The next morning when Katya sat down to eat her breakfast, she realized with frustration, that her bound hands made eating impossible.
She already struggled hopelessly with the chopsticks that everyone used as it was.
She’d been making do with her hands and the soup spoons before, but the thick bandages made that impossible now.
Was she just supposed to starve, she wondered in growing anger?
That evening Wenzong slid the door open to find Katya in a completely different state of distress.
She wasn’t throwing hairpins or tearing silk; she was pacing her room, her stomach audibly growling, her face a mask of pure, miserable frustration.
Her hands were still meticulously bandaged, making her fingers stiff and clumsy.
On the table sat a cold, untouched array of delicate imperial dishes—and a pair of pristine ivory chopsticks.
The moment he entered, she unloaded a furious, starving tirade in rapid-fire Russian, entirely assuming he was a deaf stone wall to her words, “This is torture!
You think you are being kind by wrapping my hands?
I can’t even eat!
I can’t pick up your ridiculous little sticks with these bandages, and now I can’t even use my bare fingers!
Are you trying to starve me to death in this golden cage?
I am dying of hunger, you monster!”
Wenzong stands in the doorway, his internal mask cracking instantly.
Hearing her call him a monster barely registers because his scholarly mind translates her words with a jolt of horror: She hasn’t eaten a single bite all day.
The absolute ruler of the empire didn’t hesitate.
He stepped to the threshold and barked a thunderous order to Eunuch Pang that echoed through the pavilion, “Clear this cold garbage!
Command the Imperial Kitchens to prepare a fresh, hot banquet for two, immediately.
If it is not here by the time the incense stick burns down, the head chef will be sent to the border marches!”
When the fresh food arrived, Wenzong ignored the strict imperial protocol that dictated the Emperor must eat alone, served only by high-ranking eunuchs.
He dismissed the servants, sat directly beside Katya at the low table, and picked up the chopsticks.
Seeing her look at the steaming food with desperate hunger, he didn’t just feed her like a helpless child—he respected her too much for that.
Instead, he reached out, his large, warm hand covering her bandaged fingers once again.
He placed the ivory sticks between her wrapped fingers, his chest tightened as his body registered her proximity, her warmth, and the erratic rhythm of her breath.
He guided her hand, teaching her how to use her thumb as a fulcrum, his voice a low, soothing baritone as he murmured instructions in Chinese.
The physical touch left them both completely breathless.
Katya’s heart hammered against her ribs.
As she looked at his focused profile, she was overwhelmed by the realization that this fierce tyrant was spending his evening patiently helping her catch a piece of roasted duck when he could’ve been attending to matters of state.
The slow-burn attraction between them solidifies into something undeniable.
However, among the dishes brought to the room is a delicate bowl of swallow’s nest soup—the exact dish Consort Xian’s shadow network infiltrated.
A young kitchen maid, a secret asset of the Chief Consort, is the one who carries the tray into the room.
She has already slipped the lethal dose of arsenic into Katya’s bowl.
Her instructions were simple: Deliver the tray to the foreign consort’s sealed pavilion and leave.
But when the maid steps past the silk screen, her heart stopped.The Emperor was sitting right next to the barbarian woman.
He was actively sharing the table.
And as the maid watched in absolute horror, Wenzong reached out with his own imperial spoon, scooping up a portion of the poisoned soup, intending to blow on it and offer it to Katya himself.
If Katya died, the maid might survive the investigation.
But if the Emperor consumed even a drop of that soup, the entire imperial lineage would be compromised, and every single soul in the Imperial Kitchens would be tortured and executed, along with their entire families down to the third generation!
The psychological weight broke the girl instantly.
As Wenzong lifted the spoon, the maid dropped her tray with a deafening shatter.
She threw herself flat onto the blood-stained stone floor, weeping hysterically, her forehead cracking against the tile, crying out, “Bixia!
Do not touch it!
Do not let the consort touch it!
Mercy!
Have mercy on my family!
The soup is death!
It is poison!”
The transformation in Wenzong was instantaneous and terrifying.
The gentle tutor vanished, replaced by the ruthless, sixty-year-old absolute tyrant.
He slammed the spoon down, rising to his full height, and bellowed for his personal Imperial Guards.
The interrogation was brutal and swift.
Under the weight of Wenzong’s freezing, lethal gaze, the maid crumbled entirely, confessing she didn’t actually know the grand master plan; she only knew she was handed a packet of white powder by a low-level servant who claimed it came from the Chief Consort’s estate.
She was told to make sure that it was added to the foreign consort’s food so that she died that day, but that all day long food had returned uneaten from her mansion.
She knew this had been her last chance to complete her mission.
But she had not been aware that Bixia had joined the Foreign Consort for the late night meal, and never would she have attempted to harm the Emperor.
She pleaded for mercy.
If not for her own life, mercy on her family.
Wenzong’s fury was a cold, calculations storm.
He could not execute Consort Xian openly—she was from a vital noble family, and killing the mother of the Crown Prince would trigger a catastrophic political civil war that would tear the Jing Dynasty apart.
But he could erase her pieces from the board.
He ordered the immediate, public execution of the kitchen maid.
And from where he stood, he immediately drafted an even more agonizing punishment for Consort Xian: he extended her house arrest indefinitely, stripped her palace of all its luxury, and cut off her communication with her son, the Crown Prince, effectively burying her alive in her own estate.
But as the guards drag the weeping maid away, Wenzong turns back to Katya.
She is standing by the window, her bandaged hands clutched to her chest, her blue eyes wide with shock as she witnesses the raw, lethal reality of palace intrigue for the first time.
Wenzong looks at her, his heart aching with a fierce, possessive terror.
He realizes the horrifying truth: the Palace of Solitary Radiance is no longer a fortress.
House arrest cannot protect her from the snakes in his walls.
There is only one place in the entire empire where she will be absolutely safe from poison, generals, and consorts.He walks over to her, his voice shaking with raw emotion as he looks into her eyes, “Tomorrow, you come with Zhen.
You do not leave my sight.”
He knew he had just made the scandalous, unprecedented decision to smuggle her into the Imperial Study, but in that moment he simply did not care what anyone thought.
He had to keep her safe.
And he knew it was not just about matters of state and diplomatic duty that caused him to make this decision.
He just almost fed the woman he was secretly obsessed with a spoonful of agonizing death.
The clinical, logical Emperor was entirely gone; he was just a man gripping the terrifying reality that his own court almost killed her.
That knowledge left him completely undone and he could no longer maintain his regal distance.
Wenzong stepped across her defensive boundary.
He reached out and pulled her firmly against his chest in an embrace.
He had never hugged anyone before!
Not the mother who died bringing him into the world.
Not the consorts whom he had dutifully given heirs to the kingdom with.
Not even those very children who had grown up in the somber palace in absolute propriety.
But this woman, this Siberian storm, this raging firey Phoenix, he held her in his arms.
And she allowed him!
She did not fight him, but instead she melted into the comfort he offered.
Holding her wild, living warmth against his heart solidified his resolve: he would destroy his own perfect court structure before he allowed anyone touch a hair on her head.