Here was Qin Lian, born in Jichuan, Jiuhua East Township, south of Rime Town.
She first attended the village school in her youth, quicker than her peers. She grasped poetry and books on her own, her writings flourishing into fine prose.
Her father was a boatman, her mother a seamstress. With the misfortune of losing both parents, she left school and took up the oar.
The Zi River surged on, a young girl poled its waters. The Zi waters ran deep; beneath a black-canopied boat, she read by night.
A Jixia scholar, startled to find uncut jade, brought her into the academy, where she recited the classics.
At fourteen, she understood rites; at fifteen, she grasped the Way. Her literary name stunned the age, her talent soared through clouds.
At twenty, she was already a teacher of the Way. Among Jixia's instructors, none was so young.
Beneath Gui Terrace's moon, one glimpse, and all went astray. In Warm Jade Water Pavilion, for whom did she pillow her sleep?
This was a real past.
It was the "truth" cultivated by Rakshasa Bright Moon Pure.
During those years she ran Warm Jade Water Pavilion, she and Jiang Wuxie loved one another deeply, cultivating the Mortal World together. She plotted an imperial enterprise for Yangxin Palace, used those exquisitely alluring beauties to forge ties with court dignitaries, and built the court's foundation for Great Qi Empire's Ninth Prince...
All of it had truly existed.
She had lived as Qin Lian with great care, building Qin Lian's life. Only truth could leave no room for doubt. Only then could Jiang Wuxie fall for her; only then could she put down roots in Jixia Academy and greedily breathe in the Mortal World in Linzi.
Until Jiang Wuxie came killing his way before Granny Ji,