WHERE TIME LEARNED TO BE GENTLE

Chapter One: The Fallen PrinceIn the annals of the Liang Dynasty, there was once a prince whose name had been carefully scratched out.Not erased—scratched, as though history itself had hesitated, blade trembling, unwilling to destroy him completely.Prince Shen Yuheng, seventh son of the Emperor, had been everything a royal heir should not be. He laughed too easily, as if joy were something inexhaustible. He spoke too frankly, as if truth could survive the court. He smiled too brightly, his beauty soft rather than imposing, his eyes always alight with mischief or warmth.In a palace built of silence and suspicion, he was a living mistake.Ministers called him foolish behind silk sleeves. His brothers called him weak with smiles sharp as knives. Even his father, seated upon the Dragon Throne, looked at him with an expression that hovered somewhere between fondness and disappointment.Yet when war came, it was Shen Yuheng who stood on the northern wall.The night burned itself into him.The sky had been black with arrows, the moon hidden behind smoke. Fire climbed the city gates like living things. Soldiers screamed, horses panicked, and the ground shook with the thunder of siege engines.He remembered the smell first—iron and ash, blood and oil.Then the betrayal.A command seal altered with a single stroke. Reinforcements that never arrived. Gates opened from within by hands sworn to protect them.Yuheng had stood there, white armor stained red, laughing softly as the walls collapsed.Not because he was brave.But because despair had found no other way out.History would later call him the Fallen Prince, a cautionary tale of softness in a ruthless age.But history never recorded the moment he died.He fell from the wall with a smile still faintly on his lips, blood blooming across his armor like a cursed peony. As the ground rushed up to meet him, his final thought was not revenge, nor regret.It was time.If only I could go back.The world shattered.Chapter Two: A Crack in the AgesYuheng awoke gasping beneath a sky he did not recognize.The air was cool and clean, touched with morning dew rather than smoke. Pale gold sunlight spilled across tiled rooftops unfamiliar in their perfection. Somewhere nearby, bells chimed—soft, orderly, alive.He lay on cold stone, heart hammering, fingers trembling as he pressed a hand to his chest.No wound.No blood.No pain.Instead, there was a mark on his wrist, faint but burning, shaped like a broken hourglass.Time had not merely spared him.It had taken him.Understanding came slowly, like dawn breaking through fog. This was the capital—yet not the ruined capital of his death. The walls stood whole. The banners flew bright. The people laughed in the streets.Two hundred years earlier.The golden age of the Liang Dynasty, before rot had crept into its bones.And worse—He was still a prince.Shen Yuheng existed here too. Younger. Untainted. Alive in a way Yuheng had not been for a very long time.Memories of betrayal clung to him like shadows. At night, he dreamed of collapsing walls and woke with laughter trapped painfully in his throat. He smiled in public as he always had, lighthearted and charming, but now the smile was armor forged from knowledge.If time had brought him back, it was not mercy.It was a demand.Chapter Three: The Pretty NoblemanHe met Xu Lan by accident.Or perhaps fate had simply grown tired of pretending.The palace corridor was quiet that afternoon, sunlight filtering through lattice windows. Yuheng was walking without destination—an old habit from a life where wandering had been his only freedom—when someone collided with him.Hard.Books flew. Ink splattered. A soft gasp turned into panic.“I’m so sorry—! I didn’t see—please forgive me!”Yuheng looked down.Xu Lan knelt on the floor, scrambling to gather scattered scrolls with shaking hands. His face was flushed, eyes wide with genuine fear rather than performance. His robes were pale, the color of spring clouds, his hair tied with a simple jade pin that spoke of restraint rather than ambition.He was… unfairly pretty.Not in the sharp, intimidating way the court praised, but gently, as though beauty had simply settled on him by accident. He looked like someone meant to live in sunlight, not under palace eaves.Yuheng stared.In his past life—his future life—no one like this had existed long enough to be remembered.“It’s fine,” Yuheng said at last, crouching to help. “Books like to wander when they’re bored.”Xu Lan froze. Then he laughed—soft and bright, like wind chimes stirred by a breeze.“Your Highness is… different from what they say.”Something shifted inside Yuheng’s chest.Dangerous.New.Chapter Four (Expanded): Beneath the Same RoofThe palace changed at night.During the day, it was a place of rules and rituals, footsteps measured, voices lowered beneath painted beams. At night, it softened. Lantern light pooled like honey along stone paths. Wind carried the faint scentloved💓