Morning court was held once every five days. Over the past two days, the rumors that Her Majesty was pregnant, and that she was carrying the child of her own subject’s daughter, had spread like wildfire. On the way to the audience hall, quite a few people cupped their hands to offer congratulations to Cheng Jin.
Having not slept a wink all night, the grand chancellor stiffened her face, forcing out a perfunctory smile.
Wasn’t this absolute disaster?! That little rascal really dared to bite Her Majesty? And once she bit, she didn’t even send a single-family letter back home, behaving so obediently as if she were living in a cold palace. Who would have thought she would drop such a massive bombshell in silence?
Cheng Jin herself had no particular hang-ups about the dominant and submissive dynamics between alphas and omegas; her late wife was an omega, but in bed, she had always been the submissive one.
She had originally planned to never have children in her life, but during one rut, she couldn’t help herself and bit her wife once. Afterward, because of that bite, her wife became pregnant, and during the pregnancy, she beat Cheng Jin up almost once a day.
It wasn’t until ten months later, when Jiang Wu’s older sister was born, that her household status was raised just a little bit.
Having given birth to Jiang Wu herself, she hadn’t deliberately raised her to be a towering, heroic alpha, always advocating for free development. And then, too much freedom had ruined her.
Only those who had personally experienced it knew that carrying a child was an exceptionally grueling endeavor. The first child of any former omega female emperor was always reserved for the one she loved the most.
Otherwise, her temper would easily flare up, and she might just hack the child’s mother to pieces.
Today in the imperial court, Her Majesty indeed wore a dark expression and rejected several memorials. Cheng Jin kept her head down, remaining completely silent throughout.
It was a while after the court was dismissed before she slowly made her approach, carrying a bit of caution during her first formal audience with the sovereign.
She simply hadn’t expected that rebellious daughter of hers to also be in Her Majesty’s hall.
Jiang Wu seemed not to have slept well last night, yawning with dark circles under her eyes. She wore a ready-made outfit tailored from fabric brought in by a vassal state last year, a light blue robe trimmed with gold threads and fastened at the waist, outlining a graceful yet powerful curve.
The instant their gazes met, she seemed to see the confusion and incomprehension in Jiang Wu’s eyes.
Wonderful, her fists were hardened now; even her own mother wasn’t recognized anymore.
“Your Majesty.” Cheng Jin cupped her hands in salute. The woman sitting on the main seat was leafing through memorials, and a few seconds later, she light-heartedly granted her permission to be seated.
Pei Yu had been like this ever since she ascended the throne; when she was angry, she generally refused to look at people.
With this expression, Cheng Jin didn’t even need to use her brain to know that the child was not the crystallization of love, but came about by pure accident.
“What brings the chancellor here at this time?”
Pei Yu asked with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Cheng Jin really knew how to time her visits, choosing to have an audience precisely when Pei Yu most wanted to get rid of Jiang Wu, which at least called back what little rationality she had left.
Before her, the chancellor lowered her gaze in thought for a moment before speaking in a soft voice.
“Has Your Majesty’s health been well recently?”
“Very well, thank you for your concern, Chancellor.”
The usually eloquent person fell silent for a moment longer.
“My unworthy daughter is still young. If there is anything she has done improperly, I hope Your Majesty will be magnanimous.”
“How much older was I than paramour Jiang when I ascended the throne?” A smile curled at the corner of the woman’s lips, and when she spoke again, her words carried a hint of sarcasm. “Did not the chancellor and the ministers force me to carry out all these various tasks?”
“Why is it that when it comes to your daughter, it suddenly requires My magnanimity?”
“Why does the chancellor not take paramour Jiang to the side hall right now, and teach her just as you taught me, on how to act and how to properly serve Me?”
Pei Yu glanced sideways at the newly lit anti-miscarriage incense.
“I will give you the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn.”
If not for the fact that the news of Jiang Wu making her pregnant had spread, the current Cheng Jin should be standing right here impeaching her for being several minutes late to morning court.
This morning, she hadn’t noticed someone lying on the floor, accidentally stepped on Jiang Wu, and tumbled into her embrace, only to be hugged tightly by the drowsy, half-asleep alpha.
At first, because she realized she was the one who had stepped on her, she had spoken in gentle, soothing tones telling her to let go and saying she needed to attend morning court.
But the half-asleep person couldn’t understand a word she was saying, muttering constantly about being hungry and even daringly clamping down on the gland on the side of her neck.
Having just woken up, she naturally wouldn’t secrete pheromones. Her patience was already running thin, yet she had to divide her attention to press against the alpha’s head, suppressing her breathing.
Qing Yue and Chun Ya should have prepared her court robes and waited outside by then. If any sounds leaked out, and people found out she was indulging in daytime debauchery while pregnant, she truly wouldn’t have the face to face them.
Realizing there was no glandular fluid here like the night before, the person who had been rubbing around like a puppy finally calmed down. Pei Yu gathered her wits slightly, and before she even had time to tidy herself up, the sleep robe across her chest was suddenly pushed open by someone.
The alpha’s newly grown marking teeth grazed the tip, and then sucked down heavily. A muffled groan and a cry of pain startled Chun Ya outside.
Before Qing Yue could stop her, Chun Ya opened the door and rushed inside.
“Your Majesty!”
Before the words were even half out, the young girl clearly saw the two entangled figures in a feeding posture.
That alpha was buried right in her Majesty’s bosom, and even without looking closely, one could tell what she was sucking on.
Qing Yue, who had hurried over from behind, quickly dragged Chun Ya back out and slammed the grand hall’s doors shut with a loud bang.
Pei Yu’s reputation of over twenty years was shattered to pieces in this moment by this foolish dog.
She pressed against the alpha’s lips, the roots of her eyelashes flushed crimson and dampened by teardrops. The person in her sleep still unconsciously nuzzled forward, and in her anger, she gave her two sharp slaps.
The person who was slapped awake opened her eyes in confusion, her obsidian pupils quickly welling up with a dense layer of watery mist.
“Your Majesty!” Her voice trailed downward, aggrieved and tearful, as if she were the one who had been bullied.
The sound abruptly cut off when she caught sight of the tooth marks on her chest. The alpha’s fair skin was now flushed entirely red, and having just woken up, her whole body felt warm, as if she had been steamed through.
Then, she whispered in explanation.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, I am so hungry.”
She was truly starving; having gone the entire day without food yesterday, she had dreamed of chewing on the bed all night.
But to Pei Yu’s ears, it sounded entirely like provocation.
She pressed her lips together, her pretty peach-blossom eyes slightly lowered, her long lashes casting a dim shadow over her eyelids.
What did she mean by so hungry?
Did she treat her like food or a wet nurse?
Did this foolish dog think that because she was pregnant, she could lord it over her?
Suppressing her anger, she stood up, momentarily forgetting all the shyness and embarrassment of being seen by others.
“Put on your clothes and get out to the front hall to await your punishment.”
This morning, and even for that brief little while after morning court until Cheng Jin arrived, she had been thinking about how to deal with this cheap dog so that life would be worse than death for her.
But now, she had to reconsider carefully.
As long as the chancellor remained alive and well, she could never do anything to Jiang Wu. The posthumous child, the personal gestation, every single tag was far too heavy.
Even the chancellor, who was always calm and self-possessed, would inevitably lose her sanity if she knew a perfectly fine child sent into the deep palace had suffered all sorts of torture and was returned as nothing more than a corpse, and she would struggle to strip the skin right off her.
There was still the damp heat of being enveloped against her chest. She lowered her gaze slightly, her thoughts drifting to the front, to the shoulders of the alpha who was being kicked out step by step by the chancellor.
A light, fleeting term she had read in storybooks during her youth came to mind: the oral stage.
It most frequently appeared in children aged zero to one, and in alphas lacking maternal love.
“Kneel down!”
The alpha, who stood half a head taller than Cheng Jin, blinked in confusion and obediently dropped to her knees.
She had roughly guessed this was the original owner’s mother.
Kneeling before her own mother wasn’t a particularly shameful thing.
Seeing her kneel, the woman, who had originally only wanted to put on a show, fell silent instead. After a long moment, she finally spoke, “Get up.”
After all, she gave birth to her; she couldn’t bear it, and Jiang Wu had never knelt before anyone since she was a little kid.
She wobbled back to her feet.
“When did things happen between you and Her Majesty?”
“About a month ago.”
Cheng Jin suppressed her rising anger, speaking word by word.
“A month ago? Do you know that once a paramour is favored, they are immediately promoted to a consort? It has been a month, and Her Majesty clearly has no intention of promoting you.”
“If you make Her Majesty pregnant and fail to secure a higher rank, you will be trapped in those few thatched huts for the rest of your life!”
“Why did you insist on entering the palace? Why must you abandon a perfectly good life outside just to run over here and suffer? From the time you were a child until now, is there anything you wanted that your mother did not give you?!”
“There are pretty omegas all over the capital; did it have to be Her Majesty?!”
Jiang Wu listened in a daze, then nodded.
She fully agreed with the original owner’s mother’s view; at home she could at least eat her fill, but right now she was about to starve to death.
She was so hungry she felt like crying.
“Besides, paramours gain no recognition. After the child is born, it won’t even be registered under your name. When you see your own child in the future, you’ll even have to bow and address them as imperial princess or highness.”
This time Jiang Wu was truly stunned.
Was it really this miserable? She couldn’t even acknowledge her own child. Thinking of how Pei Yu looked like she wanted nothing more than to kill her, she suddenly felt that whether she could even survive until the child was born was a big question mark.
She lowered her eyelashes, already feeling wronged by hunger. With this train of thought, her entire being became even more pitiful and fragile, and tears fell from the roots of her lashes the moment she lowered her gaze.
The exasperated woman let out a sigh.
“Mother.” Jiang Wu sobbed out, her tone laced with a weeping sound and a damp, clingy clinginess.
Cheng Jin stepped forward with trembling hands, pulling the child who was now half a head taller than her into her embrace. Her gaze mixed heartache and worry, but the anger was completely gone.
“Little Treasure, don’t cry.” The woman’s voice was gentle.
The current Jiang Wu was too much like her childhood self; she cried easily, couldn’t bear the slightest grievance, and when she cried, she insisted on being held to be coaxed, and nobody else would do.
Seeing her child’s tears once again, her heart softened into a total mess.
“It is alright, it is alright. Mother will protect you with all her might.”
She murmured under her breath, as if speaking to herself.
The time of one incense stick was up. Cheng Jin brought Jiang Wu out right on schedule, and the woman sitting on the main seat was already calmly attending to state affairs with an unperturbed expression.
From quite a distance away, Jiang Wu noticed that the floor where Pei Yu sat was raised three steps higher; looking at it from below, it seemed vaguely separated by something.
She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.