The Beauties of the Song Dynasty

Chapter 65

He approached the bedside, his hand trembling slightly as he caught a tear that had slid down her cheek. The burning sensation made him stiffen. He abruptly grabbed her hand at her side and whispered her name:

"Wanlan, wake up, you can hear me, right?" He pressed her hand against his face so she could feel him. "I'm sorry, I left you for a little while. You were scared and cried because you couldn't see me, right? Don't cry, don't cry, I'll never leave you again. Open your eyes, open your eyes..."

The woman on the bed remained motionless, only shedding tears.

Zhao Defang was heartbroken. He leaned down and picked her up, holding her close in his arms, embracing all her sorrow and anxiety with his chest. "Wanlan, don't cry. Be brave for me one more time. Open your eyes, okay? This time I won't let you be afraid anymore. I'm right here... right here..."

“Ze...Hua…”

The whispered call, barely audible, made Zhao Defang's anxious heart skip a beat. He stared in shock, his eyes widening, and slowly lowered his gaze, moving from her hair to her face. The woman, still with her eyes tightly closed, no longer shed tears; her slightly pursed lips even curved into a slight smile, as if she were having a rather pleasant dream.

Zhao Defang's breath hitched. She gently laid her back on the bed, wiped away the remaining tears from the corners of her eyes, and softly called to her, "Wanlan, wake up..."

As he eagerly awaited, the woman's eyes, which had been closed for two months, finally moved slightly and then slowly opened. Her blank gaze first fell on the gauze curtains by the bed, and then she suddenly opened them wide as if in disbelief. Her fingers curled and tightly gripped the large hand that was holding hers.

Perhaps only then did she notice someone by the bed. She turned her eyes and met the person's teary, surprised eyes. She gasped in shock and sat bolt upright.

"Ze... Zehua?!" Has she returned to her dream?

Zhao Defang choked up and couldn't speak, but opened his arms and hugged her tightly, his whole body trembling slightly.

His Wanlan... has finally woken up...

Wanlan reached out and hugged his waist, pressing herself close to him. Her hands gently stroked his back, and she felt his trembling. Her eyes welled up with tears, and after a soft gasp, she said to him urgently, "Zehua, I'm back, I'm back..." She had been in the modern world for two days, but it must have been two months here. Had her two-month slumber frightened Zehua?

A warmth touched her shoulder; a stream slid down her shoulder blade and into her clothes. Wanlan bit her lip and whispered his name:

“Zehua…”

"...Hmm?" The man's voice was deep, like a sound squeezed out from his throat after holding his breath.

She smiled, her lips trembling, "I'm back." So don't be sad.

"Um."

Wanlan pushed him away, looked up to meet his reddened eyes, and shook her head with a smile, "I will never leave again, Zehua, you—" She choked up, blinking away the hot tears in her eyes, "How have you been lately?"

“I’m fine,” he gently wiped away the tears welling up in her eyes, finally raising his lips to give her that familiar, warm smile, “I knew you would come back, so I’ve been waiting.”

Wanlan leaned back into his arms, her hand pressed against her chest. Feeling something hard beneath her palm, she opened her eyes in surprise, sat up abruptly, and pulled the object from her arms—

It's that waist tag!

"Zehua, how did this... how did this end up on me?" Wasn't it with Xiaoluzi?

Zhao Defang smiled and hugged her back. "This is what Su Li returned to Lan Wu. When Lan Wu brought this silver token back to me yesterday, I thought that I was the one who carefully handed it to 'her,' but now it was returned to me by 'her' maid. I thought... this should still be kept with you. Judging from Su Li's actions, she still considers you her master."

Wanlan gave him a sly smile in his arms, looked up at him with the silver token in her hand, and chuckled, "Zehua, this... has always belonged to me!" It has absolutely nothing to do with Princess Deqing.

Zhao Defang looked down at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Raising her arms to encircle his neck, Wanlan tilted her head and winked playfully, "Do you know where I've been these past two months?" Seeing the unease flickering in his still bewildered eyes, she soothingly tilted her head back and gently bit his lip, laughing as he looked on in surprise, "Don't worry, I'm back. I went back there for these past two months."

As she turned away, Zhao Defang caught her mischievous lips in his mouth, gave her a deep kiss, and then released her. He smiled at her flushed face and asked, "Over there?"

“My world is over there, and I’ve figured something out.” She waved the silver medal in her hand. “You know what? This is the one that brought me to your side!”

Zhao Defang lowered his eyes and stared at her intently, smiling silently. How long had it been since he had seen her with such a vivid expression?

“I’ve never told you what my life was like before, have I? You know I have a heart condition, so I grew up in hospitals—well, hospitals are like clinics here, but with rooms specifically for long-term patients. The reason I became your wife is because I had a heart attack in my world and almost died, and this time it might be because I was seriously injured and my soul became lighter and left my body.”

She paused, chuckled softly, and looked up at his tender eyes with great seriousness. "I used to think that if your real wife came back and drove me out of this body, I would never leave your world. Now I feel a little scared. If my soul really left my body and I couldn't go back, I might never be able to meet you again."

Zhao Defang's eyes flickered slightly, and his lips moved as if to speak, but he didn't say anything. He just hugged her even tighter.

“My illness is too much for my parents to bear, they…they—” She pursed her lips, her lowered eyes lifting again, “But I have a very capable aunt, I didn’t even know she’s been helping me find this for the past ten years!” She smiled, her eyes crinkling as she held up the silver medal in her hand.

Zhao Defang, who had been quiet all along, couldn't hide her surprise and exclaimed, "She helped you find my waist tag? How? How did she know about that?"

"This goes back to ten years ago—of course! Ten years ago in my world. I had a dream, but my aunt said it wasn't a dream..." She still finds it unbelievable when she thinks about it now. When she was ten, she became close friends with an eighteen-year-old girl next door. After learning that the girl was a romance novelist, she read her novel set in the Northern Song Dynasty out of curiosity. Then, she felt inexplicably heartbroken because of the character "Zhao Defang," which led to her first serious illness and hospitalization.

Seeing her sudden silence, Zhao Defang had no choice but to ask, "What dream?"

Wanlan sighed inwardly, feeling quite uncomfortable as she thought about the "erotic dream" that her aunt had been emphasizing to her.

"Zehua, I remember you said that on the night of your wedding to Princess Deqing, she was the one who grabbed you and asked you to stay, right?" Little did he know that the person wasn't Princess Deqing herself at all... Sigh!

"Why did you bring this up?"

Wanlan knelt up and looked intently into his moist, dark eyes. "Why didn't you refuse back then?" Didn't he say he knew all along that his marriage to Princess Deqing was just a political one? And why did he stay so easily when he was supposed to leave?

Zhao Defang was slightly taken aback, his deep eyes gazing into the depths of her pupils, a smile playing on his lips, "Wanlan, do you... care about the past?"

What she cared about wasn't the past, but his thoughts at the time.

Why are you staying? Can you tell me?

Seeing her rather serious expression, Zhao Defang tilted his head and thought for a moment before slowly saying, "I don't know why, I just felt that she was a little different that night. Her eyes... were very lonely..." He squinted, recalling the strange woman from that night, shook his head, and sighed, "The way she looked up at me, holding my hand, was so vulnerable, as if she might burst into tears if I turned and left..."

Wanlan sighed as well. Luckily, that woman was herself, otherwise she would definitely be jealous.

"When you lifted her veil, she reached out and grabbed this waist token, didn't she?" She chuckled, looking at his wide-eyed disbelief, tilted her head playfully, stuck out her tongue, and continued, "Then you took off the waist token and said, 'If you like it, it's yours.'" So, what she said earlier, that this thing had always belonged to her, was because Zehua originally gave it to her.

Zhao Defang's eyes widened, and Wanlan tilted her head to look at him with amusement, remaining silent.

"Wanlan, how...how do you know all this? Do you have her memories?" This was his instinctive thought, but he was almost overwhelmed by his own belief. If...if she had those memories, then what about his elder brother—

"Don't let your imagination run wild!" Wanlan glared at him, amused. "I've made myself perfectly clear, how can you still not understand? Before you stayed that night, didn't you say 'You'll regret it'? If it were her, I believe she would definitely regret it, but I, absolutely not!" Isn't that clear enough? The woman who kept him there was actually the woman in front of him.