Lu Ci did not hide out at the Imperial Palace for long.
As the Regent, his every move was watched by countless eyes. To avoid arousing the suspicion of the little Emperor and the Empress Dowager, he merely spent half an hour dealing with matters in the Imperial Study before heading back to his residence with a dark expression.
Yet the moment he stepped through the front gates of the Regent’s Residence—before he even had time to drink a single sip of hot tea—the housekeeper rushed over to greet him with an anxious face.
“Your Highness! Something terrible has happened! Cousin Miss… she’s barely hanging on!”
Lu Ci’s eyebrows knitted tightly, a flash of impatience passing through his eyes. “Is she dead?”
The housekeeper choked, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. “N-No, she isn’t dead. But the maidservants from Tingyu Pavilion came to report that ever since Cousin Miss was frightened yesterday, she hasn’t touched a single drop of water or morsel of food. Today, she even fainted several times, and every time she wakes up, she just keeps throwing up—even throwing up yellow bile… She wept and said that before she dies, her only wish is to see Your Highness one last time.”
“Heh.” Lu Ci let out a cold sneer. Unfastening his cloak, he started walking toward Tingyu Pavilion. “This Prince would like to see whether she’s truly ill or just putting on an act.”
At that moment, Su Tang was sitting in the pavilion cracking melon seeds. Seeing Lu Ci return, she immediately patted the crumbs off her hands and trailed after him like a little tail.
Oh! Is the green-tea cousin up to her drama again?
Barely hanging on? That toad yesterday wasn’t poisonous, though. Could she have scared herself half to death with her own ugly face?
System, let’s go! How could I miss out on a spectacle like this? Selling melon seeds, peanuts, and bottled water in the front row!
Hearing that familiar, energetic inner voice, Lu Ci’s gloomy mood somehow grew… even gloomier.
This woman truly treated the Regent’s Residence as her personal stage.
Inside Tingyu Pavilion, the air was thick with the scent of medicinal broth.
Lin Wan’er wore a plain white nightgown, her tangled hair sprawling across the pillow. Her face was deathly pale, making her look quite pitiful indeed.
The instant she saw Lu Ci enter, tears flooded her eyes. She struggled to push herself up. “Cousin… Wan’er thought… I would never see you again…”
As she spoke, she clutched her chest, posing like a fragile beauty in distress.
Lu Ci stood three steps away from the bed with his hands folded behind his back. His gaze was as cold and indifferent as if he were looking at a complete stranger. “I heard from the housekeeper that you’re barely hanging on?”
Lin Wan’er’s expression froze for a moment before she began to weep even more bitterly. “Cousin, Wan’er truly knows her mistake now… Yesterday, my soul was scared out of me by that toad. Now, I only feel a tight, dull pain in my chest, and my stomach is churning like an overturning sea. I’m afraid I… blegh!”
Before she could finish her sentence, her expression suddenly shifted, and she clutched her mouth as a bout of dry heaving seized her.
Those agonizing, gagging sounds were enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.
Standing behind Lu Ci, Su Tang poked her small head out and poked around Lin Wan’er with curious eyes.
Ding! Gossip Radar activated!
Target of Gossip: Lin Wan’er.
Gossip Intel Report: Host, this green tea isn’t sick from fright at all! She’s pregnant! She’s already two months along! This vomiting is morning sickness—the legendary pregnancy nausea!
Pfft—
Su Tang almost swallowed the preserve plum pit she had just popped into her mouth.
P-Pregnant?!
Holy crap! Isn’t this a bit too explosive?! Hasn’t she always maintained the persona of being ‘head over heels for her cousin’? How on earth did she end up making a baby behind his back?
System, tell me quick! Who’s the adulterer? Which daredevil dared to place a green hat on the Regent’s head?
Lu Ci, who was originally watching coldly from the sidelines, felt his pupils contract sharply the moment he heard the word “pregnant.”
Pregnant?
Lin Wan’er was pregnant out of wedlock?!
Although he did not like this cousin of his, the family discipline of the Regent’s Residence was strictly enforced. How could such a scandalous disgrace possibly occur?
Immediately afterward, the system’s voice resounded in both his and Su Tang’s minds once more:
Gossip Intel Report: The adulterer is none other than Wang Er Mazi, the stable hand in the residence’s stables! On a rainy night two months ago, Lin Wan’er went to the garden to wax poetic and lament the passing spring, where she happened to run into Wang Er Mazi, who was taking shelter from the rain. Sparks flew between the two, and they went straight at it inside the rockery cave… Having gotten a taste of it, they snuck into the bushes several more times afterward.
Su Tang’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor.
Wang Er Mazi?!
That bow-legged stable hand with a face full of pockmarks and bad breath?!
Goodness gracious! Lin Wan’er’s taste… isn’t that a bit too heavy? Could this be the legendary ‘wildflowers smell sweeter than garden blossoms’? Or does she just prefer that ‘all-natural’ vibe?
What’s funniest is that she’s currently carrying a stable hand’s seed, yet she’s making a dramatic scene of life and death, begging Lu Ci to come see her. What’s her plan? Does she want Lu Ci to step in as the sucker who takes the fall?
Hahahaha! Lu Ci is too pitiful! The grand Regent of the realm almost became the target of a ‘buy one, get one free’ deal! Though the green hat hasn’t been placed on his head yet, it’s been dangling right above him for a long time!
Lu Ci: “…”
Lu Ci’s face could no longer be described as merely dark.
It was a vibrant, dazzling shade of black.
Wang Er Mazi?
Bow-legged?
A sucker taking the fall?
He, the grand Regent of Great Zhou, was fit only to take the fall for a stable hand in Su Tang’s mind?!
By now, Lin Wan’er had just stopped heaving on the bed. Weakly raising her head, she looked at Lu Ci with dazed, mist-filled eyes. “Cousin… Wan’er feels so miserable… Could Cousin please just hold Wan’er…”
She reached out her hand, wanting to pull at Lu Ci’s sleeve.
In her view, since she was this ill, her cousin would surely soften his heart. As long as her cousin was willing to touch her, she would find a way to cling to him. When the time came… she would say the child in her belly was the result of her cousin losing control after drinking!
However, her hand had not even grazed the hem of Lu Ci’s sleeve.
“Imperial Physician!”
Lu Ci suddenly roared, his voice so loud it shook the dust off the ceiling.
The Imperial Physician waiting in the outer room trembled in fright, scrambling inside on all fours. “Y-Your Highness, this humble official is here.”
“Pulse her!” Lu Ci pointed at Lin Wan’er on the bed, his gaze ferocious enough to tear someone apart. “Examine her carefully for this Prince! See whether she is sick, or… expecting!”
Those last two words were practically squeezed through the gaps of Lu Ci’s teeth.
Lin Wan’er felt as if struck by lightning. Her entire body froze on the bed, all color draining from her face in an instant.
Ex… Expecting?
How could her cousin know?!
“N-No need, Cousin…” Lin Wan’er frantically hid her hands under the quilt. “I merely have an upset stomach. It will pass after taking some medicine. There’s no need to trouble the Imperial Physician…”
“Hold her down!” Lu Ci paid no heed to her nonsense whatsoever.
Two sturdy older maids immediately stepped forward, pinning Lin Wan’er’s arms from left and right and forcibly pulling her wrist out.
Trembling, the Imperial Physician placed his fingers on Lin Wan’er’s pulse.
A moment later, the Imperial Physician’s brows knitted tight, and he switched to her other wrist.
Su Tang watched from the side with immense relish, delivering a real-time commentary in her mind:
Look! The doctor frowned! That pulse must be rolling like pearls in a bowl, fluent and slick! That’s the legendary pregnancy pulse!
Lin Wan’er must be panicking like crazy right now! She’s probably trying to figure out how to cover up her lie. Should she say she ate something dirty? Or that she was pinned down by a ghost in her sleep?
Aiya, Lu Ci’s move was way too cool! Upgrading from a green-tea spotter to a ‘Green Hat Crusher’! Crushing this cheating woman who wanted to find an honest man… no, wait, wanted to find the Regent to take the fall right in the bud!
Lu Ci took a deep breath, telling himself not to listen to that woman’s inner voice.
What in the world was a Green Hat Crusher?!
There was never any green hat on his head in the first place!
Finally, the Imperial Physician pulled back his hand and dropped to his knees with a thud, cold sweat pouring down his forehead. “Reporting to Your Highness… Cousin Miss… she…”
“Speak!” Lu Ci barked coldly.
“Cousin Miss… she is indeed expecting! She is already two months pregnant!” After saying this, the Imperial Physician dared not raise his head, terrified of being silenced for good.
Although he had prepared himself mentally, hearing the official diagnosis from the physician still caused dark spots to dance before Lu Ci’s eyes from sheer rage.
A disgrace to the family!
An utter disgrace to the family!
“No! You’re lying! You quack! You’re a quack doctor!” Lin Wan’er shrieked, struggling frantically with disheveled hair. “I am not pregnant! I am innocent! Cousin, please believe me, I am innocent!”
“Innocent?”
Su Tang sneered in her heart: Innocent my foot! You lost that innocence in the rockery cave ages ago! The baby’s father, Wang Er Mazi, is still feeding horses in the stables right now. Should we call him over for a blood-drop paternity test?
Lu Ci’s eyes turned sharp.
Wang Er Mazi.
Good. Very good.
“Men.” Lu Ci’s voice was frigid, devoid of any warmth. “Go to the stables and bring that stable hand named Wang Er Mazi here. This Prince would like to see what else this pair of adulterers has to say!”
At the sound of the name “Wang Er Mazi,” Lin Wan’er completely broke down.
Her eyes widened in terror, and her entire body went limp against the bed, unable to utter another word of denial.
It was over.
Everything was over.
Watching this unfold, Su Tang could not help but sigh inwardly: That’s it? Her combat ability is way too weak, isn’t it? I thought she’d pull out some classic trope like ‘a masked man violated me on a dark and stormy night.’
Still… how did Lu Ci know the adulterer was Wang Er Mazi? Could he be bound to a system, too? Or could it be…
Su Tang cast a suspicious gaze toward Lu Ci.
Does he have some unspeakable relationship with Wang Er Mazi? Or has he been secretly observing Wang Er Mazi all this time?
Lu Ci: “…”
He felt as though an arrow had been shot straight into his chest.
An unspeakable relationship?
Secretly observing?
Just how on earth was this woman’s brain wired?!
Grit语句ing his teeth, Lu Ci turned his head and glared menacingly at Su Tang.
That look clearly communicated: You keep your mouth shut!
Su Tang blinked innocently: Why are you glaring at me? I’m not pregnant! Besides, even if I were pregnant, it would definitely be your seed… Aiya, what kind of wild thoughts am I having! How embarrassing!
Lu Ci’s knees gave out, and he nearly dropped to the ground on the spot.
His seed?
This woman… certainly dreamed big!
Just then, a commotion broke out outside the door.
“Let go of me! I’m innocent! What does His Highness want with me? I’m just a horse feeder!”
A short, stubby man with a face full of pockmarks—and reeking of horse manure—was dragged inside by the secret guards.
He was none other than the male lead of this “unexpected fatherhood” drama—Wang Er Mazi.