Chapter 3: No Place to Call Home

Over the years, countless women had been foisted upon him from all sides, but he had always refused them with the excuse that with the war still raging, he had no place to call home.

The only woman by his side was the handmaiden Hua Ping, a gift from his adoptive father. She had been unruly at first, but after he had her punished once, she was now perfectly behaved and no longer dared to overstep.

And yet, this was the first time a woman had ever stayed the night in his residence.

The woman on the bed was already in a deep slumber. Adhering to the principle of seeing a good deed through to the end, Xuan Rui’s hands did not stop, continuing to massage the bruised blood on her chest to disperse it.

He admitted that the moment she had cried out for her mother, a sliver of pity had stirred within him.

But there was another reason for saving her.

He had long suspected that an enemy agent was planted within the imperial court; otherwise, the Er Hai Tribe would not have been able to sneak into Lu Ming Mountain so silently. To uncover this person, he needed to understand the full story of the ambush at Lu Ming Mountain.

And to get the full story, he had to wait for her to make a complete recovery.

The night was utterly still, the room brightly lit by lamps.

His eyes fell unexpectedly on a small beauty mark just above the girl’s left breast, and his hands couldn’t help but pause.

She was still feverish. Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing, and her pale cheeks were gradually tinged with an unnatural flush, making her as pitiably beautiful as a red lotus eroded by wind and frost in a snowy domain.

A crack appeared in Xuan Rui’s perpetually expressionless face.

Besides numbness, his hands now registered a different sensation—a soft, vibrant touch, like that of a flower full of life.

He was supposedly treating her injuries, but in truth, this was the first time in his life he had ever touched a woman’s body.

Li Youqing had just begun to feel a bit of comfort when the suffocating pressure returned, disturbing her sleep and causing her to toss and turn restlessly on the bed.

Xuan Rui frowned. He simply rolled her up tightly in the quilt, immobilizing her, and then resumed massaging her injury through the fabric.

With the goose-down quilt as a barrier, the sensation was no longer so direct.

But he could still feel that soft touch, like two little rabbits hopping in his palm.

The hands that could charge into an army of thousands with a saber, steady as a mountain, now trembled almost imperceptibly. Then, they moved upward and clamped around the woman’s neck.

Her slender neck was like an easily breakable flower stem. Her pulse, like the faint flutter of a firefly’s wings, throbbed and danced unceasingly against his palm.

With just a slight squeeze, he could end the life of this little thing that was disturbing his mind.

The daughter of the Grand Chancellor of Liang, Yang Zhi…

A moment later, Xuan Rui let out a long breath, finally abandoning the thought of killing her.

If she was truly innocent, then once she recovered and gave him the information he wanted, he would just send her back to the capital.

A sudden gust of wind extinguished the lamps in an instant. In the darkness, the man’s black, python-patterned robes billowed as he left the room without a sound.

The fleeting, stray thought that had arisen was scattered by the wind, leaving not a single trace behind. His mind was clear once more.

Upon reaching the council hall, Xuan Rui laid out the itinerary for the next few days, then summoned a scout and ordered, “Go to the Grand Chancellor’s residence in the capital. Bring me a portrait of the Thirteenth Miss, Yang Zhi.”

For an obscure, illegitimate daughter of the Grand Chancellor’s residence to have such delicate skin and flesh—either the residence was truly wealthy beyond measure, or there was something more to her identity.

“Yes, sir.” The scout accepted the order, leaped onto his horse, and galloped toward the capital through the night.

The round trip would take at least twenty days. In the meantime, he would see just what kind of game this woman was playing.

~

The Imperial Palace of the Great Liang

White funeral banners and lanterns still hung everywhere in the palace. The memorial hall in the Eastern Palace had not been taken down, as no one dared to remove these objects of mourning without permission.

Compared to the deathly stillness of the Eastern Palace, Shu Yun Palace, home to the Third Princess’s birth mother, appeared much calmer. The palace servants came and went with their usual expressions, and they now seldom mentioned the young princess who had moved to Changxin Palace to live with the Empress at a young age.

A dark cloud hung over the Eastern Palace. Crown Prince Li Jing had kept his doors closed for days. Only with the arrival of the Eldest Princess today was the deathly quiet of the Eastern Palace finally broken.

The Crown Prince and the Eldest Princess were full siblings. After the Empress passed away, the two had always supported each other, joining forces with the Eldest Princess’s husband and the Donglin Cui Clan to contend with Shu Fei’s maternal family, the Sima Family.

Now, with the Emperor gravely ill and on the verge of death, it was only right and proper for the Crown Prince to manage the affairs of the court. However, the Sima Family’s power was overwhelming. They outrageously dreamed that after the Emperor’s passing, the young Fourth Prince would ascend the throne, with Shu Fei acting as Empress Dowager and ruling from behind a curtain, emulating Empress Xuan of the Wu Dynasty.

The Third Princess, Li Youqing, was Shu Fei’s daughter but had been close to the Empress’s faction since childhood. For the past year, caught between the two powers, her position had been extremely sensitive.

At this critical juncture, she herself, as if possessed, had leaped from the city wall, smashing into a bloody pulp so mangled her face was unrecognizable.

According to imperial regulations, a descendant who took their own life could not be interred in the imperial mausoleum. That pulp of flesh and blood had now been burned to ash and placed in a small, purple sandalwood urn.

When the Eldest Princess arrived, Li Jing was scattering the ashes from the urn into the center of the lake, his face etched with a weariness from a long lack of rest.

“If you knew this would happen, why did you act so rashly in the first place?” The Eldest Princess drew near. Seeing the once gentle and jade-like Crown Prince now so grim he seemed like a different person, she couldn’t bear to be too harsh. “Our people have yet to send word back,” she said sorrowfully. “Wait a little longer. Perhaps Imperial Sister was blessed by heaven and is still perfectly fine.”

Li Jing’s right hand, clutching the sandalwood box, suddenly clenched. The entire box burst apart, shattering into several fragments that fell into the lotus pond.

The atmosphere in the Eastern Palace was bleak, yet for several days straight, he had worn crimson robes, cinched at the waist with a belt of precious jade. A touch of seductive beauty shone through his refined features.

He was originally a man of stunning looks, but because of his status as Crown Prince, he had always suppressed them with more simple and elegant colors. Since the young princess’s disappearance, he suddenly no longer wished to maintain that facade.

In this life, there was no one left to worry about, no one left to protect. So what if he revealed his edge? A bloody battle was destined to come, and he, Li Jing, had never been afraid.

“Imperial Sister knows better than anyone what becomes of a child like Youqing once she loses her protection.” From the day she had suddenly vanished, escaping his control, Li Jing had already prepared for the worst.

“Don’t you suspect that someone took her to threaten us?” the Eldest Princess analyzed calmly, while inwardly complaining that her Third Imperial Sister was not as simple as she appeared on the surface.

The Crown Prince was usually shrewd and capable, but whenever it concerned his Third Imperial Sister, he would uncharacteristically lose his judgment and take some absurd actions.

This time was no different. The secret about Shu Fei had just arrived from the northwest. The matter was clearly not yet at an irreparable stage, but the Crown Prince had lost his composure and made his move.

Li Jing said faintly, “If someone truly took her, then my seclusion these past few days has been to wait for that person.”

“And what if they never show up?” Annoyance was already rising in the Eldest Princess’s heart. She was about to say more when she felt the Crown Prince’s icy gaze sweep over her, and she froze.

Li Jing’s presence was overpowering. He took a step closer to the Eldest Princess and said, “That person has already appeared.”

The Eldest Princess was horrified. She forced herself to remain calm and said, “Who is this person Your Imperial Brother speaks of?”

Li Jing suddenly smiled. It was a deeply suppressed laugh, tinged with a muffled, world-weary sorrow. He said slowly, “I can risk everything to wait for that person to walk into my trap. But what about you, Eldest Princess? Can you afford to wait?”

The Eldest Princess thought angrily that with the Sima Family watching like a tiger, of course neither side could afford to wait.

But she didn’t want to admit defeat so quickly. Keeping a woman like that in the palace would, sooner or later, make her a scourge, just like her mother.

So she had meticulously planned to send the girl out of the palace, right from under the Crown Prince’s nose.

She just never expected the accident at Lu Ming Mountain, and that the Third Princess would truly go missing. She couldn’t produce the person now, so confessing to the Crown Prince would do no good at all.

She could only hold on…

And hope that one day the Crown Prince would come to his senses, step out of the Eastern Palace, and properly pull himself together to deal with the Sima Family.

The Crown Prince no longer looked at her, his attention returning to the koi in the lotus pond. His expression had also reverted to its usual gentleness.

“Your Highness, please take care. I shall take my leave.” The Eldest Princess did not have the courage to stay any longer. She turned and departed in a somewhat flustered manner.