[update] have been so tired so thank you to KuchikiAra for pointing out the mistake I made. Had typed 'brother' instead of 'uncle' regarding the Bai Zhen-Zheyan relationship. Updated!

Too exhausted yesterday! Sorry I couldn't finish my writing... Happened that my home broadband ran out as well so I've been writing on my 4G instead. Note, the events between DongFeng have been slightly altered to speed up the storyline so we can see our main couple sooner! But if you love DongFeng maybe I'll think of writing a DongFeng fanfic in the near future, as I'm exploring writing after a few years of not writing!

If there is change of time, identity and name,
I pray that I will recognize your eyes.

Where will you be after a thousand years?
What scenery do we have beside us?

Our story is not beautiful.
But so difficult to forget

Fengjiu was bewildered by the name Mo Shao. Logically saying, he couldn't be very old if he was called Shao, meaning young master. She cast away the images in her mind of an old man wearing bright coloured clothing and a red hat in an attempt to appear trendy.

She found this Mo Shao to be none other than the notorious Su Moye, a name she had heard in the immortal realm for some time. When she greeted him, Mo scrutinised her for a few minutes before producing a bottle of wine, which Fengjiu recognized from its taste, the origin of the wine being from the Ten Mile of Peach Blossom orchard. The owner of the orchard was the High Immortal Zheyan, her uncle's lover. It was at this orchard, that she had once met Mo, though it had been an unofficial meeting where he hadn't paid attention to her looks. Fengjiu bore a striking resemblance to Aranya, but the differences between them had been comparable to that of heaven and earth.

Mo Shao had a dignified and pleasant look. He immediately recognised the woman before him as Her Royal Highness Queen-to-be of the Fox Kingdom of Qingqiu, and bowed in reverence. He realised that Fengjiu would need a lot of help in her act as Aranya, and so they headed on their way, Mo bringing Fengjiu to various places Aranya loved to hang out at, for her to learn how to "be" Aranya. At the same time, as Aranya's teacher, he decided he needed to know the actual cause for her death. He had only been gone for two years due to an emergency in the West Sea, and when he returned to Fanyin Valley all he saw of her was a grave erected in memory of her, presumably by Chen Ye or Xize. Aranya had no corpse.

Meanwhile in the shrine, Chen Ye fingered the altered Jiepo lantern and watched a replay of the events that had passed prior to Fengjiu entering the Dream. At this point, it had been two years before the scheduled execution of Junuo. He knew what to await. But why had she not recognized him, he wondered. For years, this was the first time this phenomenon had occurred.

The next morning, Chacha brought Fengjiu some coloured clothes apart from red, at her request. Chen Ye watched from his hiding place as "Aranya" emerged in a pink dress. Full of suspicion, he watched as she walked from her manor to the Lake Pavilion. Then she had clumsily stumbled over the root of one of the trees, and he had rushed out to catch her. To his dismay, he felt that the look in her eyes, and their eye contact when they stared into each others eyes, wasn't the same as that he had with Aranya.

Either Aranya had changed, or she wasn't Aranya.

All were invited to a cruise for Aranya's mother's birthday. Chen Ye was told that Xize had achieved great merit in the eyes of Qinghua for treating Junuo's injuries.  Had the Xize in the Dream changed now? He recalled the real Xize's tendencies to delegate tasks to him or to avoid having to do anything with the alibi that he was unwell. For a time, he had believed that Xize was soon to die, then Aranya had died first.

Arriving a bit late to the dining hall for dinner, Donghua, as Xize, looked around him and saw a maiden in red sitting and chatting happily with a young man in white. He was struck by the similarity between the maiden in red and his Xiaobai, his nickname for Fengjiu. Watching the lady's actions, he began to suspect that his beloved's primordial spirit had found her way into the maiden in red's body, as he previously had not managed to detect her presence in Junuo's body, which he had meant to direct Fengjiu's primordial spirit into her womb, but her primordial spirit had seemed to have flown away by itself.

He had felt a tinge of jealousy upon seeing her with someone else.  He stood there in front of their seat for a very long time before Mo Shao, feeling uncomfortable, left his seat to sit elsewhere. Lord Xiangli then commented on how distant they were despite being a married couple, and facing Fengjiu, Donghua had responded by telling her that since his arrival at the dinner, she had been talking and being close with her teacher all the while despite that he, her husband was there. He even openly said he was jealous, giving Mo Shao a shock that he denied having any ulterior motives on his own disciple.

The day before, when Fengjiu asked Chacha who she thought she liked, Chacha had told her about her unconsummated marriage with Xize. It seemed that Chacha had a good impression of Xize and a bad impression of Chen Ye, who she described as "that arrogant person who threw away your  gift and called you dirty". She had asked Chacha about Chen Ye after returning from Zuilixian and meeting Chen Ye for her first time.

She focused on the man beside her. This man, dressed in light purple, had beautiful hair which looked so soft and silky, with the colour of snow. She found him attractive, but a bit eccentric. She wondered if his jealous tendencies was a good thing. In her pursuit of Donghua who hadn't known about her presence at first, he hadn't shown any jealous tendencies, which she assumed to be due to the fact he had someone else in his heart. Of course this had not been the case, as Donghua himself had come for her, yet she could not recognise him due to his correction spell. As Donghua hadn't revealed his feelings to her, she naturally hasn't known how he felt about her. As they talked, Fengjiu felt a slight attraction to Xize. A warm and yet familiar feeling lingered in her heart.

Soon it would be nightfall.

Fengjiu found herself in the company of Xize once more, who she ran into at the ship, which had anchored on land. Seeing that he was alone, she had dared him to disguise himself by putting on a ceremonial mask (which she also did) and escape with her into the street bazaar, which had been bustling with commoners. There was something about him that had intrigued her. She had found it comfortable for her to invite him to lie with her on the soft grass as they enjoyed the beauty of the night and the stars.

A part of her felt like giving up on Donghua and running with this interesting and yet eccentric man. Perhaps she would have a better outcome with him as Aranya and Xize, she thought. She had liked Donghua from afar, when he hadn't known her and then she had been deceived by a demon lord and was locked in her animal form for a while before meeting Donghua as a little fox. All this time, he hadn't known her until they finally met a long time after. And even after then, she hadn't been sure of his feelings. She was tired.

At the end of that long walk with Xize, she had taken off their masks and initiated a kiss with him. She didn't know why it happened, but she had enjoyed it. She knew she would leave the Dream someday. She wondered if he could go with her.

Donghua had controlled himself and his feelings. He would wait, till she was ready.

But Changdi also wanted Xize for herself. She had schemed with a male servant to spike Fengjiu's morning tea with an aphrodisiac, so that she would have an affair with her teacher. However, Master Mo wasn't from this place. He noticed this hasn't happened in the original past.

Changdi liking Xize was a change in fate. Because Xize hasn't appeared much in the palace in the original past, and he hadn't much interactions with any of the royal family, it was evident Changdi probably wasn't that close with him. Also , Xize seemed to have turned exceptionally warm and caring compared to his cold uncaring self in the past. That meant one thing, Su Moye thought. He must be the person His Majesty the Third Prince was looking for, in disguise.

It happened that the person who met Fengjiu not long after she had been poisoned with the drug, was not Su Moye but Xize himself. That day, he had been wearing a different colour, white. Mo had also been wearing a white gown the day before. Seeing a white coloured gown hanging outside Fengjiu's chambers, Changdi had called her parents to "catch the adulterers red handed".