5.

Liu family is innocent, and Liu Luochuan and Liu Zhen Dong were released without charges.

When Liu Luochuan returned home, Li Zhou stood blushing a step away from him, close enough that he could touch her, but he didn't, only smiling at her.

"Little girl, not bad, I never thought you had such capabilities before."

Li Zhou patted her chest and shyly stuck out her tongue.

"Young master, I was scared to death, but fortunately, it worked."

The woman who had been calm and cold on the courtroom, with no trace of her, was still the simple-minded fool in front of him.

"Girl, what reward do you want? Just ask, even the stars in the sky, young master will bring them down for you."

"Any reward is fine?" She looked at him with watery eyes, licking her lips as if she was about to make a big request.

"Of course!"

After hesitating for a while, she blushed and spoke timidly: "Then young master, can you marry Li Zhou as your wife?"

That careful and expectant look would stay with Liu Luochuan forever.

Liu family held a grand wedding, where the young master married the maid Li Zhou, and it became a famous story.

Throughout the wedding, the bride held the red ribbon and didn't let anyone touch her clothes.

That night, Liu Luochuan thought he was probably the most frustrated groom in the world. There was no wine, no bridal chamber, and Li Zhou curled up in the corner of the bed, looking at him pitifully with tears in her eyes.

"Young master, you can't touch me."

Liu Luochuan indeed didn't touch her, leaning against the screen to lay on a wooden bed, sighing and muttering to himself.

Li Zhou tilted her head and listened to Liu Luochuan's complaints, laughing happily.

"Young master, tell me your secret, and Li Zhou will let you touch."

"You little trickster." Liu Luochuan grumbled unhappily, and Li Zhou giggled, laughing through the screen. She couldn't see the coldness and disappointment in Liu Luochuan's eyes.

The days after the wedding were comfortable. Liu Zhen Dong sent people to thoroughly investigate Li Zhou's background and didn't find anything, as if she was indeed an orphan with no family or traceable roots. Although Li Zhou's background remained a mystery, it wasn't as complicated as Liu Zhen Dong had thought.

Liu Luochuan no longer felt the same revulsion towards Li Zhou as before. His indifferent attitude was enough to make Li Zhou happy. Liu Luochuan doted on Li Zhou, no longer flirting around, and the couple lived a fairy-tale life together. Of course, Li Zhou still wouldn't let Liu Luochuan touch her in any way.

However, a relationship with cracks could not last long.

It was the spring equinox, and Liu Luochuan went to the temple with Li Zhou to pray for blessings. On the way down the mountain, he remembered leaving his talisman in the temple and returned to retrieve it. On the way back, he noticed the talisman in his bosom, and at the same time, he saw Li Zhou talking to a beggar.

In the end, the beggar gave something to Li Zhou without any signs, and Li Zhou looked at it and threw it into the incense burner behind her.

Liu Luochuan walked over calmly without asking anything. However, from then on, Li Zhou's health deteriorated day by day, and she often fell ill. Her former smile was gone.

"Li Zhou, what can I do for you?"

Liu Luochuan clenched his trembling fists, his gaze filled with love but also a complex emotion that was hard to notice.

Li Zhou just smiled, her voice hoarse: "Young master, you believe in me, just like before."

She nodded at him, but the smile on her face was tinged with bitterness. Li Zhou knew that everything could not go back to the way it was. She struggled to sit up, looked him straight in the eye, took a deep breath, as if making up her mind.

"Young master, am I the only one in your heart?"

"Yes."

"Does the young master want Li Zhou to live?"

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"Yes."

"Then, young master, please tell me where the dragon vein is."

In the end, she asked that question. He looked at the woman in front of him, and his heart gradually turned cold, his expression becoming more indifferent: "Li Zhou, I treat you as the only one in my heart, and what do you treat me as?"

He turned and walked out of the room, listening to her fall from the bed and cry helplessly: "Young master, you are the most important person in Li Zhou's heart."

But Li Zhou, young master doesn't believe it.

6.

The alcohol faded, and the bamboo cabin was again filled with the aroma of tea, as Liu Sheng poured a cup of tea for Liu Luochuan, his voice tinged with coldness: "You shouldn't have doubted her."

Liu Luochuan swirled the tea in his cup, a few drops splashing out.

"In that situation, I dared not trust."

"But you still couldn't bear to see her die like that, could you?"

He indeed couldn't bear to see Li Zhou die, so he gave her a map with the location of the dragon vein marked on it.

Unfortunately, Li Zhou didn't have time to go there. A small army suddenly barged into the Liu family, and all eighteen members of the family were taken to jail, except for Li Zhou.

The leader of the army, a guard, bowed deeply in front of Li Zhou in front of everyone from the Liu family.

"Sir, the Liu family will be under my charge. His Majesty has decreed that you should return to the palace immediately."

At that moment, Li Zhou saw the last trace of tenderness in Liu Luochuan's gaze towards her, shattered into dust.

Very few people knew Liu Luochuan's background.

He was the child of the Southern Sui Emperor who was annexed by the Qin dynasty, a prince with the royal blood of the Sui dynasty. Liu Zhen Dong was not his father but the personal guard of the Sui Emperor.

When the Sui dynasty fell, Liu Zhen Dong escaped with the only royal bloodline through a secret passage, settling in Fengxian Town and living a life of ordinary people under a false name.

Life was carefree until the current emperor had a dream.

The dream contained only six words.

Dragon vein appears, the realm changes.

The fortune-teller told the emperor that he must destroy the dragon vein, or else the realm would change hands. There had been talk of dragon veins before, only during the reign of the previous emperor, when the Southern Sui Empire was annexed.

The Liu family thought they had hidden their identity well, but they still underestimated the emperor's power. Their true identity was quickly exposed under the emperor's deliberate investigation.

However, the emperor wasn't stupid. He knew that directly arresting Liu Luochuan and torturing him for the location of the dragon vein wouldn't work, so he used the simplest and most successful strategy.

A beauty plot.

Li Zhou was the emperor's trusted agent sent by him, an undercover agent from the supervisory organ, the most trusted royal guard.

So, even though Li Zhou was so naive and innocent, she just happened to know the art of autopsy, and she was particularly eager to find out the location of the dragon vein.

Liu Luochuan saw Li Zhou again seven days after being imprisoned. An order came down that the eighteen members of the Liu family would all be executed the next day. Li Zhou brought wine and food, sat at the entrance to the prison cell, and looked at Liu Luochuan, who had his back to her, and spoke softly.

"Young master, Li Zhou came to see you."

"Young master, Li Zhou doesn't have much time left, there are some things Li Zhou wants to tell young master, but Li Zhou can't speak."

"Young master, please forgive Li Zhou, Li Zhou's abilities are limited, and she can only save one person, which is young master."

"Young master, Li Zhou wants you to live well."

Liu Luochuan woke up three days later, lying in a ruined temple outside the city, with a face that was unfamiliar to him, but his eyes were the same as before.

The eighteen members of the Liu family were all executed the day before, including Liu Luochuan.

Outside the Liu family's courtyard, someone had erected a tomb for the Liu family. And his tombstone was among the dead wolf's bane flowers.

Liu Luochuan never saw Li Zhou again.

"Is this your story?" Liu Sheng smiled, got up and went into the house to get an object, placing it on the table, which was a crystal-clear tea bowl, a bit larger than ordinary tea bowls, containing water that looked like mountain spring water, clear and ethereal.

"What do you want to ask?"

"Where is Li Zhou?"

Liu Sheng didn't answer, she pointed her finger at the calm water surface in the tea bowl.

"I let the young master see a story, a completely different story from what you know."

7.

One night, a red figure leapt into the courtyard outside the city, agile and swift.

However, as soon as she landed in the flower bed that was about to wither, before she could take a step, her whole body was suddenly enveloped in a misty red light that rose from the ground.

A few breaths later, the woman fell to the ground, her life unknown.

After an unknown amount of time, the woman opened her eyes again. However, her eyes were the purest and most innocent expression in the world, as she touched her chest with her fingers and smiled sweetly.

"Young master, no one will hurt you."

The scene changed, showing Liu Luochuan after he fainted in prison.

Li Zhou was suddenly surrounded by a red glow. She walked through the prison door, reaching out to embrace him, but in the end, she could only look at him with a bitter smile and withdraw her trembling hands.

The Liu Luochuan on the ground disappeared, but she suddenly changed into his appearance and stayed like that until dawn, when she was taken to the market to be executed.

Finally, the blurry figure of the red-clad woman personally built dozens of tombs in the courtyard outside the city, then smiled and disappeared into the withered wolf's bane flowers.

No trace of her could be found anywhere in the world.

Liu Sheng looked at the lost Liu Luochuan and put away the tea bowl. Liu Luochuan grabbed her wrist, his voice slurred and unclear.

"What's going on?"

"Can't you understand?" Liu Sheng still had her indifferent expression, but her gaze passed through the bamboo window and looked out at the misty fine rain.

"A wolf's bane flower with a soul killed the assassin who came with the intention of harming you, and then reincarnated with her body."

"The Li Zhou by your side is an elf you rescued from the distant borderlands, an elf you nurtured with your own blood, a woman who gave all her sincerity to you in the world."

Liu Sheng's voice was like it came from the sky, ethereal as if it couldn't be heard clearly, yet crystal clear.

"She gained wisdom because of your blood, a reason to exist because of your belief, and the ability to survive in this world because of your trust. And because of the collapse of your trust, she vanished from this world."

Liu Luochuan knelt on the ground, mouth agape as if wanting to say something but unable to make a sound, tears streaming down his face.

Yes, from the moment he began to doubt her, her body grew weaker.

She begged him, young master, please trust me.

Unfortunately, he didn't believe her.

"She cared about you the most, hoping you would trust her. She was an elf transformed from a wolf's bane flower, inheriting the toxicity of the wolf's bane flower, her whole body was poisonous, so she never let you touch her. Unfortunately, you didn't know how much she wanted to hold you, to feel your warmth."

"In the dragon vein, there is an object that can make her toxicity disappear and truly become a human. She wanted to find it so that in the years to come, she could give you the tenderness of a wife in the form of a normal person. She couldn't tell you her identity, because that would violate the laws of heaven and earth, causing her to be completely annihilated. So, she carefully concealed it, naively thinking that the person she loved would trust her without any reservations."

"She was reborn in this world using someone else's body, wanting to perform the story with you. But you didn't give her that chance, using your lack of trust to destroy her life with your own hands."

"Liu Luochuan, there is something Li Zhou wants to tell you."

Finally, he lifted his head, his blurred eyes filled with the utmost despair.

"She said that you brought her out of that desert of death, giving her a new life. The blood flowing through her body is yours. Li Zhou, died without regrets."

Liu Luochuan remembered the first time he saw Li Zhou, an elf-like woman sitting in the flower bed, smiling at him. She had already told him, hadn't she? Admit her identity, tell him, he was the only one in her heart.

Unfortunately... in this world

"The young master wanted to know, Liu Sheng has told you everything, the teahouse is closing, please excuse me for not seeing you off."

The disheveled man stumbled out of the Forgetful River.

It was deep into the night, and heavy rain was pouring down. His thin figure in the wind and rain was swaying unsteadily, as if it might collapse at any moment.

Li Zhou, did you see that? The man still loved you in the end.

In the endless desert, the man knelt beside the withered flowers, his eyes fixed as if gazing at the one he loved most.

"Li Zhou, this is where you were born. Li Zhou, I wait for you to return."

There was an astonishing belief on the man's face. He knelt on the vast earth, like a statue, until the end of time.