133 Worn to Nothing

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The Ugly Concubine’s Dowry — No Pop-Ups

The weather was gradually turning colder. Standing before the window, Yun Xueyan watched everything outside, her face veiled, her gaze calm and seemingly untouched by the dust of the world.

How long had she been here? She had never counted. Three months? Four?

She turned and walked to the writing desk, then opened a wooden box. Inside lay stacks of paper, covered in handwriting that had changed from thick and forceful at first to delicate and graceful now. The harshness in the strokes had faded, just as it had in her.

She picked up her brush and wrote three characters on a sheet of paper: Duan Nanyu. Then she took another sheet and wrote: Feng Xilou.

The corners of her eyes grew slightly moist. Feng Xilou—what was that gentle man like now? What had he become after she left? She owed him far too much.

She folded the sheet bearing Feng Xilou’s name and put it away, then stared blankly at the three characters on the other page.

She had once thought she would hate him forever. But the longer time passed, the more she realized that hatred, once accumulated beyond endurance, would one day erupt completely. She was tired—utterly exhausted. She was even too weary to hate.

She had written his name thousands upon thousands of times, then crumpled each sheet into a ball and thrown it into the fire to vent her resentment.

But now… she could no longer hate him. He had already been driven from her heart. Through all those endless days and nights, nightmares had tormented her, waking her again and again. Her mind and heart had been filled with Duan Nanyu, and even hating him had been painful.

So she had decided not to hate him anymore—to drive him completely from her thoughts.

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“What are you thinking about?”

Feng Yihan walked in and stopped beside Yun Xueyan. His eyes fell upon the three characters on the desk, and his brows quickly drew together before relaxing again.

“You know Duan Nanyu?”

“I know him, but we aren’t close,” she replied casually, without a moment’s hesitation.

She truly was not close to him. She knew nothing about him, and from beginning to end, she had never understood what he wanted. So they were… not close.

“You know him?” Yun Xueyan countered.

“The cold-faced Prince Duan Nanyu—how many people in the world don’t know him? Are you really not close to him?” Feng Yihan drawled, his tone meaningful. “I don’t believe it. It can’t be that simple, can it? Is the person the capital has been searching for lately… you?”

Her heart trembled despite herself. Yun Xueyan lowered her eyes, her long lashes concealing every emotion within them so that Feng Yihan could not see through her. Her voice remained faint, without the slightest embarrassment at having been exposed.

“You said you wouldn’t ask about my past, and I won’t ask about yours. He and I have never been anything more than two people who wanted nothing to do with each other. Why insist on entangling us?”

Her voice was so calm and utterly undisturbed that Feng Yihan froze for a moment before swiftly recovering his indifference.

“You hate him?” he continued.

“I don’t.”

Her answer was tranquil. She truly no longer hated him. He had wounded her too deeply, and after enduring that pain for so long, her heart had died. She was too weary even to hate.

“You don’t?”

Moving away from Yun Xueyan, Feng Yihan opened a drawer and took out a stack of paper. His pupils contracted.

“This is what you call not hating him? Then why do your words seethe with resentment?”

Yun Xueyan’s eyes remained clear, unchanged by his words. She merely shifted her gaze to the stack of paper, then handed him the sheet she had just written.

“What about this one? Does it still carry resentment? Yes, I once hated him. I wanted to kill him with my own hands and see him suffer a miserable death. But what good would hatred do? If I took revenge, would that make me happy? Rather than hate him, I would rather forget him. That would be punishment for him—and mercy for me.”

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Yun Xueyan raised her eyes to Feng Yihan, and a faint smile touched the corners of her lips.

“I learned it from you—indifference to the point of detachment, caring about nothing. What meaning is there in dragging the past out again and allowing it to entangle me? In the end, I would still be the one in pain, and the one left looking pathetic.”

Meeting those clear eyes, Feng Yihan fell silent.

She had indeed learned to let go with ease. Learned it from him?

He shook his head inwardly. He had not let go. He had merely hidden everything more deeply.

He was even worse than she was.

“Have you studied?” he asked simply, looking at the graceful handwriting in his hand. “At the very least, you can read and write?”

“I know all of it. Why?” Yun Xueyan asked, puzzled.

“Nothing. I’m going out. I may have something to attend to tonight and won’t be coming back, so I came to let you know.”

With that, he turned and left at once, his pale-blue figure quickly disappearing.

Yun Xueyan placed the papers in the wooden box and closed it. Then she turned back toward the window and continued gazing outside.

Winter was coming. When… should she return?

A Note to the Readers:

Well, I’m thinking of speeding up the plot a little.