Chapter Text
Qian Long era, twenty-fourth year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Yong Qi is 18 and Xiao Yan Zi is 17 and 27
The rumours and whispers reach him in waves. He dismisses them all. The palace can be so unimaginative.
He knows for a fact that she will never be Huang Ah Ma’s woman. Yes, it is odd that the sight of her, and the few words she managed to say on the hunting ground, made Huang Ah Ma rush her back to the palace and threaten all the physicians their lives if they cannot save hers. But whatever the reason for his father’s strange behaviour, it cannot be as the whispers say, and as the empress fears – that Huang Ah Ma wants to make her his newest concubine.
After all, Yong Qi has known for over two years now that she will one day be his wife. He has known her since he was eight. Even if today is the first time he has met her. Properly, that is.
The truth comes out slowly, and it makes Yong Qi’s stomach churn.
He was right; Huang Ah Ma does not wish to instate her as a concubine.
Because she is Huang Ah Ma’s daughter.
She is his sister.
How is she his sister?
He does not understand. None of it makes any sense. But then again, what about her ever made any sense?
He does not sleep that night. Dawn sneaks into his bedroom, and with it, she appears.
He is used to it, but he startles, nonetheless.
He stares at her for a long moment, while she doesn’t seem to notice that his world has just been turned upside down. She merely looks about the room, then studies his face, trying to guess where and when she has landed.
He does not do his usual and attempt to guess her age. He simply crosses the room in two strides and grabs her shoulder.
“Who are you?” he demands.
Xiao Yan Zi laughs, her eyes lighting up merrily. So different from the way it twisted in pain just the day before. “You know who I am.”
“No. I don’t,” he says, his voice gruff, staring at her, wishing that by staring, he can force her to reveal all her secrets. Secrets she insists on keeping, and most of the time, he understands the need. But today…today he cannot bear it. “Who are you?”
She finally seems to understand that he is upset, but still not knowing when she is, she does not understand why. Reaching up, she touches his cheek softly and says, hesitantly, “Yong Qi…”
Suddenly, he finds he cannot continue looking at her. Looking and wondering. He turns away, and speaks as he paces. “At first, everyone thought that Huang Ah Ma took a fancy to you. That’s preposterous, so I didn’t pay it much mind. But now, they say you are his daughter. Ling Fei – Ling Fei Niang Niang even says Huang Ah Ma has admitted as much to her.” He whirls around and stares at her. “How is that possible?”
Her mouth is slightly open in surprise now, but then realisation dawns in her eyes. She looks at him with sympathy, but there is also a hint of humour in it.
“Oh Yong Qi,” she says softly, somehow understanding that he does not wish for her to draw near. She shakes her head and sighs. “You will understand, soon enough.”
“I don’t want soon enough! I need to understand now.”
She is maddeningly resolute. “I will not tell you the details now, even to give you peace of mind, which I do want to give you. I can only tell you, there is nothing immoral about us.”
He looks at her, and she looks back. There is something in her expression that seems to be challenging him to work through the few words she said, and everything she had ever said to him before, to work out the truth.
“You are saying that you are not my sister?”
She does not reply, because of course she does not, but a small hint of a smile does appear in the corner of her lips.
He frowns at her, his thoughts still full of clouds. “Then…whatever the reason is that has Huang Ah Ma convinced you are his daughter…it is not real?”
She shrugs. He wants to shake the truth out of her. He also knows it is futile. Nevertheless, he softens his voice. “You really would not tell me?”
She shakes her head. “You know I cannot.”
And then, with those most frustrating of words, she fades.
Qian Long era, fourteenth year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Yong Qi is 8 and Xiao Yan Zi is 32
“What are you doing here?”
“Why do you ask? Am I bothering you?”
Yong Qi looks up from his book of Tang poems that for some reason amuses the lady, and squints at her. She isn’t bothering him, really. Yong Qi just doesn’t understand what she is doing here, in what he thought, before he arrived and found her sitting there as if waiting for him, a secret hideout that only he and Er Tai know exists.
“No,” he finally answers, and it makes her smile. “If anything, Yong Qi should not bother Niang Niang.”
He has assumed – and the assumption is more often than not correct when meeting a strange lady dressed in fine silk in the palace – that she is one of his father’s concubines. However, it makes her even more amused, and she laughs.
“You don’t have to leave,” she says, because he is already standing up. She, on the other hand, still sits on the ground of the alcove in the rockery, looking only slightly up at him. “And I am not one of your Huang Ah Ma’s Niang Niang.”
Yong Qi slowly sits back down and looks at her, curious. “Then who are you?”
A mischievous smile appears on her lips and she leans in close to him conspiratorially. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes!”
“I normally don’t tell anyone this, but you are such a clever little boy, so I will tell you.”
Despite his burgeoning curiosity, Yong Qi scowls. “I am not little, I am nearly nine years old.”
The lady smiles like she is enjoying a great secret. “I apologise, I should have realised,” she says.
Yong Qi decides to forgive her oversight, because he still wants to know what her secret is.
“I’m a time traveller,” she says, her eyes twinkling. Her smile grows even wider when Yong Qi gives her a very sceptical look. “It’s true. I have come from the future. In the future, when you are all grown up, we will be friends.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Well, I can tell you that you are right to be studying your Tang poems right now, because in five days’ time, Ji Shifu will give you a surprise test on them. And you’ll do very well.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Yong Qi says stubbornly. “I won’t know until then if you’re telling the truth.”
“Of course,” the lady replies, still all smiles. “By and by, I will come back, and you can tell me if I was right.”
“When will you come back? Come back from where? Where will you go in the meantime?”
“I have to go back to my time. And when I am gone, you should not mention me to anyone, not even Er Tai. Can you do that for me?”
Yong Qi frowns at her, because her request is certainly unusual. If she can do such marvellous thing as travel through time, why does she wish to keep it a secret? Even at eight going on nine, Yong Qi understands that such a request can hide traps, even if she is so nice. Niceness in the palace doesn’t mean anything.
The lady must understand the reason for his hesitance, because her expression softens. “It’s all right,” she says. “You don’t have to believe me. But if you stay long enough, maybe you’ll get to see me disappear.”
Yong Qi stays, and for a while, they chat about the Tang poems he is learning. She gives him some interpretations of the poems that Yong Qi is sure isn’t what Ji Shifu means to teach, but are much funnier. Then, as the sun begins to sink and Yong Qi starts to think he should head back to his mother before everyone starts worrying, the lady seems to fade right before his eyes. He watches in awe, until she is completely gone, no trace of her left behind, as if she was never there.
Qian Long era, twenty-fourth year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Yong Qi is 18 and Xiao Yan Zi is 25
Yong Qi goes through the motions when he finally does meet and speak to her in the right place and time. He reminds himself that she has never met him before, even if he knows her far more intimately.
When Er Tai tells him about Xia Zi Wei living at Fu residence, and recounts her side of the story, everything starts to make sense.
When he finally meets Xia Zi Wei, he can tell she is puzzled about why he so readily believes that she is the real daughter of Xia Yu He, despite all evidence supporting Xiao Yan Zi. Yong Qi doesn’t try to enlighten her to the reason he can be so convinced that Xiao Yan Zi is not his sister. He doesn’t know yet whether Zi Wei knows about Xiao Yan Zi’s strange ability.
Now that she has appeared in his life for real, it makes it complicated when the other version of her is around as well.
“You’re here!” he exclaims, after having opened the door to his bedroom to find her lounging on his bed.
“Is it so shocking?” she asks lazily. “Have I never done this before?”
He feels unreasonably flustered and turns to make sure the door is firmly closed.
“You cannot be here!” he says, almost forcefully.
“You speak as if I actually have a choice.” She swings herself up to a sitting position and peers at him. “Are you all right?”
He doesn’t answer her question, and only mutters, “Hopefully you will be gone soon.”
She puts on an exaggerated mock hurt expression. “You want me gone? How could you be so cruel?”
He is not exactly in a mood to be teased by her, not after having spent the night before sneaking her out of the palace to see Zi Wei, only to get caught sneaking back. Then the whole thing turned into even more of a mess when the empress got involved. Somehow, they made it out of all of that alive, but that means he is now feeling the effects of the previous night’s sleeplessness.
“The alternative is that someone sees you in here,” he says, gingerly sitting down next to her on the bed. “Everyone knows your face now, considering you’ve spent the last month recovering from your wounds by sweeping through the palace like a typhoon. You could be recognised, then how would we explain that? You are supposed to be my sister. The empress was smug enough to find you in my study this morning. You cannot be found in my bedroom!”
She giggles at the thought, even though Yong Qi cannot bring himself to be amused.
“Don’t worry, dearest, one day you will find the humour in it.”
Yong Qi shakes his head. He is sure one day he will. That day just isn’t today.
“Well, it isn’t as if I choose when to come and go,” she says. “I will try to be very quiet, and just tell the servants not to come in here. It isn’t like the place isn’t spotless so it’s not like they need to clean it.”
“And suddenly telling my servants that they can’t go into my bedroom isn’t suspicious at all.”
She shrugs. “They already think you’re indulging in a maid anyway, even if they can’t decide which one.” An amused gleam appears in her eyes. “Apparently, my discretion cannot be faulted, I harbour no ambition to be your concubine, and never ask for any additional advantages nor bragged about my conquest. I cannot claim to be so remarkable.”
“No, you are even more remarkable than that.”
She smiles in genuine pleasure at that, even if she does try to keep her words light. “You are cute when you are still in the wooing me stage.”
“Am I wooing you? You are my sister right now. How does that get resolved by the way?”
“Can’t tell you that. But clearly, it does get resolved. Without my losing my head, obviously, so you maybe you could just assure my younger self about that next time you see her? I’m sure that’s what on her mind right now.”
“And shall I quote you as the source of that knowledge?”
“Hmmmm…maybe not. She does not travel to you yet. Telling her that she will gives too much away. Maybe just don’t say anything then.”
He looks at her curiously. “Do you travel? Now? Your younger self, I mean?”
“Yes. I have never been able to go a year without traveling since I was six. It was terrifying the first time, of course, but then I eventually made a game of it. The unfortunate thing is, I always return to the place I left. Otherwise it would have been a good way to escape horrible masters and maybe even get out of the palace.” He must look disappointed, because she smiles. “Not that I want to escape the palace anymore.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Do you really not know why?”
He shakes his head. A smile that can only be described as sultry appears on her lips as she slides close to him. His heart feels like it skipped a beat. Maybe it is the exhaustion or maybe he really is just incapable of resisting her, but he can’t bring himself to pull away – or even to think of a reason to do so – when she leans in and presses a kiss to his lips.
Qian Long era, twenty-second year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Yong Qi is 16 and Xiao Yan Zi is 19
She is younger than he has ever seen her. Why, she is only little more than a girl, standing, thoroughly confused, in the middle of his study.
Her eyes light up with pleasure as he enters the room and swiftly closes the door behind him.
“You are here,” he says, but she does not answer. Instead, she only looks at him, bright eyed, like he is some great curious specimen.
“How old are you?” she asks. He is used to this question, which is usually among the first things they say to each other in each meeting, as way to pinpoint their place in time.
“Sixteen. And you?” He gestures at the chairs and they sat down next to each other.
“I am nineteen!” she says as she continues to beam up at him. “Where I am from, you are twenty, and we – “ She hesitates for a second, but then shakes her head, smiling, but clearly changing her mind about what she is about to say – “This is the youngest I’ve ever seen you.”
“You have always been older than me,” he says, “but this is the youngest I think I have ever seen you, too. Is this the first time you’ve travelled to me?”
“Yes!” Then, laughing, she adds, “I don’t know why, but I think I expected that you would look so much younger. But it is only two years before we meet.”
“Why now?” he asks. “Why do you begin to travel to me now?”
He knows, even as he asks this, she probably will not answer. Sure enough, she shrugs. “I suppose it is just time.”
For the first time, her vague answers cannot satisfy him. He frowns and takes in her appearance. Her hairstyle shows that she is married – as she always has been, every time she visits him – but there is something about the glow about her that is new this time.
“Are you newly married?” he asks.
She looks at him, surprised, but cannot help the pleasure that shines in her eyes. “Yes.”
Yong Qi throws further caution to the wind. “And how long have we been married?”
She startles and regards him thoughtfully for a long moment. “I already told you?”
“No,” he admits. “That was a complete guess. But I am right? We are married, in the future?”
“How did you guess? My husband – “ here, she smiles at the apparent newness of the words – “he says he knew, of course, before he met me properly, but that I should not tell you directly. It didn’t make sense, but I suppose now it does.”
“You have been visiting me since I was young, though you were always so much older than me. But you have always known things; things that there is no reason for you to know, even taking into consideration your travel, unless we are even more intimately acquainted.”
“If I will travel to you as often as you say, then I suppose I cannot be surprised that you will guess,” she says. “To answer your question, we are married just two days ago. I was so relieved when you told me, after the wedding, that you know I am a time-traveller. You said I’ve visited you throughout your childhood. I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t know how, or that you would even believe me and anxiety doesn’t help.”
“Exercise helps,” Yong Qi says, grinning. “The more you exert yourself physically, the less you are pulled through time.”
“That’s right!” she says with a delighted laugh. “I guess you have always known all this time we know each other why I can never stay still. The more stress I endure, the more I travel, so I try not to stress myself out much.”
It occurs to Yong Qi, as she is saying this, just how very young she is. The Xiao Yan Zi he knew through his childhood has always been at least twenty years older than he. She is always merry, but also wiser, a mother and more sedate. Right now, she is a bouncing ball of energy, gesturing enthusiastically as she speaks, all smiles and twinkling eyes. It stirs some completely new feeling in Yong Qi that he has never experienced before.
“You are staring at me,” Xiao Yan Zi says, pulling Yong Qi back to their conversation.
He shakes his head and looks away. His cheeks feel warm.
She smiles playfully. “You have always known me – “
“Since I was eight, actually.”
“ – but now you know I will be your wife, one day. What do you think of your choice?”
If she had asked him this in any other visit, he would not have known how to answer. This is the first time when their ages are close enough where such future is imaginable and desirable. He is still younger than her, but he is not so young – and she not so much older – that she only looks at him to see a child. He is now just a younger version of her husband, but still her husband.
“I think I have made a wonderful choice,” he says. Then, curious, he adds, “Is it my choice, though? I never had the luxury of expecting my marriage to be my choice.”
She is hesitant for a moment, pursing her lips slightly. “Time travel makes everything so much more complicated, so I suppose it is a little difficult to distinguish where your knowledge of the future begins and your free choice ends. But, trying to speak like we have a completely normal and linear relationship, let’s just say Lao Fo Ye – and probably even Huang Ah Ma – would prefer it if you hadn’t been so insistent on marrying me.”
“I see.”
There is something in her voice that tells him the situation is so much more complicated than whatever reason, predestiny aside, that led him to being able to marry someone Lao Fo Ye apparently doesn’t want him to marry. He also can tell that she is bothered by the fact that because he knows before they even met that they would eventually end up married means that he will not have a choice in the matter. Then again, his marriage is never supposed to be his choice in the first place, so he is not as bothered about it as she seems think he should be. After all, doesn’t her time travel prove that there is such literal thing as a match made in Heaven?
“Well!” she says, all upbeat again. There is a teasing lilt in her voice. “I am a little relieved that you are taking this revelation so well. From what you have told me, the thought of a marriage between us can’t possibly be very appealing to you before, when you were twelve and I was old.“
He laughs at the overly dramatic way she says this. But then, her words are truer than she probably knows.
“You are staring again,” she says.
This time, he can’t bring himself to look away. It almost feels silly, how captivated he feels by her presence. Has things changed so very much now that he knows she will one day be his wife?
She smiles. “So this is what you meant.”
“What?”
“When you told me that you know about my time travel, you said this visit is the most memorable. I wondered if you meant memorable in any particular way. It appears you did.”
She stands as she says this, and somehow he finds himself mimicking her move, so that in the next moment, they are just a touch away from each other. Heaven, she takes his breath away!
The idea that he should feel this kind of desire towards a married woman should shame him. He has long learnt to control his adolescent longings for women who can never be his. But she is. His wife. She will be his and she is already his.
He thinks he has had an inkling about the future relationship between them for a long time, ever since he could understand the possibilities. But if he ever thought about intimacy with her, it was only in the abstract, in the sense that he knows she has children – and now he knows they will be his children – and the steps that are necessary for that to come about.
Now, she is standing here before him, glowing with the happiness of a new bride and with invitation in her eyes, he only has a brief time to consider whether he is capable of not giving in to her, before he gives in, because her lips are already on his, warm and heavenly.
“I think, you will make a wonderful husband,” she says softly against his lips, thumb brushing against the inside of his wrist, making him shiver.
He is almost too languid from the taste of her lips to answer. Then, clearing his throat, he manages, “Am I not already a wonderful husband?”
“It’s only been two days,” she says, laughing. “Even you cannot prove yourself in such short a time.”
“And I suppose I have a lot to prove.” This time, it is he who pulls her in for the kiss.
If his servants glimpse him whisking her down the hall into his bedroom, they are loyal enough to not say anything. After all, she doesn’t look anything like any of the women who are forbidden to him, and soon, she will be gone like a wisp of smoke, and no trace of her will ever be found. She will never have been here at all, just the pleasure of her will linger in his mind, making him ache for more.
Qian Long era, twenty-fourth year
En route inspection trip
Yong Qi is 18 and Xiao Yan Zi is 35
Yong Qi wonders if he is the only one that notices her there, in the crowd. He doesn’t even know how he manages to notice her, considering he’s putting all his effort into trying to avoid the embroidered ball of unwanted marriage that Xiao Yan Zi keeps trying to bat towards him.
Half-hidden, her other self looks amused. Their eyes meet. She quirks her eyebrow at him and gives him a look that he thinks is meant to be apologetic. Then, she gestures vaguely, and he turns around just in time to push the ball away, preventing it from hitting him in the head.
Eventually, he escapes the ball. They find their lodgings. In all the settling in, he can’t find an excuse to go looking for her – either of her.
That evening, he manages to corner her younger self for a conversation he has so far not realised he needs to have. It…does not go as he imagines.
After letting Xiao Yan Zi return to her room, looking dazed, Yong Qi leaves the compound of the inn, wandering up and down the empty streets, hoping that she is still around. It soon becomes clear that if she is still around, she isn’t showing herself.
He sighs and returns to the inn, feeling entirely unsatisfied.
Yong Qi is 18 and Xiao Yan Zi is 52
They attempt to talk. They meet Cai Lian. They fight. She throws a rock at him.
“I don’t understand why we are even having this fight!”
“Is it so hard to understand?” she asks. He has not seen her at this age for a long time, since he was a little boy, with grey streaks beginning to appear in her hair and fine lines at the corner of her eyes. He wonders if she travels less as she ages.
“You can’t be really jealous!” he exclaims, staring at her in disbelief.
“Why not?”
“Because!” He gestures between them. “We are married.”
She laughs. “In the future, yes. She doesn’t know that yet.”
“You could just tell her,” he grumbles.
“Would you really want that?” she asks. “For her to know that the future is inevitable, and that whatever she does now will not change it? Wouldn’t you rather when she chooses you, she does it because she wants to?”
“I – “ He starts, then stops, looking intently at her. “Why did you tell me then?”
“I never told you anything. You guessed.”
“Only because you keep knowing things about me that no one other than those closest to me should know.”
“I can’t control where and when I go when I travel, so I couldn’t stop the fact that I keep coming to you. I can keep the big things secret, but little things slip through. I never meant to reveal to you our future.”
“I’m glad you did. At least it means that I can be assured that as stupid as this fight is, we’ll get over it.”
“I’m not glad.”
Yong Qi stares at her. “You are not?”
Xiao Yan Zi sighs, but does not immediately answer. Instead, she steps closer to him and reaches up to touch the back of his head. “Does it hurt?”
He huffs at her, still annoyed. Not at her. But at enough of her. Besides, the gesture doesn’t have the effect that she is probably looking for. With their current age difference, it feels more motherly than the touch of a lover or a wife.
“I told you that you will need to be patient with me,” she says.
“Did you?”
“Well, I suppose I did. You just have not heard it yet.”
“Are you ever tired of this? Trying to figure out where you are, where we are?”
“You mean ‘when’,” she says vaguely then sat down at the table in the middle of the room to pour them each a cup of tea. Silence ensues as they both sit and sip their tea.
Then, Yong Qi puts his cup down with a clink. “This fight is still ridiculous. You do realise it was your idea to help Cai Lian?”
Such a long pause follows that he wonders if she will answer him. Then, finally, she says, “Cai Lian isn’t the problem.”
“Then what is?” he exclaims, frustrated.
She gives him a look that is full of reproach, though he can’t understand the reason for it.
“Oh Yong Qi,” she says with a sigh, “this is exactly why I should never tell you anything about the future.”
It takes Yong Qi several moments to truly appreciate the meanings of her words.
“She doesn’t know what’s going to happen between us in the future,” he says slowly, “but I do, so I just expected it to happen, without my having to do anything. All this time, I’ve been taking you for granted, haven’t I?”
Xiao Yan Zi smiles wanly at him. Then she takes his hand and squeezes comfortingly as a troubled look comes to his face. “It is one of the curses of knowing the future.”
“Xiao Yan Zi, I – “
“No, don’t apologise,” Xiao Yan Zi cuts in hastily. “I will admit that is only part of the problem. The relationship is so awkward between the two of you now as it is. Xiao Yan Zi has never felt anything like this before, naturally it confuses her. So are you, come to think of it, but for that, I should apologise to you.”
“Why?” he asks, surprised.
“I never wanted to take your free will away from you. You shouldn’t fall in love with me because you know you are supposed to.”
“But what does it matter when what my free will wants and what I’m supposed to do are the same?”
Her smile makes her seem like she was from miles – or years – away. “You would say that.”
Yong Qi is 18 and Xiao Yan Zi is 17
She had initiated their first kiss, and in all the kisses after that, they were always both willing participants.
At seventeen, Xiao Yan Zi doesn’t know this yet, so she pushes him away roughly, alarmed. Yong Qi reminds himself that she is yet a maiden, yet unaware of the future he knows so surely.
In that moment, Yong Qi finally appreciates the full meaning of her older self’s words. She should choose him, because she wishes to, not because they are predestined to be together – or whatever it is that causes her time travel.
Qian Long era, twenty-fifth year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Yong Qi is 19 and Xiao Yan Zi is 18
That doesn’t make it easier when they fight, or when she is upset and threatens to leave. Or when she does actually leave, for that matter.
He receives no visit from any of her future selves during those interminably long days and nights she runs away from the palace, to reassure him that everything will be all right. If it isn’t for the note she leaves, he would be happier assuming she is just time traveling again. But her note leaves no doubt as to the reason she is nowhere to be found inside the palace.
Logically, he knows she will somehow return to him, because all her future visits prove that much. But in the depths of despair, Yong Qi can’t help but wonder whether, maybe, perhaps, this time, things have gone terribly wrong and she will never return. Maybe, her time travel has caused some irreparable damage after all.
Qian Long era, twenty-fifth year
Somewhere in Hebei
Xiao Yan Zi is 18
If Xiao Jian had any doubt before about whether Xiao Yan Zi is his sister, all doubts are gone now when she disappears right before his eyes and Zi Wei scrambles to explain to him what he already knows.
He does not time travel himself, but the few memories he has of his father are of the two times his father travelled into the future to see him.
The ability to time travel had not saved his father from execution. It just gave Xiao Jian precious stolen moments with him that he otherwise would never have and gives him hope that he might see his father again in the future.
And it is obvious now that his sister has inherited the strange ability. As if the fact that she is engaged to the son of their enemy doesn’t make the entire situation complicated enough already.
Qian Long era, twenty-sixth year
Residence of the Fifth Prince, Beijing
Xiao Yan Zi is 19 and 29
Her younger self is desperate for stories about their parents.
Never mind the fact that Xiao Jian was four when they died and by his account had so far only ever met their father twice, and is always waiting for their father to come to him. But travel into the future is rarer than into the past. It may be years – if ever – until Xiao Jian sees their father again.
Xiao Yan Zi, on the other hand, had made more than a few trips back to Hangzhou of the past. Not that her younger self is supposed to know this yet.
It makes the scene before her terrible to bear. Xiao Yan Zi grits her teeth and sips her tea, glowering at nothing in particular.
In the end, she cannot stand it. Why has whatever force of nature that controls her travel send her here? (She has asked this question a million times before. There is no answer.)
She makes up some flimsy distraction that sends her younger self and her newly-wed husband out of the room. She hopes they will be long enough that the subject will be changed when they return. Or she will have disappeared.
Her elder brother – who is currently younger than her – turns to her, puzzled.
“I was just about to tell her about our parents. Why did you tell them to go away?” he asks.
“Maybe because I don’t enjoy sitting here listening to you lie to my face,” she answers acidly.
Blood drains from Xiao Jian’s face as he begins to understand her meaning.
“You know,” he whispers, his voice full of dread.
“Of course I know!” she snaps. “I time travel, for Heaven’s sake!”
She regrets her words immediately, of course. He isn’t supposed to know that she will eventually know. Then again, when she – her younger self, that is – eventually finds out the truth, her brother will tell her that he has always known the truth coming out was inevitable. This must have been what he meant.
“Do you see him? When you travel?” he asks, sounding suddenly so sad and young, and Xiao Yan Zi finds her anger at him disappear.
“I only started traveling to him after I found out the truth,” she admits softly. “But I see him sometimes. Either we are both traveling, and we run into each other, or I go into the past and see both him and Mother. I don’t see either of them as often as I’d like, obviously, but then I have to remind myself, I cannot live in the past. I cannot want the time travel to happen.”
“So that’s how he knew,” her brother murmurs, likely to himself.
“What do you mean?”
“The last time Father came to me – I was maybe twenty-one, just before I set out to travel to Beijing to find you – he said something that makes me wonder whether he knows that he will never see us grow up.”
“I have never said anything,” Xiao Yan Zi says, “but it is not hard to guess, I suppose, considering how I reacted when I first met them.”
“And yet you are still angry at me for keeping the truth about them from you?” Xiao Jian asks. “Surely you understand why?”
It doesn’t matter if she understands, though. Her life is enough of a headache without her brother trying to keep this secret from her.
She doesn’t answer his question, but merely asks her own. “How long did you think you could keep it a secret from me?”
“I don’t know. As long as possible. Forever.”
Xiao Yan Zi scoffs.
“When did you find out?” Xiao Jian asks.
“Like I would say.”
Still, her brother looks at her with a pinched, worried expression.
“Don’t worry,” she says, “it will not be I who tells them.”
“Then how did you find out?”
She shakes her head. She relives moments of her life often enough. There is absolutely no need to drown herself in more memories now.
“Xiao Yan Zi – “
“I know!” she exclaims forcefully, cutting him off. “You need to protect me! But even without the time travel making my life constantly confusing, there are enough people in the palace who lie and hide the truth as it is. Why did you ever think I needed you to lie to me as well?”
Her outburst will not make him be more truthful with her younger self. She knows this. That is why she feels so frustrated. Perhaps that is even why she feels she can say this now.
Moments like this, she really feels the curse of her travel.
Before her brother can gather enough of himself to make a reply, the world around her becomes dark, and she is back again. Back to her right time. Her right age. Back to her Yong Qi, whose eyes flutter open at the shift her sudden reappearance makes on the bed. He peers at her in the dim light of the remaining candles in the room.
“Just got back?” he asks sleepily.
She says nothing but only slides under the covers and wraps her arms around him tightly, burying her face into his chest. Her grip on the back of his night shirt is too tight, and he notices.
“What happened?” he asks, stroking her back gently. “When did you go?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbles.
Here, now, she is confronted again by how far they have come. Their younger selves will make that journey, eventually, in their own, linear time, as they should. She knows this. But she felt so trapped, there in the past. It was a past that she has outgrown, and has no need or desire to re-experience. She now needs time to allow that feeling to fade. It will fade, she knows, but she hates the waiting, and the only thing that makes it better is Yong Qi.
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeats. Then raising her head, she traces his face with her fingers. “Make love to me?”
She can still see the concern in his eyes in the dim light, but he has dealt with enough of her comings and goings to understand that sometimes, it really doesn’t help to talk about it. So he brushes her hair away from her face and kisses her.
Qian Long era, twenty-sixth year
Residence of the Fifth Prince, Beijing
Xiao Yan Zi is 19 and 33
When she finds out she is pregnant for the first time, she only manages the appearance of happiness long enough for the imperial physician to leave.
Once he is out of earshot, she bursts into tears. It frightens Yong Qi, whose radiant smile dies on his lips as he hastily put his arms around her.
“Xiao Yan Zi! What’s wrong?”
For a prolonged moment, she only cries and lets him stroke her back, trying helplessly to soothe her.
When she finally looks up at him, she sees the concern mixed with hesitant hurt in his eyes, and finds her already overwhelmed emotion state fill with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she says, grabbing both of his hands. “I’m not unhappy about having a baby. It’s your baby, and I want to be happy, so much. Honestly. But I just – “
She hiccups and it is a cup of tea later before she can speak again.
“What happens to the baby if I travel?” she asks through tears. “Yong Qi, I’ve never thought about this before, but now…I don’t know if – what happens – and I’m scared.”
Yong Qi does not know how to assuage her fears. Of course he does not. She doubts anyone can, and that is the most frightening thing. And from that initial fear, more came.
“What if I can’t – what if I never – “ she starts to babble, but Yong Qi pulls her tightly into his arms, kissing the top of her head.
“Don’t! Don’t do this to yourself, Xiao Yan Zi. If stress induces the travel, then that is even more reason for you not to aggravate yourself right now.” He pulls away and brushes her tears away with his thumbs. “We have never had a future version of yourself dropping in on us, worried or upset about an unborn child, right? You are good enough about keep the future secret when you travel, but not as good as to be able to keep something like that a secret. It must mean that it will be all right.”
She looks at him, sniffling back tears. “You think so?”
“Yes,” he says, and she wonders if he really is so confident. “Anyway, we’ll ask her when she next comes.”
No future version of herself comes for another three months, possibly the most stressful three months of Xiao Yan Zi’s life. By some miracle, despite this, she doesn’t travel once in those months.
When she does come, Xiao Yan Zi is half afraid her future self won’t tell her anything at all.
But she needn’t have worried. The moment her future self saw Xiao Yan Zi’s bump, she exclaims, “Oh! Who is this?”
Xiao Yan Zi looks around. There is no one but the two of them – or maybe it should be the one of them – in the room. “Who are you talking about?”
Her future self laughs. “I meant the child. What number baby is this? When am I?”
Xiao Yan Zi grabs her hand. “So there will be more than one? And are they going to be okay?” she asks breathlessly.
Her future self’s eyes widen in understanding. “Ah, so it’s the first.” She smiles, and Xiao Yan Zi never thought before that she could derive so much relief and pleasure from her own smile.
Her future self leads her to sit down on the bed. “You will be okay,” she says. “The baby will be okay, too. For some reason, I don’t travel when pregnant. Maybe the baby grounds me, I don’t know.”
Xiao Yan Zi feels faint from the relief. For a moment, she buries her face in the palms of her hands and weeps while her future self pats her back.
“Urgh, why am I crying?” she groans. “This is good news.”
“Pregnancy does that,” is the amused reply.
She tilts her head and studies her companion. “So what’s his name? Or rather, is it a boy or a girl?”
She only gets an even more hearty laugh in reply. “You really think I would tell you?”
“It was worth a shot,” she grumbles.
Qian Long era, twenty-seventh year
Residence of the Fifth Prince, Beijing
Yong Qi is 21 and Xiao Yan Zi is 34
“Does she travel?” Yong Qi asks.
“Should I tell you?” his wife – or the woman that his wife will become – asks.
Yong Qi watches as she reaches down and tucks the blanket more firmly around the child – their child, their daughter – who had only just passed her first hundred days.
“You told Xiao Yan Zi that Nan Er will be all right, didn’t you?” he points out. “And I think we ought to be prepared.”
“I told her that she would be fine during the pregnancy so she would be at ease.”
He turns to look at her. “So you are saying the answer to my question would not put our minds at ease?”
She smiles at him, that mysterious smile from the future that he feels he should be used to by now. He is never used to it. “You should not worry so about the future, my love.”
“Easy for you to say,” he mutters.
That makes her chuckle. She leans in and kisses him on the cheek, before finally taking pity on him. “She doesn’t travel. None of them do. It passes through the father.”
“How do you know that?”
She hesitates, as she always does when she is on the verge of saying too much. Then, in a lower voice, she answers, “Don’t tell her.”
Yong Qi sighs. It is a curious and infuriating sensation to be asked to lie to your wife…by your wife. The future version of her always points out that not revealing the future isn’t really lying.
He shrugs, which he supposes is enough of a promise, because she says, “She will – or I suppose I did – travel back to meet my parents.”
“Really?” he exclaims. “That’s wonderful!” There is something strange – almost sad – about the smile she wears now, that makes him add, hesitant, “It is, isn’t it? A good experience?”
“Oh, yes,” she says. “It just makes me miss them in real time, though.”
“Do you tell them? Anything?”
“Of course not.”
“I suppose that is kinder.”
“I think they know anyway. The first time, I…I wasn’t really in control of my emotions. And Father tells me he travels as well, so perhaps they have noticed that they never see him past a certain age…Apparently, it’s been a family curse for centuries.”
“I don’t think it’s a curse,” Yong Qi says gently.
“Really?” she remarks dryly.
“Really! Not that I don’t understand that it ranges from being a nuisance to an emotional fiasco for you, but you must admit it has its up sides, right? I mean, it allows you time with your parents, even now.”
“It is borrowed time though,” she says, sighing heavily. “Not that I’m not grateful for it, but…”
Yong Qi reaches for her hand and she leans into his comfort.
“Well, at least it might die with me. After all, it seems to have skipped my brother, for whatever reason. Unless he’s hiding this from me as well.”
Yong Qi turns to her, curious. “As well?”
She has said too much, and mentally kicks herself. Thankfully, at that same moment, she also disappears.
Qian Long era, seventh year
Fang Residence, Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Xiao Yan Zi is one-month-old and 21
She has never seen this room before. She has no idea where or when she is. But that is nothing new.
There is a cradle in the middle of the room. As the room is not familiar to her, she has no idea who the child could be. She approaches, and finds that the baby can hardly be more than a month old, tightly swaddled and there is no telling if it is a boy or a girl.
The door behind her opens, and she turns. A man stands there, and he is a stranger and familiar to her both at once.
“Who are you?” he asks, walking into the room, rightfully concerned that a strange woman somehow sneaked into his newborn child’s room without knowledge.
She looks at him, and the word appears on her lips before she even realises she had made the connection. “Father.”
The man stops in his track and stares at her. She doesn’t know what else to say. Indeed, she is incapable of speech. She doesn’t even know why she is so sure…she just is.
“You called me – “ he starts. His eyes flick to the cradle, then back to her. “You are she. You are Xiao Ci. My Xiao Ci.”
His last words make her burst into tears. By the time she calms down, her mother is also there. She looks up at them through her tears and still doesn’t know what to say.
“You get pulled through time also?” her father asks sorrowfully. “I had hoped, when your brother did not show any sign, that it has ended. Though your brother is still small enough…He doesn’t travel as well, does he?”
She still isn’t coherent enough to speak, so she shakes her head.
“I’m sorry,” she says as she wipes her tears away. “I wasn’t expecting to…I wasn’t expecting this.”
She manages to stay with them for the better part of two days, during which time she tries not to not reveal that she has no memory of them, and she cannot even remember their faces.
In the end, she is both relieved and sorrowful to return to her presence, to her own husband – who is no longer just her husband, but that is still too new to think about without fresh pain – and her own child. She is sure during her sojourn in the past, she never managed to completely fool her parents like she hoped.
Qian Long era, twenty-eighth year
Residence of the Fifth Prince, Beijing
Xiao Yan Zi is 21 and Yong Qi is 22
Yong Qi had left Xiao Yan Zi in the bedroom perhaps an hour earlier in an exhausted, restless nap. Now, walking into the room, he finds her sitting with her knees up to her chin on the bed, staring at the wall.
He walks over and touches her shoulder gently. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
She looks up at him, glassy tears in her eyes. He sinks down beside her and pulls her into his arms, half expecting her to resist. She doesn’t, but the words she says makes him wish she pushes him away instead.
“Marry her.”
“Xiao Yan Zi – “
“Marry Zhi Hua. It’s already happened anyway.”
Yong Qi pulls away to stare at her. “What do you mean?” he asks, already able to guess and unable to keep the lump of dread forming in his throat.
“I’ve never travelled to the future before. It was always to the past,” she says, sounding far away. “But this time, this time I went three years into the future. Trust my time travel to show me what I least want to see.”
She laughs bitterly and roughly brushes her tears away with the back of her hand. Before Yong Qi can think of anything comforting to say, she barrels on.
“It was the Mid-Autumn banquet in the palace. There were too many people around, so no one saw me, but I saw enough. She was there. She will be there.”
Finally, Xiao Yan Zi turns to look at him. The defeated acceptance in her eyes pains Yong Qi more than if she is actually raging at him.
“The future is already set. We can’t change it. We might as well use it to save my brother’s life then.”
Yong Qi can’t bring himself to look for too long at that expression on her face, so he tears his eyes away, feeling his heart break afresh. For the first time, he truly understands what a slave to time both he and Xiao Yan Zi are. Normal people can shape their own future, but it is clear now that they never could. Xiao Yan Zi, because she is pulled, randomly, through time and sees various pieces of her life all out of order and he, because he loves her and because his fate is tied at every step to hers. They can never know the things that happen do so because of the choices they make, or because they already know things are supposed to turn out that way and that knowledge shapes their choices.
“Are you there?” he asks. “In the future?”
Right now, that is the only question that matters. And yet, Xiao Yan Zi takes so long to answer that he becomes afraid, despite knowing that her future self, well past the age of twenty-four, has been traveling back to him for most of his life.
“Of course I will be there,” she says finally, almost too soft to hear. “Ever since you were eight years old, when have I not been there?”
The words should comfort him, but they do not, not when he turns back, he finds her looking at him with tears in her eyes. His heart shakes with even more confusion than before. Still, in the end, there isn’t anything else for him to do other than nod and press a salty kiss against her forehead, before giving into this convoluted fate that time has in store for them.
Qian Long era, twenty-eighth year
Residence of the Fifth Prince, Beijing
Yong Qi is 22 and Xiao Yan Zi is 30
“She loves you, you know.”
Xiao Yan Zi gets no answer to this, but she isn’t really expecting one.
“I love you.”
She suspects it is the matter-of-fact tone of her voice that makes him turn, finally, to look at her.
“Why do you think when I travel, I come to you more than most?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice hollow.
She hates the fact that the reason for his state is her. If they were arguing, she might actually find it satisfying to find her younger self and shout some sense into her. But it isn’t an argument, and she already knows how this tension between them will finally dissipate, and it did not end because she got into an epic shouting match with herself. Besides, she prefers to comfort Yong Qi now.
“I come to you, because you are so precious to me. I know…I know I don’t always act like it, but it is true. And if all of this traveling ever taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you only see things clearly when you stand on the height of time. You are going to have to be patient with me, my love.”
The endearment and her words made him smile briefly. “You told me this already.”
“Have I?”
“You will.”
Then, as swift as his brief amusement came, he collapses into weariness again.
“How long has she been gone?” she asks, knowing that it is useless to try and distract him by speaking of something else.
“Two days.”
“Oh.” Then, recognising that there is more to his listlessness than the fact that her younger self isn’t talking to him, she adds, “Don’t worry. She’s safe. She’ll be back soon.”
“Do you remember when she is?” he asks.
“Of course.”
There must be something about the wistful tone of her voice that draws his curiosity. “When?”
“I think, this time, the more important question is ‘where’. Hangzhou. A month after my birth. I met my parents. That…that was the first time I travelled to them.”
“You told me that you travel to them. I just didn’t realise it would be triggered by this,” Yong Qi says.
“Significant events are the push and pull for my travel,” she explains. “I started to travel to you after we were married. As for my parents, I think before I finally knew the truth about who they were, I didn’t have the right emotional connection to travel to them.”
“I hope it was at least comforting.”
She hesitates, then says, “I’m not sure if comforting is the right word. But I will say this. It put things in perspective.”
“How?” he asks.
“It made me realise that they are no longer here, and I can time travel to them all I wish, they still died the way they did, and I can never bring them back. It hurts to have to come to terms with this, but at the same time, this trip did remind me of something else far more important.” She pauses, and waits for him to turn to look at her again. When he does, she reaches out and takes his hands in hers. “It reminds me that you are here, and we have always been trapped in this cycle of time together, and for that, I need to cherish you more than ever.”
Yong Qi lets out a long, shaky breath and drops his head on her shoulder. She pulls him into a tight embrace, and whispers in his ear, “It will pass, you know. We won’t always feel this pain. I know it’s hard to imagine, but trust me, we will get through this, together.”
He stays in her arms like that for a long time. When he finally looks up at her again, his eyes were still full of sorrow. “I don’t blame you – her – for being upset right now,” he says.
“I know.”
“And I do believe you when you say we will get through this. It’s just…right now, right here, she’s hurting. I just wish…I wish I know how to make it bearable for her. Won’t you tell me?”
“No,” she replies sympathetically, as she must.
He sighs. “Why did I even ask?”
“Why, indeed. But I think you know the answer already. It is nothing I can tell you. The only thing you both need is time.”
“Time.” He laughs almost bitterly. “Sometimes I feel like though you are the one traveling through time to different stages of me, I am the one always chasing you. I see you now and I see you in the future, and it’s okay when you’re happy, but sometimes you’re sad and I just wonder if I could have done anything to change that, never mind that it is in my future…a future I guess I can know about but never really know. That doesn’t even make sense.”
She cups his cheeks gently and says, “You can’t eliminate pain and sadness from my life, Yong Qi, no matter how you may want. And I wouldn’t want you to, either. Sadness and pain makes up who we are, as much as happiness.” She sighs then adds, “The thing about Zhi Hua is that I was so blindsided by it all. I could have said something before, maybe to warn you or prepare you. But it would have made you both live your days in dread. I didn’t want that for us. Just because time plays games with us doesn’t mean that we can’t try to resist it and live as normally as we can.”
Qian Long era, twenty-fifth year
Forbidden City, Beijing
Xiao Yan Zi is 21 and Yong Qi is 19
The first few months after Zhi Hua, the amount of time she spends travelling is almost as much as the time she is in her proper place. It’s a miracle that Zhi Hua remains completely unware of it, and by extension Lao Fo Ye as well.
She travels to her parents, to her younger self in a time before him, but as much as she wishes otherwise, she still travels to Yong Qi most of all. To moments when they were happy. She hides in the shadows and behind trees, watching their younger selves plot and plan and play with fireworks and chase each other in the snow. She sees them fight and make up and laugh and kiss.
Her travel mostly lasts for a few moments here, a few moments there, but then on one trip, she stays a full day.
She hides from the servants of Jing Yang Gong for most of that day. She should have just gone to Shu Fang Zhai, as it isn’t like anyone would question her presence there, as long as they do not notice there are two of her. She isn’t so aged that it is obvious she doesn’t belong here. By now, Zi Wei, Jin Suo, Ming Yue, Cai Xia, Xiao Deng Zi and Xiao Zhuo Zi all know her secret so it isn’t a problem if they run into her. She doesn’t quite understand why her instinct is to stay hidden in Jing Yang Gong, burying her face in his pillow where the scent of him still lingers instead.
Now it is evening, and she sits quietly, watching Yong Qi diligently write the book of chengyu that would eventually trigger one of their biggest conflicts prior to their marriage.
She sighs.
Yong Qi looks up, and watches her for a few moments. Then he places his writing brush down.
“Are you all right?”
She tries to smile and fails. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been very gloomy.”
She merely shrugs. He knows, of course, that she will tell him nothing.
Yong Qi comes over to sit next to her, placing a warm hand on the small of her back. “Xiao Yan Zi?”
“I just need…some space, I guess,” she finally says. “Away from y- well...”
“I guess that isn’t working out too well.”
That almost makes her smile. More accurately, she tries so hard to smile, because if she ever gets over her current feelings of hurt and jealousy over Zhi Hua, his words really would be funny. But right now, they are merely painfully ironic.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Why? You haven’t done anything.”
“Yet.” There is a pause, and he reaches up to gently caress her cheek. “I just hate to think that I make you sad in the future.”
She sighs and stands up, approaching the desk to look at the half-finished book. “It isn’t entirely your doing,” she owns.
“But enough of it is?” he asks.
Still looking down at the book, she tries to work through her confused emotions. “I should be more understanding. I, of all people, should understand what it is like to have things happen beyond my control. And I do know, that even without all this time traveling and all the questions of whether anything about our life together is actually our choice, there are even more things you have no control over. Knowing should be enough to let me be more understanding. But I am selfish enough that it just becomes the reason for me to want to be more angry at you.”
She turns around and finds that he has followed her, and now is standing within arms’ reach.
“If when we are married and I cannot keep you happy, then that is my failing, and you should rightly be angry at me, Xiao Yan Zi,” he whispers, brushing away the tears she doesn’t realise has even fallen. When she doesn’t say anything in reply, he adds, “I mean it, Xiao Yan Zi. He’s an idiot.”
She laughs through her pain and turns away, shaking her head. Like a splash of cold water, it hit her that in this time, in this place, he is both not yet entirely hers, and so entirely hers. She isn’t sure whether the contradiction comforts or hurts her more.
“If only it were that simple,” she says. “Sometimes I think that being able to stay in one place might make me better at coping with things. Being here…it feels like I’m running away.”
Yong Qi takes her hand. “If it is running away, then I am thankful that you at least still run to me.”
Despite everything else she is feeling, she cannot help but love him for his words, even if at the same time, they make her miss her Yong Qi all the more. She longs for him, who would understand the whole reason for the weight on her heart. Perhaps he cannot make that pain go away, but at least she would not have to hold back crying with him. She sighs, torn between wishing to share her burden with the Yong Qi that is here, and wanting to protect him from the future that will hurt them both enough when it comes.
“You are tired,” Yong Qi says, running a soothing hand down her back. “Get some sleep. Whatever else can wait.”
She cannot think of a reason to protest, so she allows him to lead her to his bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed beside her after tucking her in, he leans down to kiss her forehead gently. She grasps his arm with both of her hands.
“You could marry someone so much less complicated than me, you know,” she says.
He smiles. “But what excitement would there be in that?”
She smiles wanly back. “There can be such thing as too much excitement.”
He does not answer, but simply smooths the blanket about her shoulders. “Get some rest.”
“And you?”
“I just need to finish a couple more pages.”
She closes her eyes, because despite everything, she really is tired. “Three months,” she murmurs sleepily. “Three months to turn me into Lao Fo Ye’s ideal. You’re fighting a losing battle, you know.”
She doesn’t know if he hears her, or what his response is, because she has fallen into slumber. By the time she opens her eyes again, Yong Qi is still beside her, stroking her hair, but now he is the one who looks tired, though relieved; the light and the room are all different. She is back in her right time again.