At the sudden mention of Xiao Min’s name, Xie Yao felt as though an entire lifetime had passed.
Her fingertips trembled slightly, and Gu Changze immediately sensed the shift in her emotions. As though he noticed nothing, he quietly waited for her answer.
After a moment, she curved her lips into a gentle smile. “Your Highness is of imperial blood. Why should you belittle yourself by comparing yourself to others?”
Not receiving the answer he wanted, Gu Changze continued in an unhurried tone, “Since I’m asking Miss Xie, naturally the comparison should be with the person Miss Xie believes to be the best. How is that belittling myself?”
“Does Your Highness think Young Master Xiao is the best person in my eyes?” Xie Yao asked in return.
“It isn’t what I think. At Miss Xie’s coming-of-age banquet last year, when your engagement to the young master of the Xiao family was announced, you once quoted a line of poetry praising him as unmatched in the world.”
After returning home that day, Gu Changze had written that line over and over again. Yet no matter how many times he copied it, he could never believe it truly belonged to Xiao Min. How could a man like him be worthy of such words?
Only after Gu Changze reminded her did Xie Yao remember the incident from her coming-of-age banquet the previous year. “Just a joke, and Your Highness still remembers it?”
“Since it was a joke, and the occasion is appropriate, why doesn’t Miss Xie use the same sort of joke to praise me as well?”
Perhaps because he was ill, his voice carried a lazy, unhurried quality.
Xie Yao only thought that being confined to this courtyard had left him depressed, so she smiled and played along. “Then naturally, Your Highness surpasses all others. There is no second like you in this world.”
At last, Gu Changze’s brows relaxed.
The two exchanged a few lighthearted words, and he shifted a little closer to her. “I am somewhat tired. I’d like to rest for a while.”
Seeing the weariness between his brows, Xie Yao’s cool fingertips brushed across his burning skin, and her heart immediately tightened.
“Then Your Highness should rest.”
With the lingering fever, his recurring illness, and the rumors spreading outside, it was only natural that he would be exhausted in both body and mind.
Looking at Gu Changze lying beside her with his eyes closed, seemingly half asleep, Xie Yao hesitated before reaching out and gently touching his head.
“When I was young, I learned a few methods from my mother for easing headaches. Allow me to massage your temples, Your Highness.”
A breeze drifted in from outside.
Gu Changze moved slightly closer to her. His long black hair slipped across her fingertips and tangled with the edge of her sleeve.
The room fell silent. Only after hearing his steady, shallow breathing did Xie Yao quietly rise and walk outside.
Jiang Zhen was busy brewing medicine in the courtyard.
Lowering her voice, Xie Yao asked, “How long has His Highness been running this fever?”
“It started last night.”
His health had always been fragile. On top of that, the incident with the Sixth Prince had exhausted him both mentally and physically. In his anger, the Emperor had even ordered the braziers removed from the room.
Jiang Zhen sighed. “These past two days, even getting proper meals has been a problem.”
“The palace servants outside only know how to fawn over the powerful and trample those who fall. And now that rumors are spreading that His Majesty is furious with His Highness, they treat us even worse.”
Xie Yao’s feelings grew complicated. After meeting the Emperor today, she had finally realized that the rumors circulating outside these past two years had not been entirely baseless. The matter of the jade pendant was clearly supported by insufficient evidence, yet Emperor Yan had seized upon it in a fury. Even more troubling was what he had said to her: that no matter who became Crown Prince, she would remain the Crown Princess. She was beginning to understand what General Chen had meant.
“His Majesty has ordered that I cannot stay long. Please comfort His Highness on my behalf, Eunuch Jiang. I will do everything I can outside to find evidence.”
Someone arrived from outside to urge her to leave.
After hurriedly speaking those words, Xie Yao departed.
Near the Hour of Xu, servants arrived carrying the evening meal. Ever since the confinement began the previous night, the food sent to the residence had consisted of leftovers and cold dishes. Ordinarily, the palace servants would never have dared treat the Crown Prince this way.
But both Gu Changze and Jiang Zhen knew exactly who arranged it.
“Has Third Brother been making large moves recently?” Gu Changze poured the bowl of medicine in his hand into a flowerpot as he spoke.
“Ever since the Sixth Prince broke his leg last night and Your Highness was confined, I’ve heard that the Third Prince gathered his former supporters overnight to discuss matters.”
Among the imperial princes, Gu Changze held the position of Crown Prince, while Gu Xiudun possessed the strongest influence through his maternal relatives.
As for the Third Prince, Gu Xiufu, he had long cultivated relationships among court officials and was never content to remain beneath others.
“You know as well as I do that among my brothers, Sixth Brother and Third Brother are the most capable, and they are also the ones Father Emperor values most. They have always been Father’s preferred candidates for the position of Crown Prince.”
Jiang Zhen lowered his head and remained silent. He knew that His Highness harbored resentment over this.
“Sixth Brother is of no use now. Since Third Brother wishes to compete, I may as well give him a helping hand.”
Because Xie Yao had visited earlier that day, Gu Changze was visibly in a good mood. That night, he retired early and soon drifted into a dream.
In his dream, Xie Yao sat beside him just as she had that day, her head slightly lowered, her eyes curved in a smile as she called him “Your Highness” and praised him as one of a kind. Her cool fingertips brushed across his brow. The damp cloth traced lightly along his neck. Leaning against her, their skin touching, he felt strangely warm.
A surge of restless desire clamored for release, prompting him to instinctively reach for her wrist. She was utterly compliant, smiling softly as she allowed him to press her down onto the cushioned daybed; his large hand easily undid the silk sash at her waist, and the moment his heated fingertips brushed against her cool, flawless skin, he could no longer hold back his touch.
The corners of his eyes were flushed red as he hoarsely called out, “Yaoyao.” She answered him breath after breath, hooking her arms around his neck to initiate a kiss; she was a vision of cloying sweetness and alluring eyes. As their lips and tongues entwined, he kissed her wildly—moving from her lips to her porcelain-white neck, then down to the shoulder revealed as her garment slipped away, unveiling the beautiful sight he had glimpsed earlier in the day beneath her pale blue bodice.
Unable to restrain himself a moment longer, he lowered his head to claim her.
She called out to him in a soft, breathless voice—”Your Highness,” “Changze”—just as she had in countless dreams. Bathed in the lamp’s dim, amber glow, an intimate tension filled the air. He felt a surge of heat and love rushing toward a single point, desperate to pour all that passion into the woman beneath him. Their discarded clothes lay in a heap on the floor; just as he was about to bend down to love her, the lamp suddenly flickered out with a soft snap.
Gu Changze’s eyes snapped open; in the silent, pitch-black night, only his heavy breathing remained. Cold sweat soaked his back, and his tense body slowly relaxed as he fully woke from the dream. Yet, the heat coursing through his body remained unassuaged.
Gu Changze rose and drank several cups of cold water, but to no avail; glancing down at the tented ridge beneath his quilt, he resigned himself and reached down. In the silence, only the sound of his hoarse, repeated murmurs could be heard. “Yaoyao, A-Yao, Yao’er…”
The next day, Xie Yao once again sought permission to visit Gu Changze’s courtyard. But when she went to see him again, Xie Yao noticed something off about Gu Changze’s gaze.
It was one thing for him to keep staring at her whenever she spoke, but whenever she turned around, Gu Changze, who had been standing several feet away just moments before, would somehow appear silently behind her. His tall frame bent with her movements, as though he were drawing her entirely into his embrace. The crisp, bamboo-like scent that lingered about him brushed against her from behind, making Xie Yao’s heart skip a beat. Flushing slightly, she hastily stepped away. She did not stay long that day. Seeing that Gu Changze seemed far more alert than he had been the previous day, she took her leave early.
Gu Changze watched her retreating figure from behind, his eyes dark and unreadable.
“Jiang Zhen, do you remember how much longer remains before my wedding?”
“Only four or five days.”
“To be honest, I’m getting rather impatient.”
“But we’re trapped here now… and there’s no telling when we’ll be able to get out.”
From Gu Changze’s behavior the day before, Jiang Zhen had more or less guessed what he intended to do. The current stalemate, however, was not something that could be resolved in a matter of days.
Gu Changze tapped his long fingers lightly against the desk. “We’ll get out. Have you ever heard the saying from the military classics? Make a feint in the east and strike in the west. Divert the floodwaters eastward.”
A little physical suffering was a small price to pay. Without using himself as bait and making himself part of the game, how could he hope to snatch victory from danger?
Gu Changze let out a soft chuckle. “Trust me. In four or five days, the Eastern Palace will have its Crown Princess.” He truly could not wait any longer to marry his A-Yao.
Lately, the matter of Xishan had set the entire court abuzz.
Two factions had long been locked in fierce dispute. One argued that the Crown Prince was ruthless, unfit to be heir apparent. The other maintained that the jade-pendant incident lacked sufficient evidence and that the Crown Prince had clearly been framed.
Day after day, the two sides argued endlessly in court. The Emperor remained undecided, though signs suggested he was considering deposing the Crown Prince. Everyone harbored their own motives, and a heavy sense of foreboding hung over the entire imperial hunting grounds, like the oppressive stillness before a storm.
Amid such a stifling atmosphere, only the Third Prince, Gu Xiufu, seemed to be thriving. He carried himself with visible confidence, practically striding on air wherever he went.
“The Sixth Prince is finished, and the Crown Prince has lost all hope. The next heir to the throne can only be the Third Prince.”
Gu Xiufu was pleased by his attendants’ flattery, but he did not let his guard down. “Father still can’t make up his mind, so I’ll give him a push. Gather our old allies. Starting tomorrow, every one of them is to submit memorials calling for the Crown Prince’s removal. Make it loud, make it overwhelming. With both court opinion and popular sentiment behind us, I refuse to believe Father won’t depose him.”
Sure enough, beginning the very next day, the calls to remove the Crown Prince grew much louder during morning court.
Officials seized upon the incident of the Sixth Prince’s broken leg and launched fierce attacks against the Crown Prince. While Emperor Yan outwardly appeared troubled, he had already drafted an edict of deposition in the privacy of his own chambers.
Xie Yao spent three days searching Xishan for evidence but came up empty-handed. By the time she returned that day, another major incident had already shaken Shanglin Garden.
Trouble piled upon trouble.
Before conclusive evidence could be found regarding Gu Xiudun’s broken leg, poison was discovered in the medicinal soup served in his palace quarters.
The young eunuch assigned to test the medicine collapsed and died on the spot after taking a sip.
Gu Xiudun was so terrified that he fainted outright. The imperial physicians were thrown into chaos, and only after half a day’s frantic effort did they manage to pull the Sixth Prince back from death’s door.
When Emperor Yan arrived and saw his son lying there, barely clinging to life, he flew into a rage. “Bring the Crown Prince here!”
After examining the poisoned medicine, the imperial physicians determined that the toxin was not one commonly found in Great Sheng. It originated from the border regions, and within the imperial palace, the only people likely to have access to such a poison were the late Empress and Physician Immortal Feng, who was currently treating the Crown Prince. Every piece of evidence the physicians uncovered pointed directly at the Crown Prince.
Torn between worry for his gravely ill son and fury at the apparent culprit, Emperor Yan’s anger only grew.
The assembled officials exchanged uneasy glances, each lost in thought.
This time, the evidence appeared ironclad. If it were truly proven that the Crown Prince was responsible, then there would be no need to continue investigating the earlier jade-pendant affair.
Once the charge of plotting against his own brother was established, he would not only lose his position as heir apparent, but it was doubtful he would even be allowed to remain a member of the imperial family.
In the deathly silence, Gu Changze entered alone, advancing with measured steps.
Standing to one side, Xie Yao watched anxiously as he approached. His figure looked unnaturally thin and frail.
Before he could even settle into a proper kneel, Emperor Yan strode down from the dais and swung the wooden ruler in his hand directly at Gu Changze’s back.
Crack!
The Crown Prince’s perfectly straight back buckled. A mouthful of blood burst from his lips.
“My good Crown Prince!” The Emperor’s voice thundered with rage. “Were you truly so impatient to kill your own brother, silence him forever, and secure your position as heir to the throne? Do you believe I won’t issue an edict this very moment and strip you of your title as Crown Prince?”