Before Yirong could speak, the Emperor suddenly cut in. “Why did you bind your chest last time?”
Yirong hadn’t expected the Emperor to abruptly bring up that mortifying incident!
How was she supposed to answer? She couldn’t very well say it was to guard against him, even though that’s exactly what she thought. It would be treasonous to voice it outright, and it would sound like she was mocking him for being ruled by lust.
“You entered the palace early that day to pay respects to the Empress Dowager,” the Emperor said with a light chuckle. “To guard against Zhen?”
She refused to acknowledge that. Keeping her eyes lowered, she remained silent.
Fortunately, the Emperor didn’t press her to admit it. Dressed today in casual robes for lounging at home, he looked like any ordinary noble young master as he said idly, “Stand up and speak. What do you have to say?”
Yirong didn’t move. She stayed kneeling on the floor and took a deep breath. “Your Majesty is the ruler of all under heaven, a model sage king. You ought to embody harmony between heaven and earth by choosing an unmarried lady from a renowned family as your Empress to bear the weight of the ancestral temple. This humble wife is both plain in talent and looks, and already married besides. I am utterly unworthy to match with Your Majesty.”
The Emperor smiled. “And how do you know Zhen is a sage king?”
Yirong didn’t want to fawn too much in front of him. She kept it brief. “It’s only the second day since arriving at the Imperial Retreat Palace, and Your Majesty has already summoned ministers to discuss state affairs and review memorials, forgetting to eat or sleep in your diligence. That makes you a hardworking sage king.”
It was also her honest opinion. The Emperor might have… certain flaws in his private conduct, but his dedication to governance was unmatched. If only he would stop fixating on her, he could become a revitalizing sovereign whose name would echo through history.
After she finished, she raised her eyes to look at him. But she saw the Emperor propping his head on his hand, his expression gradually turning serious as he gazed at her, as if trying to see straight through to her soul, with an intensity that was hard to describe.
Yirong had no idea what she’d said wrong.
Perhaps in front of the Emperor, refusing to enter the palace meant everything she said was wrong.
Under his stern gaze, she couldn’t help pursing her lips.
After a long silence, the Emperor withdrew his scrutinizing look from Yirong and asked, “Do you have anything else to say?”
Yirong wanted to laugh. As if her words mattered?
She wasn’t the sort to yield blindly. The intention to reason with him respectfully had long vanished during those four hours of waiting in vain. Unable to hold back, she snapped, “Will Your Majesty listen to what this humble wife says? If not, what more is there for me to say?”
Gritting her teeth, Yirong demanded, “Was it you—did Your Majesty order my husband’s sudden transfer from the Capital City?”
The Emperor found it amusing that even in her anger, she pulled back from outright disrespect. He admitted frankly, “Indeed.”
Leaning down, he touched her small face. “Zhen thought after half a month of reflection, you’d have figured it out.”
Yirong wasn’t surprised that the Emperor knew she’d shut herself in her room for the past half month.
Dusk was falling, and the distant horizon blazed with gorgeous crimson and purple clouds, their soft glow spilling into the hall. The man before her was undeniably handsome, his face devoid of any superfluous expression at that moment, exuding an awe-inspiring authority without even trying.
In a soft voice, Yirong said, “The kind of understanding Your Majesty speaks of is something I could never grasp in a lifetime.”
The Emperor’s expression darkened. He yanked her forward on her knees until she was sprawled across his lap. With a cold laugh, he said, “Nonsense. Lu Yirong, make no mistake— even if We had kept you in the palace from the moment We first saw you, the Cui Family wouldn’t dare lift a finger.”
Her face pressed against his knee, the contact with his body filling her with both fear and revulsion. She began to tremble involuntarily.
Yirong lifted her face and met the Emperor’s gaze head-on. His long lashes cast shadows beneath his eyes, and his gaze was profoundly deep.
Seeing her fall silent, the Emperor glanced down at the pair of delicate hands cradled in his palm. Her nails were painted with a watery pink nail polish, making her already fair and tender hands appear even whiter. He tapped the index finger of her left hand. “It’s uneven.”
Yirong immediately tried to pull her hand back, but he held it fast. She sighed inwardly. She’d rather he threaten her coldly like before than have him critique her nail polish.
Her knees ached dully, and a wave of pain radiated from her lower abdomen.
She had always been healthy. During her monthly periods in the past, she’d only occasionally felt some backache, and walking had never been an issue. But today, she’d felt off since morning, and now the pain was so intense she could barely speak, managing only shallow breaths.
She and the Emperor must be completely incompatible by the eight characters of their birth charts.
Still toying with her hands, the Emperor asked, “What scent is that on you?”
Her hands felt smooth and supple in his grasp, carrying an indescribably pleasant fragrance.
This feeling… was quite subtle.
He found it strange himself. In the early years, he’d been too busy to think about romance. Even in his leisure, he’d found feeding horses more interesting than seeking women. After ascending the throne, he was far busier than he’d been as a regional grand protector, yet he kept thinking of her.
He wanted to kiss her, hold her, see her smile for him.
She walked alone in the Imperial Garden with a beaming smile, and her smiles with Cui Cheng were all soft and coquettish. But with him, she was either crying or scared—completely ungrateful?
Yirong assumed the Emperor had smelled the scent of her monthly blood. Mortified, her face flushed crimson. She wanted to glare at him fiercely but didn’t dare, so she simply said outright, “This humble wife has started her monthly period.”
“What strange perfume is that?” The Emperor frowned slightly.
Yirong blinked, a bitter smile flashing across her lips. With a sigh, she said, “Your Majesty, it’s the monthly flow, my time of the month— not some perfume name!”
Remembering he had grown up in the palace, she added, “Has Your Majesty never heard of a woman’s ‘monthly affliction’?”
Seeing the fine sweat on her temples, the Emperor nodded as if half-understanding. He still didn’t grasp the details, but realizing she’d been kneeling for so long, he reached out, gripped her slender waist, and effortlessly lifted her onto the couch. “Are you unwell?”
Yirong shifted away a bit, leaning against the wall. She didn’t want to discuss her period any further with him.
That evasive movement nearly sparked his temper, but seeing her face deathly pale softened his heart. Muttering “Stubborn fool,” he ordered someone to summon the Imperial Physician.
At the Emperor’s command, a palace servant hurried off to fetch him.
Moments later, the Imperial Physician arrived outside the screen, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and straightening his robes before entering. He saw the Emperor seated on the couch, holding a slender white hand from behind, and commanded, “Come forward and take her pulse.”
The Imperial Physician kept his eyes downcast, not daring to look too closely. Knowing the Emperor was shielding his consort’s figure, he carefully checked her pulse and reported, “To Your Majesty, this Noble Lady has liver qi stagnation. After her monthly period passes, a course of soothing tonic will set her right. It’s no serious illness—Your Majesty need not worry.”
The Emperor gave a light cough and rose. “We have questions for you.”
He strode out, glancing at the Imperial Physician who scurried after him. “What is a ‘monthly period’?”
The Imperial Physician froze, then began explaining.
It was tricky— he couldn’t use any indelicate language in the Emperor’s presence, yet he feared the clearly ignorant ruler wouldn’t understand. As he spoke, the Emperor grew impatient. “Be direct.”
The Imperial Physician switched to plain speech, explaining everything clearly. Afterward, gauging the Emperor’s expression, he cautiously added, “Your Majesty, the lochia is foul and impure. During this time, you must absolutely not share a bed with this Noble Lady.”
–
Yirong lay on the soft couch. For some reason, the moment the Emperor left, she felt a bit better.
With the Emperor and the Imperial Physician speaking indistinctly behind the screen, and no other servants in the room, her curiosity about any other ailments got the better of her. She tiptoed over to listen.
After hearing the Imperial Physician warn against sharing a bed, he droned on about blood deficiency making one prone to fatigue during this time…
Yirong had no patience for such prattle. She returned to the couch and lay down.
Soon, the Emperor returned.
Hearing his footsteps, Yirong pushed herself up to get off the couch and kneel, but the Emperor stopped her, a flicker of awkwardness crossing his face. “Sit and talk.”
“What does Your Majesty wish to hear?” she asked.
Hearing her neither soft nor yielding tone, the Emperor touched her face. “Why didn’t you tell Zhen sooner? Next time, send word early.”
Yirong paused, then realized he meant she could have the palace servants inform him to hurry over, sparing her the agony of waiting in vain. But she wasn’t one of his consorts waiting for his favor!
In a low voice, she said, “This humble wife thanks Your Majesty for your mercy. But if there is no next summons, that would be the greatest kindness of all.”
The Emperor eyed the woman before him coldly. Pale and frail, with a stray lock of dark hair clinging to her snowy neck, she watched him warily after speaking, as if afraid he might strike her.
Furious, he laughed instead. “Is this how little you think of Zhen?”
If asked truthfully, Yirong despised him a hundred times over— this man who forcibly kissed her, tried to bend her with imperial might, and sought to shatter her happy marriage.
Recalling Third Miss Cui Youshu’s words, she sighed inwardly and said, “Your Majesty has the bearing to swallow rivers and mountains, your appearance majestic and extraordinary. Naturally, any unmarried maiden would adore you.”
“Zhen asked about you.”
Silence fell over the hall, lingering for a moment.
Seeing her lips pressed tightly shut, refusing to yield, he understood. With a barrage of cold laughs, he shot to his feet.
The Emperor’s face was thunderous. Yirong hugged her knees and shrank back, her heart pounding. She could avoid physical pain if possible. She didn’t know if the Emperor struck women, but she refused to utter falsehoods.
She feared that if she did, there would be no future for her and Cui Cheng.
Seeing her cower like that, rage surged in his chest. He wanted to lash out. But with her head bowed, her small pointed face exposed, her whole frame thin and tiny, and considering how much thinner she’d grown in the past half month while bleeding, he snorted coldly and stormed out.
Yirong watched his retreating back once more. Suddenly, the pouch hanging from his waist looked familiar, but his strides were so long that he vanished in an instant.
Moments later, several palace servants filed in one after another, smiling as they said, “Madam Lu, shall we escort you back?”
Yirong stood up at once and waved her hand. “Let’s go.”
On the way back, she lifted a corner of the sedan curtain. If they had been walking, it would have taken just a few minutes. When she returned to the Landscape Serenity Mirror, Shuilian and Xingxiang hurried over to greet her and helped her back to her bedroom.
Shuilian opened her mouth to ask what had happened to Yirong but suddenly remembered Xingxiang was still there and clamped her lips shut. Xingxiang smiled knowingly. “This servant will go prepare dinner.”
The moment she left, Shuilian asked softly, “Did Your Majesty summon you?”
With security that tight, it could only have been the Emperor.
Yirong nodded and reclined on the couch, mumbling sullenly, “My stomach hurts.”
Shuilian responded at once. “This servant will tell them to add a serving of black-boned chicken soup.”
Yirong had no appetite. For dinner, she drank only a bowl of chicken soup and took a few bites of vegetables before applying medicine to her knee and retiring for the night.
Beneath the bed curtains, the air felt cool and refreshing. Some things did not seem frightening in the moment, but the more she dwelled on them now, the more terrified she became. How had she found the nerve to defy the Emperor to his face—to contradict him outright?
A chill of aftershock ran through her, and she rolled over. Why on earth had she dared to act so brazenly before the Emperor? Her father had once joked that his very first student had been Yirong herself. From childhood, she had studied the Four Books and Five Classics. She knew well that all under Heaven belonged to the king and that every subject owed unwavering loyalty to their sovereign.
Yet in the Emperor’s presence, she simply could not rein in her temper.
Lu Yirong, oh Lu Yirong, you really shouldn’t have done that. She rapped her forehead lightly. Ever since arriving in the Capital City with her mother, she had encountered no shortage of vile, despicable people. Her uncle’s family alone was enough to turn one’s stomach. She had forced herself to tolerate them all, so why couldn’t she tolerate the Emperor?
It was because the Emperor was simply too infuriating…
But it was not just her. Her own kin, every soul in the world—their very lives rested in his hands alone.
She admonished herself repeatedly to exercise forbearance from now on. At the very least, she must never clash with the Emperor in words again as she had today. Instead, she needed to find some other way to extricate herself, to make him lose all interest in her…
Her thoughts churned for a while until her head pounded with pain.
She tried to recall precisely what the Emperor had said to her that day, but she simply did not wish to—it went against her heart. Even if he kept her in the palace outright, as he had suggested, she still would not want it.
That night, she went to bed one or two hours earlier than usual. Yirong tossed and turned until she suddenly sat bolt upright in bed.
Her husband had not sent her a single letter!
They had been married for two years now. At most, he had spent one night on duty without returning home, but every other day, he had come back to her. She remembered how, in her childhood, whenever her father left on a long journey for work, her mother received letters from him nearly every day.
He had not even woken her to bid farewell—that was nothing new; he never wanted her to rise and help him dress before departing. But how could there not be even one letter? Had he found out? Discovered something? Or had he already…
Yirong did not dare pursue the thought any further.
In the silent night, her heartbeat thundered wildly and urgently in her ears. Clutching the silk quilt to her chest, Yirong slowly lay back down. Duke Qiao’s Mansion was managed by the Eldest Young Madam. No matter how distant their relationship, she would not go so far as to withhold letters from her husband, would she?
Tomorrow, she would go to the Cui Family Separate Estate and ask her. If even she did not know, then Yirong would have no choice but to inquire of Empress Dowager Cui.
She must be careful, though—careful not to let the palace servants dispatched by the Emperor notice the true purpose of her outing.
She could only hope that tomorrow would bring news of Cui Cheng.