From that day onward, she spent two full years within the Temple Capital, never setting foot outside. She ignored the hypocrisy and lies, enjoying her solitude and the still-sincere sisterly friendship she shared with Emma Swei.
Admiring flowers, riding, practicing swordsmanship, meditating-three hundred and sixty-five days were distilled into a single day, and two years flashed past as swiftly as two days.
From the night Boswell made her that promise, she had already seen the woman she would be two years later. At this Holy Banquet, she would prove her resolve to her father once and for all, for this was also her own future. Only by living on horseback, fighting amid blades, and traversing blood and mud could she find the value of her existence. She could not live like a flower, basking in wealth and peace. That would only sink her heart deeper into despondency, like a grain of sand sinking to the seabed, descending into ever colder darkness and forever losing its natural freedom to enjoy the wind and sun.
Scenes and memories flooded her mind, flashing before her eyes. As Sibigail stepped forward, her gaze was as cold as two blades of ice, leaving Xia Bojin, who emerged opposite her, genuinely astonished and intrigued.
The young man had a slight paunch, a face like a platter, and rounded features. He looked like someone whose passage from childhood to adulthood had been cut short. Beside the handsome gentlemen around him, he looked every bit a butcher's son. Not only was his appearance ordinary and plump, but the air that emanated from his eyes and body was just as greasy, like sunlight glinting off fish scales, leaving a bland impression of nothing but scales.
As soon as he appeared, the young men and ladies who had not noticed