In that large fish tank glazed with green intertwining branches, birds, and flowers, swam Xiao Zhi’s most prized few ranchu goldfish.
Ranchu are delicate creatures, tended to by a eunuch whose sole duty was raising fish.
Right now, as Yun Yi eyed the tank like a starving cat staring at a meal, the attending eunuch felt his head grow heavy, as if it might detach from his body.
Miss Yun was thirsty. The palace attendants hurriedly advised her, saying the emperor’s tea set was off-limits, and they would prepare another set for her.
But this young lady insisted on doing the exact opposite. She gripped the rim of the fish tank with both hands, bent down, and gulped down two big mouthfuls of water.
There was no need for the attendants to report the details. Xiao Zhi could picture the absurd scene with his eyes closed.
“That water in the fish tank comes from the Jade Spring Mountain’s living spring.” Raw water, and she dared drink it? Was she not afraid of upsetting her stomach?
Yun Yi smacked her lips and sighed. “A gift from nature.”
The emperor silently took a few steps back.
A rich aroma of food drifted to his nose—a rice fragrance far more robust than that of ordinary grain.
The hungry gluttons in his stomach stood up in unison, waving flags and shouting: Ahhhh, food is here!
But the little figure in his mind scoffed: Hah, too little too late. The hunger pang has passed. Who wants to eat now?
“Are you sure you don’t want to eat?” Seeing that the girl on the bed had her eyes tightly shut, though her eyelids kept fluttering, Xiao Zhi said lazily, “Summon someone. Pour Miss Yun a cup of Jade Dew Drink. It’s made from rare spices and fresh fruits offered as tribute…”
Before he could finish, Yun Yi had sprung up from the bed like a monkey dashing back to the forest, scurrying to the table and seating herself.
Xiao Zhi let out a snort of laughter: Ugly monkey.
Truth be told, she wasn’t actually thirsty. Earlier, while the attendants were busy, she had already picked up the imperial teapot, put her mouth to the spout, and guzzled down plenty. The emperor’s tea was nothing special—not as good as the unsweetened jasmine Longjing she liked to drink.
“Not good?” Xiao Zhi took a sip. Sweet and tart, pleasing to the palate—it should be to a woman’s taste.
“It’s okay.” Not as good as Heytea or Mixue, and certainly not as good as Chagee.
Xiao Zhi’s smile faded.
The emperor was displeased. Wang Delan, who understood the imperial will better than anyone, felt his palms sweat.
Yun Yi picked the plumpest prawn from the dish and placed it into the emperor’s bowl. “This one’s for you.”
The emperor looked down at the bowl. He had already eaten his evening meal, yet somehow, at this moment, in this bedchamber that no longer felt cold and empty, surrounded by the warmth of mortal life, he felt a bit hungry again.
“Not eating?” Yun Yi saw that the emperor hadn’t moved. “Do you need me to peel it for you?”
Wang Delan wanted to take that prawn lying in the imperial bowl but didn’t dare. Inside, he was screaming: That’s supposed to be my job!
Yun Yi pushed the bowl back toward the emperor. “In your dreams. Do it yourself.”
She would bet a string of coins that the emperor had never peeled a prawn in his life.
Xiao Zhi glanced sideways. He saw her cheeks puffing slightly, and in the span of a few breaths, a small mountain of prawn shells had piled up on her bone plate.
Devouring one prawn per bite, sweeping through like a storm—this must be the magic of someone from the celestial realm.
Xiao Zhi washed his hands and began peeling a prawn with refined elegance. Eunuchs and palace maids hovered around him, setting up the full ceremonial arrangement for attending to an imperial meal.
But then, His Majesty placed the peeled prawn meat firmly into Miss Yun’s bowl.
The crowd: “?!”
This prawn was the king of the entire dish. After removing its shell, it was pearly white and plump. Yun Yi’s eyes turned red, yet she still tried to feign modesty. “Oh my, you’re not eating it yourself?”
Xiao Zhi gave her a sidelong glance, seeing right through her false courtesy. “I have already dined.”
Yun Yi hesitated for a moment, then grinned sheepishly and gobbled it down in one bite. Afraid of ignoring the man who had peeled it for her, she mumbled with her cheeks bulging, “Apart from my mom and dad, no one’s ever peeled prawns for me before.”
Xiao Zhi raised an eyelid. “Don’t talk while eating.”
Hmph. So many rules with you.
After eating and drinking their fill.
The attendants cleared away the dishes and cups with neat, swift movements.
Xiao Zhi paced to the side of the imperial throne and stopped.
On the dragon chair were two cushions, and the silk brocade beneath was crumpled into a mess.
He turned around, his gaze landing squarely on the eyes of the culprit.
The girl smoothed her dusty gray Taoist robe and offered a guilty little smile. Seeing his unfriendly expression, she quickly scurried back to the dragon bed, rolled up her sleeves, and began patting and smoothing the bedding.
After flattening the last crease, the groveling Yun spoke: “It’s all made up. Please, Your Majesty, take your seat!”
Not a trace of fear that she had committed a capital offense deserving of death by imperial decree. Instead, she looked as if she had just done him a thoughtful favor.
He had never encountered someone like her before. Xiao Zhi was momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
Yun Yi’s gaze fell on the carved dragon pillar at the head of the bed. Her oversized bandage was still affixed there, perfectly intact. Even when the dragon bed had been damaged before and the attendants replaced it with a new one, they had carefully peeled it off and restuck it properly.
“Ugh, why haven’t you thrown away this piece of medical waste?”
She might as well not have brought it up. The moment she did, Xiao Zhi suddenly remembered the bandage on Xiao Qian’s forehead.
“You can’t just give away immortal medicine to just anyone,” he said, pulling open the drawer of the desk and taking out her satchel. Sure enough, several bandages were missing from the box.
Yun Yi: “?” Had the wretched emperor just ridden an emotional rollercoaster? Sunny one moment, gloomy the next.
She studied his features closely. Something felt different from the daytime. The wound on his brow was gone. Could a bandage really work such miracles in the Yan Dynasty?
After a moment’s thought, Yun Yi asked, “Are you also ‘just anyone’?”
Somehow, Xiao Zhi’s expression improved considerably.
Xiao Qian’s features closely resembled his own—so much so that even the Dowager Empress couldn’t tell them apart. Naturally, Yun Yi, who had no idea about any of this, couldn’t distinguish them either.
Disgusted by her blindness, Xiao Zhi said, “You have no eye for detail.”
“…?” Excuse me, buddy, I was kind enough to give you a bandage, and you insult me?
These days, it’s not easy being a Good Samaritan.
Yun Yi turned and headed toward the duty room, hoping to find some peace and quiet there—at least she wouldn’t have to deal with the emperor’s mood swings.
The hem of her Taoist robe was too long and dragged on the floor. Suddenly, her foot caught. Oh no, she thought, I’m about to faceplant.
But then the back of her neck was grabbed by a large hand, yanking her upward. Her back crashed straight into the emperor’s chest.
Xiao Zhi was tall. Looking down, he could only see the soft hair on top of her head, like a wheat field tousled by a strong wind.
Yun Yi froze against his chest for two seconds, dazed. She felt like her best friend’s golden shaded British Shorthair cat, sinking deep into a soft cat bed, so comfortable she lost all sense of time.
“Uh… thanks,” she said, springing away like a startled hare.
Xiao Zhi frowned. He had kindly steadied her, yet she fled from him as if he were a venomous snake or a scorpion.
What about when she put the bandage on the Emperor? Wasn’t she just as close then? She had even pressed her soft fingertip against the Emperor’s brow…
Hmph. At tomorrow’s morning court, he would definitely find a reason to make Xiao Qian’s life difficult.
As for the charge?
That brat loves raising his eyebrows—that in itself is contempt for the divine majesty.
A capital offense, worthy of execution.
—
Inside the duty room, two sets of clothes lay at the head of the bed. Yun Yi shook one open—a water-green ancient-style long dress, with intricately embroidered lantern flowers at the collar and cuffs.
She held it up against herself. The length was just right.
“For me?” Yun Yi remembered the clothes Yu Lian’er wore—the palace maid uniforms, goose-yellow. From a distance, the rows of maids looked like a string of fluffy little ducklings.
But the set in her hands wasn’t a maid’s uniform.
Was it a consort’s? The more Yun Yi thought about it, the more displeased she became.
That wretched emperor was giving her his wife’s clothes to wear?
Who did he think she was?!
She was a 21st-century college graduate forged through nine years of compulsory education, and she had ended up in this feudal society, forced to wear an imperial consort’s garments?
What if one day, drunk and out of control, the emperor mistook her for one of his consorts…
Despicable!
A palace maid slipped in through another door.
Yun Yi quickly pulled her aside and asked, “Lian’er, is your emperor married?”
“?” Yu Lian’er looked bewildered.
“Married,” Yun Yi clarified, hooking her two thumbs together and tapping her fingertips. “You know, an empress, imperial consorts—those ladies.”
Yu Lian’er finally understood.
When the young maid shook her head, Yun Yi muttered, “So he doesn’t have a wife?”
Discussing the master’s private affairs was a crime punishable by extermination of nine clans. Yu Lian’er shook her head frantically like a rattle drum.
“…So he does have a wife?” Everyone in this palace was like a gourd with its mouth sealed—ask them anything and they knew nothing. Unable to guess, Yun Yi simply murmured, “Then why doesn’t your boss go sleep at his wife’s place?”
What did “boss” mean now? Yu Lian’er could only shake her head wildly again.
“I get it,” Yun Yi said, her eyes glinting.
That’s how it worked in period dramas: A consort would bathe herself clean, get rolled up in a mat, and be carried by eunuchs to the emperor’s bedchamber.
She cracked the door open a sliver and saw, in the distance, eunuchs carrying in a folding screen and setting it up in front of the dragon bed.
Candlelight flickered. The emperor removed his outer robe. Then she saw a eunuch approach with a tray and whisper something. The emperor pinched something on the tray, fiddled with it briefly, and gave a slight nod.
Could that be the legendary nameplate-tapping ritual?!
Yun Yi blinked again, and all the eunuchs and palace maids had already withdrawn.
A figure in a thin sleeping robe flickered past the screen.
Sharp silhouette, broad straight shoulders and back—every line stood out vividly in the dim candlelight.
Yun Yi swallowed hard.
The scene before her had inexplicably taken on a certain intimate, amorous quality.
She closed the door. It wouldn’t be long before the eunuchs carried in an imperial consort rolled up like a spring roll, would it?
The emperor’s wife, naked or nearly so, lying on that dragon bed…
Yun Yi’s mind exploded with countless images not suitable for children. She tried to will them away with sheer mental force.
Then she thought of a science education program she had once seen on the rural agriculture channel: “Spring Breeding and Reproduction of Meat Hogs.”
A sturdy boar, its hooves pressing down on another pig’s plump, pale body…
The editor had blurred out the crucial parts of the scene with pixelation.
Yun Yi’s heart began to race.
She vaguely remembered going to an American summer camp after her first year of high school. The agency had arranged for her to stay with a homestay family.
The hostess was a kind middle-aged woman.
That was, until her husband returned from a business trip. The two of them went at it all night, completely absorbed in each other. In the early morning, the neighbors called the police to complain. The sound of knocking at the door interrupted the terrible noises they had been making.
Yun Yi packed her things immediately and fled.
What should she do? Right now, she wanted to flee too.
Xiao Zhi had just lain down to sleep when he heard strange noises coming from the duty room.
Thinking of someone’s notoriously terrible sleeping habits, the emperor pricked up his ears and listened for a while.
Earlier, Wang Delan had delivered an urgent memorial from Cen Ni: The palace attendant who had used the hidden weapon during the assassination attempt was dead.
Before dying, he had bitten open his toe and used the blood to scrawl a message on the wall—an unfinished character for “five.”
But then the jailer on duty had suddenly sprung into action, slashing him to death with a sword before turning the blade on his own neck.
The Dowager Empress and the Fifth Prince had managed to infiltrate even the Ministry of Justice’s prison.
Although Cen Ni was the Dowager Empress’s cousin and appeared close to her, Xiao Zhi knew that she had tried and failed to recruit him. Cen Ni was not a member of her faction—he simply disliked the emperor personally.
Very well, then. Xiao Zhi would dig in his heels and oppose the elderly Cen Ni at every turn. Not only would he pile heavy responsibilities on him, but he would also dump the red-hot potato of hosting the Beidi envoy squarely onto Cen Ni’s shoulders.
Let him work himself to death.
Pushing aside these tiresome political matters, Xiao Zhi only realized where he was when he found himself standing outside the duty room door.
“Your Majesty?” Wang Delan waited quietly by his side for the imperial command.
“Hmm?” The emperor’s expression was somewhat dazed.
Wang Delan said delicately, “This servant has arranged for palace maids to keep watch outside the duty room. If Miss Yun needs anything during the night, they will be there to attend to her.”
The emperor snapped back to attention. “Issue my decree: Have Cen Ni execute all nine kin of the assassin.”
“As you command!” Good heavens, the emperor’s decisiveness and ruthlessness… It was truly awe-inspiring. Deep in his bones, Wang Delan was someone who worshiped strength above all else.
“You may withdraw.”
“Yes!” Wang Delan felt the exhilaration of being given an early holiday by the big boss.
The emperor frowned. “Stop shouting.” Now get lost.
Wang Delan scrambled out.
The bedchamber returned to silence.
Then, faint rustling sounds came from the duty room.
The imperial guard commander moved to protect the emperor but was stopped by a single look.
Xiao Zhi stood silently outside the door for a moment, then raised his hand and pushed it open. A thin beam of pale light spread across the floor of the duty room.
From within the darkness came a murmured plea: “Jade Emperor, Heavenly Queen Mother, please let me wake up back home. I don’t want to spend another day in this devouring, broken imperial palace.”
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