Ti Le never expected Qian Shan to say such words.
He said he had never loved her.
Even during the most difficult times in the Southern Kingdom, he had only regarded Ti Le as his sister.
Sister?
Ti Le felt that word was an insult to her!
An insult that could drive her completely mad.
She had thought about letting go, but the word was like a curse, lingering in her heart, preventing her from eating or sleeping.
So she didn't even know why she did many of the things she did later.
Even if she regretted it later, it was already too late.
She had done those things, hurting those who cared about her, especially... Prince Wen.
To humiliate Prince Wen and make him let her go, she had even stooped to being with Prince Wen's stable hand!
At that time, Ti Le felt she could do anything for Qian Shan.
What about her reputation, Prince Wen, nothing else mattered!
Yet, everything did not turn out as Ti Le had hoped.
She saw that woman, the one who had always been by Qian Shan's side.
She knew that the way Qian Shan looked at that person was true love.
She had to admit that Qian Shan did not love her.
The man she had loved for many years had no place for her in his heart.
Not even a little bit.
She suddenly felt that even madness was meaningless at this point, and no one cared.
Ti Le wanted to destroy everything; if she couldn't have it, then let it all disappear!
So she made a decision that she would regret for the rest of her life: to collude with Mu Han Su and cause chaos in the Great Yue Dynasty.
Not long after making this decision, she regretted it.
Because she realized that she and Mu Han Su were ultimately not on the same path.
But she was already pregnant, and she knew she could never return to Prince Wen's side.
There was no turning back.
She could only brace herself and move forward, to face the destined impossible "victory."
As expected, she failed, they failed.
The moment Song Chao Yu stood before her, she knew it was all over.
Even though it was her own request, she truly didn't believe Mu Han Su could capture Song Chao Yu and Mu Chang Xi so easily.
In fact, she knew that even if Song Chao Yu hadn't said those words, she wouldn't have ended up with Mu Han Su in the end.
All of this was just finding a more suitable reason and opportunity to leave the capital.
She left the capital with her people.
She knew that even if no one came looking for her at this moment, she would not escape.
So, at the border between the Great Yue Dynasty and the Southern Kingdom, she had people spread the news that she was dead.
And the people she led, she returned them all to the Southern Kingdom.
She didn't need them anymore.
Ti Le suddenly felt extremely weary.
She didn't know the meaning of her future life, nor where she should go.
So she found that small island, the island that was almost beyond the border of the Southern Kingdom, and lived there.
Ten months of pregnancy, one birth.
That child meant nothing to Ti Le.
It even represented Ti Le's shame, so Ti Le had the child sent away.
She wished those things had never happened, wished that child had never existed.
Because she suddenly realized that in the past half year, the person she had been thinking of was not Qian Shan, but Prince Wen!
It was the Prince Wen whom she thought she would never love.
The Prince whose presence she missed, and could never go back to, even seeing him had become a luxury!
—
Time flew by, and the wind of the island and her lonely heart made Ti Le age faster than others.
When she decided to leave the island, she was only forty years old.
But looking at her wrinkled face in the mirror, like a sixty-year-old, she felt an unspeakable sorrow.
No matter what had happened before, these past twenty years, she had atoned, hadn't she?
Before she died, she had to see the person she thought of, the person she loved, right?
With this thought, Ti Le stepped out of the island for the first time in over twenty years.
The world outside the island seemed even vaster than she had imagined.
The people outside the island, however, were people she had never seen before.
The rulers of the Southern Kingdom had changed one after another, but the Emperor of the Great Yue Dynasty was still alive.
The Southern Kingdom and Great Yue had long established trade relations, and the peace and friendship between the two countries had been maintained for twenty years and would continue to be maintained.
In the streets and alleys of the Southern Kingdom, stories about Prince Chang were circulating from years ago.
But in those stories, Ti Le had no role.
Even in the Southern Kingdom, Ti Le could hear the stories of Mu Chang Xi and Song Chao Yu.
They said that the two of them were deeply devoted to each other and had assisted the Emperor of the Great Yue Dynasty over the years, being pillars of the Great Yue Dynasty.
They said that they later had two more children, and their four children were all very outstanding.
Even the little county princess, who had been born with a broken hand, had now grown into an adult and had married into the Southern Kingdom as a princess for a political alliance.
Ti Le knew that those were Mu Han Su's children.
She had betrayed with Mu Han Su, and now Mu Han Su's child was about to become the Empress of the Southern Kingdom.
For Ti Le, wasn't this also a kind of mockery?
But it didn't matter, because no one remembered her anymore, and no one cared about her anymore.
Even the maid who had always served her and accompanied her through more than ten years on the island had already passed away.
Looking at the familiar yet strange Southern Kingdom, Ti Le suddenly felt that the world was vast, yet it seemed there was no place for her.
What other desires could an old woman on the verge of death have?
She made a decision: to go to the Great Yue Dynasty.
To see the Great Yue Dynasty one more time! To see that place she had once longed for, and later hated so much, as an ordinary person from the Southern Kingdom.
Although Ti Le knew that the journey would be extremely difficult, she still wanted to go.
Perhaps her final resting place would be on the road.
So she leaned on her cane and set off towards the Great Yue Dynasty.
As an old and frail person, no one would ask her where she came from, nor would anyone ask her purpose for entering the Great Yue Dynasty.
She exchanged the last of her possessions for the opportunity to travel to the Great Yue Dynasty with a merchant caravan.
She wanted to see with her own eyes, to hear with her own ears, what everything she had once cared about or hated had become.
She followed the caravan and successfully entered the territory of the Great Yue Dynasty.
It was winter, and the New Year's festival of the Great Yue Dynasty was approaching.
The entire Great Yue Dynasty was filled with joyous celebration.