The night was already deep. In the bedchamber of Ganlu Palace the candlelight was dim, and it was so quiet that one could almost hear the candle flames sway.
Shang Yinyu, Emperor of Great Xia, lay on the dragon couch with his eyes closed. Under his deliberate control, his breathing sounded deep and long, creating the false appearance of sound sleep.
He was waiting for someone.
Shang Yinyu rubbed the homemade hidden weapon in his palm and, under cover of the brocade quilt, adjusted his grip on it.
The weapon was a long needle, extremely sharp, and the juice of the upas tree had been worked into the body of the needle.
Once the needle pierced a person’s skin, it could paralyze the heart, seal the blood vessels and coagulate the blood, and the person would finally die of suffocation. It was commonly called “sealing the throat at the sight of blood.”
As a transmigrator from the Celestial Dynasty, he had spent so many years in this world, yet the weapon he carried at a critical moment like this was not even a firearm. He could only make do with upas juice, and it was truly depressing.
Deep in his heart, Shang Yinyu cursed his former self, who had handed the Firearms Battalion to Qiao Beiji, until the blood ran.
How could you be so blind? You trusted a fellow like that and played a good hand into a mess.
Shang Yinyu let his thoughts wander. He had personally raised Qiao Beiji up from the lowest slave to shadow guard, to Imperial Guard, and then to the present First-Rank Guardian General of the State… This tiger-leopard had come, after all, to the time of biting its master.
The gauze curtain stirred faintly, almost imperceptibly. Wisps of coolness seeped into the bed, and with it came the faint fragrance of osmanthus.
Shang Yinyu said to himself in his heart: He’s here.
Shang Yinyu was unexpectedly calm. His breathing and heartbeat were kept extremely steady, and he even had the mind to wonder how long Qiao Beiji had been waiting in the osmanthus tree outside his bedchamber to become soaked in such a cool, faint fragrance.
Shang Yinyu was confident the visitor would not notice he was feigning sleep. After all, everything he had, from his skill to his breath-cultivation method, he had learned from this man, so he knew very well how to deceive him.
Time passed minute by minute, and Qiao Beiji did not move for a long while. If Shang Yinyu had not been able to sense the other’s heartbeat and breathing, he would have thought the man had already left.
Shang Yinyu waited until he was only sleepy. In the daytime he had to listen to his ministers argue endlessly, after court he had to review memorials, and at night a treacherous minister visited his bedchamber and left him no peaceful sleep. There was no job more miserable than emperor in the world.
The great powerful minister with a rebellious heart was standing right beside his bed. Shang Yinyu should not have grown drowsy so easily, but he could not resist, because this powerful minister had been his shadow guard for fifteen years and had slept with him for five.
The other’s scent was too familiar to Shang Yinyu, and as soon as he smelled it he grew drowsy.
In a haze, Shang Yinyu felt a pair of slightly warm hands slide across his collar, and the pads of the fingers touched his neck.
Shang Yinyu gave a start and was instantly awake. If not for what he had experienced a few days before, and the long mental preparation he had made before sleeping, he would surely have been startled into breaking his act.
He barely managed to suppress his body’s instinctive reaction, and the hand in his sleeve quietly tightened on the homemade weapon.
He thought this was Qiao Beiji’s probe, testing whether he was really asleep.
Qiao Beiji now held the palace guards in his grip, and his own martial skill was extremely high, so sneaking into the bedchamber in the dead of night was no difficulty for him.
This was not the first time the man had probed him like this.
A few days earlier, at the palace banquet, Shang Yinyu had drunk too much, and in the middle of the night he was woken by the need to relieve himself. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Qiao Beiji with a hand pressed to his chest.
Only then did Shang Yinyu know that it was not only the guards; even his shadow guards were as good as nonexistent in the eyes of Qiao Beiji, his former shadow guard commander.
Breaking into the emperor’s bedchamber at night was a crime punishable by death, but at that moment Qiao Beiji’s hand was on his heart meridian.
Shang Yinyu was utterly compliant.
In that moment of mortal danger, Shang Yinyu thought quickly. Feigning madness through drink, he pulled Qiao Beiji onto the couch and hugged and gnawed on him, smearing wine-scented saliva all over General Qiao’s face and leaving deep and shallow teeth marks, and only then did he get through it.
If not for the acting skills honed over nine years as a prince and fourteen as emperor, Shang Yinyu felt he would not have lived through that night.
Later, having picked up his life again, Shang Yinyu also wondered what Qiao Beiji had come to his bedchamber to do. Surely it was not that he missed him badly and wanted a look at his sleeping face to ease his craving?
Shang Yinyu’s mother, the Empress Dowager, had been the foremost beauty of Shengjing, so he naturally was not bad-looking either. He had a face that could make palace maids and noble ladies cover their faces and blush.
Shang Yinyu quickly ruled out this possibility. Anyone might be infatuated with his looks, but Qiao Beiji never would. That was a block of wood who, after being favored by him, could calmly get up, dress and go on night duty.
After thinking it over, the one thing about him that would have an absolute attraction for Qiao Beiji was probably the jade seals.
Shang Yinyu had even made a point of checking. All six jade seals were there, not one missing.
He thought that Qiao Beiji had failed once and would surely come a second time.
Look, it had only been a few days, and the man could not wait to come again.
Now Qiao Beiji’s fingers were against his skin, moving slowly upward, from his neck all the way up to his cheek. The scene was very much like that night.
Goosebumps were about to rise on Shang Yinyu, but he had to bear it. This time he did not have the natural cover of drunkenness, and Qiao Beiji was too far from him for him to guarantee a kill in one strike.
With Qiao Beiji’s martial skill, if he could not kill him in one strike and the other discovered his intent, they would have completely torn off their masks.
Shang Yinyu felt a moment of relief that his brothers had all died off, and that, since he preferred men, he had left no prince in all these years. Unless Qiao Beiji truly wanted to bear the eternal infamy of killing his sovereign, he would never move against him.
To hold the Son of Heaven and command the lords, there had to be a living Son of Heaven to do it.
It was not known whether he had probed enough, but the hand finally moved away from his face. Before Shang Yinyu could breathe out, however, the hand went into the brocade quilt.
Shang Yinyu was so startled that his breath caught.
The weapon was in his inner hand, and Qiao Beiji might well reach over to it.
Once his trump card was revealed, it would be a fight to the death.
With that held breath just now, Shang Yinyu’s breathing rhythm had gone disordered, but Qiao Beiji seemed not to notice, and the hand kept moving slowly.
Shang Yinyu was puzzled. With Qiao Beiji’s martial skill, it was impossible for him not to sense it.
He focused again and listened closely, and was surprised to find that Qiao Beiji’s breathing was even more disordered than his own.
Why was the other so nervous? Could it be that he no longer cared even about holding the Son of Heaven and commanding the lords, and wanted to kill the sovereign directly?!
Shang Yinyu thought of his late father, the former emperor, who had been smothered with a quilt by a palace consort after getting drunk. If the consort were replaced by Qiao Beiji, there would not even be a need for a prop like the quilt; one hand of his could make him die silently.
The hand had already undone the ties at his side, and there was no longer a thin layer of clothing between Qiao Beiji’s fingertips and him.
Qiao Beiji’s hand was trembling.
Ha. Even the ever-steady General Qiao, when he truly reached the step of regicide, would be flustered?
Shang Yinyu found amusement in his bitterness. His palm was already soaked with sweat, yet he did not dare to loosen his grip on the weapon in the slightest.
At the same time, Shang Yinyu heard the other’s breathing grow heavier and more urgent.
—Qiao Beiji leaned down and drew close.
Scorching breath fell on the side of Shang Yinyu’s face, and Shang Yinyu smelled the faint fragrance of osmanthus. He suddenly opened his eyes, caught the hand of Qiao Beiji pressed against him, and yanked it onto the couch.
The instant Qiao Beiji lost his balance and fell into the brocade quilt, Shang Yinyu used the force to roll up and over. The weapon he had gripped for so long drove straight into Qiao Beiji’s heart, and the whole weight of Shang Yinyu’s body pressed down with it.
“…”
The silk curtains flew. Shang Yinyu eased his heavy breathing and raised his eyes to meet Qiao Beiji’s eyes. Those dark eyes he knew so well had, rarely, surprise and alarm in them.
Shang Yinyu thought: It’s over.
The myriad emotions piled up in his heart were about to surge, but Shang Yinyu suddenly felt something was wrong.
—What he held in his palm was nothing but a handful of sweat!
Where was my blood-sealing needle?!
Shang Yinyu’s thoughts had never moved so fast as at that moment. The instant he found his hand had no needle, he reached out and struck Qiao Beiji’s acupoints, and at the same time put out a hand and covered the other’s mouth and nose.
Perhaps because his palm was slippery with sweat, the long needle had fallen somewhere during that last movement, and the situation left no time for Shang Yinyu to search for the blood-sealing needle.
Wasn’t it also possible to smother a person? Whether it worked or not, he had to try.
Qiao Beiji lay quietly and did not resist.
—Of course the man could not resist, having had his acupoints struck.
Shang Yinyu’s acupoint-striking technique had also been learned from Qiao Beiji. He was not sure how long it would take the other to break through the seal, so he could only press his whole body against Qiao Beiji, wrap his limbs around him, and cover his mouth and nose so tightly that no air could get through.
The room was very quiet. Shang Yinyu could hear his own heavy breathing. The two of them were pressed very close, and Shang Yinyu could even count Qiao Beiji’s eyelashes.
Shang Yinyu did not remember how long it had been since he had looked at Qiao Beiji from so close. After all, the last time he had favored him at Yumen Pass, in Qiao Beiji’s general’s tent, he had had a farewell fling with him.
That night, snow filled the sky at Yumen Pass, and red waves rolled inside the general’s tent.
After that, Qiao Beiji’s army advanced like a bamboo being split, broke the Jin capital, and Qiao Beiji became Great Xia’s Guardian General of the State.
Their relationship was completely extinguished on that night of wind and snow, and Qiao Beiji no longer needed to submit to him.
He had made Qiao Beiji the Duke of the Guardian State, made Qiao Beiji’s childhood sweetheart who lived in the Cold Palace a princess, and granted them a marriage.
He knew that Qiao Beiji’s body had long ago been ruined by his toying and could not be without love and desire. He sent handsome or strong young men to Qiao Beiji’s side, and sent suitable physicians.
But Qiao Beiji wanted none of it, and with one sentence General Qiao took away his imperial city guards. His palace became Qiao Beiji’s backyard, where he came and went as he pleased.
And this treacherous minister was so bold as to break into his bedchamber at night, twice, three times!
Shang Yinyu found that his hand was trembling uncontrollably. He saw the faint scar on Qiao Beiji’s forehead. He had made it on the day Qiao Beiji returned to the capital, by throwing something at him.
He also saw that the panic in those ink-dyed eyes was gradually fading, turning into a stillness and calm that he could not read.
Shang Yinyu’s heart beat very fast. He felt the muscles of Qiao Beiji’s cheek move slightly. He put all of his attention in his hand and dared not relax in the slightest.
But the hand did not obey his wishes and trembled harder and harder.
What are you trembling for? He’s only a treacherous minister and rebel. Could I not bring myself to kill him?
Something soft and hot lightly touched his palm, slowly, once and then again.
Shang Yinyu’s nerves were taut, and it took him a while to react and realize that Qiao Beiji was licking his palm.
Fuck!
Shang Yinyu was so startled that his hand shook. Before he could make up for it, Qiao Beiji had already flipped up, pinned his hand, and pressed him down into the brocade quilt.
The world spun and the curtains swayed. The dragon and phoenix embroidered in gold thread seemed to come alive, dragon rising and phoenix soaring, not in tender entwining but in a struggle of life and death.
A scorching, strong hand covered Shang Yinyu’s mouth, and a cry of “Save the emperor” was drowned in his throat.
Shang Yinyu’s eyes went wide. He saw Qiao Beiji’s black hair fall loose like ink, saw the candlelight through the gauze curtain flush Qiao Beiji’s face deep red, and saw a desperate, all-in madness and resolve rising in Qiao Beiji’s eyes.
Shang Yinyu thought: I’m finished.