The gauze canopy trembled as Yun Jichu’s breathing grew erratic. Her vision swam, and for a moment, it seemed as though hibiscus petals were drifting down from the heavens.
Before she could focus, Helian Jin abruptly pulled away from her lips. His eyes, dark as ink, bored into hers while his scorching breath washed over her cheek.
Yun Jichu’s lips burned with a stinging pain.
The tyrant had no idea how to kiss properly. That feather-light stolen peck from a few days earlier must have been nothing more than her imagination.
Pinning her down now and gnawing at her lips as if venting his frustrations—this was his true instinct.
As Yun Jichu’s upper and lower lips met in agony, her eyes reddened against her will. She gazed up at Helian Jin in a panic.
His expression turned abruptly frigid.
With one arm around her waist, Helian Jin shifted her to the inner side of the bed and pinned her down once more.
Their clothes remained pristine; only their lips glistened with a flushed sheen.
It was then that Yun Jichu noticed just how pallid Helian Jin truly was. Beyond his lips, which had been rubbed raw and bloody from the friction, his skin carried an unhealthy pallor.
He looked as though he had lost a great deal of blood—or as if he were gripped by some grave illness.
“Why do you fear Zhen?” Helian Jin’s cool palm settled on her cheek, caressing it before drifting slowly to the fragile curve of her neck.
Her delicate skin flushed crimson in an instant.
Yun Jichu felt the heat from her own warm neck seeping into his palm, gradually warming it. Yet her heart grew ever colder.
Accompanying the sovereign is like accompanying a tiger.
She had heard the saying countless times before, but only now did she grasp its true weight.
“Ah Chu, you no longer recognize Zhen.” His voice was flat, almost as if Helian Jin were speaking to himself.
Of course she didn’t. The Helian Jin she knew brimmed with poetry and scholarship, gentle and refined—a true gentleman.
But the man before her now was deathly wan, his temper as changeable as the weather, slaying without a second thought.
This wasn’t a romance game. It was a survival game.
She squeezed her eyes shut, looped her arms around Helian Jin’s neck, tugged him downward, and kissed him with the grim resolve of one facing death.
She even pressed further than he had, drawing on memories of past experience. Her tongue slipped past his teeth, boldly teasing within.
It was just a game, after all. Survival came first.
Helian Jin stiffened at first, his eyes flying open in disbelief. Yun Jichu had her eyes tightly closed, her lashes quivering, her brows faintly furrowed.
She seemed to be enduring profound humiliation and torment.
Yet her hands clung to him with fervent enthusiasm, her lips and tongue weaving a delicate, unrelenting dance.
Before Yun Jichu could truly unleash her efforts, Helian Jin shoved her away.
If his eyes had been a gloomy, frozen pool with a faint glimmer before, they were now a lifeless pond, barren of any light.
In silence, he tugged her disheveled outer robe back into place, concealing her snowy shoulder.
Then he rose, swept aside the gauze curtain, and stepped down from the bed.
He strode away without a backward glance.
The lingering intimacy of moments before evaporated in an instant.
Still reeling, Yun Jichu pressed the back of her hand to her swollen lips.
What was wrong with this man?
He had demanded the kiss, yet when she gave it, he flew into some inexplicable rage.
Little Lian slipped in quietly, head bowed, and replaced the vase on the table.
Spotting her, Yun Jichu asked at once, “Has the wound on your leg been tended to?”
Little Lian replied timidly, “In response to Consort, this servant’s leg is not badly injured.”
“Go and rest.” Yun Jichu couldn’t help adding, “You’re far too honest. His Majesty knocked over that vase, and you just had to kneel right in the middle of it? Couldn’t you have knelt off to the side?”
Little Lian froze for a beat before murmuring, “It wasn’t His Majesty who broke the vase, Consort. This servant dropped it by accident.”
“Ah?” Yun Jichu suddenly recalled the scene. Helian Jin hadn’t been anywhere near Little Lian—hardly close enough to snatch up a vase and smash it.
Little Lian kept her head lowered, hesitating as she said, “It was deep into the night. The wind had snuffed out several lanterns in the corridor, and this servant couldn’t make out the figure clearly.”
“His Majesty… His Majesty was standing alone by the window, peering out… on patrol. This servant thought it was some unruly palace servant and stepped forward to give them a scolding.”
Little Lian recalled the moment again.
His Majesty had stood with his back to her. When he turned, a soft smile still lingered on his face—but it vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a brooding impatience.
Before he could utter a word, terror had drained the strength from Little Lian’s limbs. Her hand slipped, the vase shattered on the floor, and she dropped to her knees with a thud.
Yun Jichu nodded at the explanation.
She had indeed misunderstood today. She could only hope Helian Jin hadn’t seen through her burst of righteous anger.
Urged by Yun Jichu, Little Lian withdrew to rest.
Lady Shuxiu entered then to attend Yun Jichu during her bath.
“Consort, your health is improving. Tomorrow, you must pay respects before the Empress Dowager.”
Yun Jichu racked her brain for memories of the Empress Dowager—Yu Rumei. Scheming of middling skill, emotional intelligence equally average, but beauty beyond compare.
Five years ago, when she had played the game, Yu Rumei’s character had merited only a passing mention in the introduction.
Yun Jichu mustered her spirits and asked, “What kind of temperament does the Empress Dowager like in a consort?”
Starting from favorability was always a safe bet.
Lady Shuxiu pondered for a moment before replying, “Meng Dong and Su Qiu by the Empress Dowager’s side are obedient and serene. Her Majesty should prefer women of that sort.”
Serene? Just speak less. Obedient? Just be more compliant.
Yun Jichu felt greatly relieved.
She soaked in the bathtub, resting her wrist in Lady Shuxiu’s palm and letting her apply the ointment.
Yun Jichu asked again, “And what about His Majesty? What temperament does he prefer?”
Lady Shuxiu fell silent for a long time before speaking. “In the past five years, His Majesty has kept the Late Empress in his heart and taken no concubines. If Your Ladyship wishes to win His Majesty’s favor, it would be better to grow close to the Crown Prince and the Princess first.”
Yun Jichu’s emotions grew complicated.
If only she could do as she had in the old days playing games—return to her bedchamber, save her progress, and quit.
She desperately wanted to log out and check what plotline this mistakenly selected save file had thrust upon her.
Cui Cheng saw His Majesty head toward the Side Hall and fail to return for a long while. He assumed His Majesty would spend the night there.
He had just begun directing the palace servants to prepare hot water and dry clothes when Helian Jin came striding back.
His steps faltered, his lips drained of color, his face as overcast as the night sky.
Thunder rumbled in waves, a violent storm seemingly on the verge of breaking.
Cui Cheng whirled around and called urgently to Xue Gui, “This is bad, this is bad… Quick, prepare some medicine!”
But no one answered. Glancing back, he saw that Xue Gui had vanished.
Useless fool!
Cui Cheng stomped his foot in fury. He grabbed a passing palace maid, ordered her to fetch medicine, and then trailed at a discreet distance behind the Emperor.
Helian Jin’s back appeared utterly desolate.
Cui Cheng suddenly recalled His Majesty cradling the two Little Highnesses.
Beneath the sunlight, he had scooped them up with effortless grace, hoisting them onto his shoulders like a majestic wolf in his prime, carrying his cubs aloft to survey the horizon.
But only Cui Cheng knew how rare such a display was for His Majesty. Most of the time, he was pale and frail. The grief of losing his wife had become a lingering illness, one that slowly devoured this emperor.
Lovesickness had turned to sickness, beyond the reach of medicine or stone.
Four years earlier, when those two phrases had surfaced in Cui Cheng’s mind, he had dismissed them as absurd. He had chided himself for his naivety.
The imperial house was the most heartless of all.
If His Majesty had never ascended the throne—if he had remained merely an idle prince—then his devotion to one woman, his indulgence in romantic dalliances, might have been understandable.
But he had fought through tempests of blood and steel, clawed his way out of webs of intrigue, and seized the supreme throne. In the years since, he had governed with tireless diligence, expanding the realm’s borders amid a mountain of achievements. After tasting the heights of mortal glory, could he truly cling to his original heart, forever remembering his departed wife?
Over those years, beauties of every stripe had been presented to him. Not a few outshone the Late Empress in loveliness, and countless young ladies had pursued His Majesty for years, their hearts aflame with passion.
There should have been an end to it. Three years, four years—the dead ought to have long since reincarnated. Those unbreakable threads of emotion, those indelible memories, should have faded with time, worn thin and dissolved into the clamor of the red dust.
Yet they had not.
His Majesty seemed to sense as much himself. He had begun heeding the words of the Wandering Daoist. For five years, grand and minor rituals had filled the palace without cease. He sought out painters in a frenzy, demanding a fresh portrait every two or three days.
Forgetting was true death. With every method at his disposal, the Emperor resisted it—as if, in this way, the Late Empress might remain forever at his side, never truly gone.
Two years ago, the Emperor—who had finally resolved to destroy himself—had fallen gravely ill.
It came after a grand ritual.
Three full years had passed since the Late Empress’s death.
Three was the cosmic number, the Wandering Daoist declared. The Late Empress’s soul had achieved completion and, after turning through the wheel of the underworld, been reborn into the world.
In the Grand Hall, the Daoist knelt below the dais. He proclaimed that since His Majesty’s ascension, he had enlightened the people and eased their taxes and labors. Heaven, earth, and the spirits had been moved by this merit and would bless the Late Empress’s soul with rebirth into a virtuous and esteemed family.
Before the Daoist could finish, His Majesty’s face drained to ashen fury. His body swayed, and before he could utter a word, a gush of blood erupted from his mouth.
Cui Cheng could not fathom, in that moment, which words had struck His Majesty’s deepest taboo.
He remembered only that the Emperor refused his medicine.
The Empress Dowager wept until her heart and liver seemed to shatter, pouring out words of regret, but she could not sway him.
That Daoist had come at the Empress Dowager’s behest, to offer His Majesty comfort.
Cui Cheng had stood nearby then, bowl of medicinal soup in hand. He heard His Majesty murmur, faint as a thread, “Ah Chu is gone, leaving Zhen alone to struggle through the red dust. Rather than summon her soul night after night and beg for dreams, better that Zhen join her—lest the moment pass, and even in the next life, We cannot cleave to her in life and death.”
“Mother Empress… cease your nagging.”
The Empress Dowager fainted dead away several times in terror. Mourning rites were prepared in the palace at once, while the court’s long-suppressed factions began to stir. The realm teetered on the brink of storm.
In the end, Lady Yu cradled the two Little Highnesses in her arms and wept before the sickbed. “The Late Empress risked her life to bear these two children for Your Majesty,” she pleaded. “Can Your Majesty truly be so heartless as to abandon the Late Empress’s children?”
“The Crown Prince and the Princess are still so young. Without Your Majesty’s protection, the Crown Prince will be torn apart and devoured by the scheming courtiers of the old regime. With unrest brewing at the borders, the Princess will be sent off for a political marriage to some foreign tribe before she even reaches adulthood.”
“I beg Your Majesty to take pity on the Late Empress’s devoted heart!”
The two children had no idea what was happening. They simply wailed because they had not seen their Imperial Father for days now.
Cui Cheng turned pale with shock and rushed forward to cover Lady Yu’s mouth. How dare she utter such treasonous words! If she provoked His Majesty’s wrath, it would not be just her life at stake—even putting her entire family to the sword, from top to bottom, would not be enough to quell the emperor’s fury.
Yet before he could clamp his hand over her mouth, His Majesty’s voice sounded first. “Bring the medicine.”
That voice was frail and weak, heavy with pain and reluctance.
And in this very moment, Helian Jin said, “Bring the medicine.”