Chapter 25.2

His anxious expression, the moment he saw her, had eased rather than worsened—even as physicians rushed about urgently inside and palace maids ran back and forth fetching water, the Emperor himself stood at the door of Cining Palace, teasing her.

“Indeed, what should we do. This time I fear the Empress Dowager is truly enraged—she’ll likely have your head on the spot.”

She had been even more terrified, sniffling and tugging at his sleeve.

“You must save me. I… I didn’t mean to. I’d just knelt for so long…”

Still scrambling to explain, she’d seen Xie Yan glance inside, his tone full of mock surprise.

“Well, look at that—they’re already here, plenty of people coming to seize you.”

She had immediately grabbed her skirts to run, only to be caught by him by the sleeve and unable to break free. In her panic, she had wrapped her arms around Xie Yan’s neck and clung to him like an octopus.

Tears still glistening on that bright, lovely face, she had buried her head against his neck in distress.

“Don’t let them take me, I really didn’t mean to.”

The servants outside the door had witnessed this scene, and by nightfall it had spread through the entire palace.

The faction of court officials loyal to the Empress Dowager, led by Prime Minister Yun, had been furious, accusing her of disrespecting her elders while seducing the Emperor in broad daylight—truly unbecoming, brazen behavior.

The title “demon empress” had stuck to her from that day on, clinging fast for three years.

“I was the one who was wronged.”

Pulled back from her memories, Su Jiao couldn’t help muttering this aloud.

No sooner had the couple left than, once the Empress had finished crying, she noticed Emperor Jia’s impatient expression.

“This consort didn’t mean to make things difficult for her today either—it’s only that this servant happened to hear that the Third Prince has been sending people to the imperial mausoleum recently.”

The imperial mausoleum?

Emperor Jia narrowed his eyes.

“Is that true?”

“Indeed it is. I’ve heard the Prince’s Consort’s mother is buried not far from the imperial mausoleum—I don’t know if that’s the reason. But it occurred to this consort that the Third Prince is, after all, the rightful legitimate son. If, in the future… having a Prince’s Consort who repeatedly leads him to break protocol like this would not bode well.”

As she spoke, she watched Emperor Jia, and sure enough saw him narrow his eyes, lost in thought.

After the commotion had settled and Emperor Jia had left, the Empress looked at her hand, still red and swollen even after medication, and called for her attendant to change her tea-stained robes, asking resentfully:

“How did it go?”

“The young miss cousin is on her way back. Prime Minister Yun has already sent someone to fetch her.”

The attendant lowered her voice.

“It’s just… the little one she’s bringing with her is still quite young—I don’t know if the child can endure the journey.”

“Who knows where she dug up that bastard child…”

“Watch your words, Your Majesty.”

The attendant grabbed her arm, her heart pounding with fright.

The Empress snorted coldly.

“Then have Miao’er come back first. In any case, we’ll still need to wait a year or two.”

Dropping the matter of her niece, she turned back to thinking of today’s humiliation.

“How did that old attendant from Yongning Hall end up dead?”

“They say she drowned in the lake.”

“Useless.”

“This servant will plant another set of eyes there.”

The old attendant pondered for a moment.

“There was someone who used to work in the Laundry Bureau, quite obedient—this servant did her a favor once.”

****

The couple returned to Yongning Hall, and before the afternoon was out, the apology gifts sent from Fengyi Palace had already arrived.

A dazzling array filled an entire room; Su Jiao had it all sent to the rear hall.

She and Xie Yan were standing beneath the corridor talking when they suddenly heard noisy scolding and pleading from outside the gate.

“Talk back after I’ve already scolded you twice, have you got the nerve now? Where are the clothes you were supposed to have washed yesterday? They’ve delayed the ladies from dressing—mind your skin.”

“Crack—”

The sound of a bamboo switch striking flesh rang out sharply; from the sound, it was coming from the direction of the Cold Palace. Su Jiao hadn’t paid it any attention at first, until she suddenly heard a faint, pleading voice.

“This servant knows her fault, please spare me, ma’am!”

That voice…

Su Jiao suddenly strode toward the door.

The sound was indeed coming from the Cold Palace—a fierce-looking attendant was wielding a bamboo switch at the gate, while a thin, frail palace maid kept kowtowing and begging for mercy, but received not the slightest mercy in return.

“Stop!”

Su Jiao hurried forward and called a halt.

The attendant turned around impatiently, but the moment she saw who it was, her expression changed.

“Greetings, Prince’s Consort.”

“This servant was disciplining a subordinate here and didn’t mean to disturb the Prince’s Consort—I beg your forgiveness, my lady.”

Su Jiao’s gaze fell on the palace maid.

“Lift your head.”

The maid trembled and raised a face, sallow and gaunt from years of labor, still streaked with tears.

It really was Xiao Tang!

Su Jiao’s expression shifted.

“Is this maid still serving in the Laundry Bureau?”

“Yes, my lady, she is.”

“From this day on, she is to be transferred to serve in Yongning Hall.”

“But how can that be, my lady…”

The old attendant looked troubled, but Su Jiao had already helped Xiao Tang up.

“Father Emperor has permitted me and His Highness free passage in and out of Yongning Hall, and has also ordered that staff be assigned to serve us. Given that, it’s hardly a great matter for me to want one maid.”

Resolute, she took the girl away with her. Once inside the inner hall, Xiao Tang, overcome with gratitude, kowtowed to thank her.

“If not for you, my lady, this servant would have died at that attendant’s hands.”

As she kowtowed, the bruised, purplish marks on her arms from the beating were exposed, and Su Jiao felt a pang of pity.

In her previous life, when she had become Empress and brought Xiao Tang over, the girl had also been covered in injuries—but she hadn’t realized it had been even worse two years earlier than that.

“There’s no need to worry.”

Su Jiao’s tone gentled, and she smiled at her.

“From now on, you’ll serve in Yongning Hall, and no one will dare beat you again.”

Whether it was the two years of companionship Xiao Tang had given her along the wall’s edge in Yongning Hall in her previous life, or the three years of mistress-and-servant bond that followed, she couldn’t bear to watch Xiao Tang suffer in the Laundry Bureau again.

As she was comforting Xiao Tang and wiping her tears, a figure suddenly appeared standing in the doorway.

Caught by a glance from Xie Yan’s slightly deepened eyes, Xiao Tang flinched in fright and shrank back behind Su Jiao.

Su Jiao poked her head out from the doorway, looking at him without understanding.

A pair of dark, glossy eyes, just like the ones that had looked at him so tearfully and wronged back in Fengyi Palace today—except there had been tears in them then, while now there was only a smile.

The way she peeked her head out looked exactly like a sly little squirrel.

Xie Yan found himself, at an inopportune moment, recalling the past.

In his previous life, there had been just such an incident—she had been given a hard time by her official mother, by then Empress Dowager, and despite being utterly timid, had, simply because she couldn’t keep her footing, caused a great disaster, splitting open a sizable gash on the Empress Dowager’s head.

A faction of officials at court led by Prime Minister Yun had made a great uproar over it, while another faction, at his prompting, had seized on the matter of the Empress Dowager’s deliberate harassment and refused to let it go. The argument had raged for two or three days, during which she had hidden away in Heming Hall like a frightened quail for three days straight.

He had truly thought her far too timid.

“She treated you that way—why are you the one feeling guilty?”

“But I never meant to hit her.”

She had peeked out a pair of red eyes from behind the screen, still nibbling at a pastry.

Ah—even the pastry had been brought to her behind the screen by a servant.

“You are the Empress. With me here, who would dare harm you?”

Back in Yongning Hall, he had thought her timid; now, it seemed, she had grown even more so.

After all, back then it had only been the two of them living together; now that she had come out and met more people, she had come to feel the weight of the Empress Dowager being her official mother, someone far above her.

Su Jiao had still been uneasy.

It wasn’t that she was anxious about having struck the woman—it was the fear that the matter might implicate her own maternal family, or that the Empress Dowager might truly use it as a pretext to take her life, with no one to protect her.

“She torments you, and you’re not angry?”

“I am.”

She nodded honestly.

“But sometimes, enduring for a moment brings calm for a while longer.”

Better than the current uproar, which left her in constant unease.

Xie Yan rubbed his brow, feeling a headache coming on.

“Come here.”

He beckoned, and this time she actually came quickly, reaching him in a few steps.

“Afraid of the Empress Dowager, afraid of the officials—don’t you think the one you should fear most is me?”

Xie Yan deliberately kept his face stern, and she immediately began to shrink back again.

“Come back.”

He caught the nape of her neck between his fingers and pulled her back.

Feeling she was in the wrong, she stood obediently before him—only to suddenly have a pillow tossed into her hands.

“Throw it at me.”

Xie Yan pointed to himself.

Wasn’t she supposed to be timid?

He’d train her out of it, then.

At first she still didn’t dare, but once she saw he truly wasn’t joking, Su Jiao hesitated, then threw the pillow at him, hugging it first.

“You are Zhen’s Empress, above all else. Save for Zhen, you need fear no one—understood?”

For nearly half a month after that, he had used every method he could think of to train up her courage, and eventually, having learned she had someone behind her, she grew a little bolder the second time she faced the Empress Dowager.

She hadn’t truly been timid to begin with—just somewhat willful—and once she’d grown used to palace life, her fear of the Empress Dowager had faded.

The second time the palace attendants reported to him that she had quarreled with the Empress Dowager in the small Buddhist shrine, nearly making the woman faint from rage, a slow smile had spread across the Emperor’s face in the Imperial Study.

Sitting across from him had been his white-bearded Imperial Tutor, the man who had personally taught him riding, archery, and the six arts in his youth—an old-fashioned, rigid old scholar.

The Imperial Tutor, his white beard quivering with fury, had been beside himself.

“Your Majesty, how can you indulge that demon empress so!”

“Since teacher already knows she is the Empress, there’s no harm in Zhen indulging her a little.”

“The rumors and gossip at court…”

“Let them spread. When Zhen grows tired of hearing it, Zhen will simply have them all beheaded.”

“How is that any different from what they call you outside—a tyrant? Your Majesty, you must guard your own reputation!”

The Imperial Tutor had nearly fainted from anger; Xie Yan, smiling, had patted his back.

“Bear with it. She’s just a young girl—don’t take it to heart with her.”

“Clink—”

The sound of a jade pendant swinging rang out as she rose from beside Xiao Tang.

“Don’t scare her.”

Once someone who had hidden behind a screen eating pastries, she had now learned to stand in front of others to protect them.

Recalling how she had been back then, Xie Yan, on a sudden impulse, beckoned to her.

“Come here.”

Su Jiao took two steps, then remembered how, back in her previous life, when she had caused that disaster, he had grabbed her by the nape of the neck and scolded her for being timid.

She deliberately took two more steps forward, then, just as Xie Yan was about to pinch the nape of her neck, dodged aside, fluttering like a butterfly to a spot several steps beyond his reach.

Light fell across her blue robes, lending her a hazy, gilded glow, dreamlike and lovely.

She turned back, smiling like a blossoming flower, and blinked.

“I won’t.”

For an instant, something jolted at the tip of Xie Yan’s heart.

In the end, he found a way to drag her off to the front hall regardless.

Among the apology gifts the Empress had sent was a plate of lychees; she had washed them and sat down to eat.

He quietly drew close, a shadow falling behind her, and Su Jiao sensed it at once.

In her previous life, at the very beginning, she had loved eating lychees, always keeping a plate in Heming Hall. Back then, whenever he found a spare moment between his busy duties, he would sometimes peel them for her.

Later, she had still loved eating lychees, and once, at a palace banquet, while having a maid peel them for herself, she had seen him pick up a lychee and feed it instead to the young child seated beside him.

In the past, when he had no free time, they had always been close; later, once he did have time, they were Emperor and Empress—yet always sat so far apart.

She hadn’t peeled any more after that. Xie Yan, thinking she was tired, had picked up a lychee, peeled it, and fed it to her lips.

She had smiled and reached out to take it, swallowing it down herself.

Their fingertips had touched; as she lowered her head, the faint, suggestive bruise-red mark on the side of her neck had once again caught his eye.

His gaze deepened. Looking at the lychee juice on her fingertip, he couldn’t help but lower his head.

His breathing grew heavier; he caught hold of her fingers, his voice turning hoarse.

“You’ve had so much fun today—I should get something good out of it too.”

Before Su Jiao could react, Xie Yan lowered his head, took her fingertip between his lips, and gently licked it.