Eleven-year-old Gu Nian didn’t wait another millisecond.
The boy bolted forward across the wooden porch, his cloth boots thumping three quick beats against the floorboards before he threw himself straight into his mother’s open arms!
“Mom!!” Gu Nian cried out, his eleven-year-old voice cracking as he buried his face into the soft, plum-scented silk of her white shoulder and wrapped both arms tightly around her neck. “Mom, you’re really here!
I’m not dreaming!
You really came home!”
Empress Luo Qingxue wrapped both arms around her son, pulling him tight against her heart as if she wanted to make up for ten missed birthdays in a single embrace.
She closed her eyes, rocking him gently on the woven reed rug as hot tears spilled down her cheeks into his dark hair. She pressed tender, trembling kisses against his temple, his crown, and his warm forehead.
“My boy... my sweet, brave Nian’er,” Luo Qingxue whispered, her voice thick with ten years of longing. “When Mom had to leave you in your father’s arms that night, you were smaller than a kitten and couldn’t even open your eyes yet.
