As the pain faded, Yu Lingxin sat up and shook his head. Jiang Nong thought he was about to get up—but he sat for a moment, then collapsed back into the bedding.
They’d slept too late last night. Getting up this morning would be very, very, very difficult.
Attendants tiptoed in and lit the bronze Vermillion Bird lamps. Candlelight flickered to life one after another. Xunliang called from outside, asking if he could enter to assist with dressing.
He asked several times, until Yu Lingxin, annoyed, told him to get lost.
Jiang Nong was dressed in spring attire by her attendants—lighter clothing suitable for farming. A pale green skirt with narrow cuffs, a simple hairstyle, easy to move in, and closer to how the common folk dressed.
Xunliang was called in by Jiang Nong. He circled around the bed, frantic, and cast a pleading look at her.
Jiang Nong dipped her hand into the bronze basin of water, walked over, and patted Yu Lingxin’s face with wet fingers. The cool water mixed with her scent—a damp, fragrant breeze, like spring wind sweeping through a valley—refreshing and clear, waking him.
He lifted his head, squinting. He saw Jiang Nong in that pale green dress, looking down at him with a smile, her soft palm gently patting his cheek. Her fragrance drifted from her pale wrists straight into his lungs, strands of hair falling against his face.
He’d never seen Jiang Nong like this. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming—dreaming of the previous life, when Jiang Nong had run away with him and they’d retired to the countryside.
Seeing his dazed expression, Jiang Nong thought he was about to fall asleep again. This time, she gave him two firm slaps and called: “Get up!”
Yu Lingxin was finally awake. Xunliang and a few inner attendants swarmed in, seizing the moment of clarity to dress him. Yu Lingxin raised his arms and let them do as they pleased.
Same Xuan Shi Hall. Five months had passed. The vermillion wedding curtains had been replaced by pale green gauze drapes, cascading down in layered mist—a dowry Jiang Nong had brought from Xi. Yu Lingxin hated the color—cold and distant. Jiang Nong knew he didn’t like it—so she’d deliberately changed it.
Just like on their wedding day, Yu Lingxin watched Jiang Nong at her dressing table through the gauze. She held a pearl between her fingertips, pinned it into her hair in front of the mirror, glanced left and right, then turned to ask Rong Mian how it looked. The tiny pearl was nestled in her dark coiffure, glowing with a soft luster—but it couldn’t compare to her. Yu Lingxin could only see her radiating light in the candle glow.
She was smiling, looking so happy—more radiant and beautiful than in Xi, her hair glossier, gleaming with the cool sheen of silk.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad to go on like this.
Five months ago, he hadn’t thought so. He’d known that once Jiang Nong married into his household, she couldn’t escape his grasp. He would gradually become everything she hated most, making her watch her beloved husband descend into despair with no way out. He’d guessed her tears would fall like broken beads.
He’d wondered, back then—when faced with this unrecognizable husband, would she feel more love or more hate?
But he hadn’t expected to expose himself so quickly. He hadn’t expected to make Tan Kingdom’s situation sound so dire, forcing Jiang Nong to tie herself to him—and sure enough, her anger had subsided.
Perhaps it was because nothing had happened yet in this life—everyone was still alive. Or perhaps Jiang Nong pitied him. Her attitude had softened considerably. Sometimes he could even sense a trace of sympathy or pity from her.
Yu Lingxin didn’t know how long this would last. Maybe Jiang Nong was letting his guard down. Maybe one day, when she had the means, she would kill him. Nothing was certain—every kindness could be a deception.
Yu Lingxin tasted sweetness and bitterness in Jiang Nong’s treatment of him—sweet when she was good, bitter when she didn’t care.
Jiang Nong was the world’s best dog-trainer. She kept him on a leash, sweet and bitter, making him endure it all—making him think it wasn’t so bad to go on like this.
Yu Lingxin hated Jiang Nong—and hated himself even more. Why did he care so much about her? He couldn’t even kill a Situ Ming without checking her reaction. He’d even gone easy on Chao Ning. Why did he have to care about Jiang Nong’s feelings at all?
Useless excuse of a man!
Jiang Nong also noticed Yu Lingxin’s gaze. When she turned, he looked away.
She pressed her lips together, picked up two boxes of lip rouge, and walked over to sit on the bed. Tilting her head up at him, she asked: “Help me choose a color—which one do you think looks better?”
With that, she took Yu Lingxin’s hand in her left and, with the index finger of her right, dabbed a little of each on the back of his hand. Yu Lingxin felt the warm, delicate touch on his skin.
The hand holding his clearly felt him flinch.
Her eyes—so round, so big, so bright.
Yu Lingxin averted his gaze, looking at his own hand. Two colors?
Weren’t they the same color?
What exactly was different?
How was he supposed to tell Jiang Nong? That he couldn’t tell the difference?
Or that either was fine?
Too dismissive—she’d slap him for sure.
She might never ask for his opinion again.
What should he say?
For a moment, Yu Lingxin’s face was blank as countless responses flashed through his mind—none of them acceptable. Finally, his throat bobbed, and he pointed at the top one: “This one. I think it suits your skin tone and dress better.”
Jiang Nong pressed her lips together again, lifted her eyes, and said: “Then put it on for me. I didn’t bring a mirror over.”
“So much trouble—do you know who I am? I’m the Son of Heaven! And you’re ordering me around like this? Without any reward?” He paused for breath, took a deep inhale, carefully dipped his finger, and gently dabbed it on her lips. So soft—like touching water. The cherry-pink rouge spread smoothly over her lips, glossy and bright, adding even more luster to her beauty.
He traced carefully, unsure if he was doing it right—it seemed like he’d picked up too little, but a little less was better than too much.
“Done yet?” Jiang Nong asked.
Yu Lingxin snapped back to the present, his hand leaving her lips. A trace of powder the same color as her lip rouge still clung to his fingertip.
“Done,” he said.
Jiang Nong swiftly dabbed a bit of the rouge and swiped it across his lips, her fingertip grazing them with a faint tickle: “There’s your reward—a little for you too.”
She turned and walked away, her skirts swaying like a blooming flower, leaving Yu Lingxin alone, breath caught, hand still outstretched, frozen on the bed.
He stared at the smudge of pink on his fingertip—the one that had come from her lips. He brought it to his own mouth, spread it, then licked it off.
His heart felt like Jiang Nong had tossed it into the sky.
Why was she suddenly treating him like this?
What was she so happy about?
How terrifying—what exactly was she planning to do to him?
Yu Lingxin’s dazed expression suddenly turned irritated.
If she could treat him like this—then in her previous life, when she was with Chao Ning, they must have been even more intimate in the mornings, right?
Chao Ning would paint her brows, dab on her rouge—and perhaps Jiang Nong would kiss him as payment, wouldn’t she?
Jiang Nong placed both boxes of lip rouge back into her dressing case.
Truth was, the two boxes were the exact same color. All that time Yu Lingxin had spent pondering, struggling to tell them apart like a fool.
From two identical colors, he’d painstakingly chosen one and told her it was better, that it suited her skin tone more.
Jiang Nong had used every ounce of strength not to laugh.
She didn’t like Yu Lingxin—but he was amusing.
Jiang Nong felt like she was becoming a bad person—learning to toy with men. But Yu Lingxin wasn’t a good person anyway. What was wrong with toying with him a little?
A hateful dog kept wagging its tail at her, treating her as its owner, utterly loyal. Jiang Nong knew it was a vicious dog—she was disgusted by it. But she had no one who was solely, exclusively, and forever devoted to her first. So even knowing this dog should be put down—
When it barked and rolled over, showing its belly, trying to please her—Jiang Nong would still stop and play with it a little. But she wouldn’t take it home.
Playing with a bad dog had made her bad too. Yet because it was a cur everyone wanted to beat, she felt no guilt at all when she did bad things to it.
All her malice and hidden darkness could be poured out upon it.
No denying it—Jiang Nong was a very, very good person. But even saints have their secrets in unseen corners.
In public, Jiang Nong and Yu Lingxin—this couple, each harboring secrets, appearing both in sync and out of sync—had to play the role of a loving emperor and empress, presenting a model of harmony to the world.
Acting was exhausting. When it came to playing loving, they truly didn’t know how—after all, they’d never seen a loving couple up close. But when it came to hatred, they had plenty of material. A moment’s recollection, and the feeling came rushing back—raw and genuine.
Things were thrown. Slaps were dealt.
One cursed: “Yu Lingxin, drop dead! I was blind to have ever liked you! You’re utterly wicked—you should go straight to the eighteenth level of hell!”
The other shot back: “You think I like you? I’ll outlive you—you just want me dead so you can run off to your lover, don’t you? You hit me for him? I won’t die! Go die yourself!”
Their moments of “love” only happened in front of crowds—forcing smiles at each other, holding hands to show they got along.
Lü Chengcheng, as the head of the civil officials, followed closely behind them during the spring plowing ceremony.
Ever since the night Yu Lingxin had removed Situ Ming, he’d been having nightmares—dreaming of Tan Kingdom’s revival fading, of the Empress becoming a seductive demoness clouding the emperor’s judgment, of His Majesty obeying her every word. That night had left a shadow on him.
The bond between ruler and empress couldn’t be bad—that would undermine the state. But it couldn’t be too good either—if he obeyed her every word, that was even worse.
After the sacrifices, the sun climbed high, scorching their faces. He was old—he couldn’t stay crouched for long. He straightened up, tapped his back, and saw Jiang Nong and Yu Lingxin ahead. They were close enough that even their murmurs reached his ears.
Yu Lingxin rolled Jiang Nong’s sleeves up twice. She rolled them back down.
“The dirt will get on your sleeves—it’s filthy.”
“The sun will burn me.”
“…Then beg me. I’ll stand on the east side.”
…
Lü Chengcheng felt the sun was far too hot. He might just pass out in the field.
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