Yun Yi went ahead with the palace attendants, enthusiastically joining in the decoration of the theater stage.
Wang Delan would never dare let her lift a finger—Ancestor Yun was a big shot specifically entrusted to him by higher-ups to be “well taken care of.”
With nothing to do, Yun Yi became a bored bystander. Craning her neck under the stage, she found herself mesmerized by the murals in the caisson ceiling.
Damn it. She didn’t bring her camera.
“Ancestor,” Wang Delan lowered his voice, “whatever you do, don’t climb the ladder. If you twist your ankle, how am I supposed to explain it to the higher-ups?”
Yun Yi thought, I have to live up to this eunuch uniform. Ignoring Wang Delan’s repeated objections, she insisted on climbing the ladder to hang the backdrop.
While hanging it, she asked the young eunuch beside her, “Does His Majesty enjoy watching plays?”
This young eunuch had been specially brought in by Wang Delan as a decoy and had no idea who she was. Taking her as a newbie who didn’t know the rules, he answered honestly, “I’ve heard that every fifth day of the month is when the Empress Dowager watches her plays.”
“The Empress Dowager…?” Yun Yi’s legs wobbled, making the ladder creak. Wang Delan rushed over in a panic and steadied it.
At the sight, the young eunuch’s pupils contracted!
Eunuch Wang was the Emperor’s right-hand man—how could he go to such lengths for a newcomer eunuch?
Yun Yi thought to herself, So the theater is the Empress Dowager’s territory.
The day she’d soul-jumped into the Imperial Seal, it had coincided with the Emperor and the Empress Dowager having a furious argument in the study.
Known fact one: She had become family and friend to the Emperor in the Yan Dynasty.
Known fact two: The Empress Dowager and the Emperor had a poor relationship.
Variable: Her presence in the Yan Dynasty.
Question: Should she still watch the play?
Even an idiot knew the answer.
Run. Get out of there fast.
Yun Yi excused herself to the bathroom.
Her new eunuch coworker followed her in, stood before the pit with no trace of modern amenities, and smiled at her. “My name’s Xiao Fuzi. What’s yours?”
Yun Yi, who had clearly walked into the wrong restroom, met Xiao Fuzi’s eyes as he lifted his eunuch robe. Every pore in her body screamed.
Ah. Ah. AHHHH!
Watching the figure flee from the bathroom, Xiao Fuzi’s heart filled with grievance: Mother, you said that after enduring castration, the good days would come. So why, son feels, are the days in the palace so unbearable?
Yun Yi wandered aimlessly like a headless fly, successfully getting lost.
“Miss, later will you sit with the Empress Dowager or with His Majesty?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
Ahead stood two young women. The one being addressed blushed at her maid’s question. Though her words scolded, her lips curled into a smile, as gentle as a spring breeze, making even the withered willow behind her seem to sprout anew.
So the play was a pretense; matchmaking was the real intention. Yun Yi immediately had second thoughts.
Of the thirty-six stratagems… best to chicken out and run.
“Hold it.”
Yun Yi froze in place, counting to three in her head.
The maid asked her, “Which palace are you from?”
Not very skilled at eunuch duties, she slipped: “The Emperor’s palace.”
“How dare you!” the maid scolded.
“We’re in the palace now, not at our estate. Don’t frighten the eunuch,” the young lady said kindly. “Eunuch, are you one of His Majesty’s attendants?”
Yun Yi nodded. This young lady was gentle and reasonable—practically a perfect match for the Emperor.
“What’s your name?” the young lady asked.
Yun Yi’s brain spun quickly. In My Fair Princess, there were Xiao Dengzi and Xiao Zhuozi. So she’d call herself Xiao Yizi—Little Chair.
“Little Chair.”
“Little Yunzi.”
Yun Yi and someone else spoke at the same time, their voices colliding in the wind.
The Emperor had arrived at some unknown moment.
No one dared look too closely at his face. They only saw a silhouette pass by—sharp features, slow and steady steps, an air of majesty in every movement.
On his dragon robe, golden thread coiled into an angry dragon. As the hem of his robe fluttered, the dragon seemed to swim through a sea of clouds, alive.
Yue Ying stood in a daze for a moment.
She had grown up in the inner chambers. Her father had exhausted every effort to send her to the palace. She had accepted her fate—just one among three thousand beauties, vying for the favor of the man on the throne.
She had wept countless nights over a solitary lamp, resenting fate’s injustice, knowing that seeing her parents even once would be harder than climbing to heaven.
But now, she had seen that unapproachable man.
Face like jade, handsome beyond compare.
So fate had been kind to her after all.
Yue Ying, aware that she had overstepped her bounds, put away that fleeting glance and pressed her back even lower.
Yun Yi followed her gaze. The mistress and servant beneath the willow tree were kneeling on the ground, the coral-colored swaying hairpin in the young lady’s hair barely brushing the withered yellow grass.
How humble, Yun Yi thought, her heart aching a little for her.
“This humble daughter greets His Majesty!” Yue Ying said.
“Come to my side.”
Yue Ying’s heart warmed. Just as she was about to answer, “As you command,” the corner of her eye caught the young eunuch bounding over to the Emperor’s side.
She froze for a moment: Little Chair… he didn’t even kneel?
Xiao Zhi listened to Xiao Fuzi’s version of events—”He frightened a coworker away while using the restroom”—and his brow twitched violently.
He had come searching all the way.
She wasn’t lost. Just entangled by some tactless woman.
The Emperor lowered his voice, asking with the fierce grumpiness of Granny Rong: “Little Chair? Who gave you that name?” First Xiao Fuzi left, now here came Xiao Little Chair.
“None of your business.” Yun Yi’s voice was stubbornly defiant.
Unable to hear the exchange by the Emperor, Yue Ying only knew that when he told her to rise, his face was dark.
Could His Majesty be angry that she hadn’t been attending the Empress Dowager? But this had clearly been the Empress Dowager’s idea—to let her appear early, and if she happened to run into the Emperor and exchange a few words, leave an impression on him.
From the look of things, she seemed to have botched it.
She watched from the corner of her eye, and doing so, she began to notice something interesting.
When the Emperor spoke with other palace attendants, his expression, though cool, was never this unpleasant. But with that particular young eunuch, every time he spoke to him, his brows knitted together, his face notably sour.
After the Empress Dowager arrived, everyone took their seats in turn, waiting for the opera to begin.
To create an opportunity for Yue Ying, the Empress Dowager said gently, “Ying’er, go give your imperial brother the playbill.”
The wind carried those words into Yun Yi’s ears.
Imperial brother~
Ugh…
Standing beside the imperial seat, Yun Yi glanced sideways at the throne gleaming with gold lacquer.
Why did people have to be ranked into different classes?
She stood as punishment. He sat.
And then that clueless Xiao Fuzi handed her a cup of jasmine tea, signaling her to serve it to His Majesty.
The teacup burned her hand. Yun Yi wanted to turn it upside down on someone’s head.
As if sensing something, Xiao Zhi swept his gaze over and caught a face with the word “insults” etched all over it.
He gave a faint snort and looked down at her hand.
Her knuckles were red from the heat.
Xiao Zhi reached out and snatched the teacup from her.
“Idiot.”
The palace attendants’ hearts jumped. One after another, they cast sympathetic looks toward the newcomer.
Life as a servant was hard. Even handing tea could earn a scolding from His Majesty.
Yue Ying walked to the imperial seat, playbill in hand, and her lashes fluttered sharply twice.
The Emperor’s throne sat behind a carved dragon red sandalwood desk. Had she not approached from the side, no one would have seen what was beneath the Emperor’s feet.
But as luck would have it, she saw.
The young eunuch handed over the tea. The Emperor, displeased with his clumsy service, snatched the cup from him. The young eunuch’s expression didn’t change, but his foot shuffled forward—and landed squarely on the Emperor’s dragon boot.
Impaled!
Drowned in a pig cage!
Dismembered by five horses!
Nine exterminations!
Countless horrifying images flashed through Yue Ying’s mind.
This Little Chair was surely about to have his limbs broken and his bones ground to dust.
A faint flicker of sympathy stirred in Yue Ying’s heart as she hurriedly presented the playbill. “Please select a play, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor took it calmly. “You may withdraw.”
Yue Ying: “…?”
She turned and walked back, her head full of what she had just witnessed. Had His Majesty truly let Little Chair off so easily? Didn’t his toes hurt?
The opera troupe sang and performed. From afar, the Empress Dowager saw the cold sharpness in the Emperor’s eyes and gave a mocking laugh.
Yun Yi watched, spellbound, and found herself envying the ancients. The staging, the makeup—truly top-notch. A national treasure! Unmatched! How thrilled her father would be if he were here.
Her gaze unconsciously drifted from the stage down to Xiao Zhi’s hands. She saw him holding the small covered cup between two fingers—his knuckles sharp and distinct, tangled blue veins disappearing into his sleeve. A single random click of the shutter would make a poster-worthy shot.
Just as she was thinking that, a soft thud rang out. The Emperor’s elbow shifted slightly, and the playbill on the desk fell to the ground.
On purpose… He did that on purpose. Payback for the foot stomp. Yun Yi bent down to pick it up, her eyes landing on the boot’s toe, where a dusty footprint sat—the irrefutable evidence of her crime.
Yun Yi had no choice but to move a little closer to Xiao Zhi’s side, pretending to be a eunuch wholly devoted to serving his master.
The Emperor turned to Wang Delan and asked a few routine questions about the opera troupe.
Noticing that the Empress Dowager in the distance had started chatting with Yue Ying beside her, Xiao Zhi said quite casually, “Angry?”
It felt like two spies making contact.
Yun Yi shot him a glance—the first eye contact she’d had with him since the opera began.
Hmph. Why would an idiot be angry? Yun Yi looked away.
On stage, the performance had reached its climax. Everyone, master and servant alike, had their eyes fixed on the stage.
Someone nudged her foot. Yun Yi ignored him, her gaze resolutely forward.
Xiao Zhi, receiving no response: “…”
The actor struck a pose, sending a sleeve flying into the air as he drew out a long, melodic note.
“Ahem.” Xiao Zhi’s throat tightened.
The cough alarmed Wang Delan, who hurriedly poured tea and offered it to His Majesty.
Xiao Zhi didn’t take it. Instead, he asked Little Chair, “Why are you ignoring me?”
His movement was so large that the Empress Dowager shot him a concerned look.
If she kept ignoring the Emperor, Yun Yi was genuinely afraid the Empress Dowager might sense something was off.
Reluctantly, she opened the playbill and pointed with her pale pink fingertip at a line of lyrics on the page.
Xiao Zhi silently read the line: I once thought him magnanimous and broad, but he’s nothing but a faithless wretch.
Just then, the white-faced Cao Cao on stage began singing the same line.
Wretch. Faithless. Wretch.
Xiao Zhi let out a breathless laugh.
Stabbing his tiger-head hand with a silver needle… stomping on his foot… She had no idea how strong she was, did she?
Every day she grew bolder. Now she dared to insult the Son of Heaven.
Fine. Didn’t want her head anymore, did she.
As the first act ended, the Empress Dowager led Yue Ying toward the imperial seat.
“Greetings to Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager!” Wang Delan’s raspy voice suddenly rang out. In an instant, a dark sea of people knelt.
At this point, not kneeling would be rude. Yun Yi dropped to her knees with a resounding thud.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the Empress Dowager forcefully pulling Yue Ying in front of the Emperor to show her off.
Putting herself in Yue Ying’s shoes—being dragged by meddling relatives in front of a blind date, appraised like a piece of merchandise… Ah. She felt a bit of sympathy for Miss Yue.
Empress Dowager: “Emperor, this is Yue Minye’s daughter.”
The Emperor looked utterly disinterested. He had no enthusiasm for these twittering birds and butterflies, nor any intention of making conversation.
“Your servant, Yue Ying, greets His Majesty.”
“Rise.”
The Emperor’s mood was very faint. His phoenix eyes lifted an inch—not toward Yue Ying, but toward the Little Chair by his side.
She was wearing a ridiculous eunuch’s turban, kneeling so low he could only see the snow-white point of her chin.
Yue Ying rose as instructed. Yun Yi noticed that her temporary colleagues were all still kneeling—how could she dare stand? She shifted her legs slightly, adjusting to a more comfortable angle.
Even without “knee-easy” pads, she wanted to kneel as comfortably as possible.
Xiao Zhi frowned. “Everyone on that stage is waiting for the Empress Dowager to choose the second act.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the lively scene abruptly froze.
The smile on the Empress Dowager’s face stiffened.
The Emperor had just compared her to opera actors—a clear sign he held her in no regard.
“Wang Delan, escort the Empress Dowager back to her seat.”
“As you command.”
Yue Ying was even more stunned. The Emperor’s cold attitude said it all.
His Majesty hadn’t taken a liking to her.
This high-stakes blind date had, after all, hit a snag.
The male contestant wouldn’t speak to the female contestant. The matchmaker’s efforts had been in vain.
Yun Yi’s secondhand embarrassment was nearly unbearable. Could she slip away? Her knees were going numb from kneeling!
She didn’t know when the crowd dispersed.
The Emperor’s voice drifted down from above her, faint and haunting: “If you like kneeling so much, I’ll let you kneel to your heart’s content once we’re back at the palace.”
Leave a Reply