In one corner of the East Hall stood a majestic and ferocious Golden Lion Incense Burner, white smoke curling lazily upward.
At that moment, the hall was utterly silent, so quiet that even the sound of breathing had vanished.
The Emperor’s face betrayed no hint of joy or anger. Two young eunuchs exchanged a glance and stepped forward to help Yirong to her feet.
“All of you, get out.”
The Emperor flung his brush aside. It struck the floor tiles and splintered into two pieces.
Even Gao Fuliang, ever skilled at reading the Emperor’s moods, could not discern what he was thinking now. Was it that he refused to let any man—even an eunuch—touch Madam Lu? Or was he furious that a mere servant had dared to assist her on his own initiative?
The palace servants in the hall withdrew without a sound.
The Emperor descended the dais and half-sat before Yirong in a most undignified manner, cupping her face in both hands.
“What is this you’re doing?”
The tender skin of Yirong’s jaw shrank back from the Emperor’s rough palms.
She murmured softly, “This concubine is giving thanks for Your Majesty’s grace.”
Zheng Yan frowned. “Do not call yourself that. Be as you were before, and as you shall be hereafter.”
When he did not smile, an authority far beyond his years emanated from him.
Before Yirong could respond, the Emperor’s long arm snaked behind her back. With effortless strength, he lifted her onto his lap.
Their foreheads touched.
Their gazes intertwined, but Yirong averted her eyes, staring vaguely at the beast-shaped incense burner wafting fragrant smoke in the distance. They were too close. She could hear the powerful thrum of his heartbeat and feel the scorching arm banded around her waist—an inescapable presence.
“How will you thank Zhen?”
The Emperor’s voice rumbled low against her cheek, his words nearly brushing her lips.
The East Hall of Purple Chen Hall had long served as the place where Great Yan emperors handled state affairs and received ministers. It was a realm of dignity, solemnity, and restraint. Even after ascending the throne, Zheng Yan had left its layout unchanged, continuing to conduct the business of governance there as always.
In all the years since its construction, no emperor had ever sat on the floor here holding a woman in his arms.
She lifted her eyes. A faint, mocking smile tugged at his lips.
Ever since one parent had died and the other fallen ill, Yirong had mastered a great many polite formalities.
When a subject thanked the Emperor for his grace, what need was there for anything more? A few words about toiling like an ox or horse unto death would suffice. Yet as she gazed at him, she pursed her lips.
The humiliation of his earlier mockery welled up again, compelling her to speak despite herself.
“Your Majesty was right before. I know only how to fawn and flatter, offering myself upon the pillow.” She spoke each word deliberately.
He fell silent for a moment, then arched a brow. “Very well, then. Please Zhen.”
Yirong nodded faintly and leaned forward to brush her lips against the Emperor’s.
Zheng Yan watched her movements with an inscrutable expression. They were so near that he could make out the fine down on her cheeks and neck, along with her trembling eyelashes.
She withdrew her warm lips almost at once and silently began to undo her outer robe.
The Emperor closed his eyes for a beat. Her jade earrings swayed gently by her ear, revealing a glimpse of her white, fragrant shoulder and arm beneath.
The pinkish-purple garment pooled on the floor, lending a touch of intimacy to the stark austerity of the East Hall.
The face in his arms bore a pallid hue tinged with faint green, her sickly frailty evoking pity. Her eyelids drooped low, her long lashes veiling most of the bright, lively sparkle in her eyes. Her lips were pressed tight.
She had not yet recovered.
He caught Yirong’s hand in his.
The mocking anger that had flickered before was gone.
“Enough. It was only right for Zhen to send someone to treat your mother.” He paused. “Zhen does not covet this—”
Zheng Yan broke off.
Yirong glanced at him but said nothing.
They were pressed so close that neither could conceal any reaction from the other.
“Zhen does not covet just this moment.”
She remained silent. The fleeting shyness and restraint she had occasionally shown were absent now, replaced by a desolate calm.
An inexplicable pang pierced the Emperor’s heart, accompanied by an inexpressible bitterness.
He drew Yirong tightly into his embrace, rose to his feet, and returned to the chair behind the desk.
Yirong let him hold her. She let him dress her.
Even as his hands glided over her skin, sending involuntary shivers through her body, her thoughts drifted to the vigilant guards flanking the carriage on their journey back to the palace.
The Emperor had never dressed anyone before, much less a woman. Seeing her persistent silence, he fumbled with the garments while asking, “What are you thinking about?”
Yirong shrank back instinctively. Her back bumped against a hard memorial, and she frowned despite herself.
“Your Majesty, I am thinking of nothing.”
No sooner had she spoken than another thought struck her. She looked at the Emperor and asked, “Your Majesty, where do you intend for me to reside?”
A faint, impossible hope stirred within her as she posed the question.
If the Emperor had truly lost all interest in her, he could simply release her from the palace.
Without hesitation, the Emperor replied, “Right here.”
She knitted her delicate brows in bewilderment. “Do you mean for me to live in Purple Chen Hall?”
He nodded as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
This, of course, she had to refuse.
Her mother’s admonition not to clash directly with the Emperor flashed through Yirong’s mind. After a moment’s consideration, she said, “Your Majesty, it would be most improper for me to live here. You receive ministers here and rest here as well. I have no desire to be confined eternally to the bedchambers.”
“Someone is bound to see me,” she added.
Her brows furrowed slightly, her luminous eyes brimming with profound worry.
The Emperor replied, “It matters not. Zhen shall confer upon you the title of—soon enough.”
“Your Majesty!”
In her desperation, Yirong cut him off, clapping a hand over his mouth.
“Please, say no more.”
The Emperor pried her hand away, his expression turning grave. “What was your promise before?”
She had indeed vowed to enter the palace upon their return to the capital.
“Your Majesty, I beg you to spare a thought for my reputation. Wait at least half a year before any conferment.”
“Impossible.”
Yirong did not truly care what others might say of her. The truth would come out eventually, and fingers would point sooner or later. But that was beside the point. She had once feared her mother could not bear the knowledge, that it might worsen her condition.
Now her mother had accepted it.
Yet she herself could not.
Once she became an official consort, even if discarded, she would be doomed to while away her days in the palace.
No possibility of escape.
In a low voice, Yirong said, “Your Majesty, I am willing to reside in the palace. I beg you not to confer any title for the time being.”
The Emperor studied her for a moment, then declared unyieldingly, “Three months from now, then.”
“That is still too soon. Could Your Majesty delay it further?”
The Emperor said offhandedly, “Zhen consulted the auspicious days in spare moments. Three months hence it is—no later.”
He shifted tack. “How fares your mother’s health? Zhen intends to grant her a residence near Palace City, so she may visit you with ease.”
Yirong replied hastily, “On my mother’s behalf, I thank Your Majesty for your gracious intent. But she remains frail and requires quiet recuperation. There is no need for her to enter the palace.”
Her nose suddenly stung. In a soft voice, she continued, “Your Majesty, I am truly grateful that you sent someone to heal my mother and bring her joy once more.”
“May I leave the palace in future to visit her?”
She sat facing him on his lap, half-processed memorials at her back, their ink still damp. Zheng Yan felt a fleeting disorientation. Such conduct in his seat of governance seemed hardly proper.
The notion vanished as quickly as it had come. He gazed at Yirong and offered a faint smile, saying nothing.
Yirong held little hope of his agreement and felt no real disappointment.
She broached her reluctance to live in Purple Chen Hall once more. She saw it clearly now: she was the only woman in the Emperor’s harem at present. No doubt he was too indolent to trek to other palaces or summon her each time, hence his desire for her to reside with him.
In truth, if it were merely that one act, she could endure it—treat her as a statue or a wooden doll.
But whenever she fell silent, the Emperor would demand to know her thoughts. If she voiced something he disliked, his anger would flare, and he would berate her into silence.
Even expressions of gratitude required her to swallow his cutting retorts.
His presence was suffocatingly oppressive. Her heart perpetually dangled in uneasy limbo.
She could not suppress her resentment every waking moment.
–
That very night, Yirong took up residence in a place called Little Ling Prefecture, not far from Purple Chen Hall.
To her, it was akin to Harmony Hall or Landscape Serenity Mirror—but infinitely preferable to the Emperor’s own Purple Chen Hall.
Four familiar maids attended her in her chambers. Though prepared in haste, the arrangements mirrored those of her quarters in the Imperial Retreat Palace, complete with pots of rare chrysanthemum bonsai lining the windowsills.
Fortunately, the Emperor was occupied with duties and had no leisure to share supper with her. Yirong occasionally admired his diligence—and secretly hoped it kept him thus perpetually.
By the middle of the Xu hour, she had bathed and retired to bed, her hair unbound. Under the soft glow of several Night-Luminous Pearls, she perused a palace tome on garden tending.
In the hush of deepest night, Yirong dismissed her maids to rest and read with rapt attention until familiar footsteps echoed from the outer chamber.
It was him.
Zheng Yan personally parted the beaded curtain and strode inside. He glanced over the room’s furnishings, then forestalled Yirong as she moved to rise and curtsy. “No need for formalities.”
He gave her waist a pat. “Move over.”
She shifted silently to the inner side of the bed.
The Emperor sat half-reclined beside her. Yirong had already taken down her hair, letting her dark tresses cascade naturally over her shoulders. Her full earlobes were bare, and she lay quietly, wrapped in apricot-colored silk bedding. He lay down next to her, and soon the palace maids tiptoed outside to extinguish the lamps, leaving only a single night-luminous pearl glowing softly.
“Are you comfortable living here?” he asked. “Do you like it?”
Yirong did not reply right away.
She had considered acting coquettish and charming toward Zheng Yan, as she had done before—treating him like her own husband, letting time soften his suspicions. He wouldn’t doubt her so quickly again, after all; her change back then had been too abrupt.
But she didn’t want to debase herself like that.
She also didn’t know how to handle his unpredictable moods.
“Very good,” she murmured softly. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor reached out and touched her fair, pink-tinged earlobe—the very spot that had caught his eye the first time he saw her, when her earrings had swayed like ripples on water.
He resisted the urge to kiss it and said, “Tomorrow, I’ll have the imperial physician take another good look at you.”
The palace physicians always prescribed tonics even for the healthy after taking a pulse. Yirong had no desire to drink more of that stuff. She brushed it off. “My body’s fine. The imperial physician checked my pulse every day on the road back and said I was in perfect health.”
“Your complexion doesn’t look good,” the Emperor drawled slowly. “He’ll check other things too.”
“Check what?” she asked, puzzled.
The Emperor pinched her earlobe and chuckled lightly. “Silly girl.”
The gentle glow of the night-luminous pearl filtered through the bed curtains, and in an instant, Yirong saw the tenderness in his pitch-black eyes.
She wasn’t silly. She understood right away.
The Emperor was twenty-four years old and still without children—a very late start indeed among the men of Great Yan. And given his position, he needed heirs, perhaps even more than one.
And she…
All five of her sisters-in-law from the Cui Family had borne children. Yirong hadn’t worried about it in her first year of marriage, but later she had quietly summoned a renowned female physician to the estate for a checkup. The doctor had assured her that her body was perfectly healthy; she simply lacked the fate for children at the moment.
The Emperor, meanwhile, was strong and vigorous, with no sign of any ailment.
Yirong was too shocked to speak. Her eyes widened as she stared at him.
Zheng Yan couldn’t hold back under her gaze. He leaned in, his warm lips capturing one of her soft earlobes, licking it gently.
Yirong trembled all over and slowly turned onto her side.
She frowned. “Didn’t Your Majesty say you weren’t in a hurry for this moment?”
It was too obvious.