10
We said in unison.
Ji Nanzhu gave me a fond look, finished shelling the remaining sunflower seeds in his hand, brushed off his clothes, and went over to the Empress.
“Your Majesty, please allow me to enter the palace and pay my respects to His Majesty.”
The night before my wedding, Ji Nanzhu took me out of the Crown Prince’s residence.
Feng Mo waved generously. “Go ahead.”
I pouted. “I’m going off with another man, and you’re not jealous?”
Dạ Hành couldn’t help but chime in. “The Crown Princess is mistaken. Our Crown Prince isn’t just a little jealous—he’s practically soaking in a vat of vinegar.”
“What?” I moved closer to Dạ Hành, curious.
“Your Highness, do you remember when you searched the whole city for your young man and stopped at Wang Da Zui’s wonton shop in the north of the city for a bowl?”
Feng Mo’s face darkened. “Silence,” he snapped.
“Why are you being so mean?” I glared at Feng Mo, then pulled Dạ Hành aside. “Don’t be scared. Go on.”
“That day, Wang Da Zui wore a mask while making wontons, and you smiled so brightly at his back.”
“So what?”
“Well, from that day on, Wang Da Zui’s business boomed. He sold out before he could even wrap the meat filling in the wrappers. Once everything was gone, he had no choice but to go home and rest.”
I looked at Feng Mo, who was gazing up at the sky. “Was that you?”
Feng Mo stubbornly insisted, “No.”
Dạ Hành couldn’t help laughing. “Right, right, right. It wasn’t the Crown Prince. The people in the Crown Prince’s household just happened to crave wontons so badly that they ate them every day for seven days straight.”
Feng Mo continued to gaze proudly at the sky. I linked my arm through his and asked, “Then why aren’t you jealous of Ji Nanzhu?”
At last, Feng Mo lowered his noble head and cupped my face in both hands, smiling. “He’s different.”
After leaving with Ji Nanzhu, I finally understood what Feng Mo meant when he said, “He’s different.”
Ji Nanzhu pointed to the deserted Prime Minister’s residence and said to me, “This is our home.”
As it turned out, he really was my older brother.
Our father was named Ji Qingtong. He was a renowned scholar throughout the land and the sitting prime minister.
Fourteen years ago, when the current emperor fell gravely ill, Prince Chen’s maternal grandfather, Duke Chen, took control of the court. The Ji family was falsely accused of treason and sentenced to extermination.
Ji Qingtong’s student, the Military Commissioner Su Yu’an, risked his life to save me when I was one year old, then fled with me.
To support me, Su Yu’an changed his name to Su Nantian and took up banditry.
But the people he robbed were all corrupt officials and scoundrels.
Later, Su Nantian became famous, and many admirers joined him as his followers.
Su Nantian then established Liuyun Stronghold as a place to settle.
Four years later, the emperor recovered and ordered a thorough investigation of Duke Chen’s residence.
That was when Prince Chen was stripped of his title and reduced to commoner status.
As for why the emperor suddenly recovered, there was also a rumor among the common people.
The emperor had fallen gravely ill because he had been poisoned over a long period of time.
They say the Crown Prince, who was not yet eight at the time, secretly uncovered the truth.
Afterward, the emperor issued an edict to the realm, officially clearing the Ji family’s name.
But Ji Qingtong’s death had chilled the people’s hearts. Everyone regarded serving at court as venturing into a den of wolves and tigers.
The court had no capable people to call upon, so the emperor had no choice but to turn to Ji Nanzhu, who was only ten at the time.
But Ji Nanzhu stubbornly acted as if he’d given up on life. He told the emperor, “If I can’t find my little sister, I’ll just sit here and wait to die.”
So the emperor searched tirelessly for a year and finally found me at Liuyun Stronghold.
But there was another stubborn one.
My father flatly refused to return to the capital and resume his post, and he was even more adamant that they not take me away.
He knew the capital was a complicated place and feared I’d be hurt again.
The emperor was powerless to change his mind, so he had no choice but to send his most trusted son to Liuyun Stronghold.
That’s right. Feng Mo’s original purpose in coming was to kidnap me.
On our wedding night, I couldn’t help asking Feng Mo, “Did you fall for me because you wanted to fulfill the emperor’s commission?”
“That was true at first.” Feng Mo pulled me onto his lap and wrapped both arms around my waist. “But not anymore.”
Even Feng Mo couldn’t say exactly when he’d started favoring me.
Perhaps it was when he was practicing martial arts and I secretly used a slingshot to knock down the arrow that was about to hit his bull’s-eye.
Perhaps it was when he was learning to hunt and I accidentally let a wild boar loose to bite him on the butt.
Perhaps it was when he was learning the zither and I practiced endlessly beside him with a horn in my arms.
Perhaps it was when he was doing calculations and I sat under the table, reading the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art aloud.
Perhaps it was when he was learning calligraphy and painting and I accidentally knocked over the inkstone.
Perhaps it was when he was studying the Four Books and Five Classics and I hugged a copy of The Tyrannical Prince’s Darling Wife, laughing until tears streamed down my face.
Perhaps he really was simply the sort of person who liked being mistreated.
Leaning against his chest, I asked, “When you left the mountain, what did you give my father that made him agree to let you take me away?”
Feng Mo twirled a strand of my hair around his finger and smiled faintly. “My life. The Crown Prince’s life.”
“To be precise, it was a secret. If I betrayed you, that secret could send me plunging into the abyss.”
“Can I hear the secret?”
“Of course. You can deceive the whole world, but you can’t deceive her.” Feng Mo’s breath brushed against my ear.
“Actually, Feng Yang is my biological older brother. We have the same father and mother.”
The Empress’s eldest son had died young.
The Empress was overcome with grief and once tried to take her own life.
Only after she became pregnant with the seventh prince did the Empress finally begin to emerge from her despair.
At the same time, Consort Huệ, Feng Yang’s birth mother, was also pregnant.
That child was Feng Mo.
The two children were born at the same time, but the Empress gave birth to a stillborn child, while Consort Huệ died in difficult childbirth.
One woman had lost her child; the other, her mother.
The emperor acted decisively, announcing to the outside world that Consort Huệ and her son had died, while the Empress and her son were safe and well.
The Empress unknowingly raised Feng Mo until he was four.
It wasn’t until the emperor fell gravely ill that he revealed this secret to the Empress.
That day, Feng Mo was hiding outside the window and heard it too.
So after Duke Chen’s conspiracy was exposed, the Empress and Feng Mo worked together, out of guilt, to protect Feng Yang.
Consort Huệ’s only child, at least officially.
But Feng Yang had kept quiet for years. Then, egged on by the remnants of Duke Chen’s household, he tried to rise up.
He set his sights on the two children of the Ji family, intending to use me and Ji Nanzhu to command the scholars throughout the land.
In the end, Feng Yang was defeated and killed himself. Feng Mo personally asked to see him buried—not only out of guilt, but also to repay his birth mother one last time.
The emperor hadn’t handled things in the most honorable way, but it was clear he truly loved the Empress and the Crown Prince.
He could at least be considered a good husband and a good father.
11
After Feng Mo and I married, Ji Nanzhu took over as prime minister.
Like Ji Qingtong, he was a brilliant man with exceptional strategic insight. On the day he took office, scholars flocked to the capital in droves.
Only then did I realize my older brother wasn’t just a pretty face; he simply wasn’t good at martial arts.
Feng Mo told me that when Ji Nanzhu was young, his martial arts talent was actually no worse than Feng Mo’s.
He had given up martial arts to pursue a career in letters because his health had been damaged.
Back then, he was injured in the spleen while searching for me and being pursued by assassins.
After that, the slightest strenuous activity would make him cough up blood and lose consciousness.
The Empress and Feng Mo went undercover outside the palace and found Ji Nanzhu. By then, he was on the verge of death.
The two of them conspired to hide Ji Nanzhu in the Crown Prince’s residence, right under Duke Chen’s nose.
That was how Ji Nanzhu survived.
So when he heard that Feng Mo had been ordered to trick me into leaving Liuyun Stronghold, he wasn’t worried at all.
He trusted Feng Mo’s character.
He just waited, waiting for me to make my own decision.
If I didn’t want to marry, he would take me away without hesitation.
But now that I was married, he had to protect the realm for his brother-in-law.
My father had also come to the capital.
The emperor planned to lift the wanted order.
My father waved a hand and said casually, “Leave it up. It looks nice.”
That was right. After all, the wanted notice said Su Nantian.
But he was General Su Yu’an.
My father said to Feng Mo, “Once Your Highness ascends the throne and peace returns to the realm, I will submit my resignation.”
I knew he carried the imperial family’s greatest secret.
The imperial family would never allow him to live.
But Feng Mo unexpectedly shook his head. “No. The general is Tang’er’s father and my father-in-law, and, more than that, a great hero of our Tianlin. The general will always have a place in the capital.”
Many years later.
I sat cross-legged at the desk in my bedchamber, grinding ink and yawning nonstop.
He wore me out every day, and even made me help him handle state affairs during the day.
What kind of empress was this?
Feng Mo suddenly stood up.
Seeing my chance, I hurried to my feet and asked eagerly, “Can I go to bed now?”
Feng Mo stretched. “I’ve been sitting too long. Let me stretch a bit. Come on, keep going.”
I angrily tossed the ink stick onto the floor, then plopped down and threw a tantrum. “I’m begging you, pick some ladies and take a few concubines. You can’t make me suffer alone.”
“If you’re tired, you can call Eunuch Mu in to take over for a while.”
“Can Eunuch Mu take over for me at night?”
“At night? I’m the one doing all the work at night, while you do nothing.”
“The eldest and second princes still need to nurse.”
Feng Mo’s gaze lingered on my chest. After a while, he sighed. “You don’t have any milk, so what good would you do? Leave it to the wet nurse.”
“Feng Mo, you’ve got some nerve!” I flung up my sleeve and declared firmly, “I refuse to serve you tonight!”
Feng Mo hurriedly put an arm around my waist to soothe me. “All right, I was wrong.”
“If you’re wrong, you have to apologize. And if you apologize, you have to make it up to me.”
“Fine. I’ll make it up to you right now.”
“How?” I asked, feeling hopeful.
Feng Mo scooped me up, grinning wickedly. “I’ll make it up to you with a third prince…”
(The End)