Yirong woke and immediately sat up, astonished to feel her long hair cascading smoothly down her back.
She called out, “Shuilian, did you undo my hair?”
Shuilian, who had been sitting in front of the bed, lifted the bed curtains at the sound of her voice and whispered, “This servant didn’t. His Majesty came by earlier; perhaps he undid your hair for you.”
As she spoke, she noticed something and picked up two pearl hairpins from the bedside table. She held them out to Yirong with both hands.
Yirong didn’t even glance at them. Her vision went pitch black, and she nearly blacked out and toppled over.
“Miss, miss, what’s wrong?”
The calls by her ear faded rapidly into the distance.
Shuilian anxiously pushed at the dazed Yirong, repeatedly shouting, “Miss!”
It took a good while before Yirong snapped out of her shock. Her lips trembled as she said, “Shuilian, did Your Majesty come in through the main gate of the Landscape Serenity Mirror?”
Even though the place was secluded with few visitors, and even though no one had noticed the last time she went to the emperor’s sleeping chambers.
Shuilian looked puzzled at her words. She replied cautiously, “No, that’s not it… This servant didn’t see where Your Majesty entered from, but he left through the back gate. Later, this servant asked Xingxiang if there was a secret passage. She said your Landscape Serenity Mirror is connected to His Majesty’s Central Harmony Hall by a narrow alleyway.”
Yirong gave a dazed, bitter laugh. For a moment, she didn’t know which was worse.
So she had been under the emperor’s control all along. Not only were the palace servants clearly placed there by him, but her residence—her very bedroom—was somewhere he could come and go as he pleased.
What was she to do? What was she to do? What was she to do…
Yirong collapsed back onto the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Was she truly left with no choice but to submit to the emperor’s wishes? Was she doomed to one day kneel before some highborn lady like the Pei family girl she had seen today, now the empress, and fawn over her like that fellow townswoman Gu Shi fawning over Empress Dowager Cui? To spend her days as a lonely consort deep in the palace?
And most crucially, her husband Cui Cheng…
Yirong regretted not telling him sooner about the emperor’s designs on her, even if he might have been powerless to do anything.
No, she changed her mind. She didn’t want Cui Cheng fighting the emperor over her.
She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow. The tears wouldn’t stop. After crying silently for a good while, Yirong sat up and let Shuilian wipe her face clean.
Shuilian whispered, “Xingxiang at least knows her place. She doesn’t hover around you unless necessary.”
She couldn’t very well run away from the Imperial Retreat Palace, so there was no need for tight surveillance, Yirong thought expressionlessly. Once she was awake, the two maids from the outer chamber brought in blood swallow soup and warm sweet broth for her.
Yirong ate in silence.
After finishing, she felt no energy at all. Her mind kept circling around what to do when she suddenly realized something off.
Empress Dowager Cui was also at the Imperial Retreat Palace. Yirong knew this sister of hers was skilled at managing palace affairs. Could she truly be ignorant of Yirong’s situation? Did she know Yirong lived in the Landscape Serenity Mirror? Did she know this place was actually connected to the emperor’s sleeping chambers?
Logically speaking, it should have been Empress Dowager Cui who arranged her lodgings. Or had her position fallen so far that she was in the dark?
Yirong pondered it for a while, but she felt utterly listless and unwilling to move. She sat motionless on a small couch by the window. Deep down, she knew this wasn’t good—like the melancholy she’d heard about.
But Yirong simply had no strength or mood to do anything. Her lips curved in a bitter smile. It felt no different from waiting to die.
She spent four days in this dazed haze before finally regaining some spirit. That evening, after dinner, as she sat in her bedroom distilling floral dew, Xingxiang lifted the beaded curtain and reported, “Young Madam, His Majesty summons you.”
Yirong set down the bottle in her hands. “Let’s go.”
“Through the back courtyard,” she added.
Xingxiang led Yirong out through the back gate. Sure enough, there was a narrow path wide enough for four people abreast, hidden under the cover of trees. It took less than the time to drink half a cup of tea to reach the Central Harmony Hall where the emperor resided.
The grand hall was quiet. After the palace servants paid their respects, they led Yirong straight into the sleeping chambers. At the door to the sleeping chambers, the palace maid stopped and gestured for Yirong to enter alone.
She took a deep breath.
Compared to the residence the emperor had arranged for her, the emperor’s own sleeping chambers could almost be called simple and unadorned, with very few furnishings. It was dusk, and the setting sun filtered through the wide-open glazed windows, bathing the room in a warm amber glow.
In another hour, night would fall.
She was no innocent girl like Yunying before marriage; she understood well enough what would happen once she rounded the screen. Her footsteps faltered involuntarily. After a moment, she forced herself to continue.
The emperor wasn’t there.
Yirong let out a sudden breath of relief. Behind the screen was only the bed with its hanging curtains and a small couch. She hesitated for a moment before sitting on the small couch, staring blankly at her toes.
It was no different from waiting to die. The thought crept over Yirong’s heart like slender vines.
Moments later, a palace maid entered to light the candles on two lamp stands, then curtsied and withdrew.
The candles burned brightly. When the emperor reached the screen, he paused just as Yirong had earlier, his gaze fixed on her.
She sat on the small couch and rose immediately at the sound, her eyes—like rippling autumn waters—gazing at him uneasily.
He watched her quietly in return.
As if jolted awake from a dream, Yirong moved to kneel, but the emperor strode forward, scooped her up before her knees could bend fully, and placed her swiftly back on the small couch. One strong arm remained around her waist.
“No need to kneel.”
Yirong murmured, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Inwardly, she sighed darkly at how poorly positioned this small couch was… It hadn’t seemed so when she was alone, but it hugged the bedpost and stood right against an antique cabinet crammed with porcelain vases and curios. She shifted back quietly, trying to put some distance between herself and the man before her.
But there was nowhere to escape. The emperor’s hand still rested at her waist, its heat searing and impossible to ignore.
Forcing down her body’s trembling, she lifted her head. The emperor looked relaxed, as if appraising her.
Yirong blinked, suddenly realizing why. No wonder Shuilian and Xingxiang had looked like they wanted to say something when she left; they had probably wanted to urge her to dress up. Today, since she wasn’t going out, she had only put her hair in the simplest bun, adorned with a plain silver hairpin.
The emperor, by contrast, wore a moon-white casual robe, his temples still faintly damp with moisture. As the hall’s fan wheels turned the air, Yirong caught the subtle scent of ambergris on him.
The emperor had just bathed… She hadn’t waited long today because he had gone to bathe before coming to see her. She blinked dazedly, her anxiety mounting. Her mind scattered, unable to focus on what might happen next.
The sky darkened bit by bit, the candle flames flickering in the night breeze.
The emperor gazed at Yirong’s slightly lowered face, her skin glowing whiter than snow. He reached out and removed her hairpin, causing her bun to loosen slightly.
“Don’t be afraid,” the emperor said softly.
He set the hairpin aside and touched her cheek. Seeing how unusually quiet and docile she was today stirred a surge of delight in him, and words slipped out unbidden.
“This is Zhen’s first time.”
No sooner had the emperor spoken than he pressed his lips together in regret, especially upon meeting Yirong’s stunned gaze.
Why had he said that to her? Why tell her?
It was practically like currying her favor.
He wished he could take the words back, yet a flicker of eager anticipation arose—wondering what reaction she might have beyond surprise. This childish whim drew a soft scoff from the emperor, mocking himself.
Yirong kept her eyes downcast, betraying no emotion.
The emperor subtly sought her gaze. She was looking at a celadon lotus-patterned porcelain vase on the antique cabinet beside her, but her eyes were distant, unfocused—not truly admiring the curio.
“What are you thinking?”
Yirong turned her face to meet the emperor’s eyes, staring into the inky depths beneath his long lashes. Calmly, she said, “This subject-wife is wondering if only death will make you let me go.”
Her tone was remarkably serene, devoid of excess hatred or pleading, as if discussing some trivial matter.
The emperor’s smile froze. He stared at her coldly for a moment, as if peering through to her very blood and bones, then said with certainty, “You wouldn’t dare die.”
Yirong dug her nails into her palm, her chest heaving. She nearly snapped back at him but forced the words down. Her heart pounded wildly, threatening to burst from her chest.
They were very close; Yirong could clearly see the chill on the emperor’s face. Her own face drained of color, her body going limp as she slowly unclenched her fist.
She knew the emperor had investigated her life thoroughly and was aware of her frail mother. How could she truly take her own life? She endured it again and again before saying, “If I had acted improperly and provoked Your Majesty myself, then I would gladly die. But I didn’t…”
As she spoke, Yirong quickly wiped away the falling tears. “So why should I seek death? Your Majesty doesn’t care whether I live or die. Even if I really did—”
She cut herself off. To continue would sound like she was forcing him to say he couldn’t bear to see her dead.
Her earlier talk of death had been sincere, not a threat. But now, calming slightly, she naturally couldn’t bear to end it all.
Why should she?
Yirong wiped at her tears even as they continued to flow. She didn’t want to cry and whimper in front of the emperor and scrubbed at her eyes fiercely.
The emperor grasped her hand. With the gentlest pressure, she couldn’t move.
She bit her lip. Her feverish eyes overlapped their hands, which completely covered half her face.
Yirong asked softly, “Why me… Your Majesty, why me?”
The emperor released the hand shielding her eyes. His fingertips were wet with her tears. Amid his anger at her insolence, a trace of softness stirred.
But the person the Emperor had set his sights on naturally belonged to him. What was there to explain? Did she really not understand that simple truth?
“No reason,” the Emperor said lightly.
He warned her again, “In the future, you’re forbidden from mentioning death. You still have your mother and relatives alive in this world.”
Yirong could only feel that the Emperor was threatening her with her mother’s life. She stared at him, her two petal-like pink lips parting to spit out two words: “Tyrant.”
The Emperor’s face changed, and he flew into a rage. “Insolent!”
Though he was young, he had spent years coming and going through military camps in all weathers, carrying an aura of immense authority. With a single darkened expression, any ordinary minister or palace servant would have already kowtowed and begged for mercy.
Yirong’s lips trembled as she mustered her spirits to meet his gaze.
She had a habit since childhood of talking back to people. When her father taught her to read, she could counter every one of his sentences with three questions of her own. Back when her parents were both healthy, they would often fret and dote on her with sighs about how her temperament would fare once she was married—how would she ever get along with her husband?
Who could have imagined that after her father’s death and her mother’s illness, she had quietly changed? She got along wonderfully with her husband, Cui Cheng.
Yet here, before the Emperor, that childish flaw had reared its head again, dooming her. Yirong bit her lip. Her wrist ached fiercely, and she had no doubt that if he gripped it any harder, he could snap it right off.
In her daze, she thought their standoff had dragged on for ages, but in truth, only a few moments had passed.
“Your Majesty, General Fan requests an audience,” Gao Fuliang said, taking small steps up to the screen outside before steeling himself to report. He had naturally heard the Emperor’s sharp rebuke from beyond the partition and wasn’t sure if he should be reporting at a time like this. But with a close minister of the Emperor seeking entry, he didn’t dare hold back the announcement.
Behind the landscape screen, the faint, hazy silhouettes of two figures stood extremely close, their shadows overlapping as one.
“At this hour, does Fan Ying have urgent business?” The Emperor’s displeased voice drifted out from behind the screen.
Gao Fuliang gave an awkward smile. “This servant doesn’t know. But General Fan always has something to report when he seeks an audience.”
The Emperor released his grip on Yirong’s hand and rose to his feet.
With his back to her, he said coldly, “Zhen has overlooked your various acts of rudeness and defiance in the past. This time, Zhen permits you to return and reflect on it. Think it through clearly.”
Yirong had no desire to speak, nor any words left to say. As she lowered her eyes, however, she noticed the pouch embroidered with patterns of fortune, prosperity, and longevity hanging at the Emperor’s waist.
She hesitated and took two steps forward, but the Emperor had already walked out.
Yet Yirong had seen it clearly. It struck her like a bolt of lightning, leaving her rooted to the spot in shock. Gao Fuliang assumed she had regrets and wanted to chase after the Emperor to beg forgiveness. He reminded her in a quiet voice, “Madam Lu, His Majesty isn’t free to see you right now. Go back and think it over carefully. Once you come around, there will only be wealth and glory ahead for you.”