When Xue Dongting opened her eyes she saw snow, the sky full of swirling snowflakes. She was nearly buried in snow.

She lay on a bamboo raft in the middle of a big lake. Her eyelashes were tiny little icicles.

Her thin clothes fluttered and rippled in the cold wind. Her crepe waistband rustled and tremored.

She was a bit foggy. Had she… Had she not died?

Third Prince"s steel sword had clearly plunged into her chest. She clearly remembered the cold sneer on his lips, remembered that woman holding the white cat, her stunned expression yet betraying a faint sense of satisfaction.

Xue Dongting reached out and waved her hand before her a few times, stirring the whirling snowflakes in the air. It was odd. Why was the deep, ugly scar on her pale wrist gone? That was from when she was twenty, when she had helped Third Prince root out a dissenter. She had helped Third Prince Zhao Xuanzhi climb step by step to the position of crown prince. What she had received in return was an ice cold stab through the heart. And that woman with her white cat, the gentle, weak prime minister"s daughter, had become the prince"s lawful wife.

Xue Dongting laughed at herself. Who was she? She had started out as nothing more than a singsong girl from a border town by the eastern sea. When she was seventeen, the Bureau of Astronomy happened to make a prophecy that if one "obtained the Dongting girl by the eastern sea he would have the world". And so Third Prince Zhao Xuanzhi came from afar and taken this lowly singing girl from her border town Cloudgem Lodge.

Xue Dongting was in a daze. She didn"t know where she was. She felt she had done many bad things in her life, that when she died she ought to be sent to the pits of h.e.l.l. But this place didn"t seem like h.e.l.l. In the frigid air wafted a faint scent she found familiar.

Suddenly there was a shout from lakeside. "Xue Dongting! It"s so cold out, what are you doing taking a cat nap out on the lake? Hurry up and get over here!"

She couldn"t help but flinch. That was Mama Qiao"s voice. How could that be? Three years after she left Cloudgem Lodge Mama Qiao had pa.s.sed away from an illness! Xue Dongting suddenly sat up and looked toward the bamboo building on the bank. It was from here that she had left a long time ago. Was that Cloudgem Lodge?

Xue Dongting mumbled, "I"ve come back? I"ve… I"ve been reborn?"

Tears dripped down her face. She clenched her fists and thought, "Is this an opportunity from Heaven, another chance at life? In this life, I won"t lead a dangerous life and submit to being pushed around. In this life, I won"t get caught up in that prophecy from the Bureau of Astronomy. I"m not the Dongting girl from the eastern sea, I"m Xue Dongting!"

A cold breeze whistled past, rippling over the frigid water. That icy feeling told her this was not a dream. She stood up trembling, took up the raft oar, and with a series of grunts and exclamations rowed to the sh.o.r.e. She took one look at the slender-waisted but dignified looking beautiful woman before her and Xue Dongting came up and hugged her, held her tightly.

Mama Qiao staggered, baffled. "Girl, what"s gotten into you?"

Xue Dongting was crying. "Mama Qiao, now I know, you"re the only person in my whole life who will treat me well." In her previous life at the third prince"s estate she had encountered too many malicious hypocrites.

Mama Qiao scratched her head helplessly. "Alright, stop acting, I won"t scold you, okay? What"s a girl of sixteen talking about her "whole life" for?"

Xue Dongting zoned out for a second, then looked up at Mama Qiao. "I"m now… sixteen?"

Mama Qiao frowned. "Can you not even remember how old you are?"

Xue Dongting nodded and forced a smile. "I remember, I just wanted to make sure."

In the autumn of her seventeenth year, the third prince would arrive.