An abrupt sound came from beside his ear. Xi Huai was not surprised; the eye contact at the banquet had led him to believe that Li Jue would come looking for him.
He calmly closed his chat group, and when he turned around, he saw the youth with beauty that transcended gender breaking into a gentle smile at him.
Before he could react, his waist was suddenly pinched.
He swallowed back the words he was about to say. Only when he felt a stinging pain at his waist did he swat the youth’s hand away. “Are you sick? Why are you pinching my stomach for no reason?”
He was not round at all. He had maintained this physique for so many years; he shouldn’t just spout nonsense. Shouldn’t you be reflecting on the fact that you are too thin?
It was clearly because the cook in Wen Yulin’s courtyard was too skilled that he could not help but eat a few extra bites. If he had to blame anyone, he would blame the food in Wen Yulin’s courtyard for being too good.
Xi Huai glared fiercely at Li Jue, intending to tell him to mind his own business regarding the beautiful youth, but he suddenly remembered that this guy had previously tried to assassinate the young Emperor.
“No.” His previous arrogance instantly vanished. “I did not mean anything else. I just meant, stop pinching my stomach.”
Li Jue clicked his tongue in annoyance. Seeing Xi Huai dodge his hand like an agile cat, he grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him close, forcing them to look at each other. “Why are you running?”
“I am not,” Xi Huai mumbled in a small voice. “I was just dodging. Besides, you were the one who pinched me first. You pinched me so hard; are you not going to let me dodge?”
Li Jue’s heart softened. He let go, intending to say that he would not kill him, but seeing the corners of Xi Huai’s eyes turn red, looking as if he had been bullied, he frowned.
He glanced around, only then noticing the corpses in the surrounding area. When he realized what had happened, his mood sank.
He gathered Xi Huai into his arms and leapt onto the rooftop. “Your Majesty, do not be afraid. Stand here, and you will not be able to see the corpses.”
Given how cowardly the boy was, he clearly did not understand his own nature. How could he possibly be the infamous, debauched tyrant from the rumors?
Li Jue now clearly understood that the youth in his arms was merely a puppet Emperor; the version of him under the cliff was the true version.
At this moment, compared to a tyrant, he was more like a cat, curling up in his arms, his body trembling slightly, looking very pitiful.
“What exactly do you want?”
Despite being deathly afraid, Xi Huai still put on a fierce look and scolded, “I am the Emperor! I will not allow you to be so presumptuous!”
“Why does Your Majesty treat this concubine like this?” Li Jue lowered his eyelashes sadly, his lashes looking crystal clear as if they were dampened with water.
The bright red tear mole under his eye seemed to glow. Xi Huai was shocked. “You…”
Wow, the green tea vibes are so strong.
Unfortunately, he was not buying it.
“This concubine was only afraid that the corpses would scare you. Why are you so cold to me?” Li Jue’s tone was dejected, his voice sounding as if it had been diluted with water—delicate and soft, completely different from the irritable guy under the cliff. “Is there something wrong with this concubine?”
Looking at that frail appearance, if Xi Huai did not know for a fact that he had not lost his memory, he would have almost thought his memories from under the cliff were a hallucination. Unfortunately, he had already seen through his true nature. “Enough! Can you speak normally?”
“Normally?”
Li Jue shed his gentle and virtuous expression as Li Wan, brushed his annoying bangs back to reveal eyes full of irritability, and sneered at him. “You are quite full of yourself. It was not easy for me to see you. How is that? Am I being normal now?”
Xi Huai: “…”
Xi Huai suppressed the urge to slap him. “Why do you want to see me?”
Xi Huai could not help but become vigilant. Was he trying to kill him?
“I missed Your Majesty. I missed you terribly. Is it a problem that I want to see you?”
“No problem at all.”
“You better think so.”
As he spoke, Li Jue lowered his voice. “That old thing, Wen Yulin, has actually surrounded the Cining Palace so tightly!”
“If it were not for the Moon Chasing Festival today and the guards outside drinking, it would have been very difficult for me to sneak into the Cining Palace.”
Xi Huai: “…”
Wait, why come to the Cining Palace? And why was it essential to see him?
Xi Huai could not help but glance at Li Jue. Li Jue, disguised as Li Wan, was currently gentle yet bright and stunning.
On that beautiful face, there was a wild arrogance that Li Wan did not have; only Li Jue did.
But seeing him gnashing his teeth, he guessed right: he really did intend to come to the Cining Palace to kill him!
This was too much. He was maneuvering around Wen Yulin specifically to help him get revenge, yet this guy wanted to kill him.
Xi Huai’s survival instinct kicked in, and he raised his voice. “You do not need to kill me! I have already helped you with your revenge!”
“I heard you were sick?” Li Jue’s voice spoke at almost the exact same time as his.
Li Jue was stunned by what he heard, and after a long while, he opened his lips in disbelief. “What did you say?”
Xi Huai closed his eyes and said in one breath, “I found a way to get Wen Yulin’s estate confiscated.”
“If everything goes smoothly, it will not take long before the Li family is cleared of their crimes and Wen Yulin is taken down.”
“You have no reason to kill me now. You should start thinking about your own situation.”
Perhaps because his long-held wish was finally about to be fulfilled, Li Jue let go of him, his expression somewhat vacant.
Xi Huai took the opportunity to back out of his embrace, standing on the other end of the roof, looking at him warily. “You did not think about whether you would even survive after assassinating the little Emperor, did you?”
Li Jue remained silent, his face showing an expression of complete indifference toward death.
Xi Huai: “…”
Xi Huai finally understood that Li Jue had intended to assassinate the little Emperor for revenge and go down with the Li family. His expression drifted, and he sighed. “According to palace rules, the daughters of criminals are mostly sent to be official prostitutes, and concubines are usually ordered to commit suicide.”
“You would either be executed by Wen Yulin or thrown into the cold palace.” Recalling the TV dramas, he had watched, Xi Huai stated the hard truth. “In short, you would not end well. Have you thought about what you will do next?”
“What I will do?”
Li Jue muttered to himself. When he finally came back to his senses, he only said, “I came to the Cining Palace to tell you that I do not intend to kill you.”
“I know you are helpless, which is why you are kept like a dog under house arrest in the Cining Palace by Wen Yulin, but I did not expect that you would help me take revenge.”
He raised his eyes, and the previous arrogance and madness dissipated. “Except for my mother, no one has ever been good to me. Why are you like this?”
What other reason was there? There was no other reason; he just did not want to die.
He reassigned the male lead and accepted Wen Yulin as a mother figure, it was all just because he did not want to die.
Thinking of this, Xi Huai’s eyes grew hot, and he felt ridiculous inside.
How could they know his situation? He thought he had transmigrated into the original novel and was being cautious at every step.
But the result? The result told him that he had not transmigrated into the original novel, but into a derivative BL novel.
He could no longer predict future plots; all his past efforts now seemed like a joke.
How could they understand? To an ordinary person, transmigrating into a book is not something worth being happy about.
No matter how beautifully depicted in novels or movies, it is extremely painful in reality.
“I am the Son of Heaven. I do as I please. Do I need you to ask? Get lost if there is nothing else.”
However, Xi Huai could not say anything. He could only turn his body away in exhaustion, refusing to look at Li Jue any longer.
Little did he know that his appearance, which looked like he was saying one thing while meaning another, looked incredibly cute in Li Jue’s eyes.
Xi Huai’s eyes were red, his long lashes fluttering against his cheeks as if hiding some secret.
Thinking of the affectionate remarks he had made under the cliff, Li Jue’s heart began to thump wildly.
He must really like him—like him to the point of being unable to extricate himself—which was why he was too embarrassed to turn around.
He did not even dare to look at him. His beautiful face lacked its former impetuosity and had become brilliant.
He had hunted for him, caught fish for him, and had even given him simple, crude undergarments that he had never seen before.
His mother once said that the person who truly likes you will always be considerate and attentive to you in every way.
Thinking of this, Li Jue felt the temperature on his face rise, and he turned slightly red.
He was not angry; instead, he felt that Xi Huai’s feigned anger was incredibly good-looking.
Strange, he thought. Was Xi Huai always this good-looking?
While he thought this in his heart, he said:
“You think that by acting like this, I will uncontrollably fall in love with you?”
“Do not waste your efforts. I have always treated you like my mother from beginning to end.”
Xi Huai: “?”
Xi Huai did not understand how this guy came to the conclusion that he liked him. Furthermore, he did not want to be his mother!
However, the guy lowered his head, his earlobes turning bright red.
Xi Huai felt this person was quite ungrateful—a low-tier man, incredibly annoying.
As he turned to leave, the guy panicked, hurriedly raised his head, and grabbed his sleeve to explain, “That is not what I meant.”
Looking back, the guy was rambling incoherently. “What I mean is, you do not need to beg Wen Yulin for my sake.”
He was acting like a total tsundere.
But Xi Huai was not having it. Ridiculous. Who is begging people for your sake?
He could not listen to this anymore and planned to maintain his tyrant persona and say a few more foolish things.
“Your Majesty!” Who would have thought that Xue Fang’s voice would suddenly sound out?
Li Jue clicked his tongue, and in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.
Before Xi Huai could react, Xue Fang leapt onto the roof.
“Your Majesty?” His tone was urgent, and his worried expression did not look fake.
“What is it?”
“I just saw that Your Majesty seemed to be talking to someone.”
Xi Huai feigned confusion and pulled Xue Fang to sit on the roof. “You must be joking. This is the Cining Palace; who would be here?”
“But…”
“Tonight, is the Moon Chasing Festival. Are you sure you have not been drinking too much and seeing things?” Xi Huai cut off his words decisively.
“What is the point of drinking with those eunuchs? The bright moon shines on the high tower, and the flowing light drifts by. Why not drink a cup with me instead?”
Xue Fang fell silent. He was physically sturdy, his muscles solid; even wearing a eunuch’s uniform, he could not hide his physique.
However, that angular face, illuminated by the warm yellow moonlight, somehow highlighted a sense of cold indifference.
Xi Huai acutely sensed his low mood. Although he could not understand the reason, he clearly felt it: was he angry at him?
Is there anything else you would like me to adjust in this chapter?