Meng Nanzhi was dead.
In the autumn of the third year of Jinghe, Da Yan and Bei Rong went to war.
Though the Yan army emerged victorious, casualties were severe.
To honor the fallen souls of the Yan army, the emperor permitted the people to release lanterns as a tribute to their grief.
Meng Nanzhi accompanied her close friend to Da Qing Lake Shore to release river lanterns, together mourning her late husband.
Unexpectedly, the railing broke, and both of them fell into the lake.
In her final moments, she saw her husband, Marquis Zhenbei, urgently rushing into the lake, embracing her friend and bringing her ashore.
Meanwhile, she drifted farther and farther away from them until she sank to the bottom of the lake, completely losing consciousness.
In the chaos, she was forced to stand before a large screen, watching her entire family’s lives unfold as if observing a play.
On that screen, she was a supporting character—the early-departed wife of Marquis Zhenbei.
After drowning, her husband, Marquis Zhenbei, married her close friend as a ping wife, meticulously raising the daughter she brought with him, treating her as his own.
The two were deeply in love, hailed as the Da Yan model.
Yet the three children she deeply loved all grew into so-called villains.
Her eldest son, handsome in appearance, was twisted inside, employing sinister methods. Disregarding propriety and shame, he fell in love with his ji younger sister, even going so far as to turn to darkness and rebel. After his failure, he was subjected to death by a thousand cuts and dismemberment by five horses.
Her second son, gentle and kind-hearted, strayed from the right path, spending his days idling, gambling, and frequenting brothels. In the end, he offended a nobleman, had his family heirloom severed, and became a gonggong.
Her only daughter was willful and spoiled, consumed by jealousy toward her ji sister. She resorted to every means to undermine and torment her ji sister, even competing with her for men. Ultimately, driven by extreme, twisted love, she descended into madness.
Due to the rebellion of her three children, the Meng family was implicated. Her father, in the end, took his own life to atone, sparing the entire clan from execution and instead exiling them to the borderlands.
Yet her husband, Marquis Zhenbei, escaped suffering because his ji daughter climbed to a higher branch.
What nonsense! This plot made no sense at all.
How could the three children she raised turn into such villains? How could her family meet such a tragic end?!
Why? By what right did all of this happen?!
Meng Nanzhi struggled to break free from her confinement, leaping into the lake again and again in the same spot, all to return to her original world.
She wanted to slap Marquis Zhenbei twice, to ask him whether he had a heart, whether he was fit to be a husband, whether he was fit to be a father!
After leaping into the lake for the one thousand one hundred and eighty-ninth time, she finally returned.
Unaware of how long she had been swimming in the lake, Meng Nanzhi was just about to surface when a fishhook caught her hair, forcefully dragging her toward the shore.
By the riverbank, an elderly man in a green robe, his face hidden beneath a bamboo hat, gripped the fishing rod tightly with knuckles white, his lean body bent forward like a bow, veins bulging on his neck as he grunted with effort.
Seeing the fishing line taut to the point of nearly snapping, the waiting elderly servant hurried forward to help pull the rod.
“Master, it seems today’s catch is a big one.”
Her scalp aching from the pull, Meng Nanzhi had no choice but to grasp the fishing line with one hand and swim toward the shore.
The elderly servant was the first to step forward and investigate. “Master, it’s a person!”
“Cough, cough.”
Meng Nanzhi spat out the lake water stuck in her throat and looked up at the approaching old man. “Father?”
Though dressed plainly, the old man could not conceal his noble bearing. Though his face showed signs of age, it was identical to the father she remembered.
Meng Zhengde: “Zhi Zhi?”
Elderly servant: “Young Miss?”
“You’re Zhi Zhi?” Meng Zhengde crouched down in disbelief, gripping Meng Nanzhi’s shoulders with both hands before letting go again.
“No, if Zhizhi were alive, she would already be a woman of thirty. How could she look so young?”
“Yet you look exactly like Zhizhi.”
The woman before him was merely in her hua xin years, with skin like congealed jade, brows like distant misty mountains, and eyes like autumn waters shimmering.
Her dark hair, soaked by the river, clung to her forehead. Her brows were slightly furrowed, yet the corners of her eyes were tinged red from the moisture, as if on the verge of tears, adding a touch of delicate charm.
She resembled his daughter, yet did not.
Meng Zhengde’s heart skipped a beat. He abruptly grabbed Meng Nanzhi’s wrist. “Tell me, who sent you to dress up as my daughter? Who told you to approach me?”
Meng Nanzhi could not explain any of this. “Father, I really am Zhizhi! Don’t you remember? On the Lantern Festival, I went with Lin Wanrou to release floating lanterns by Da Yan Lake…”
Meng Zhengde’s eyes reddened as he cut her off. “My daughter died ten years ago.”
Only then did Meng Nanzhi notice that her father, who should have been in his prime, was now completely white-haired. “Father, why is all your hair white? How have you aged so much?”
The lake’s reflection showed her face—unchanged from the day she drowned. Even her clothing was the same plain brocade auspicious cloud-pattern gauze skirt she had worn that day.
For a moment, Meng Nanzhi’s heart was a tumult of conflicting emotions.
She had indeed returned, but not to that day. Instead, she had arrived ten years later.
To convince her father, Meng Nanzhi recounted everything: “Father, on the day I was born, you were so worried and afraid something would happen to Mother that you couldn’t even stand steadily. You sat outside the delivery room for dozens of hours.”
“On the day of my zhua zhou, you didn’t just lay out the usual zither, chess, books, paintings, paper, ink, brushes, and inkstones like others did. You also chose a knife, a bow, an abacus, and a book.”
“When I was in my tong chen years, I loved riding ‘big horses.’ For my safety, you would get down on the ground every day and pretend to be a horse for me to ride.”
“I loved eating cherries, so you had the servants plant a cherry grove. But because the cherries they grew were too sour, the very next year you traveled all over Jiangnan and Jing Bei searching for cherry saplings.”
“When Mother passed away from illness, if I hadn’t been there with you, you might have followed her right then and there.”
“The night before my wedding, you sat before Mother’s spirit tablet the entire night…”
Tears welled in Meng Nanzhi’s eyes as she recounted all the kindness her father had shown her.
“Zhizhi, it is Zhizhi. There’s no need to say more. Father believes you.”
Meng Zhengde also shed tears. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe; he was afraid—afraid that his daughter’s appearance was merely an illusion.
Wiping away his tears, Meng Zhengde helped Meng Nanzhi to her feet. “Quickly, Zhizhi, there are clothes in the carriage. Go change first.”
Meng Nanzhi entered the carriage and found several sets of clothing in the trunk her father carried with him. They were all new styles, tailor-made to her measurements. She could not help but shed tears again.
After taking a deep breath and composing herself, Meng Nanzhi stepped out of the carriage and addressed the elderly servant beside her father: “Fu Bo.”
Fu Bo had served her father for decades and had watched her grow up since childhood.
Fu Bo wiped the corner of his eye. “Young Miss, you’ve finally returned. For ten years since you left, the Master has been fishing here, hoping one day to see you again.”
Meng Zhengde choked back a sob. “Come, Zhizhi. Father will take you home.”
His daughter had fallen into Da Yan Lake ten years ago, her body never found.
She was the only child his late wife had left him.
He had promised his late wife that he would protect their daughter for a lifetime, never letting her suffer the slightest hardship. He never imagined his daughter would depart before him.
On the day he learned of his daughter’s drowning, he and his three grandsons held each other and wept. His hair turned white overnight.
The carriage, driven by Fu Bo, slowly departed from the riverbank and headed toward the Meng Residence in the capital.
Meng Nanzhi voiced the doubt in her heart, “Father, wasn’t I in Da Yan Lake?”
Meng Zhengde nodded. “This river is the only downstream outlet of Da Yan Lake. After you drowned, Houye had the lake drained, and to this day, not a drop of water remains.”
No wonder she had failed so many times when she tried to jump into the lake.
So it turned out the lake had dried up.