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His simple, decisive refusal made him silently withdraw his faintly expectant gaze. His throat bobbed, and he answered softly, the bitterness numbing even the tip of his tongue. "Mm... I understand."

Whether she loved him or not—did it matter? She had never considered that question, and she no longer had the right to. As a married woman, she had too many problems to worry about. In her heart, he should have been buried at the very bottom, preferably so deeply that even she could no longer see him clearly. What did it matter whether those intimate memories had been feelings or not?

Even if he kept her heart by his side, she still had to board the carriage heading south.

On a night shrouded in mist, Li Danxin hurriedly informed the guards from General Wu's Mansion stationed in the outskirts of the Capital and left the city overnight for Yuanzhou. She could not bid farewell to her father, and with her younger brother imprisoned in the dungeon, she urged the guards to speed along the official road as though fleeing for her life. They traveled even more urgently than they had on the way there. She had to return. Only by returning to her husband's side could she still be considered a complete and unblemished woman.

She had not left anything behind in the Capital, nor by someone's side.

Feelings were nothing more than an ethereal thing—ultimately, merely a memory. As long as she left the Capital and no longer heard a single word about Long Ang, she could forget the past completely, just as Xiaojing had.

Li Danxin gripped the Ministry of Rites' Seal in her palm so tightly that it nearly sank into her flesh. The jolting carriage suddenly came to a halt, and the sound of the