Bai Ruoyao first heard the news of the twins in the Crown Prince’s eastern courtyard.

It was late afternoon. The snow had stopped, leaving the garden beneath a thin, clean layer of white. Beneath the corridor, palace servants walked with lowered heads, their shoes making soft, careful sounds against the stone, as though even footsteps required permission inside the Crown Prince’s residence.

Within the warm pavilion, the Crown Prince Consort sat at the upper seat, listening to the stewardess report household matters. The Crown Prince’s side spouses and concubines sat below according to rank, each holding a cup of tea, each wearing the face most suitable for the occasion.

Bai Ruoyao sat near the middle.

Not too high.

Not too low.

Not safe.

She lowered her eyes to the steam rising from her tea.

A young concubine surnamed Song had just returned from visiting an older relative in the palace. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, and her eyes shone with the particular brightness of someone carrying news that was not hers but would still make her interesting for half a cup of tea.

“Your Highness Consort,” Song shi said with a smile, “this concubine heard something joyful on the way back. Seventh Wangfei’s pregnancy has been confirmed as twins.”

The pavilion instantly quieted.

Even the Crown Prince Consort’s hand paused on the lid of her teacup.

“Twins?” she asked.

Song shi nodded. “Yes. They say His Majesty was delighted. Imperial twins have not appeared in many years.”

Another concubine smiled. “Seventh Highness is truly blessed. He has only just married, and Wangfei is already carrying twins.”

Blessed.

The word fell lightly into the warm air.

Bai Ruoyao’s fingers tightened around her cup.

The tea was hot. The porcelain burned her skin, sharp and immediate, but she did not loosen her hold.

Twins.

Seventh Wangfei.

Shen Yuheng.

The timeline had changed.

In her last life, the Seventh Prince’s household had not caused such early turmoil in the capital. Shen Yuheng had existed, yes. Bai Ruoyao remembered the name vaguely, like a line written in a book she had once glanced at beneath dim light. A beautiful ger from the Shen House of Rites. A prince’s spouse. Someone noble women mentioned with envy or pity, depending on the year and the strength of the wine.

But she did not remember twins.

She did not remember Empress Ji protecting him so early.

She did not remember the Shen household’s punishment spreading through Tianjing only weeks after the wedding.

She did not remember the Seventh Prince refusing concubines so firmly that even officials began swallowing their words.

Had this happened before?

Or had something shifted?

Bai Ruoyao lowered her lashes.

A flash of another winter passed through her mind.

Not this pavilion.

Not clean snow beneath red walls.

Mud.

Hunger.

The sour stink of rotting grain and human sweat pressed beneath a grey sky.

Her fingers trembled once.

In her last life, the famine began like a rumour.

At first, it was only a few counties reporting poor harvests. Then the rain failed. Then grain merchants began hoarding. Then officials wrote memorials full of soft language, saying the situation was manageable, saying relief was being arranged, saying the people were temporarily unsettled.

Temporarily.

Bai Ruoyao had once believed words like that.

She had been Bai Liangdi of the Crown Prince’s household, not the Crown Prince Consort, but still ranked high enough to be protected from ordinary hunger. Servants brought her meals. Silk curtains blocked the wind. News reached her already softened by distance and phrasing. She could sigh over it, donate some jewellery, and believe compassion had weight.

Then Lin Qing’an appeared.

Bai Ruoyao had seen him first at a spring gathering.

He was not the most beautiful person in Tianjing, but he knew how to make others look at him. His eyes were bright, his words fresh, and his manners strange enough to be called charming instead of rude. He spoke of equality, kindness, sincerity, and freedom as though these words could be poured directly into empty rice bowls.

Many people laughed at him.

Many people also listened.

Bai Ruoyao had listened too.

She had been timid then.

Not stupid, perhaps, but timid.

She knew the Crown Prince Consort disliked disorder. She knew the inner courtyard rewarded silence and punished mistakes. She knew the Crown Prince preferred people who looked gentle and undemanding. So she became gentle. She became undemanding. She lowered her eyes, spoke softly, and did not fight for anything she could not surely win.

Lin Qing’an had looked at her once and said, “Bai Liangdi, people like you are kind but too afraid. If everyone fears making mistakes, who will help the common people?”

At that time, Bai Ruoyao had felt ashamed.

Later, she learned that shame was one of the easiest reins to place around a woman’s neck.

The famine worsened.

Lin Qing’an proposed tofu relief.

Soybeans could be ground. Tofu could be made quickly. It was soft, filling, cheap, and sounded merciful. He spoke of feeding the people, of simple food saving countless lives, of breaking noble arrogance and doing practical good.

The Crown Prince’s household supported it.

Bai Ruoyao helped.

Or rather, she was made to help.

Her name was convenient. Her dowry connections had access to small grain merchants. Her servants could be sent to coordinate women’s groups. Her reputation for gentleness made the matter look clean.

At first, people praised them.

Bowls of tofu were distributed beneath banners. Scholars wrote poems about benevolence. Lin Qing’an stood among the poor in plain clothes, his eyes red with emotion, and people said he had a heart unlike those cold nobles.

Bai Ruoyao had stood behind a screen and listened to the praise.

She thought perhaps this was good.

Even if she had not done much. Even if Lin Qing’an’s manner made the Crown Prince Consort frown. Even if some part of her felt uneasy when accounts were rushed and clean water was not always available.

People were being fed.

That had seemed enough.

Then the tofu spoiled.

Not everywhere.

Not all at once.

But enough.

Clean water was not guaranteed in famine zones. Transport was slow. Storage was poor. Local officials mixed good batches with bad ones to hide loss. Some merchants substituted old beans. Some hungry people ate what should have been thrown away because hunger did not wait politely for inspection.

Children and the elderly fell ill first.

The praise turned.

Someone had to be responsible.

Lin Qing’an cried in front of the Crown Prince, saying he had only wanted to help. He said he did not understand why people with power always twisted good intentions. He said he had trusted Bai Liangdi’s arrangements and never thought her people would be careless.

Bai Ruoyao still remembered that sentence.

Trusted Bai Liangdi’s arrangements.

Her hands had gone cold.

By then, the relief accounts had her seal on several pages. Her servants had carried instructions. Her dowry connections had supplied part of the beans. She had not known half of what was being written under her name, but she had signed enough to become useful.

Useful as a shield.

Useful as a scapegoat.

The Crown Prince did not save her.

The Crown Prince Consort did not plead for her.

Her child fell ill during the chaos.

A small boy.

Three years old.

He had been born weak, but he smiled easily. He liked holding her sleeve while sleeping, as though afraid she might leave if he loosened his grip.

During the investigation, the servants around her were changed. Physicians came late. Medicine was delayed because “the household was under scrutiny.” No one said they wished the child dead.

No one needed to.

Bai Ruoyao remembered his fingers losing strength around her sleeve.

She remembered his small body cooling in her arms.

She remembered that after he died, she did not cry immediately.

She only sat there, rocking him, because if she stopped moving, the world would become real.

The prison came after.

Cold stone. Mould on the walls. The smell of blood and damp straw. Her hair cut loose, her rank stripped away, her name written into an accusation she could barely understand through the roaring in her ears.

She remembered shouting once.

Only once.

“I did not do this!”

The jailer had laughed.

“Everyone says that.”

On the last night, Lin Qing’an came.

He wore plain white robes.

His eyes were red.

He stood outside the cell bars and said, “Ruoyao, I’m sorry.”

At that time, Bai Ruoyao had thought apologies were supposed to warm something.

His apology did not.

It fell to the ground between them like snow on ashes.

She looked at him through the bars.

“Did you know?”

Lin Qing’an’s lips trembled.

“I only wanted to help people.”

“Did you know?” she asked again.

He did not answer.

He only cried harder.

“I didn’t think it would become like this. I never wanted your child to die. I never wanted you to be hurt. I thought… I thought if the Crown Prince’s household took responsibility properly, the people would still be saved. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

He apologised.

He did not tell the truth.

He did not say which accounts he had allowed others to place under her name. He did not say which warnings he had ignored. He did not say who had suggested using her dowry merchants to avoid involving more powerful people. He did not say why, when the matter turned dangerous, her name rose to the surface while his remained wrapped in good intentions.

Bai Ruoyao looked at him for a long time.

Then she laughed.

Her throat was dry, so the laugh came out thin and cracked.

Lin Qing’an flinched as though she had struck him.

“Ruoyao…”

“Do not call me that.”

He cried again.

On the execution ground, the sky was very bright.

Too bright.

Bai Ruoyao remembered kneeling with numb knees. She remembered hearing the charges read aloud. She remembered thinking that her child must be cold in the ground.

Then the blade fell.

When she opened her eyes again, she was back in the Crown Prince’s eastern courtyard.

One year before the famine.

One year before prison.

One year before her child died.

At first, she thought she had gone mad.

Then she saw her child alive.

Small, warm, and holding a wooden rabbit in both hands.

He looked up at her and called, “Mother.”

Bai Ruoyao had collapsed to the ground and held him so tightly that he began to cry from confusion.

From that day onward, she stopped being timid.

Not loudly.

Loud courage died quickly in inner courtyards.

She learned to count keys. To read account routes. To know which servant answered to which side. To smile when she wished to slap someone. To ask questions in a way that made others answer more than they meant to. To never sign a page she had not read three times.

She also began waiting for Lin Qing’an.

Because he would come.

She did not know exactly when. Her memories covered only roughly one year, and fear had torn many details into fragments. But she knew certain things.

Lin Qing’an would appear in Tianjing.

He would charm people.

He would speak of kindness as though kindness needed no logistics.

He would believe this world should bend to his intentions.

He would think he knew the future of the famine.

He would think tofu relief belonged to him.

Bai Ruoyao slowly loosened her grip on the teacup.

Across the pavilion, the concubines were still talking.

“Twins are rare in the imperial bloodline.”

“His Majesty must be pleased.”

“Seventh Highness already refuses concubines. Now that Wangfei is carrying twins, who dares send people into his residence?”

“Shen Yuheng is truly fortunate.”

Fortunate.

Bai Ruoyao lowered her eyes.

Was Shen Yuheng fortunate?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps he had done what sensible people did when fortune proved unreliable.

He had seized it by the throat.

Bai Ruoyao remembered the day in Fengyi Palace, when rumours about Shen Yuheng’s pregnancy had been crushed beneath medical truth and Empress Ji’s authority. Shen Yuheng had stood there, pale and almost immortal beneath the palace light, one hand resting lightly over his abdomen, his voice clear.

As for whether this child can remain, that is not decided by the mouths of outsiders.

At the time, Bai Ruoyao had felt those words pierce somewhere old and festering.

In her last life, too many people had decided her child’s fate with their mouths.

Careless reassurance.

Soft excuses.

Delayed reports.

False responsibility.

Sympathetic apologies.

All of them had spoken.

Her child had died.