Chu Liyuan returned to his bedchamber with a dark expression, sitting silently before his desk, staring blankly at the candle flame.
He had never abandoned that suspicion—that Lin Yao and the Crown Prince were in league together.
It was just that over this period of getting along, that suspicion had been gradually pushed into a corner. She wasn’t close to the Crown Prince at all, and even carried a visible wariness toward him. And toward him, her “fiancé,” although her tongue was sharp, she had never truly harmed him.
He had even considered that perhaps she was merely an unwitting pawn, swapped into the Crown Prince’s bridal chamber, stumbling blindly into this royal mire.
But today, Chu Huaian’s move was like deliberately lifting a corner of the tablecloth, revealing the cards hidden beneath.
Those gifts weren’t rewards—they were memories.
It was the Crown Prince deliberately saying to his face—I know a Lin Yao you don’t know, I remember a past you can never squeeze your way into.
Chu Liyuan irritably slammed his teacup onto the table, the tea splashing out and soaking half of an unread official document.
He summoned his trusted shadow agent, his voice low and suppressed: “Investigate the background of Lin Yao, the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister’s estate. From her birth onward, every detail, no matter how small. Especially any dealings she had with the palace in the past—I want to know everything.”
The shadow agent acknowledged the order and departed, leaving the study in silence once more.
Chu Liyuan leaned back in his chair, his gaze falling on the unhealed scar on the tiger’s mouth of his left hand.
He couldn’t quite say what he was investigating, nor could he explain why those few plates of broken fruit today bothered him more than any open or covert attack in the court.
Counting carefully, there was less than half a month until the wedding.
He still remembered how he felt on the night the marriage was decreed—absurd, furious, and filled with bone-deep disgust.
He, Chu Liyuan, a legitimate prince, was being forced to marry a woman of unknown origins, a calamity who had made him lose face before his imperial father.
In those days, he had thought of a hundred ways to deal with her: make her kneel for three days and three nights upon entering the prince’s manor, teach her what discipline meant; throw her into the most remote courtyard and never let her come out to offend his sight again; he had even calculated that if he could catch Chu Huaian entangled with Lin Yao, perhaps he could annul the marriage on the grounds that “this woman has illicit relations with the Crown Prince”—that would be the most satisfying.
But somewhere along the way, those thoughts had soured one by one.
Kneel for three days and three nights? With her frail frame, she’d nearly died from eating a piece of osmanthus cake—three days of kneeling would probably send her straight into a coffin.
Remote courtyard? She could contentedly drag a chair out to sunbathe even in Jingyou Pavilion—no place could contain her.
As for annulling the marriage…
Chu Liyuan’s thoughts slid to this point and suddenly hit a snag.
After annulling it, then what?
She would no longer be his princess. Chu Huaian could send as many grapes and melons as he pleased, write as many sappy poems as he wanted, and Chu Liyuan wouldn’t even have the right to say “stop spending so much thought on my princess.”
He suddenly sat up straight, as if stung by something.
No.
He tried to shake off that absurd thought and reorganized his so-called “big picture view.”
The more entangled Chu Huaian and Lin Yao became, the better—that way it would be easier to catch them in the act, and the more opportunity he’d have to refuse—
Refuse what?
He had clearly been thinking about refusing the marriage just now, but that word “refuse” reached his lips and stuck in his throat like a swallowed stone, impossible to push down.
Chu Liyuan ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
Then why not… simply move the wedding date up.
Yes, move it up!
It had nothing to do with calling off the marriage—purely to cut off Chu Huaian’s window for scheming. Half a month was too long; who knew how many baskets of grapes that hypocrite would send or how many sappy poems he’d write.
Better yet, bring her into his own palace tomorrow.
Yes, that’s it.
This was strategy, this was precaution—nothing else.
Chu Liyuan was extremely satisfied with his own logic, so satisfied that he didn’t even notice the corner of his mouth had already curled up slightly.
After waking from that suffocating nightmare, the previously pleasant “lying flat” atmosphere of Jingyou Pavilion was completely gone.
Lin Yao sat by the window, staring at the gray wall outside, feeling thoroughly unsettled.
She had originally planned to make the best of things.
After all, she’d already transmigrated. Her fiancé, though fierce, was at least a prince. She could settle into the role of a “carefree princess consort,” with food, drink, and a proper position. If she ever transmigrated back, it would count as an immersive ancient-style murder mystery experience.
But that dream had been like a bucket of ice water, dousing her wishful thinking completely.
Inside her body now dwelled A-Yao’s unwilling resentment.
The Fourth Prince Chu Liyuan she was to marry was, on the surface, a proud and possessive wolf-dog, but behind the scenes, he was a madman capable of administering triple-strength poison to an innocent woman. And the “Huaian-gege” that the original owner had pined for—on the surface, deeply affectionate, but in reality, a sanctimonious hypocrite.
Lin Yao irritably ran her fingers through her hair and flipped off the heavens. “This is like panning for gold in a pile of shit. Heaven, you really do have it out for me…”
Since everyone here was a villain, she couldn’t be blamed for abandoning all pretense of honor.
Lin Yao pressed her right hand against the radial pulse on her left wrist, her gaze gradually sharpening.
In truth, she had been hesitating over whether to carry out that infamous “Imperial Grandson” plan. After all, it was a crime of deceiving the emperor—if things went wrong, it could cost her head.
But now, the most urgent, most practical, and most maddening problem was staring her right in the face—
The wedding was less than two weeks away.
The mere thought of spending her wedding night locked in a room with Chu Liyuan—that pervert who slipped aphrodisiacs to women—and having to fulfill the rites of consummation… sent goosebumps crawling across Lin Yao’s skin and her stomach churning violently.
Sure, she was a modern woman with a proper education and an open mind. She didn’t subscribe to that whole “chastity until death” nonsense. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t picky!
Sleeping with the man who had indirectly killed “her”? How was that any different from being raped? It was even more disgusting than rape—it was torture on both a physical and psychological level!
No. Absolutely not.
To survive, she could go through with the marriage. But the consummation? That was completely off the table!
And in this godforsaken feudal society, there was only one reason a man—especially a man of the imperial family—would willingly keep his hands off her at this critical juncture, even treat her like a treasured goddess.
A child.
A precious “Imperial Grandson.”
Lin Yao took a deep breath, her fingertips gently tracing her pulse—her “secret weapon”!
Now, she just needed an opportunity. One that would make everyone have no choice but to believe it…
Inside the Eastern Palace study, the smoke of ambergris incense curled upward, yet it couldn’t suppress the suffocating tension in the air.
Chu Huaian listened to Eunuch Su’s report, his hand holding the teacup freezing mid-air as his expression visibly darkened.
“You’re saying… she didn’t touch the grapes or the honeydew melon at all?” Chu Huaian’s voice betrayed neither anger nor pleasure, yet it sent a chill down one’s spine.
Eunuch Su knelt on the ground, trembling. “Reporting to Your Highness… Miss Lin truly didn’t touch them. She—she simply grabbed a piece of osmanthus cake and took a bite, and… and she even made a fuss, asking everyone to check whether Your Highness had poisoned it…”
“Poison?” Chu Huaian let out a cold laugh, setting the teacup down heavily on the table.
Eunuch Su dared not respond, only burying his head lower.
“And the poem?” Chu Huaian asked again.
Eunuch Su swallowed hard and steeled himself. “Miss Lin… she seemed not to understand. She even asked the Fourth Prince whether ‘Su’e’ was an insult directed at her…”
Chu Huaian’s brows knitted tightly, a flicker of disbelief flashing through his eyes before transforming into a complicated mix of heartache and self-reproach.
A-Yao had begun her education at age five and could recite the Book of Songs by seven. That poem, “Mid-Autumn Moon,” was something he had personally taught her to read at the Mid-Autumn banquet all those years ago. And now she claimed she couldn’t understand it?
Chu Huaian murmured to himself, a note of anguish creeping into his voice. “These eight years of illness—unable to see, unable to speak—and suffering torment in the outer courtyard… she probably can’t even recognize most characters anymore…”
The once-brilliant daughter of the Prime Minister’s household, skilled in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, had been ground down into a coarse woman who couldn’t even understand poetry.
An unprecedented wave of agitation surged through him.
Chu Huaian rose and walked to the window, his gaze piercing through the layers of palace pavilions toward the direction of Jingyou Pavilion.
Eunuch Su had said that Chu Liyuan, like a snarling dog guarding its food, had sent word that “she is my princess consort.”
Chu Huaian narrowed his eyes, a cold glint surfacing in their depths.
These past days, he had been oscillating between the joy of “A-Yao is alive” and the suspicion of “is she really her?”
It wasn’t until this moment—when the title of “Fourth Princess Consort” pressed down on him with ever-increasing reality—that he realized he might have made a misstep.
That woman was A-Yao, the one who had once promised to marry him and become his Crown Princess. Even if she seemed a little different now, she was still his A-Yao.
The mere thought of her, half a month from now on her wedding night, dressed in a crimson bridal gown, being carried into that madman Chu Liyuan’s residence, and even… submitting beneath that brute…
Chu Huaian’s heart felt as if it were being viciously twisted. Sour jealousy and possessiveness instantly overwhelmed his reason.
What was Chu Liyuan anyway? A brute who only knew how to swing a blade—how dare he lay a finger on his A-Yao?
“No.”
He regretted it!
As long as the marriage hadn’t taken place, she was still a daughter of the Lin family.
And as long as she was a daughter of the Lin family, whose woman she ultimately became was still up for grabs!