The moment Lu Huai stepped through the door, he frowned.
“It’s far too hot in here.”
Given the position of Hanhan Pavilion, it probably received more sunlight than anywhere else in the palace. Shang Fuqu’s eyes lit up, and she hurried forward to fan him attentively. “Your Majesty has suffered. The ice basins haven’t been distributed yet. Your dragon body is precious—perhaps you should return first…”
“Qi Zhong.”
He cut her off before she could finish.
Eunuch Qi was called in from outside.
“Send the ice from my bedchamber over.”
The Yan Bedchamber was the Emperor’s own residence—this was clearly a matter of diverting his own allotment to her.
Shang Fuqu’s heart skipped a beat. “Your Majesty?”
Eunuch Qi stole a discreet glance at this beauty. His face betrayed nothing, but inside, waves of shock were already surging. “Your Majesty, how much should be sent over?”
The ice cellars could only yield so much. In the past, when the late Emperor had many concubines, those out of favor received none at all. And anyone who received things directly from the Emperor was, without exception, a favored consort.
Lu Huai looked down. “How much do you want?”
Like a mouse fallen into a rice jar, Shang Fuqu genuinely couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Forget it.”
He raised a hand, signaling the two equally dumbfounded maidservants beside him to pour tea. “Just send more whenever it runs out.”
Studying required a good environment.
So he wouldn’t restrict her—whatever she wanted, she would get.
Eunuch Qi could no longer contain the astonishment in his eyes.
He had served the Son of Heaven for so many years that he had practically watched him grow up, and he knew perfectly well that Lu Huai, for all his apparent gentleness, was in truth indifferent and detached. In recent years, his thoughts had grown increasingly unfathomable… Back then, because of the late Emperor’s whole affair, he had kept women at arm’s length.
So setting aside the lamp-fetching two nights in a row, the treatment Shang Fuqu was receiving now was absolutely unprecedented.
Shang Fuqu seemed stunned by what she’d heard as well. Only after a long while did she express her gratitude, then quietly took a seat below. She kept her head lowered, staring at the floor, the slender fingers hidden in her wide sleeves anxiously twisting her handkerchief.
Soon, she heard him speak.
“You haven’t finished memorizing it yet?”
She had no idea how he had deduced that, but his tone was utterly certain.
Shang Fuqu’s lashes fluttered. “Yes…”
This sort of thing couldn’t be bluffed through; she could only tell the truth.
Lu Huai could see that today’s task progress was slow. He had known about the morning audience with the Empress Dowager, but this afternoon… “Was something holding you up?”
Seeing that he didn’t appear angry, Shang Fuqu’s palms gradually relaxed.
“The Empress Dowager assigned me a Buddhist scripture to copy.”
Behind her, Xing’er had already respectfully presented the item with both hands.
The Son of Heaven graciously flipped through a few pages.
At first, he had only noticed how nervous she was and had wanted to ease the mood. After all, whenever Shang Fuqu spent a night memorizing texts, she wore a miserable face all night long.
The result was unexpected—her calligraphy was excellent.
He didn’t withhold his praise. “Your handwriting has something of the style of that Master Shang of Nanshuizhou.”
“Your Majesty…” She gave him an odd look, hesitating. “Is it possible that Master Shang is my father?”
Lu Huai: …
Shang Fuqu found it utterly absurd.
So he hadn’t even figured out how many noses and eyes these beauties who had entered the palace had. Wasn’t he afraid an assassin might slip in and lop off his head in the middle of the night?
But no sooner had she said it than she regretted it, because the Emperor’s gaze fixed directly on her, making her feel as if she were sitting on pins and needles. This had only happened once before—when she had bruised his leg at their first meeting.
She had undercut her superior mid-conversation.
The young, handsome superior’s face went expressionless. He simply closed the copy of the Three Character Classic and slapped it down on the desk.
“Finish memorizing it tonight.”
“Your Majesty, this concubine was wrong…”
She said that, but in the end Lu Huai didn’t make things hard for her. Perhaps it was because she bowed her head quickly and apologized with a good attitude, or perhaps he could see she simply wasn’t the rote-memorization type—either way, he granted her two extra days.
With the ice basin, the nights were much more comfortable.
She slept soundly, dreamless.
The next day, Xiaodie came back with a basket brimming with snow-white jasmine, beaming with joy. “Once these are washed, strung together with needle and thread, and dried, we can brew them with honey for tea. Lady-in-waiting loved flower tea the most back home.”
She bustled about, busy and happy. Shang Fuqu carefully put away the rice paper that had been laid out overnight, the ink now dry, then suddenly looked up at Xing’er, who was helping organize the brushes, and asked, “How long have you been in the palace?”
Though they were around the same age, Xing’er was far steadier than Xiaodie.
“In reply to the Lady-in-waiting, this servant has been in the palace five or six years.”
That much was obvious from her work ethic.
Shang Fuqu nodded, propping her chin on both hands against her knees. “Then can you tell me about His Majesty?”
As the saying goes, serving the sovereign is like serving a tiger.
Since she was now living in the tiger’s den, she needed to figure out which parts of the tiger must not be touched, and which parts had to be stroked the right way. Even though, over these two nights together, the Emperor had shown her remarkable patience, that patience somehow felt off to her.
One might even call it strange.
It gave her the odd impression of someone meticulously raising a piglet.
Xing’er’s eyes lit up. She’d assumed Shang Fuqu had finally come around, and so she was especially eager. “Our Emperor was the second son of the previous Emperor, made Crown Prince from birth—the Lady-in-waiting probably already knows this, so this servant won’t go on about it.”
Shang Fuqu nodded.
Common knowledge like that—she’d heard it even before entering the palace.
“Then let this servant tell you the finer details. I heard all this from others.” Xing’er poured tea, thinking more and more how lucky she was. People climb toward higher ground—she had originally been assigned to serve a lowly Lady-in-waiting, and the other palace servants had looked at her with strange eyes. Who knew a dark horse would emerge?
“They say that when the previous Emperor was alive, he was extremely strict with His Majesty. When His Majesty was young, he loved the milk cakes made by the nanny who attended him. When the previous Emperor found out, he had the woman expelled from the palace at once.”
Shang Fuqu listened, stunned.
Perish in silence, or go twisted in silence.
No wonder he tormented her like this. So he’d been rained on once, and now wanted to tear up everyone else’s umbrellas.
“So His Majesty has been this unsociable since childhood.” Xing’er lowered her voice and continued. “Everyone in the palace dreams of climbing into the dragon’s favor… plenty of the previous Emperor’s consorts started out as palace maids, but that trick never worked with His Majesty.”
“Never mind that His Majesty simply ignored people—they say that back then, by the time he finished his daily lessons and returned, even the guard dogs were asleep.”
Shang Fuqu: …
What kind of life was that?
It sounded less comfortable than an ordinary person’s.
“And that’s not all.” Xing’er sighed as she spoke. “When princes come of age, they’re assigned maids for their first rites, but His Majesty refused every time. Later the Empress Dowager got annoyed and, without a word, secretly sent a pretty young thing over.”
“But who knows what that girl was thinking—probably out of modesty, she hid under the covers, unclothed with her hair loose. Poor His Majesty had drunk some wine at a banquet that night and was already dizzy and muddle-headed. He lifted the blanket and nearly jumped out of his skin—he almost thought he’d run into a ghost and drew his sword on the spot to slay the evil spirit.”
“Ever since then, the maids weren’t allowed into the bedchamber, and no one dared to enter.”
Shang Fuqu: …
This fierce and formidable imperial palace simply left her speechless with awe.