Not You

Rong Zhou, heir to the Prince of Ning, was an idle, dissolute wastrel who indulged in wine and women, loved the theater, and lusted after beauties. In the twenty-ninth year of Fengtian, he drowned in the Jinling River after drinking too much.

In life, he basked in glory. In death, he vanished like a lone wild goose.

Rong Zhou died with many secrets, drowned in the heady wine of Qinhuai's pleasure quarters. Jinling maidens' fragrance intoxicated his very bones, and he felt his death had not been in vain.

The only thing he regretted was the puppet he had spent twenty years making, day and night, with tears and ink, using his fingertip as a brush, listening to who knew how many of his mutterings. Now that he was gone, he had no idea who would carefully gather it up and keep it safe.

Life had been too hard this time around. If there was another life, he would rather not be so clearheaded. He would be a fool and muddle through it.

*

Qin Youxuan, the new ruler of Nanyue, had suffered for years from an old, lingering illness. When it struck, his head throbbed with unbearable pain, and no medicine could help. Only a burner of calming incense and half an hour of quiet rest could bring it to an end.

While the incense burned, he often fell into a nightmare.

He couldn't move. All his senses were gone. He couldn't even twitch a finger or open his eyes.

All he could feel was a finger falling upon his brow, a soft sigh, and the traces of ink and tears.

He had heard of the other's childhood fears and hatred, his adolescent restraint and composure, and his youthful all-or-nothing resolve.

Qin Youxuan had once hated this nightmare, hated the person who appeared and disappeared in his dreams again and again. But after listening to those mutterings for twenty years, when they suddenly stopped, he too felt lonely and at a loss.

He was tired of the road to becoming an emperor. If he had another chance, perhaps he would live differently. The person who had deserved to be cut to pieces for twenty years was struggling to survive in neighboring Wei, so he decided to go see just how wretched and destitute he looked.

As a young hostage, Qin Youxuan traveled all the way to Wei. In its court, he saw a lean young man, six feet tall, grinning carelessly as he clasped his hands in greeting and winked at him, a hostage from an enemy state.

He was dressed in the heir's formal court robes. Yet the person who had muttered in his nightmare for twenty years had clearly been a delicate, suffering young woman.

He... was a woman!

Theme: Love you by putting yourself in your beloved's shoes.