Those afflicted with the Heartbound Shared-Life Gu share their emotions and feel each other’s pain. My prince consort and I tormented each other for ten years. He hated me for separating him from the princess, and repeatedly wounded himself to force me to divorce him. I hated that he loved someone else, and endured pain throughout my body while refusing to let go of the imperial edict that had arranged our marriage. With each other’s lives in our hands, neither of us would back down first. But on the day our kingdom fell, he rode alone through an army of a hundred thousand, shielding me from a rain of arrows and saving my life. “Mingluan, hold tight to the reins. Don’t look back.”
The horse ran for a day and a night before collapsing from exhaustion. When Xiao Cheng and I tumbled into a muddy ditch, I saw that his back was bristling with arrows.
“I’ve repaid you for saving my life.”
“If there is a next life, I only ask that Your Highness let her and me be together.”
Xiao Cheng died clutching the princess’s hairpin. That night, our kingdom fell and my family was destroyed. I pulled the arrows from his back, then slit my throat. When I opened my eyes again, I knelt before my father and bowed my head. “The Western Rong need a bride. I’ll go in the princess’s place.”
Xiao Cheng, the wish you gave your life for in the next life, I’ll grant you in this one.
