Chapter Three: The Life you Want

On the morning of enlistment, Zetian’s family calls her to the door, where Gao Yizhi arrives in radiant finery and publicly offers to marry her, flashing his elite ID. Fearing her family will block her departure, Zetian drags Yizhi into her grandparents’ room to confront him in private.

Yizhi promises to take Zetian to Chang’an and claims he can match any price, but Zetian rejects the fantasy, citing his father’s power and the inevitability of being relegated to concubinage. She insists she will not submit to his family, bear children, or abandon her plan, laying out the miserable path she foresees if she elopes.

The hovercraft’s approach rattles the house, recalling her sister’s recruitment. Yizhi proposes attacking Yang Guang’s family or waiting for karma or battlefield death, but Zetian refuses, declaring she must personally avenge Ruyi and that the world offers no justice to people like her.

Pressed by Yizhi’s plea for a life together, Zetian answers with a single kiss, acknowledging what might have been before choosing vengeance over love. She tells Yizhi to cremate her if he recovers her body and, in a final warning, threatens to kill herself if he tips off the army and to haunt him thereafter.