

When she awoke, perhaps because her obsession ran so deep, she found herself reborn on a day before her wedding.

She was ready to fight tooth and nail to change everyone's fate. She wanted nothing more than to skin Ji Xun alive and avenge her second brother, but then, that day

She saw Ji Xun remove his human-skin mask with her own eyes, only to reveal her brother's face.

Her long dagger clattered to the ground.

The brocon: ...?

*

-I shall smash the Yellow Crane Tower for you, and you shall topple Parrot Islet for me.

The contest for supremacy at Red Cliff was like a dream. Let music and dance ease the sorrow of parting.-

[The siblings in this story are not related by blood]

Weibo: @Yi Zhi Lin Ge Jiu

Theme: Only by treating others sincerely can we receive sincerity in return.