During her second dream, Yun Si woke with even greater agitation than the first time. Biting into the brocade quilt, she wept, still letting out intermittent sobs.
Tonight, it was the maid Jin Ming on night duty. Jin Ming was a lighter sleeper than Lu Ya and more attentive, quickly noticing Yun Si’s distress.
“Miss, are you awake?”
“…Why are you crying?”
Jin Ming lifted the soft gauze bed curtain and asked in surprise.
It was impossible to hide it completely… Yun Si replied with a mix of truth and fabrication, “It’s nothing. I just had a nightmare.”
Jin Ming worriedly asked, “What kind of dream did you have to cry like this? Could it be that you were haunted by a nightmare?”
“It’s truly nothing…” To reassure Jin Ming, Yun Si forced herself to suppress the turmoil in her heart and pretended as if nothing had happened.
After finally deceiving Jin Ming, Yun Si lay in bed, too afraid to sleep again, fearing she would have that terrifying dream once more.
Clutching her chest, Yun Si felt almost breathless.
Such a shameful dream—she had it once, twice… Could there be a third time?
The second dream was even more unbearable than the first… Yun Si dared not imagine what she might dream of if there were a third time.
During the day, she had just become engaged to her cousin, yet at night, she dreamed of being with another man like that… Was she born to be fickle and unfaithful?
She… she, how could she be such a person?
For the rest of the night, Yun Si did not close her eyes for a moment. When she went to greet her parents in the morning, Prime Minister Yun and Madam Zheng immediately noticed their daughter’s haggard appearance.
“Are you ill?” Madam Zheng asked with concern.
Yun Si tried to brush it off, “I just didn’t sleep well last night…”
Madam Zheng, still uneasy, insisted on summoning a doctor to examine her pulse. Yun Si initially wanted to refuse but then reconsidered and agreed.
Doctor Xu arrived at Yun Si’s Drifting Cloud Garden. With white hair and beard, he was the skilled and experienced physician who attended to both Yun Si and her mother for medical issues and routine check-ups.
The Chancellor’s Mansion strictly observed the boundaries between men and women, so only a physician of his advanced age could treat female family members.
Even though Doctor Xu was of such an age, he still examined Yun Si’s pulse from behind a curtain. Yun Si extended her wrist, which was covered with a thin, plain handkerchief, and Doctor Xu felt her pulse through the cloth.
This was the customary practice in the Chancellor’s Mansion.
Yun Si had been accustomed to such examinations since childhood and had never given it much thought. But today, she couldn’t help but reflect: as the esteemed legitimate daughter of the Chancellor’s Mansion, even Doctor Xu, who was older than her grandfather, was not allowed to see her face, thus bypassing the first step of observation in the traditional diagnostic method.
Who would have known that in her dreams, her reserved and dignified self had already crossed the boundaries between men and women countless times with a man she had never met…
From behind the brocade curtain, Doctor Xu carefully examined Yun Si’s pulse and pondered, “The young lady is not ill, but has she been frequently frightened lately?”
Jin Ming was puzzled, “Frightened? The young lady hasn’t been frightened at all.”
Yun Si replied with a mix of truth and fabrication, “I suppose I was frightened in my dreams.”
“Doctor, I’ve been having frequent nightmares lately. Is there any medicine I can take to stop dreaming?”
“Of course, there is.” Doctor Xu wrote out a calming prescription with a flourish of his brush. “Take it half an hour before bedtime, and it will help you sleep peacefully with fewer dreams.”
“However, this medicine should not be taken excessively. It should be consumed for no more than seven consecutive days.”
“What you think about by day, you dream about by night. To sleep peacefully at night, you must worry less during the day.”
“Thank you, Doctor Xu!” Yun Si’s voice was light and cheerful, as if a heavy stone had been lifted from her heart. Her face broke into a radiant smile.
Doctor Xu’s herbal decoctions were always effective. After drinking this calming medicine before bed, whether it was pleasant dreams, nightmares, or absurd dreams, they all vanished without a trace.
That kind of unspeakable dream would definitely not happen a third time!
Yun Si clutched the prescription tightly, as if holding a lifeline.
How foolish she had been! Why hadn’t she thought of the calming decoction sooner?
After Aunt Bai saw Doctor Xu out, Yun Si joyfully ordered her maid to fetch and brew the medicine.
All the maids around her noticed Yun Si’s exceptionally good mood.
Lu Ya asked, “Why is the young lady so happy?”
Yun Si smiled and replied, “I can finally sleep well tonight, of course I’m happy!”
Good things come in pairs. That evening, when Prime Minister Yun returned home, he brought news that made the whole family gasp in shock—
The Emperor was ordering a nationwide search for beautiful women!
The selection criteria were only two: skin as white as snow and a red mole on the waist.
As the Prime Minister, he angrily exclaimed, “The Emperor is becoming more and more absurd!”
But as a father, Prime Minister Yun felt immensely relieved—Yun Si happened to have a red mole on her waist!
Everyone in the kingdom knew that the current Emperor, Xie Yan, was a tyrant.
Entering the palace as a consort could mean losing one’s life at any moment!
The Emperor had already killed more than one palace consort.
Even a high-ranking consort like the Virtuous Consort had been executed by the Emperor without hesitation.
Yun Si was the apple of her parents’ eyes, and neither Prime Minister Yun nor Madam Zheng wanted their daughter to enter the palace. However, fate was hard to defy. If Yun Si were among the women summoned, they would have no choice but to send her into the palace.
What was wonderful now was that the Empress Dowager had just bestowed a marriage upon Yun Si a few days earlier.
With the Empress Dowager’s decree, Yun Si was already engaged to Xie Changze. No matter how the Emperor selected beauties, she naturally wouldn’t be chosen.
The family was both overjoyed and fearful, realizing how timely the Empress Dowager’s decree had been. If it had been delayed by just a few days, Yun Si wouldn’t have been able to escape this selection…
Madam Zheng hurriedly lit several sticks of incense to thank the gods and Buddhas for sparing Yun Si from this calamity.
Yun Si was also deeply frightened. Although she had never met the Emperor, as the daughter of the Prime Minister, she had heard plenty of stories about his cruelty.
Given the Emperor’s temperament, if she entered the harem, he might very well argue with her father during the day and kill her at night to vent his anger.
Compared to marrying the incomparably cruel Emperor, Yun Si naturally preferred to marry her upright and honorable cousin.
Madam Zheng wondered aloud, “Although the Emperor has done many absurd things, he has never been fond of women. Why has he suddenly changed his ways?”
Prime Minister Yun fumed, “Who knows!”
When selecting consorts, the Emperor should, of course, consider appearance, but not appearance alone. Family background, virtue, talent… all were crucial.
Yet now, the Emperor disregarded all of that. Even if a woman came from a lowly background or had questionable character, as long as she had skin as white as snow and a red mole on her waist, she would be chosen for the palace!
The requirement for fair skin was one thing, but what about the red mole on the waist?
For a respectable family’s daughter, aside from her closest parents, how could outsiders know such private details?
Could they possibly announce to the world that the Emperor wanted women with red moles on their waists?
Even if the Emperor wasn’t ashamed, his ministers didn’t want to be remembered in infamy alongside him!
Yun Si looked at her father with concern. “Father, please don’t confront the Emperor head-on…”
The Emperor did not only kill within the inner palace; he executed people in the court as well. Any minister who touched his forbidden zone would be dragged away and beheaded.
Prime Minister Yun reassured his daughter, “Your father knows what he is doing.” He certainly would not test whose neck was harder—his own or the Emperor’s blade.
Yun Si still could not rest easy. She sighed deeply, “How could this be…”
How could it be such a coincidence?
Why was the Emperor so coincidentally searching for a woman with a red mole on her waist? A thought flashed through Yun Si’s mind. She wanted to grasp it, but it vanished too quickly, leaving no trace when she tried to recall it.