Especially Here to Torment Him.
“At the New Year’s Eve banquet, the one who sent men to kill me… was it not Your Highness?”
When Chu Yuan’s words fell, the expressions of those present changed in different ways.
Xian Yu, hot-tempered by nature, was the first to speak in Lu Ronghuai’s defense. “Prince Consort, you misunderstand. That night it was His Highness who saved you.”
Even the usually taciturn Xian Shuang added, “The black-clothed men were not sent by His Highness.”
“What happened that day, I can explain it to you. For now, you must return with me.”
Lu Ronghuai clasped Chu Yuan’s icy fingertips and, lifted him into his arms without further discussion.
He was far too practiced at carrying him. The motion flowed in one seamless breath. Whatever words Chu Yuan had been about to speak were forced back down.
Before overwhelming strength, resistance was meaningless.
With a cold expression upon his handsome face, he was carried back into the room.
The door closed.
Le Shu stood in the courtyard with tearful eyes, his face full of worry and fear, as though his young master were not returning to a chamber but walking into a demon’s lair.
Xian Yu leaned close to Xian Shuang and lowered his voice to gossip. “Did you see that just now? His Highness’s eyes were red. The Prince Consort is formidable indeed.”
“…”
Xian Shuang glanced at him. “Are you tired of living?”
Xian Yu pressed his lips together at once. A moment later he realized their lord was not even present. Xian Shuang had learned to borrow the tiger’s might.
“Was I not speaking the truth?” Xian Yu continued to mutter. “On the battlefield, through mountains of blades and seas of fire, His Highness never blinked. The Prince Consort merely misunderstood him, and His Highness nearly wept from grievance.”
He even punctuated this with a few clicks of his tongue.
The others: “…………”
The next instant, a cold voice came from inside the room.
“Xian Feng. Take him to receive ten military strokes.”
Xian Feng suppressed a smile and stepped forward, dragging away a stunned Xian Yu.
From a distance, Xian Yu’s bewildered, pained lament drifted back to them. “Are these walls made of paper?! I wasn’t even that loud, was I?!”
Xian Shuang followed, adding mercilessly, “His Highness’s internal cultivation is profound. His hearing and sight are keen. You brought this upon yourself.”
“Wuwuwu…”
The pitiful wailing gradually faded.
Inside the room, two people sat in silence.
After speaking those words, Chu Yuan seemed to have cast aside restraint altogether. He no longer cared.
Lu Ronghuai could see the passive defiance in him clearly. He gazed at Chu Yuan’s porcelain-white face for a moment, then took the warmed object from his palm and placed it into Chu Yuan’s hand.
“This is your jade rabbit pendant. I picked it up. Keep it safe.”
That night, after placing him upon the horse, poison had flared in his body. Staggering back, he had stepped upon the pendant buried beneath snow.
In his previous life, he had seen this pendant once. They had just arrived in the Northern Frontier then, hungry and cold. The first time he saw it was when Chu Yuan pawned it in exchange for silver.
Chu Yuan had not expected the pendant to return to him once more.
He touched it lightly. The jade was smooth and warm, lustrous beneath his fingers. The familiar texture stirred a faint joy within him. A trace of color returned to his face.
He closed his hand around it and spoke softly, “Thank you.”
Lu Ronghuai gave a quiet snort. “You said moments ago that I wished to kill you. Now you thank me. Ah-Yuan, you are quite the little torment.”
Sent especially here to torment him.
Chu Yuan’s small face tightened. “One matter is separate from another. Your Highness retrieved my pendant and returned it. I must thank you.”
Lu Ronghuai leaned closer, lips curving. “Yet I saved Ah-Yuan, and Ah-Yuan still wronged me. What is to be done?”
“Your Highness may say what you please. I have no proof and cannot demonstrate otherwise.”
“Does this pendant not prove I saved you?” Lu Ronghuai arched a brow, reaching out to play idly with a lock of dark hair that had fallen over Chu Yuan’s shoulder.
Though unable to see, Chu Yuan felt the tug. He seized his own hair back. “If those men were Your Highness’s accomplices, they could just as easily have delivered the pendant to you.”
“You insist I intended to kill you. Then tell me, why would I?” Lu Ronghuai smiled calmly.
“Because Your Highness married me and thereby lost the qualification to compete for the throne.”
“You believe I care for that?”
“Do you not?”
“I do not. I care only for you.”
Chu Yuan: “…”
He straightened his expression. “Your Highness, do not jest further. I am no different from your former betrothed. None of them escaped death. How could I?”
“You are, of course, different… Wait. You suspect I killed them?”
“They were all murdered,” Chu Yuan emphasized.
Lu Ronghuai nodded, face steady. “That is true, but I did not kill them.”
“If Your Highness says so, then so be it.”
“The eunuch who took you away that night belonged to Noble Consort Xu. The one who later sought your death was the Empress.”
For the sake of his future happiness, Lu Ronghuai did not hesitate to betray both, concealing nothing.
“I left the palace at fifteen and spent years on campaign. Those betrothals were arranged by the Empress without my consent. I never even saw their faces. Had I passed them on the street, I would not have recognized them.”
“They were all killed by the Empress.” He added this as an afterthought.
Chu Yuan quickly grasped the implication. “The Empress selected consorts for Your Highness to display her benevolence as Mother of the Nation. In secret, she had them killed to ruin Your Highness’s reputation?”
“Ah-Yuan is clever. You will not wrong me again now?”
There was a faint note of pleading in his tone.
Chu Yuan pressed his lips together, somewhat abashed, and shook his head.
Lu Ronghuai exhaled in relief and seized the moment to seek advantage. “This Prince has suffered such grievance. Should Ah-Yuan not offer some sign?”
Chu Yuan was silent for a long while.
When he turned toward him, his eyes were like fine rain falling over the southern rivers, delicate and soft. Dark pupils, like pebbles in a clear stream, untainted and beautiful beyond measure.
Now those lovely eyes could not see him. Their gaze was unfocused, innocent and lost.
Lu Ronghuai was looking with unabashed interest when he suddenly heard Chu Yuan ask hesitantly,
“Was Your Highness truly crying just now?”
Lu Ronghuai: “……”
He regretted it. Ten strokes had been too few. Twenty would have been better.
“No. Why would I cry?” he denied, face unchanged.
Chu Yuan seemed to realize something. “Then it was a ploy of feigned suffering.”
Lu Ronghuai found another accusation placed upon him without warning. His expression darkened. He removed his boots and climbed onto the bed.
“Feign suffering?”
He shed his outer robe, gaze sharp upon Chu Yuan. “If I wished to use such a ploy, I would have done so the moment you awoke. Why wait until now?”
His tall, powerful frame sank the mattress beneath him. Hearing the rustle beside him, Chu Yuan instinctively clutched the quilt.
Lu Ronghuai tossed aside his outer robe and seized Chu Yuan’s hand.
“Come. Feel.”
He pressed Chu Yuan’s palm against his chest.
Through the thin inner garment, a strong heartbeat thudded beneath his hand. Beneath the cloth lay compact, disciplined muscle, powerful and controlled.
Color rushed to Chu Yuan’s face.
“Your Highness, what are you doing?!”
Lu Ronghuai laughed. Having teased him enough, he turned with agile ease, removed his inner robe, and unwound the bandages from his chest, exposing his back without guard.
“You spoke of feigned suffering. Reach out and feel.”
Chu Yuan hesitated. Lu Ronghuai did not press him.
After a moment, he felt something like the brush of a feather against his back.
It tickled faintly. The sensation burrowed inward, unsettling his heart.
His throat moved. When he spoke again, his voice was restrained and rough. “Higher.”
Chu Yuan obeyed. Fighting embarrassment, his fingers encountered a raised scar. There lingered the faint scent of blood and medicine.
If he could see, he would have known it to be the wound left by a removed arrow.
“What is this?”
He touched it lightly. Lu Ronghuai let out a low, stifled sound. Startled, Chu Yuan withdrew his hand at once.
Lu Ronghuai turned back and pinched his flustered cheek.
“This,” he said quietly, “is proof that I love you.”
✧ A Word from the Author ✧
Lu Dog: Take my love properly (arrow wound).
Yuan-Yuan: …Perhaps you should love someone else instead.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, dear readers! Also, Happy Teachers’ Day to all the teachers!
IsitRo: One more chap after this! I shall publish it as fast as I can. 🫡
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