The orange-red afterglow, like a blazing fire, surged through the clouds across the whole sky, as if to seize the final chance. Even knowing it would at last be swallowed by darkness, it would burn with all its might, dyeing the earth in its own color.

Dou Yan was suddenly overcome by a feeling of clarity.

In her previous life, she had long grown weary of the attitude of scrambling and scheming merely to survive, and so after her rebirth she had done her utmost to avoid repeating the same mistakes, even choosing a way of life utterly different from before; and into her life had come people and things that had never appeared the last time around. It seemed as though everything was unfolding in the direction she had hoped.

Yet now, thinking it over calmly and carefully, she realized her life had in fact undergone no fundamental change.

The threat of her stepmother was gone, but the Eastern Dou branch lurked at her side, watching like a tiger; Wei Fan was gone, but there were He Yu, Ji Yong, and even Song Yan; the exhausting labor of the Jining Marquis's estate was gone, but she would face instead the infighting among the several branches of the Dou family... Whether in her past life or this one, she had thought only of how to shield herself from greater harm, and had never once seriously asked herself what it was she truly wanted.

She wanted to see Song Yan.

Yet even at the moment she caught sight of Song Zhi, she still had not decided what she meant to say to Song Yan.

Or perhaps, deep in her heart, she faintly hoped that Song Yan would make the choice.

That way, whenever things went wrong in the future, she could console herself that she had once tried her best, and that it was merely that fate had not favored her.

In the end, she was still that timid girl from her previous life, the one who had been forced to straighten her spine and smile her way through hardship simply to survive!

She had never truly grown up.

The sky is wide for birds to fly; the sea is vast for fish to leap.

But if the heart is not free, it makes no difference where you go!

Dou Yan stepped forward and walked out of the mountain cottage. Facing the glow of the evening clouds, she stood shoulder to shoulder with Song Yan.

"Song Yan," she said, turning her head to look at him with a smile, the golden sunset lending a warmer light to his gaze, "I want to tell you that I'm afraid I won't make a good wife..." She pressed her lips together and smiled, a smile more dazzling than the burning clouds, possessed of a broad and open-hearted ease. "But I will try my best to be a good partner to you."

Song Yan did not know what had happened.

But he could feel it.

The Dou Yan of before had been like a gemstone—radiant, striking, astonishing to behold—yet always somehow too composed and collected, a calm that veiled her brilliance. But in this moment, she seemed to have been tempered in fire, flashing with an aggressive, commanding splendor: bright, luminous, breathtakingly beautiful!

Song Yan gazed at Dou Yan, and a faint smile gently rippled at the corner of his mouth, then slowly crept up to the edges of his eyes and brows, filled his eyes, and flowed into his heart...

"Good!" He heard himself answer Dou Yan clearly, his tone betraying an unmistakable buoyancy.

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Song Yan left the Heming Temple alley with a light step and returned to the Yingzhengguo Estate.

Gu Yu had five characters left before he filled out his three thousand.

He could not help complaining: "Brother Tianci, why have you only come back now?"

Song Dan patted his head and said gently, "Finish the last few characters quickly; I have something to instruct you about." With that, he turned and ordered Chen He: "Invite Mr. Yan, Mr. Liao, Xia Lian, and Zhu Yicheng to the study."

Chen He answered and went off.

Song Yan changed his clothes, sat down on the heated kang by the window, took a sip of hot tea, and a trace of ease showed in his expression.

Having finished his characters, Gu Yu paid no mind to the few ink smudges still on his hand and plopped himself down across from Song Zhi: "Brother Tianci, what tea is this? It's so good!"

Song Yan had a cup brewed for Gu Yu.

Gu Yu tasted it and frowned: "Isn't this the Maojian I smuggled out of the palace for you last month?"

Song Yan rapped him lightly on the head in passing and laughed: "Drinking tea is about the mood. With you, it's like an ox chewing peonies—everything tastes the same!"

Hardly had he finished speaking when Yan Che and the others walked in.

Song Yan broke off the topic; once Yan Che and the rest were seated and the servant had served tea, he smiled and said, "Tomorrow is the day for the cuizhuang. I wanted to discuss with you all whom we should ask to help with the cuizhuang."

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Sisters and brothers, it's the holidays!

But I still have to write, and I have to post extra chapters too...~~~~(_

ps: Extra chapter tomorrow afternoon around fourteen-thirty!

I beg all you sisters and brothers who have pink tickets to toss me a few pink tickets...

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