Liu Qingtang squeezed through the crowd, pushed and shoved from all sides, completely ignoring the fact that the hem of her red wedding dress had been stepped on several times.
She was not very tall, so she could only desperately crane her neck like a giraffe, her eyes darting back and forth among the identical military robes and cold, glinting armor.
Nothing. She had searched the entire ranks, yet she still could not find that dummy whose eyes always curved into crescent moons when he smiled.
An overwhelming sense of grievance instantly surged in her heart. She bit her lip until she tasted a hint of rust on the tip of her tongue, her nose tingling with unshed tears.
Before leaving, that dummy had thumped his chest and promised, “Once the south is pacified, I'll return to marry you. When that time comes, I'll definitely earn you the title of a general's wife. Qingtang, you must wait for me.”
Three years had passed. She had gone from a young girl whose threshold was nearly broken by matchmakers to an old maid who could not get married. Even this wedding dress, which she had embroidered stitch by stitch, had been altered time and again—from a perfect fit, to a loose waist by one cun, and then from loose back to tight.
Could that dummy have guessed she would wear her wedding dress today to force him into marriage, so he was intentionally hiding from her?
She stamped her foot in frustration.
“No way! No matter what is said today, that dead dummy must marry me. If he dares to say even a single 'no,' I will go find his superior, General Shen, to demand justice!”
Who in Xindu City didn't know that General Shen valued honor and credibility above all else? She refused to believe she couldn't handle this heartbreaker.
Just as Liu Qingtang was about to search again, a hesitant voice came from behind and called out to her.
“Are you Miss Liu?”
Liu Qingtang instinctively turned her head and looked toward the sound.
She saw a young gentleman standing behind her with evasive eyes, holding a black box in his hands.
“Who are you? Do you need something from me?”
She furrowed her brows, looking the person before her up and down in confusion.
Fang Shuo opened his mouth. His gaze swept over the dazzling red wedding dress Liu Qingtang wore, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, as if all his words were stuck in his throat.
After a moment, he finally spoke: “Miss Liu, stop looking. Chen Mu... he's not coming back.”
Liu Qingtang froze at first, blinking as if she didn't understand. Then, her eyes gradually rimmed with a faint red, and tears welled up inside, though she stubbornly refused to let them fall.
“Did he find another sweetheart in the south, so he's too ashamed to return to Xindu City and face me?!”
Her hands clenched into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. Her voice trembled with uncontrollable emotion, sounding both like an interrogation and a desperate plea for a denial.
Fang Shuo shook his head gently. Lowering his gaze, he opened the black wooden box he held in his hands.
Inside lay a neatly folded military robe stained with dark brown blood. Atop it sat a medal and a heavy cloth pouch, which contained his pension money.
“Chen Mu sacrificed his life two years ago. I couldn't bring his remains back to Xindu City.” Fighting back his tears, he bowed deeply to Liu Qingtang. “I am sorry...”
Two years ago, he had been ordered to lead a hundred elite soldiers of the Zhenbei Army to deliver a letter back to Xindu City. This had allowed the north to prepare for the natural disasters in advance, freeing up their hands to rescue the stricken southern cities.
Everyone had told him that the country must come before family, and that the fallen soldiers were all heroes who had sacrificed their lives for a righteous cause.
Their sacrifices were to save the people of the realm, not to save him, so he did not need to blame himself.
But how could he not blame himself? Those companions he had spent day and night with had collapsed before his eyes, one after another.
Sometimes, he even thought that if he had simply died on the day he delivered the letter to Xindu City, how wonderful that would have been.
The road from Wuling City to Xindu City was truly so long; he might never be able to reach its end in this lifetime.
It took a long while for Liu Qingtang to process this. She forced a pale smile on her face. “Young man, what did you say? The wind was a bit loud just now, I might not have heard you clearly...”
Her eyelashes fluttered. Catching sight of the open black wooden box in Fang Shuo's hands, she averted her gaze as if she had been burned.
“Miss Liu, Chen Mu has no other family. He once told me that if he were to sacrifice his life one day, I should deliver his pension to you.” Fang Shuo nudged the black wooden box slightly closer to Liu Qingtang. “He also said for you to find an honest man whom you like and live a good life. The love he owes you... he can only repay it in the next life.”
The last trace of color drained from Liu Qingtang's face, the sleeves of her red wedding dress already crumpled into a tight mess in her grip.
“Who cares about his next life!” The tears in her eyes finally broke through, falling in large drops onto the blood-stained military robe inside the box, blooming into dark patches.
In the next instant, she snatched the box and held it tightly against her chest, as if she were embracing the person who would never return.
“I want this life! He promised me! He promised he would marry me when he returned! I even wore my wedding dress for him! That liar! That massive liar...”
No matter how much resentment filled her heart, she could only blame Chen Mu for breaking his word; she could blame nothing else.
“I beg you, please come back!” She crouched down, her red wedding dress spreading across the ground like a flower blooming and instantly withering.
“I will never call you a dead dummy again...”
Fang Shuo stood to the side, his eyes also completely red. He looked up at the sky, forcing his tears back.
This day was destined to be filled with both sorrow and joy.
...
Days flowed like a mighty river, pushing everyone forward. Even if someone knelt on the shore and wept, the water would not stop.
It was the third day after the Zhenbei Army returned to the city.
The clamor of street vendors at the market entrance was deafening. Inside the teahouses, storytellers struck their wooden blocks, narrating the legendary exploits of the Zhenbei Army.
Inside the grey-tiled, blue-brick Governor's estate in Xindu City, the lights had burned continuously for three whole nights.
Following the unification of the north and south, it was only natural to establish a new dynasty. However, the Divine Lady had not chosen a new ruler of the realm, so no one had the courage to meddle in this precarious matter.
In the end, it was Shen Yu who proposed that since they were all believers of the Divine Lady, they might as well revere Her as their monarch. Then, the people of the realm would elect eight Cabinet Ministers to jointly discuss matters of state and the livelihoods of the common people.
The others could not think of a better way either.
Thus, they could only agree.
After a month of preparation, the results were recorded in an official document and presented to the Governor's estate.
Yun Shu stood inside the Governor's estate, concealed from view while holding the little fox. As she watched everything develop exactly as she had anticipated, there was not a trace of joy on her face; instead, her expression was rather solemn.
She knew very well that the Great God would not let matters rest. The moment the world turned from the unreal into reality, a battle between her and it would be inevitable.
The little fox curiously poked its head out to look at the contents of the official document in Shen Yu's hand. “Host, I really didn't expect that the person with the highest number of votes from the commoners wouldn't be the incomparably brilliant Shen Yu, nor the nation-stabilizing Pei Wanning, but Chen Zhi.”
Yun Shu stroked the little fox's head. “It's normal. Chen Zhi established deep roots at the grassroots level, leading countless commoners out of poverty and toward prosperity. He is the person closest to the people, so they naturally feel a strong connection to him.”
As she spoke, she cast her gaze downward, scanning the official document to see who the remaining seven Cabinet Ministers were.
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