“It’s nothing.” Xiao Qing’s expression remained calm. At home, her mother controlled the money, while she held the authority.
If not for filial piety being greater than Heaven itself, the troublesome people would have been swept out of the house long ago. How could they have been allowed to prance around like this?
········
Imperial Study
The eunuch stood respectfully to one side and quietly reported, one by one, the things he had heard that afternoon.
“After Minister Xiao left the Ministry of Revenue, Guard Zheng of the Jinwu Guards dragged her to Jiaofangsi.”
The hand holding the brush behind the imperial desk paused. A drop of ink fell onto the memorial, spreading into a blot.
Zhao Xuanye tightened his grip on the brush. His expression remained calm, and he merely lifted his eyes, his tone revealing neither pleasure nor anger. “Oh? She goes to places like that too?”
“The people who accompanied her said that Minister Xiao was unwilling at first and was dragged inside by force.”
Zhao Xuanye dipped his brush in ink again, as though he did not wish to pursue the matter. “Withdraw.”
The eunuch bowed and retreated.
Silence returned to the hall.
Yet for a long while, Zhao Xuanye did not write another word.
A man going to Jiaofangsi for a small gathering was nothing unusual. When he had been young, he himself had secretly slipped out of the palace to broaden his horizons. He knew that the officials of the court all liked to visit such places in secret. It was not a serious matter.
He tried to convince himself of that, but the more he thought about it, the less he could suppress the anger rising in his heart. It burned until a chill gathered between his brows.
He had personally promoted her all the way to Minister of Revenue and placed great hopes in her.
In court, she always behaved like a gentleman, and she rarely joked in his presence.
When carrying out official duties, she was impartial and stern. In her daily life, she maintained the upright appearance of someone who kept away from women.
Yet she had turned around and gone to Jiaofangsi with her colleagues?
When he imagined her drunk in the arms of a beauty, flirting and laughing with another person, the fire in his heart became impossible to suppress.
Was this her true nature? Or had she begun indulging herself recklessly because she believed that holding high office gave her the right to do as she pleased?
His anger rose by degrees, and the calm he had forced himself to maintain vanished completely.
Zhao Xuanye abruptly flung down the brush. The shaft struck the imperial desk with a light crack.
His face frosted over, the full might of the emperor revealed in his bearing. “Jinwu Guards!”
The guards outside immediately bowed and entered. “His Majesty.”
“Go to Jiaofangsi.” His voice was measured, each word carrying the dignity of the Son of Heaven.
“Bring Minister of Revenue Xiao Qing to me.”
After giving the order, he feared that the people below might make too much of a commotion and damage her reputation, so he added, “Anyone who dares let this news slip or causes excessive alarm will present his head to me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The guards in golden armor accepted the order and departed.
The candlelight in the hall swayed, casting the emperor’s face into shifting, unreadable shadows.
He would ask her himself.
Just where had his Minister of Revenue found the courage to go behind his back to a place of song and pleasure?
········
Xiao Qing’s mind went blank when she saw the Jinwu Guards.
“Gentlemen, have you come to find me because His Majesty has some matter to convey?”
Zheng Mingyuan watched his superior shrink his neck and did not dare to speak.
“Lord Xiao, His Majesty did not say what it was. He only asked us to bring you there immediately.”
When the Jinwu Guards “invited” Xiao Qing back, a faint trace of rouge and powder still lingered on her clothes, and the smell of alcohol had not completely faded. She did not dare stand too close to His Majesty. After saluting, she merely lowered her head and stood in the middle of the hall.
Zhao Xuanye sat upright behind the imperial desk. His dark robes seemed nearly black, and an impenetrable viciousness covered his brows and eyes. His fingertips tapped the tabletop again and again, making one’s heart tremble with each faint knock.
After a long while, Zhao Xuanye finally spoke calmly. “Xiao Qing, where did you go after leaving the Ministry today?”
To Jiaofangsi.
But there was no way she could say that in front of the emperor. She spoke softly, trying to conceal the truth. Since she was not skilled at lying, however, her words came out haltingly. “I… I accompanied some colleagues for a small gathering.”
“A small gathering?” Zhao Xuanye suddenly laughed, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “An embrace with a beauty, a retreat of tenderness—is that what you call a small gathering among court officials?”
His words struck the truth directly.
Xiao Qing was left speechless. She could only kneel and salute. “I know I was wrong.”
“You know you were wrong?” Zhao Xuanye rose. His dragon boots crossed the blue bricks as he advanced step by step, looking down at her from above. The pressure of his presence made it nearly impossible to breathe. “In the past, you were upright and self-controlled before me, keeping away from women. So all of that was an act?”
“I was not pretending. A friend truly dragged me there against my will. I had no choice.”
“No choice?” Zhao Xuanye’s gaze grew colder as he pressed her relentlessly, every word striking harder than the last. “The day before yesterday, you returned with a woman. Yesterday, you accepted another chamber wife. You had no choice then as well?”
“Two charming beauties are no longer enough to hold your heart, so you turned around and entered Jiaofangsi with someone else, lying drunk amid rouge and powder.”
He continued advancing until he stood directly before Xiao Qing.
The Son of Heaven bent down, his vicious aura nearly swallowing her whole. “Yesterday, I told you that I would find you a good girl, but you refused, saying that you placed state affairs first. Now it seems that respectable women are beneath your notice, and only prostitutes from pleasure houses can satisfy you?”
The accusation was too severe. Xiao Qing hurriedly knocked her head against the floor in apology. “I would never dare! I absolutely had no such thought!”
“You would never dare?” Zhao Xuanye looked at her prostrate head. The hands braced on either side of her had only just embraced another woman’s waist. Thinking of that, the fury in his heart blazed even hotter, nearly burning away all reason.
He raised his hand, his fingers curling into a fist, almost closing around her shoulder.
Xiao Qing instinctively shut her eyes, but she did not dodge.
The force she expected never fell.
Zhao Xuanye’s hand stopped an inch from her collar and froze there.
The hall fell utterly silent.
In that instant, amid his overwhelming fury, another unfamiliar emotion rose within him.
What was wrong with him?
Men going to places like that was an ordinary matter. Why was he so angry?
That unfamiliar feeling tugged at him, forcing him to examine it carefully.
He lifted his eyes to the clear, handsome brows before him, and his heart jolted.
Whether in appearance or figure, she was exceptional—far too alluring.
Whenever he imagined her holding someone else in her arms, allowing even the sort of people found in pleasure houses to touch her, while he himself had to observe the propriety between sovereign and subject, his anger surged uncontrollably.
A moment ago, he had actually entertained the vicious thought of imprisoning her at his side and cutting off all her romantic entanglements.
His fingers slowly loosened. His anger receded like the tide, replaced by a storm-tossed feeling that he himself was unwilling to acknowledge.
He was not angry.
He was jealous.
Jealous that those entertainers could openly remain at her side, and jealous that her gaze had fallen upon someone else.
He had developed feelings he should not have for the Minister of Revenue whom he had personally promoted and on whom he had placed such high hopes.
He did not know when the thought had first arisen. But by the time he became aware of it, Xiao Qing already occupied such an important place in his heart.
He withdrew his hand and clasped it behind his back. His voice was hoarse. “Xiao Qing.”
“I am here.”
“Raise your head! Look at me!” Zhao Xuanye’s eyes were filled with anger as he stared fixedly at her.
Xiao Qing did not dare disobey. She raised her eyes to the emperor before her.
His eyes carried the force of slaughter, along with the cold indifference and ruthless severity of one who held life and death in his hands.
Xiao Qing instinctively wanted to look away, but she heard the person before her say, each word distinct, “If you set foot in a pleasure house even once more, you can keep Su Mingde company.”
Keep whom company? Su Mingde?
She had never heard that a minister would have to become a eunuch merely for visiting Jiaofangsi. How could His Majesty be so unreasonable?
Yet she did not dare disobey. In a low voice, she said, “I obey Your Majesty’s command.”
Zhao Xuanye looked at the crown of her lowered head, the emotions surging through his heart tangled into a chaotic mess.
The bitterness and anger that had filled him in the past had already changed into something else entirely.
At last, he had no choice but to admit that what he concealed for this person was a possessive obsession he did not even dare face himself.
Zhao Xuanye closed his eyes and no longer looked at her. He shouted angrily, “Get out!”