After the grand martial arts competition ended, Lu Zhanting earned himself a few rare days of leave.
The tension that had hung over the entire Fierce Tiger Battalion finally dissipated, and life returned to a long-lost state of peace and warmth.
For Lu Zhanting, whose mind and body had both endured extreme trials, this tranquility was the best nourishment.
For Su Wanqing, having her loved one by her side brought a peace she had never experienced in two lifetimes.
Morning sunlight filtered through the window lattices, casting warm patches of light on the floor.
In the kitchen, Su Wanqing was busy at work.
The millet porridge in the pot bubbled gently, filling the air with the fragrance of rice.
She quietly dropped two drops of the spiritual spring water into the porridge and handed a towel soaked in the spring water to Lu Zhanting, who was outside practicing a set of martial arts in the yard.
Since the upgrade of the space, she had been silently using the spiritual spring water to condition Lu Zhanting’s body.
Lu Zhanting might not have noticed it himself, but Su Wanqing could clearly feel that his body was recovering at a much faster pace than before. The hidden injuries and exhaustion accumulated from intense training were quietly being repaired by a gentle, nurturing power.
He slept more deeply at night, and his energy and spirit during the day grew stronger.
Lu Zhanting took the towel and wiped his face; the refreshing coolness of the spring water invigorated him.
He looked at his wife busy in the morning light—she wore a simple cloth dress, her black braided hair hanging over her chest, sunlight casting a soft glow on her profile.
Time was quiet and good.
At this moment, that phrase took on its most tangible meaning.
At the dining table, the two talked about the studio Su Wanqing was about to open.
“I’ve already painted the walls for you. The logistics department approved a few old desks and a long bench. This afternoon, I’ll take people to move them back,” Lu Zhanting said with a satisfied tone as he drank the porridge.
The millet porridge was cooked to perfection—soft, fragrant, and sweet, with a faint crispness that made his appetite grow, and he couldn’t help but ask for another bowl.
“Really? That’s great!” Su Wanqing’s eyes shone brightly. “What about the fabric?”
“I asked around. The military factory does have some cotton cloth from warehouse overstock with dye defects, so it can’t be used for uniforms. I’ve reported it, so we should hear back in a couple of days,” Lu Zhanting said lightly, but Su Wanqing knew he must have gone through a lot of trouble behind the scenes.
“Thank you, Lu Zhanting,” she said sincerely.
The man looked up at her with a slight displeasure in his eyes.
“My wife’s matters are my matters.”
“Do you really separate it so clearly from yourself?”
Su Wanqing felt her chest fill with a warm current, sweet to the point of burning. She didn’t say anything more, just lowered her head and silently put the fried egg from her bowl onto his.
The peaceful and sweet days passed by little by little.
They tended the vegetable garden in the yard together, planned the future of the studio, and strolled hand in hand in the military district compound at dusk.
Su Wanqing felt as if she were living in a beautiful dream she never wanted to wake from.
She even naïvely thought that such good days could last forever.
Until the letter from the capital shattered all the peace.
That afternoon, the couple had just moved the studio’s desks and chairs in and were excitedly discussing how to arrange them.
At the courtyard gate, the abrupt sound of a bicycle’s brakes echoed.
Xiao Zhang, the courier from the military district post office, leaned on his bike and shouted into the yard:
“Captain Lu! There’s a letter for you!”
Xiao Zhang’s expression was unlike any previous time—serious, tense, and even a hint of fear.
What he pulled out from his bag was not an ordinary letter.
It was a large kraft paper envelope, thick and sturdy, sealed without a stamp but with a dark red wax seal.
The seal bore a seal-script “Lu” character that Su Wanqing had never seen before.
Its strokes were sharp, exuding an overwhelming, crushing aura.
The smile on Lu Zhanting’s face vanished the moment he saw the envelope.
He reached out to take it, but his movement stiffened for a moment.
His previously relaxed brow tightly furrowed; the gentle aura of a soldier vanished, replaced by the cold, rusty scent of the battlefield.
“Thanks,” he said flatly to the courier, revealing no emotion.
“You’re welcome! Captain Lu, I’m off now!” Xiao Zhang seemed relieved to leave, quickly mounting his bike and riding away without looking back, as if even one more second here would freeze him with invisible pressure.
The atmosphere shifted.
Su Wanqing looked at the envelope in Lu Zhanting’s hand, then at his face, which had instantly hardened like iron, and her heart inexplicably tightened.
“Who’s the letter from?” she asked softly.
Lu Zhanting didn’t answer.
He just clenched the envelope and turned to walk into the house.
Su Wanqing followed him inside and saw him sit rigidly on the sofa, his back straight like a silent statue.
He didn’t open the letter immediately but repeatedly rubbed the wax seal with his fingertip, his gaze deep and unfathomable.
After a long time, as if he finally made up his mind, he took out a paper cutter from the drawer and deftly sliced open the seal.
He pulled out the letter inside.
It was a piece of high-quality rice paper, written in vigorous, powerful semi-cursive calligraphy.
Lu Zhanting silently read the letter.
Su Wanqing stood by, her throat tight, afraid to interrupt.
She could only nervously watch his face.
As his eyes moved over the words, the color drained from his face, replaced by a near-deathly pale hue.
His jaw clenched into a stiff line, lips pressed tight; the eyes that were always full of warmth now looked like a frozen winter wasteland, devoid of any warmth.
The air in the room grew heavy and thin, pressing down so much that Su Wanqing nearly couldn’t breathe.
Something had happened.
She realized it clearly.
Finally, Lu Zhanting finished reading.
He didn’t toss the letter aside carelessly but very slowly and meticulously refolded it along the original creases and put it back in the envelope.
Then, he sat quietly, motionless, his gaze hollowly fixed on the white wall in front of him.
The familiar, comforting aura he always carried was gone.
In its place was an immense, unsettling sense of alienation.
An invisible wall had suddenly risen between him and the world.
“Zhanting…” Su Wanqing could no longer bear it. She went over and sat beside him, her voice trembling. “What happened? What did the letter say?”
Lu Zhanting’s eyes flickered and slowly focused on her face.
His look was too complex—pain, struggle, suppressed fury pushed to the extreme, and a hint of exhaustion and despair she couldn’t understand.
“Nothing,” he said, his voice harsh and hoarse. “It’s about the army.”
He was lying.
The thought flashed through Su Wanqing’s mind. His eyes were avoiding hers.
The intimacy and trust they had painstakingly built between them now had a slight crack.
“You’re lying to me.” Su Wanqing didn’t cry but felt as if her heart was being squeezed by an icy hand, aching dull and heavy.
She reached out and covered his cold hand with hers.
“You’ve never acted like this before. Is it… something at home?”
Lu Zhanting’s body stiffened.
He slowly shook his head, then grasped her hand in return with a force strong enough to almost crush her bones.
“It’s not this home.”
He closed his eyes, as if summoning all his strength, and squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth:
“It’s the one in the capital.”
The word “capital” hit Su Wanqing like a heavy stone, crashing into the lake of her heart and stirring up a storm.
“Is it… your grandfather?” she tentatively asked.
Lu Zhanting didn’t answer.
He just opened his eyes, and in those black pupils was endless darkness.
He released her hand, stood up, and walked to the window with his back to her.
“Zhanting, what exactly happened? Tell me, and we’ll figure it out together.” Su Wanqing chased after him and hugged his strong waist tightly from behind.
She could feel his muscles tense up like cold iron.
This embrace seemed to melt a corner of his frozen fortress.
“Go back,” Lu Zhanting’s voice was hoarse, as if ground from deep in his throat. “They want me to go back.”
“Go back? To the capital?”
“Mm.”
“Why? Why suddenly ask you to go back?” Su Wanqing’s heart sank continuously, a strong premonition of misfortune gripping her.
Lu Zhanting was silent.
He didn’t want to say.
He didn’t want to lay bare those dirty, complicated, and disgusting pasts in front of this girl as pure as a blank sheet of paper. He wanted to protect her, to let her live forever in such a simple and pure world.
But when he saw the reflection in the window glass—the eyes full of worry and determination—he suddenly understood.
He could no longer isolate her.
She was his wife.
From the moment she married him, they shared the same fate.
“Wanqing,” he turned around, cupped her face, and forced her to look at him, “What I’m about to say may be completely different from the man you imagined. After you hear it, you might regret it…”
“I won’t.”
Su Wanqing firmly interrupted him.
“No matter what you say, no matter what kind of person you are, you are my husband. That will never change.”
The trust and persistence in her eyes were like a key that finally pried open Lu Zhanting’s tightly locked heart.
He pulled a smile more awkward than crying, sat down with her again, and began to recount a story he had never told anyone before.
“I was born in the capital, the eldest grandson of the Lu family. To outsiders, the Lu family is immensely powerful and prestigious. But to me, that place was not a home—it was a huge, cold prison built with power and interests.”
His voice was calm but filled with a deep-rooted loathing.
“In that home, there was no family affection, only schemes. Everyone, including me, was just a pawn for the family’s interests. My life, my marriage, was planned from the moment I was born.”
“When I was eighteen, my grandfather, the head of the Lu family, arranged a marriage for me. The other party was the daughter of another top noble family in the capital, the Song family. It was a thorough political alliance.”
Su Wanqing’s heart clenched sharply.
Song family… daughter… alliance…
Every word was chilling to the bone.
“I refused. So I had a huge fight with my family, nearly cutting ties. I gave up being the eldest grandson of the Lu family and went alone to the harshest northern frontier, starting as a rookie soldier. I just wanted to prove to him that even without the Lu family, I, Lu Zhanting, could still live a dignified life.”
“Over the years, I thought I succeeded. I worked hard and bled to get where I am today. I rooted myself here, with my own camp, my own men, and even…”
He paused and looked deeply at Su Wanqing.
“…you. I thought I could finally leave all those things behind completely.”
“But I was wrong.” His eyes darkened completely. “I was too naive. As long as my surname is Lu, I will never escape that prison.”
“The letter said that the batch of ‘goods’ I intercepted during my last border mission upset some people in the capital. And behind those goods was the Song family. Now, things have escalated. The Song family and my grandfather’s political enemies are using this to stir trouble. I, the long-missing eldest grandson of the Lu family, have been thrust into the spotlight.”
Lu Zhanting picked up the letter and handed it to Su Wanqing.
Her hands trembled as she took it and unfolded it.
At the end of the letter, a few lines stung her eyes like poisoned needles.
“The engagement with the Song family daughter must not be broken.”
“The nonsense at the border must end.”
“You have one month to deal with your so-called ‘wife’ over there and immediately return to the capital.”
“Otherwise, you know my methods.”
Signed with two bold characters: Lu Zhen.
So-called “wife.”
Nonsense.
“Deal with it.”
Su Wanqing felt dizzy, and the letter slipped from her hand to the floor.
The happiness she had painstakingly built, the marriage she thought was unbreakable, in the eyes of this man named Lu Zhen—whom she had never met—was merely nonsense that could be “dealt with” at any time.
So, he wasn’t inarticulate; he had just borne the heaviest secret alone for so many years.
He wasn’t an invincible hero; he had his own prison and shackles.
Her so-called stability, from the start, was a castle built on sand.
Night fell, and the room was dark without lights.
The two sat silently opposite each other, the heavy silence wrapping tightly around them like a net, suffocating.
Su Wanqing finally understood why he had become so distant after returning.
Because of this letter—not only did it drag him back into the loathed quagmire, but it also placed a knife between their marriage.
What should he choose?
To give up everything he had earned with his life, give up her, and return to that gilded prison to continue being the noble eldest grandson?
Or fight to the end, and watch his all-powerful grandfather use thunderous methods to destroy everything he cherished, even… including her?
This was a deadlock.
Outside the window, the last rays of sunset were swallowed by darkness.
This small home they had built with warmth and hope suddenly seemed so fragile, so vulnerable.
A storm from the capital was coming like thunder, sweeping toward them.
And they seemed utterly powerless to resist.