How Could Pregnancy Be a Terminal Illness?
By the time Lu Ronghuai and Chu Yuan returned to Prince Li’s Residence, dusk had already settled.
In the end, Emperor Hongjia still granted Prince Rui’s request and ordered Min Chao to lead the campaign. The marriage arrangement between Prince Rui and the Min family was thereby dissolved.
When Noble Consort Xu learned of it, she naturally raised a great commotion with Emperor Hongjia.
Lu Ronghuai, however, had no interest in those aftermaths. He ladled a bowl of rich lamb soup, blew gently on the steam, and personally brought it to Chu Yuan’s lips.
“Treasure, drink some soup and let the anger pass.”
Chu Yuan was eating sour jujube cake. The moment the silver spoon approached, the strong aroma of lamb soup rushed straight into his nose.
His movement stopped abruptly.
The next instant, Chu Yuan covered his mouth, pushed Lu Ronghuai aside, turned his head, and ran out.
“Ah-Yuan!”
Lu Ronghuai’s expression changed at once. He dropped the spoon and hurried after him.
“Prince Consort?”
Outside the door, Le Shu and Xian Yu were also startled. They saw Chu Yuan run out pale-faced, hurry to the balustrade, bend over it, and begin retching.
“Summon the residence physician.”
Lu Ronghuai followed close behind. His brows were drawn tightly together, and the severity on his face was one no one had seen before.
Xian Shuang vanished at the command as though dissolved into thin air.
Lu Ronghuai supported Chu Yuan. His whole heart was hammering, and his palms had broken into a sweat.
Chu Yuan gripped the railing. After retching until his stomach was empty, the discomfort still had not passed.
He closed his eyes. His small face had turned pale, and cold sweat covered his forehead.
“Ah-Yuan, rinse your mouth.”
Lu Ronghuai took the cup. One arm held him close while the other brought water to his lips.
Chu Yuan leaned against him, his entire body weak with exhaustion. The corners of his eyes had reddened from the irritation, making him appear pitiful.
Lu Ronghuai’s heart ached for him. He lifted his hand and gently stroked Chu Yuan’s back.
“Do you still feel like retching?”
Chu Yuan shook his head.
Xian Yu had already removed the lamb soup from the table. Lu Ronghuai carried Chu Yuan back into the inner chamber. Not long afterward, the household physician was hauled in by the collar of his robes by Xian Shuang.
“Quickly take his pulse.”
Lu Ronghuai sat against the head of the bed while Chu Yuan remained in his arms, resting against his chest.
When the physician arrived, Xian Shuang had already told him that the Prince Consort had vomited. He assumed it was merely a minor complaint of the stomach and digestion.
The moment he examined the pulse, however, he froze.
This pulse… how could it possibly be…
“What is it?”
Lu Ronghuai saw that the physician had examined him for a long time without speaking and lost patience. “Speak.”
The physician hurriedly withdrew his hand. The shock in his eyes had not yet faded. Seeing the dark expression on Prince Li’s face and the frightening look in his eyes, his heart trembled.
He did not know where the courage came from, yet he placed his fingers on Chu Yuan’s pulse once more.
Lu Ronghuai: “?”
Another stick of incense passed.
The physician finally withdrew his hand and suddenly dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, knocking his head against the floor twice.
“Y-Your Highness… this subject deserves death. This subject’s medical skill is inadequate. I… I cannot determine the cause.”
Lu Ronghuai studied him closely.
The physician’s expression was flustered. Large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. His whole bearing one of guilt and barely concealed alarm.
It did not resemble someone who had failed to find the cause. It resembled someone lying.
“This Prince will ask you once more. What has happened to the Prince Consort?” His tone grew dark. His patience was nearly exhausted.
Chu Yuan opened his eyes and turned his head toward the physician.
“Imperial Physician Li, have I contracted a terminal illness?”
Lu Ronghuai raised a hand and pressed it over Chu Yuan’s lips. His eyes were deep black and glacial, a dark light moving within them.
“Ah-Yuan, do not speak foolishly.”
Chu Yuan raised his hand and touched the sweat in the man’s palm. A quiet sigh rose in his heart, and he said nothing further.
The physician shook his head with such vigor it seemed in danger of coming loose.
“No, no! The Prince Consort shows no sign of terminal illness.”
How could pregnancy count as a terminal illness? However, male pregnancy… in a certain sense might indeed be considered one.
At this moment, he truly had no idea how to handle it.
Lu Ronghuai dismissed everyone from the room and left only the physician behind.
“Very well. There is no one else present now. What exactly has happened to Ah-Yuan?”
The sweat on the physician’s head poured down more and more. He wiped it constantly with his sleeve. His whole body rigid with nerves that his speech stuttered.
“R-reporting to Your Highness… the Prince Consort… he… he is with child.”
The final words were spoken almost against the floorboards.
Having said them, the physician squeezed his eyes shut, as a man might at the foot of the execution platform.
One full incense stick of time passed.
Only then did Lu Ronghuai find his voice. “What did you say?”
“This subject would not dare speak recklessly. I examined the Prince Consort’s pulse twice. It is ab-absolutely without error.”
“Furthermore, from the Prince Consort’s pulse, the c-conception… is already of more than one month’s duration.”
Lu Ronghuai lowered his head in a daze.
The sensation was as though someone had struck his head with a heavy blow.
More than one month…
That meant the night of their wedding chamber.
“You…”
Lu Ronghuai stared at the physician’s bowed head, his own mind completely blank.
“Your Highness.”
Chu Yuan hooked his little finger around Lu Ronghuai’s and signaled him to dismiss the physician first.
Lu Ronghuai came back to himself and warned the physician in a rough voice. “Keep your mouth sealed. If so much as a breath of rumor gets out, the lives of your entire household—”
The physician swore his assurances in a torrent of frightened words. “Your Highness may rest assured. The Prince Consort today simply ate something that disagreed with him. There is nothing else the matter.”
After the man left, Lu Ronghuai removed the cover from the luminous pearl lamp.
The room instantly became as bright as daylight.
After that, neither of them spoke.
Lu Ronghuai held Chu Yuan motionless. His gaze repeatedly drifted to Chu Yuan’s abdomen. After staring for a long time he turned away stiffly, yet before long he looked again.
Chu Yuan, since the moment he had heard the physician’s pronouncement, had remained very calm.
“Your Highness, I am hungry.”
Chu Yuan finally broke the silence.
He had retched earlier until his stomach was empty. At that moment he had no appetite, yet after the shift in his mood he suddenly felt extremely hungry.
“Ah? Yes… yes. Let us eat first.”
Lu Ronghuai rose, then bent down, slipped his arms beneath Chu Yuan’s knees and back, and lifted him with extraordinary care.
From the inner chamber to the dining table, every step he took was cautious and slow.
It was as though he carried an exquisite porcelain vessel of immeasurable value that might shatter if it were struck even lightly.
Chu Yuan could not help smiling faintly at the sight of his excessive tension.
Lu Ronghuai placed him gently upon the stool. Then he suddenly felt the stool was too hard and returned to the inner chamber to fetch a soft cushion.
Chu Yuan had only sat for a moment when a dull thud sounded from the inner chamber, as if someone walked into something.
“Your Highness?” He called out.
Lu Ronghuai held his forehead and stared at the ebony screen before him in a daze for quite some time. He could not understand how he had managed to walk directly into it.
Only after Chu Yuan called again did he hurry back out.
After settling Chu Yuan properly, he opened the door and instructed Xian Yu to prepare the meal again.
Xian Yu had already reached the courtyard gate when Lu Ronghuai suddenly remembered he had forgotten to ask the physician about dietary restrictions.
He immediately tried to go find him.
In doing so, he caught his foot on the threshold and nearly went sprawling.
Everyone present: “???”
No one knew what the physician had said, and no one dared ask. They only felt that His Highness was behaving in a manner quite unlike himself this evening.
“Forget it. Xian Feng, bring the physician here.”
Lu Ronghuai abandoned the thought of going personally and returned obediently to Chu Yuan’s side.
The physician arrived promptly and listed a long series of precautions.
Lu Ronghuai folded the paper and tucked it into his sleeve. A breath escaped him almost imperceptibly.
“Your Highness, I have finished eating.” Chu Yuan set down his bowl and looked up at him.
Lu Ronghuai saw that he had eaten only a bowl of egg custard and several crystal dumplings.
“Are you truly full?” He asked with concern.
“Yes. Your Highness should eat now. I will go wash.” Chu Yuan stood up as he spoke.
Lu Ronghuai immediately rushed over and hovered beside him protectively. “I am not hungry. I will attend you while you wash.”
“…” Chu Yuan sighed softly.
“Your Highness should finish eating first. Later we must speak properly.”
Lu Ronghuai swallowed nervously. “Speak of what?”
Chu Yuan ignored him. He called Le Shu to bring hot water. When Le Shu came out carrying the empty bucket, he discovered that Lu Ronghuai had already finished eating.
The tall, handsome man now stood outside the inner chamber door, listening intently to the sounds inside.
The moment he saw Le Shu come out, Lu Ronghuai immediately entered the chamber.
Chu Yuan had just settled into the bath when a pair of hands fell upon his shoulders and began kneading them.
Chu Yuan could only laugh helplessly and let him continue.
Half an hour later, Chu Yuan returned to the bed. Lu Ronghuai covered the lamp and lay down beside him.
The heavy gauze curtains fell.
Within the bedchamber all was quiet and peaceful. Their breathing rose and fell softly, yet neither spoke for a long time.
Chu Yuan stared at the canopy above. Lu Ronghuai turned over and drew him into his arms.
“Is Your Highness afraid?” He rested against the familiar chest and asked in a very quiet voice.
Lu Ronghuai paused before answering hoarsely.
“A little.”
Chu Yuan touched his own abdomen and gave a bitter smile.
“If Your Highness does not want it… then remove the child.”
His voice sounded calm, yet the trembling hidden beneath the words did not escape Lu Ronghuai’s notice.
Lu Ronghuai slid his hand beneath the blanket until he found Chu Yuan’s hand.
The fingers were gripping his night robe tightly, the knuckles prominent. Though he was clearly terrified, he still forced himself to say such cruel words.
Lu Ronghuai clasped his hand firmly. He drew a long breath. “Ah-Yuan, I do not wish to remove this child. I am only afraid… afraid it may harm your body.”
In all his twenty years of life he had never heard of a man becoming pregnant.
Even the physician had no idea what to do and could only advise him according to the methods used for ordinary pregnant women.
Since learning of Chu Yuan’s pregnancy, his mind had felt as though it floated in a haze.
There was no elation, what he felt, more than anything, was dread.
He did not want Chu Yuan to suffer harm.
“Your Highness, during the Wanchao Hui, they told you that I am not the ruler of Chu’s own flesh and blood. I explained that Mother gave birth to me outside the palace…”
“Yes. I remember.” Lu Ronghuai kissed his cheek tenderly.
“In truth, I am indeed Mother’s child. Father… he also knows. Yet he dares not acknowledge it.”
Not only did he refuse to acknowledge Chu Yuan’s identity, but he also allowed those rumors to harm both mother and son.
“Why?”
“Because in his eyes, Mother and I are both monsters.”
A cold fury blazed up in Lu Ronghuai’s eyes. He ground the words out from between his teeth. “One day I will personally cut off that dog’s head.”
Chu Yuan did not grow angry at those words. Instead, he smiled faintly and looked at him gently.
“Is Your Highness not curious?”
He was curious, of course. Yet speaking of it would only reopen the wounds of Chu Yuan’s past.
Lu Ronghuai kissed him with aching tenderness.
“No curiosity. Ah-Yuan and Mother-in-law are certainly not monsters.”
Chu Yuan gazed at him quietly.
“Your Highness… my Mother Consort was, in truth, a man.”
✧ A Word from the Author ✧
Lu dog: A whole new world has opened up.
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IsitRo: Wew, it’s finally time for me to let this secret out! Huhuhu Ofc, the Chinese language allows for gender-neutral references, but they’re hard to replicate in English. I’ve kept things as neutral as possible, but in many cases used “she” for clarity, so the original ambiguity may not always come through the same way. Whenever Yuan’s mother is mentioned/brought up, he will be addressed as “he” moving forward :>
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