[Sorry, one part of the setup wasn't quite right. After careful thought, I've decided to pause revisions. I sent everyone who commented a 100-point red packet, and I've started the neighboring story, Younger Sister-in-Law, to let loose for a bit.]
Born a princess, Changning should have lived without a care in the world.
That is, if her kingdom hadn't been destroyed.
And it was the enemy emperor himself who led the army in person: the destitute hostage prince whose marriage proposal she had once rejected.
She still remembered the day they fell out. With her arm linked through someone else's, she had spoken coldly:
"Beg me. For every extra time you beg, this princess will give you one more steamed bun."
Xiao Qian had calmly agreed.
But when she happened to glimpse him looking back as he turned away, Changning shivered.
Later, Xiao Qian did rebel. He raised his hooked spear and conquered fifty prefectures beyond the mountain passes.
The day the kingdom fell was also Changning's wedding day. She waited beneath her veil, but the man who arrived was not her groom. It was the new emperor.
The new emperor first executed the Yu family, then slaughtered the imperial clan. Right in front of her, he ordered the arrest of all 110 members of her husband's family.
"Beg me. Beg me for one more night, and I will spare one more head from your husband's family."
Only then did Changning understand. Xiao Qian didn't want her dead. He wanted her to wish she were.
[Short scene]
During the countless nights she spent imprisoned in the palace, Xiao Qian would hold Changning tightly and demand again and again to know if she regretted it.
Holding back her tears, she said she did.
And she truly did regret it.
But she regretted not being ruthless enough. If she had known this would happen, she should never have let him go. She should have beheaded him then and there.
Blurb dated 2021/10/25. A spin-off of Xiao Se Lan Cheng, about the ancestors' generation.
Theme: Love and hate, each taking their turn
