Jiang Qingke had assumed Li Xuanyao would find her demands excessive, but to her surprise, he approved every single one of them.
Even the requests that sounded excessive at first listen and clearly exceeded her rank—Li Xuanyao agreed to those as well.
In less than seven days, Fengluanxuan had undergone a complete transformation.
It was even more dazzling and luxurious than the scene Jiang Qingke had imagined.
Xiqing couldn’t help but exclaim, “Say what you will, aside from the matter of sharing the bed, His Highness does dote on the Crown Princess quite a bit.”
But she couldn’t help being curious either.
“The Crown Princess’s demands have all been fulfilled by His Highness. So will the Crown Princess now do as His Highness has instructed?”
Being treated like a fool, would Jiang Qingke so easily grant Li Xuanyao his wish?
She wagged her finger and smiled. “If I could be bought off that easily, I wouldn’t be me.”
That night.
Eunuch Cao arrived at Fengluanxuan once again with eunuchs and palace maids in tow.
Without needing to ask, Jiang Qingke knew it was time for Li Xuanyao to summon her for “bed service” again.
“We report to the Crown Princess: tonight, bed service shall begin.”
Jiang Qingke found an excuse and refused coldly with an air of indifference.
“I have only recently arrived in the capital and am still adjusting to the climate. I’m feeling unwell. As for bed service and preparing for pregnancy, let us discuss it another day.”
But Eunuch Cao acted as if he hadn’t heard a word, exchanging a meaningful glance with the young eunuch behind him.
The young eunuch received his orders and immediately directed several palace maids to extinguish the lamps.
“No extinguishing the lamps!” Jiang Qingke raised her voice in command.
Yet after glancing at Eunuch Cao, not a single maid or eunuch obeyed her.
Watching the candles on the ornate lamp stand go out one by one, Jiang Qingke picked up the whip she hadn’t used in days.
With a crisp and resounding crack, the whip snaked through the air like a serpent before striking heavily against the floor.
“Are you all asking for trouble?”
“Can’t you tell who the master of Fengluanxuan is?”
Jiang Qingke’s face darkened as she looked at each person, raising her voice in accusation and rebuke.
“I’d like to see who dares to extinguish another lamp.”
The maids and eunuchs who had been extinguishing the lamps froze in fear, all looking to Eunuch Cao for guidance.
Maintaining her lofty posture, Jiang Qingke sat down on a chair.
She couldn’t strike or touch Li Xuanyao, but these eunuchs and palace maids—as the Crown Princess, couldn’t she discipline them?
She cast a cold glare at Eunuch Cao.
“I imagine Eunuch Cao doesn’t quite know what kind of person I am.”
“Me? I seem generous and easygoing on the surface, but in truth, I have a rather bad temper.”
“And when I lose my temper, I most enjoy whipping people.”
Jiang Qingke toyed with her whip, putting on airs to intimidate.
“Tying people up and whipping them, hanging them up and whipping them, dipping the whip in saltwater and whipping them—whatever makes it more painful, that’s how I whip.”
Eunuch Cao merely bowed and smiled ingratiatingly upon hearing this.
After all, he was someone who had seen much in the palace, and he was not the least bit intimidated by Jiang Qingke.
With a veneer of humility on his face, he turned and quietly gave a few instructions to the young eunuch behind him.
Not long after the young eunuch slipped out of the hall, a group of Black-Armored soldiers strode into the hall in perfect formation, blades drawn, and took their positions on either side of Eunuch Cao.
Flicking his horsetail whisk, Eunuch Cao bowed his head and hunched his back, smiling as he mimicked Jiang Qingke’s earlier tone.
“I imagine the Crown Princess has only recently entered the palace and doesn’t yet know what kind of place this is.”
“These Black-Armored soldiers are all highly skilled in martial arts, and the weapons they carry are extraordinary.”
“Take this one, for example—his arm strength is remarkable.”
At Eunuch Cao’s signal, one of the Black-Armored soldiers stepped forward and demonstrated for Jiang Qingke the feat of bending a long spear in half with his bare hands.
“And this one, for instance—the sword in his hand can cut through iron like mud.”
Eunuch Cao emphasized: “Let alone a mere whip.”
At that, another Black-Armored soldier stepped forward. With a flash of cold light, his long sword cleaved the previously bent spear cleanly in two.
Jiang Qingke’s mouth hung half open as she stared blankly at the scene before her.
But her mind was racing.
She weighed her options.
One-on-one, with the martial skills she had practiced with her father and elder brother, she still had a chance of winning.
But a whole hall of Black-Armored Guards, each with their own extraordinary abilities—fighting them all at once would be like throwing an egg at a stone. She would undoubtedly lose, and worse, she would lose face as the Crown Princess.
Knowing when to yield, retreat was the best course of action.
So Jiang Qingke rolled up her whip and stuffed it into Xiqing’s hands beside her.
Then, as naturally as could be, she asked, “What time is it now?”
“Reporting to the Crown Princess, it is now past the hour of Hai.”
Jiang Qingke nodded and rose to her feet.
“It’s getting late.”
“Extinguish the lamps. Time for sleep.”
After taking a few steps, she turned back, selected a butterfly-shaped eye mask from one of the maids, and gave a fake smile. “It’s a habit. I can’t fall asleep without it.”
…
The candle flames on the ornate lamp stand were extinguished one by one.
Her eyes were once again covered with a silk ribbon.
With the soft rustle of footsteps, the maids and eunuchs all withdrew from the bedchamber of Fengluanxuan.
The vast hall became dark and silent.
Jiang Qingke lounged on the beauty couch with her legs crossed, idly flicking the tassel of her jade pendant.
She knew that before long, Li Xuanyao’s substitute bedmate would arrive.
Tonight, she would make her stance perfectly clear.
Soon, the hall doors closed and opened, then opened and closed again.
Light, unhurried footsteps carried a familiar presence as someone stepped into the hall, then sat down beside Jiang Qingke.
Jiang Qingke tapped her foot idly, lying there with an air of complete nonchalance, paying the man who had come to share her bed no mind at all.
She drawled out her words in a lazy, threatening tone.
“Touch me, and you’ll be carried out of here horizontally.”
The hall remained silent as ever; the man said not a single word.
Since he wasn’t her real husband anyway, Jiang Qingke couldn’t be bothered to waste another syllable on him.
Her long black hair cascaded past her waist. Though she lay there humming a little tune, eyes closed, idly toying with the jade pendant in her hand, she remained on constant alert.
Perhaps sensing her resistance, the man simply sat there the whole time, doing nothing.
And of course, saying nothing either.
When the hour was up, Eunuch Cao opened the door to let him out.
The man rose and left, leaving Jiang Qingke alone in the hall.
For the next several nights, the pattern between Jiang Qingke and the man remained exactly the same.
He would arrive, sit with her in silence, listening to the off-key Xiyan folk songs she hummed.
Then when the time came, he would rise and leave, never once forcing himself on Jiang Qingke.
What was strange was that Li Xuanyao, fully aware that the man came night after night to no avail—never even showing his face, let alone having Eunuch Cao urge them on—said nothing.
By the tenth night, Jiang Qingke finally deigned to speak to the man.
“What’s your name?”
The other party remained silent.
The pitch-black hall was as quiet as ever.
“Li Xuanyao won’t let you say?” Jiang Qingke asked again.
Suddenly, a warm, scorching hand gripped her wrist.
Jiang Qingke tried to pull back, but the man held on tightly, forcibly spreading her palm open.
A warm fingertip pressed against her palm, tracing stroke by stroke, writing the character for “yes.”
They had done such intimate things so many times, yet the man could hold back from saying a single word—he was truly a man of remarkable restraint.
Jiang Qingke suddenly recalled that most of the maidservants in the Donggong were mute…
“Could it be that you’re mute too?” she asked.
The man held Jiang Qingke’s outstretched finger, using its tip to trace on her palm, stroke by stroke, writing the character for “yes.”
“How did you become mute?”
Hearing this, the man slowly wrote another character: “poison.”
“Did Li Xuanyao do it?”