That fleeting glimpse was hurried and rushed, and by the time she looked again, it had already vanished. For a split second, Shen Lizhuang almost thought she had seen wrong.
Eldest Sister?
Had she returned? Or had she never left Yujing to begin with?
Since she had returned, how could she be mingling within Ci’en Temple, disguised among the Guanyins at the ceremony?
Or perhaps, she knew of her whereabouts and had come purposely to encounter her?
As it happened, she also very much wanted to settle accounts with Shen Meizhuang for this old score—being abandoned without warning and having her weakness exploited to surrender her body to the Prince of Jing.
Before Shen Lizhuang could step forward, however, the little novice monk looked at her in confusion, blinking his eyes repeatedly. “Who is the benefactor looking at?”
Unable to shake off this bothersome little novice, and terrified that the Prince of Jing might grow tired of waiting and decide to commit murder, Shen Lizhuang had no choice but to slip away from the Mahavira Hall first.
Relying on her memory, with a heart full of trepidation and turbulent emotions, she retraced her steps along the old path. Finally, after pushing against several waves of surging crowds, her gaze caught sight of the Prince of Jing, who was still lingering right where he had been, having gone nowhere at all.
Although he was blind, he possessed the ability to perceive the minutest details. Not daring to slip up and let him realize that she had seen her elder sister among the Guanyins today, Shen Lizhuang hurried her steps for a short distance. This caused her chest to rise and fall continuously, throwing her heartbeat out of balance, yet in a way that raised no suspicions.
She ran back to the Prince of Jing in one breath. Standing still, Shen Lizhuang—who had rehearsed her mental defenses all along the way—felt even more apprehensive.
Because the Prince of Jing, having been left alone and abandoned in the crowd for well over the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, wore a countenance so gloomy it seemed he might choose someone to devour at any second. His refined, handsome brows were brimming with a violent, murderous aura.
“Where did you go?”
Ji Mu’s tone was exceedingly poor, and he knew it.
In all his life, he had never been treated with such casual disregard.
At that very moment, there was an instant when he longed to seize the back of her neck, haul her right before his eyes, and bind her up using the jade girdle from his waist.
Shen Lizhuang was truly frightened by his tone and hurriedly replied: “I, just now after pouring the Buddha-water, was, was swept away by a crowd of people.”
Hearing this, his expression cleared slightly, though his voice remained several degrees chillingly cold: “I called out to you. Didn’t you hear?”
“I didn’t, I didn’t hear,” Shen Lizhuang whispered in her own defense, her mind filled entirely with her elder sister’s figure amidst the Guanyins just moments before. “There were too many people, and my ears aren’t as sharp as Your Highness’s.”
“Are you mocking this Prince for being blind?” The flames of anger flared up in his voice once more. If his eyes possessed any vital spark, the depths of his gaze would surely have brimmed with the ferocious intent to crush her to death within his embrace.
Shen Lizhuang shook her head vigorously. “N—no! I genuinely couldn’t hear.”
Ji Mu said coldly, “Swept away by people? Then why did it take you so long to return?”
Shen Lizhuang truly felt that this man was terrifying; despite being left alone for merely the span of a teacup’s time, he insisted on cross-examining every single minute detail.
Naturally, she could not say that she had spotted her long-absent elder sister in the Mahavira Hall. Composing her internal draft a few times over, she spoke up with a flustered air: “I was swept away toward the main hall by them, and seeing what looked like Guanyins inside, I got distracted and stared for a few extra moments. Your Highness, I really did remember to come back—look, didn’t I come looking for you the moment I broke free?”
Ji Mu’s phoenix eyes were dark, murky, and sinister, brimming with a terrifying, unfathomable depth. “I had a novice monk sent to search for you. How much longer do you intend to deceive this Prince?”
Oh no, that little master had actually been sent by him. This time she had really messed things up.
While Shen Lizhuang was still deliberating her excuses, Ji Mu—long out of patience for her sophistry—extended his right arm from where his hand had been propped, precisely tracking the direction of her voice. When his chilling palm pressed against the back of her neck, though he exerted no force, Shen Lizhuang felt an instant wave of difficulty in breathing. It felt like a venomous snake darting its tongue and coiling around her fragile skin, sending goosebumps rippling uncontrollably across her neck.
Ji Mu’s fingers hooked around her slender, elegant neck, inching toward the back of Shen Lizhuang’s nape. Finally, he tightened his grip heavily upon that lingering spot.
Shen Lizhuang’s heels left the ground as if she were being entirely uprooted by him, hauled straight up to his chest.
Following that, Ji Mu pressed her against his breastbone, controlling her without the slightest room for debate or even a shred of resistance.
“Put on your veil hat.”
He commanded in a deep voice.
Shen Lizhuang hurriedly picked up the veil hat she had been carrying behind her and placed it on her head.
The veil hat, draped with curtains on all four sides, instantly concealed her countenance. Ji Mu hooked open a corner of the dark linen gauze, and shielding his actions with the cover of night, thrust his face right into the veil.
When she was abruptly and defenselessly confronted face-to-face with the grim and terrifying visage of the Prince of Jing, Shen Lizhuang lost her wits in sheer panic, her heart fluttering chaotically as she clenched her fingertips deep inside her sleeves.
With pinpoint accuracy, the Prince of Jing clamped his mouth straight onto the woman’s trembling lips, biting down wantonly with the utmost punitive attitude!
“Hiss.” Shen Lizhuang let out a cry of pain on the spot.
Without a shred of tender affection, he deepened the kiss, injecting a trace of retaliatory, slightly metallic sweetness into the embrace.
The skin of her lips was chafed raw, and a thin, damp trickle oozed out, teased by his lips and tongue as he breached the barrier of her teeth and delivered it to the tip of her tongue.
This was a Buddhist temple!
All around them were passing pedestrians, and plenty of people had already noticed them. Yet this shameless man right before her was blind and completely oblivious to the strange looks of those around him!
“Are you so excited to be kissed here?” He finally ceased his biting and nipping, his lips hovering beside her ear as he spoke.
Excited! What kind of excitement was she feeling? She was practically dying of shame and emotional turmoil.
She longed to punch him hard.
Ji Mu let out a derisive, cold snort and withdrew his face from behind her dark linen veil. Once they stopped kissing, the two of them ceased to be the focal point of the pilgrims’ gazes, yet Shen Lizhuang could still faintly sense the contempt and disdain of the surrounding people toward their desecration of a sacred Buddhist sanctuary without regard for heaven or earth.
She was so mortified she wished she could just burrow into the ground and escape, but unfortunately, she lacked the grand magical power of earth-shuttling.
Ji Mu reached out a large palm, grasped her hand, and towed her along like a paper kite, making his way back with his blind staff in hand.
He had no heart to continue touring the temple festival, and he devoutly hoped she had no heart for it either—she could spend the time thoroughly explaining her disappearance and compensating him for abandoning him.
The two of them walked straight out of the mountain gate. In the corner of the Mahavira Hall, a gaze slowly withdrew from behind a half-open wooden window.
Beneath the pristine, hanging gauze, the woman slowly tightened her grip on the blessing-bestowing purification vase in her hand, her complexion washed in a frail, pale hue.
Shen Lizhuang was dragged all the way out of Ci’en Temple by Ji Mu, moving against the crowds still surging inward as they headed toward the carriage parked outside the temple.
The horse was tethered beneath an ancient phoenix tree, quietly blowing a soft snort. Ji Mu shoved the disobedient woman up into the carriage and instructed Longzhou: “Return to the manor.”
His voice paused for a fraction of a second, causing Shen Lizhuang—whose heart was thumping wildly inside the carriage and who was trembling with nervous anxiety over what sort of treatment she might face next—to shiver slightly.
At that moment, he commanded with a dark face: “Take Green Poplar Street. That street has fewer people.”
Hearing this sounded as though he intensely disliked the clamor and bustle, but Shen Lizhuang, a seasoned native of Yujing, felt her chest skip a beat, her pupils nearly dilating in shock.
Aside from having fewer people, the more crucial point about Green Poplar Street was that it was a good two times longer than the direct route they had taken on the way out. It would likely take all of two full hours to reach the Prince of Jing’s Manor.
Shen Lizhuang collapsed weakly against the cushions. By the time the Prince of Jing stepped into the carriage and pulled her into his embrace, she was already listlessly slumped against his chest, unable to speak a word. Only a faint terror caused her body to tremble in tiny fragments, like an orphaned fledgling hesitating in the wind and rain.
The carriage set into motion, rolling over archaic, weathered gray bricks and emitting a rumbling sound.
The noise and chaos seemed instantly isolated and distanced away.
Ji Mu’s powerful, muscular arm gripped the slender, graceful waist of the woman in his arms. Inhaling a serene fragrance of pear blossoms tainted with the sandalwood of the Buddha’s presence, the ink-black depths of his gaze gradually grew darker.
Shen Lizhuang knew what was going to happen; she was merely playing dumb, intentionally closing her eyes. As they traveled a stretch of the road, the environment surrounding the carriage gradually grew much quieter. Aside from the sound of wheels grinding over blue bricks, almost no other sounds could be heard. At that exact moment, Shen Lizhuang’s eyelashes fluttered gently like the wings of a butterfly.
The silk skirt around her waist exhibited a slight downward sag, though it did not fall off completely, resting loosely across both sides of her hipbones. The skirt ties were slowly nudged open, and the chilling night air invaded her space, shocking her against her delicate, fragile skin and causing her to involuntarily part her lips, trembling as she bit down onto the dark cyan python-patterned fabric on the Prince of Jing’s shoulder.
Even as she bit down, she did not dare sink her teeth into his actual flesh; she merely wet a circle of watermark onto the green python on his shoulder.
Ji Mu unhurriedly extended and twisted her further.
Shen Lizhuang, already shivering, shook even more violently.
Green Poplar Street was not only a journey of remote distances, but it also offered the experiential thrill of a bumpy, unpaved ride. The carriage rattled apprehensively on the uneven road surface every now and then, causing the cabin to shudder.
The intensity of the experience was beyond control, running somewhat wild. Shen Lizhuang’s eye sockets grew damp with moisture, and on several occasions, she wanted to open her mouth to beg him, only to recall the Prince of Jing’s peculiar habits, fearing that once she spoke, the situation would become even more irrevocable.
Sensibly choosing to endure it, she found the ordeal truly impossible to describe adequately in words.
“Are you wrong?”
She suddenly heard the Prince of Jing’s cold, deep interrogation beside her.
Shen Lizhuang did not answer.
She did not like making sounds at times like this.
Ji Mu’s hands were filled with the commanding strength of absolute control, and his punishment for her stepped up several tiers, stacked layer upon layer. The hard ring on his index finger inadvertently grazed continuously over her softness, and the abrasive texture aroused yet another entirely unspeakable sensation.
“Leaving this Prince behind—was that wrong?”
Shen Lizhuang finally could not hold back, wrapping her arms heavily around the Prince of Jing’s neck.
When her soft, jade-like arms wound around his neck, Ji Mu’s mind stirred slightly, and the stuffy, stifling turbid breath within his chest seemed to be squeezed out as she abruptly threw herself against him.
Hanging from Ji Mu’s waist and abdomen, Shen Lizhuang’s voice was hoarse beyond recognition: “Your Highness, I was wrong… I was really wrong, I will never dare to do it again in the future…”
Pitying her, Ji Mu felt his murderous aura completely dissipated by this embrace. Having already decided not to press the matter further, he suddenly felt as though sweet dew from a willow branch had been bestowed upon his palms, leaving them slick and sticky. A trace of surprise flashed through the man’s heart.
In the past, he had never seen her like this; could it be that she actually enjoyed being punished and disciplined by him?
Shen Lizhuang’s ears burned a mortified red, while a hand unarguably covered her cheek.
Sensing the scorching heat of the cheek beneath his palm, Ji Mu’s thin lips twitched ambiguously. “You like it?”
Shen Lizhuang did not want to say she liked it, nor could she say she didn’t.
Her mind, which had originally been full of that single glimpse of her elder sister, could no longer spare the mental energy to dwell on how her sister had managed to appear in such a place.
She softly pleaded: “Your Highness, can we not take Green Poplar Street? It’s too long…”
Knowing the route well, Ji Mu dashed her wild hopes: “It is already too late; the carriage has already turned onto Green Poplar Street. We can already smell the signature tofu-stew of Green Poplar Street’s head.”
Shen Lizhuang was normally very fond of eating tofu, but at this moment she had no care for buying tofu, seeing as she was being “eaten” continuously herself.
That place was completely beyond her control; the unfamiliar, numbing sensation filled Shen Lizhuang with panic.
“Your Highness, will you listen to me?”
Unhurriedly pulling the silk strings, Ji Mu kissed her powdery cheek down toward her slender neck, his tone growing slightly blurred: “This Prince is listening.”
Shen Lizhuang tilted her slender, snowy neck, looking up with helpless eyes at the constantly shaking canopy of the carriage roof. Countless trickles of water poured down, indistinguishable whether they were tears or something else.
“I—I just listened to the profound scripture-chanting in the Mahavira Hall and saw, saw so many pilgrims inside the hall praying for Guanyin to bestow blessings, praying for their husbands to be rich and noble with bountiful food, for household peace, children surrounding their knees, and halls filled with gold and jade. I simply got too caught up listening to those things. Your Highness, may I pray for you?”
Regarding the talk of gods and Buddhas, Ji Mu half-believed it.
Yet upon hearing Shen Lizhuang say this, it was as if a warm current suddenly seeped into his heart and spleen, extinguishing ninety percent of that restless, agitated fire burning within his chest and lungs with a single sentence.
“How to pray?”
Tilt her snowy neck back, Shen Lizhuang felt that the skin right around her Adam’s apple (throat) must have been sucked red by the Prince of Jing, leaving a dull, stinging pain in the flesh.
Drawing a ragged breath and trying her utmost to remain calm, she said: “I want to undergo vegetarian fasting for seven days within Ci’en Temple, to pray for Your Highness’s blessings… praying that Your Highness enjoys both fortune and longevity, and that all your wishes are fulfilled.”
“Denied.” Ji Mu furrowed his brows.
“Your Highness…”
“Do not speak of it again.”
How endlessly long were seven days? How could he possibly endure it?
She certainly would like that—to abandon and discard him time and time again.
What seven days of vegetarian fasting, what praying and scripture-chanting—they were nothing more than excuses fabricated to hide from him and evade him.
Figuring she felt he had been somewhat too heavy-handed in his bullying, Ji Mu compromised slightly. He withdrew his entire palm from beneath her skirt and took out a handkerchief to cleanse his hands.
The empty, desolate feeling also seemed not entirely easy to bear. Shen Lizhuang pulled her sore, weak legs together beneath the cover of her skirt.
Her gaze froze as she looked toward the hands he was using to wipe himself, recognizing that the handkerchief he held was the very one she had given him not long ago. Her cheeks instantly flared a blazing red.
The scene was so vivid it overwhelmed her to the point where she didn’t even dare look.
“Y—Your Highness…”
“No matter how many times you repeat it, this Prince will not consent. Do you understand?”
“I—I heard you.”
Shen Lizhuang lowered her gaze, not without disappointment.
It was almost as if she would genuinely be disappointed if she didn’t get to pray and chant scriptures for him. Smiling coldly, Ji Mu turned his face toward the right wall of the carriage.
Most people who had read books were cunning. Though she looked docile, harmless, and purely understanding, she couldn’t even offer a proper explanation for why she had abandoned him for so long today, because she held very little loyalty toward him.
For someone under his command, harboring suspicion and a rift of distrust could only be mended by bloodshed.
Yet she had absurdly forced him to swallow this surge of anger—so absurdly that a fleeting moment of bewilderment had crossed Ji Mu’s heart.
The Prince of Jing route isn’t going to work, Shen Lizhuang thought to herself. He clearly had no intention whatsoever of letting her go for even half a day.
She found it truly bizarre; his desires were so overwhelming that an ordinary person could never keep up, yet before marrying her, he hadn’t even arranged a single bedchamber maid. Didn’t these aristocratic men all love arranging bedchamber maids to help them understand the ways of the world? Shen Jichang in Madam Lin’s household already had them when he was fifteen.
Now that she had momentarily escaped, she couldn’t help but repeatedly recall the fleeting glimpse of her elder sister’s face in the Mahavira Hall—that face hidden beneath white gauze, blindingly familiar. The last time they met, they had still been sharing cups and laughing together in the side room of Xunchun Residence.
Cups crossed in toasts, the clear light within the wine goblets spilled across her elder sister’s full, rosy cheeks, bright and lovely like red plum blossoms in the snow. Her eyes were filled with benevolent smiles.
Though it was all fake.
Two months had slipped by in the blink of an eye.
Seeing her elder sister again, she seemed to have grown much thinner, and her face appeared considerably haggard. She wondered where she had been these past two months, where she had settled down, and what she had endured.
Returning alone, she seemed not to have alerted the Shen family.
Moreover, that zither player Liu Xu, who used to follow her every step, seemed to be absent.
That’s right—where was the zither player surnamed Liu? He had left together with her; why was it that now only the elder sister had returned, with no trace of him to be seen?
Too many questions lingered in Shen Lizhuang’s mind. She could absolutely not continue staying in the Prince’s Manor as if nothing were the matter; she had to find a way to get to Ci’en Temple and meet her elder sister face-to-face.
A major incident had occurred during yesterday’s Buddha Bathing Festival. Citizens of the city had swarmed continuously toward the Buddhist temple, and a stampede broke out in the narrow alley taking a shortcut before Tiansheng Street, resulting in a tragic toll of two deaths and six injuries.
The City Patrol Office’s duty officer for that day was stripped of his post on the spot, and under the Emperor’s fury, the alleys of Tiansheng Street were sealed off this morning. As for the Prince of Jing, he had also been summoned to the palace.
Shen Lizhuang put on a worried expression. Consort Yun, noticing her absent-mindedness while drinking tea, comforted her, saying, “Jiaojiaz, Heqiu will handle everything properly. There’s no need to worry.”
Shen Lizhuang bit her lip, her gaze flickering as she mumbled, “It’s all my fault for insisting on going to the Buddha Bathing Festival with His Highness. Yesterday, our carriage happened to pass right through Tiansheng Street. Will His Highness be used by others as an excuse to be attacked as a target for criticism?”
Consort Yun reined in her expression and shook her head. “That shouldn’t happen. Don’t fret over these things. After all, lives and injuries befell the common people; as a Prince, he indeed bears some fault of oversight, but he holds no real power, and the City Patrol Office and Yujing Prefecture are not under his jurisdiction. The Emperor summoning him is merely to ask questions.”
Shen Lizhuang wore a look of shame. “Since Her Ladyship doesn’t blame me, my heart still aches. Thinking that His Highness almost got dragged into a lawsuit because of my impulsive whim, Jiaojiaz truly cannot help feeling a sense of resentment toward herself. Yesterday, when I went to Ci’en Temple to listen to the monks chant scriptures, I gained quite a bit of realization. I beg Her Ladyship’s grace to permit Jiaojiaz to perform incense-burning and vegetarian fasting within the temple, praying for His Highness’s blessings. I pray that His Highness is spared from trouble and that disasters are dissolved into nothingness, and I also pray for the deceased and injured common people, wishing them peace and safety, and release from suffering.”
Consort Yun was taken aback by Shen Lizhuang’s sudden decision. Yet, Jiaojiaz ultimately harbored genuine sincerity toward Heqiu, which moved Consort Yun somewhat.
“Jiaojiaz, the matter has nothing to do with you; you needn’t blame yourself for this.”
The guilt on Shen Lizhuang’s face grew heavier and heavier, a sight that pained Consort Yun to witness.
After much deliberation, Consort Yun let out a sigh. “Very well, I will answer in Heqiu’s stead. He is currently in the palace and it’s uncertain when he will return. Once he returns, you can speak properly with him, bid him farewell, and then go—that won’t be too late.”
Shen Lizhuang thought to herself: Once the Prince of Jing returns, will I still be able to leave? I’ll probably be eaten to death by him.
Whenever she thought of that gold-wrapped and jade-bound girdle, her body could not help but shudder with apprehension. Quivering slightly, she slowly said, “There’s no time like the present; I wish to go right now. Jiaojiaz also wishes to contribute some effort toward comforting the injured and bereaved common people.”
Consort Yun granted permission, instructing Madam Zhou to allocate a sum for compensation from the Prince’s Manor’s accounts and hand it over for the Princess Consort to bring along.
Although comforting the people was a matter for the imperial court, the condolences from the Prince’s Manor stemmed from private benevolence. Consort Yun had never cared much about worldly wealth; if it could pacify the common people and spare Heqiu from sinking into the edge of the vortex, then this money ought to be spent no matter what.
Shen Lizhuang had not expected things to go so smoothly. Thanking Consort Yun, she donned her veil hat that very day and drove out through the manor gates in a carriage.
By dusk, the evening mist drifted slowly past the dark green glazed tiles of the eaves, and late-returning crows folded their damp wings, wearily roosting in their nests.
Ji Mu was just returning to the Prince’s Manor from the palace. No sooner had he stepped through the entrance than Li茂—who had taken the blind staff and stepped forward to support him—informed him: “Your Highness, the Princess Consort went out alone today.”
Ji Mu’s footsteps came to a halt, and his pitch-black phoenix eyes instantly churned into ink, a trace of a violent aura floating to the surface. “Where did she go?”
Frightened by the Prince’s expression, Li Mao gave a tiny inner start and hurriedly replied: “Reporting to Your Highness, Her Ladyship the Consort granted permission for the Princess Consort to go to the Buddhist temple to pray for blessings. The Princess Consort also brought along a sum of money to compensate the injured and the families of the deceased. She has been gone for two hours already.”
Ji Mu’s breathing evened out slightly, and his previously heaving chest slowly settled.
“This Prince will go find her and bring her back.”
He attempted to retrieve his blind staff and turn to head outside, only to be dissuaded by Li Mao.
“Your Highness, Her Ladyship asked that you first go to Wangjiang Courtyard upon returning to the manor.”
Ji Mu took a deep breath, unaware of what his mother wished to say to him. The mere thought that she was not in the manor left him uncontrollably irritable.
For multiple days in a row, he would not be able to see her again.
How could he tolerate that? She was here to compensate him; she was his wife, and she ought to be waiting for him right in his home. As long as he did not give permission for her to be released, this woman could not leave the Prince of Jing’s Manor.
Ji Mu knitted his deep brows. “Have the horses kept at the entrance; don’t lead them back to the stable. This Prince will return as soon as I see Mother.”
Receiving the command, Li Mao sent someone to fetch the horse and led the Prince into Wangjiang Courtyard.
Ji Mu arrived at the side parlor to see his mother. Consort Yun was resting on a arhat bed. Seeing him arrive, she invited him to sit and had her trusted elderly maid hand over a pair of solid light-yellowish silk money-patterned embroidered headrests so he could lean back and rest as well. The Prince of Jing stated he was not tired and didn’t need the trouble, and he also refused the Guanyin tea pushed toward him by his mother.
“You’ve grown restless and impatient again; I can tell just by listening to your breathing,” Consort Yun said, a hint of worry surfacing on her fatigued brows. “Is it because of the palace affair? Did the Emperor reprimand you?”
Ji Mu replied in a deep voice: “No.”
Since it wasn’t a reprimand, it certainly had to be about Jiaojiaz. Consort Yun knew it clearly in her heart.
“It was I who permitted Jiaojiaz to go; you are not to go looking for her. A pure and solitary sanctuary of Buddhism is no place for men and women to cling to one another.”
Consort Yun first used her words to block off her son’s unspoken, unspeakable thoughts. Taken aback, Ji Mu seemed on the verge of talking back.
The moment Consort Yun caught sight of his gloomy, extreme expression, she furrowed her delicate brows. “She married into your household. If you keep her and treat her as your Princess Consort, you ought to maintain a degree of respect. If it is something she wishes to do, you must not willfully obstruct her, and even less should you wield your power as the Prince of Jing to intimidate her. I can tell that her going to the temple might also be an intentional way of avoiding you. Though I don’t know what transpired between the two of you, I am thoroughly familiar with your disposition. Heqiu, you are far too rigid. No woman will ever be willing to love you this way; even if there is adoration, it is merely adoration for the status and power of the Prince of Jing, and adoration for your physical appearance. As for you as a person—that is difficult.”
Ji Mu stiffened his lips, frowning in speechless silence.
In the heart of the person who understood him best, he turned out to be this inadequate. Growing even more restless and vexed, Ji Mu now felt an additional measure of pent-up depression that he had nowhere to vent.
Consort Yun pushed the Guanyin tea a bit further toward him. The porcelain lid tapped against the rim of the bowl, emitting a crisp collision sound like cold ice dropping into a glass box.
“Drink your tea.”
This time, her tone already carried a fraction of a commanding edge.
She had made him cultivate the habit of drinking tea since childhood in order to temper his temperament and cultivate an open-minded and peaceful disposition. Among the men of the imperial Ji clan who belonged to the legitimate royal lineage, very few lived past the age of fifty; every single one of them suffered from emotional imbalance, irritability, and extremism. Even his imperial father had lost his life right as he was about to reach the age of fifty, struck down by a minor illness.
Consort Yun knew how to use words to keep Ji Mu in check. Ji Mu had practiced health preservation since childhood; initially, he hadn’t liked drinking tea either, finding the flavor both bland and bitter. Yet drinking it month after month and year after year, he had actually gotten used to it—growing so accustomed to old habits that from start to finish he drank only a single variety, Guanyin, never switching to other tea leaves, so exclusively devoted that he hardly seemed like a descendant of the Ji family at all.
Frowning, Ji Mu picked up the teacup with little patience and took a sip.
Noticing the subtle clues between his brows, Consort Yun’s tone deepened somewhat: “And don’t you go thinking that once you lull your mother to sleep, you can drive out and drag your Princess Consort back by force. After I fall asleep, I will arrange for people to keep an eye on you. Seven days from now, I will personally arrange for someone to fetch Jiaojiaz back. You handle your own internal responsibilities, manage the pacification of the common people properly, and don’t give others grounds for criticism. You are not to interfere in Jiaojiaz’s matters.”