Chapter 13

The moment Xu Yanheng finished speaking, Lady Gu’s face froze completely.

She could enjoy herself calling for a boating excursion alone, but going with Xu Yanheng meant accompanying the emperor. Who could possibly have fun under those circumstances?

Lady Gu immediately lost her nerve. Taking a step back, she lowered her head and murmured, “I just remembered that I still have matters to attend to in my palace. I shall not accompany Your Majesty and Lady Chu.”

Chu Qingwan was slightly astonished. Faced with such an opportunity to tour the lake with the emperor, Lady Gu was actually turning it down?

Xu Yanheng did not care in the slightest. He nodded. “Then go back.”

Lady Gu breathed a sigh of relief. She was not a fool; of course she could see whose presence had sparked Xu Yanheng’s interest. She had no intention of staying.

Putting herself in Lady Gu’s place, Lady Gu glanced toward Lady Jiang. A wave of resentment rose in Lady Jiang’s heart. Clearly, she was the one who had come to tour the gardens with the emperor. Why should she now make room for Lady Chu?

She turned her head slightly, pretending not to understand Lady Gu’s hint.

Lady Gu blinked. She did not press the matter. After all, not everyone thought as she did.

She merely cast a somewhat regretful glance at the boat she had prepared. Now it would all serve someone else’s purpose. Hanging her head dejectedly, she left Changyuan Lake.

After Lady Gu departed, only Xu Yanheng, Chu Qingwan, and Lady Jiang remained before the lake.

Lady Jiang no longer dared to stay silent. She feared that if she remained quiet any longer, the emperor would truly overlook her existence. She stepped forward, forcing both Xu Yanheng and Chu Qingwan to notice her, and said with a smile, “The lotus seeds are especially sweet at this time of year. No wonder Lady Gu wanted to come boating today.”

She slipped one arm around Xu Yanheng’s and tugged lightly at his sleeve, wheedling, “Your Majesty cannot leave me out of something so delightful.”

Chu Qingwan glanced at the positions of the three of them. The smile at the corners of her lips gradually faded, but she said nothing. After all, Lady Jiang had not been asking her, and she was not the one who could make the decision.

She merely withdrew her hand as though nothing had happened, then raised it to tuck the loose strands of hair beside her face behind her ear.

The warmth in his palm vanished. Xu Yanheng lifted his eyes toward the woman. At that very moment, she lowered her hand, her hair hooked neatly behind her ear, her face still carrying the same radiant smile, as though her emotions had not shifted at all.

She did not care whether Lady Jiang accompanied them, but she had no desire to maintain the posture in which the three of them had been entangled moments earlier.

It was an eyesore.

It had been only the smallest movement, yet the faintly intimate atmosphere vanished without a trace. Xu Yanheng sensed something and narrowed his eyes slightly before answering Lady Jiang with deliberate indifference.

“If you wish to go, then go.”

Relief loosened something in Lady Jiang’s heart. She had already spoken so plainly that if the emperor rejected her again, she feared she would never have the face to meet Lady Chu afterward.

Chu Qingwan glanced at the boat. Lady Gu had originally intended to bring her attendants along for the outing, so the vessel was not small. It could at least accommodate the three ladies, though there would be no room for all their servants.

When Lady Jiang looked toward her, Chu Qingwan felt little about it. In the end, she was the one who had inserted herself into the excursion halfway through.

The group boarded. An attendant stood at the bow, rowing with a wooden oar. The boat rocked gently from side to side, while the light breeze swept across the lotus leaves and carried with it a faint fragrance. As they threaded their way among the blossoms, Chu Qingwan, who knew how to swim, was not worried about falling overboard. Sitting at the edge of the boat, she leaned half her body out to pluck lotus pods.

Someone caught hold of one of her hands, relieving her of any fear of falling into the water. His voice reached her, neither loud nor soft.

“You certainly have courage.”

Chu Qingwan was somewhat surprised. Pinching the base of a lotus pod between her fingers, she snapped it off with a crisp sound. “Why has Your Majesty come over?”

The moment Lady Jiang boarded, she had pressed herself close to Xu Yanheng, as though terrified she might fall into the water. Whether that display was genuine or not, no one would deliberately investigate.

Chu Qingwan had not remained inside the cabin to compete with Lady Jiang for Xu Yanheng’s attention. She feared that doing so would have the opposite effect and provoke his dislike.

She glanced over the lake. The water rippled, and splashes might reach them. Worried that she might soil Xu Yanheng’s robes, she abandoned the thought of picking more lotus pods and retreated to the middle of the boat. Raising her face, she asked in a tone that sounded neither quite reproachful nor quite resentful, “Is Your Majesty not accompanying Lady Jiang?”

Xu Yanheng looked down at her from above, taking in the scattered amusement in her eyes with perfect clarity. Instead of answering, he asked, “And what about you?”

Chu Qingwan was momentarily at a loss.

Xu Yanheng gave a soft click of his tongue. “You asked Me to accompany you on the lake, yet you cast Me aside and amuse yourself alone.”

Chu Qingwan was rendered speechless. She felt that Xu Yanheng truly had a talent for turning matters back on others.

Little by little, she lowered her head, her voice sounding faintly muffled. “Your Majesty was accompanying Lady Jiang to begin with. I have already intruded without permission, which is displeasing enough. How could I monopolize Your Majesty as well?”

Xu Yanheng gave a brief laugh. “Lady Chu is truly considerate.”

A flush crept over Chu Qingwan’s face. He should not think she could not hear the mockery in his words. Suppressing her irritation, she reached back and took hold of Xu Yanheng’s hand.

He raised a brow. “And what are you doing now?”

Chu Qingwan lifted her face and met his eyes without wavering.

“Has Your Majesty not already seen?”

“I am not considerate in the least. Therefore, I have no intention of sending Your Majesty back to accompany Lady Jiang. Is that not allowed?”

Xu Yanheng lowered his gaze to the woman. The longer she waited, the more her confidence faltered, and the look in her eyes trembled as she tried to withdraw it from his.

When she received no answer for a long while, Chu Qingwan slowly loosened her grip, as though embarrassed and disappointed. Even her eyes dimmed.

In truth, Chu Qingwan was not disappointed at all. She merely thought Xu Yanheng rather difficult to deal with.

At home, she often used such tactics against her elder brothers and father. They had always worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, they seemed entirely ineffective against Xu Yanheng.

That was hardly surprising. If Xu Yanheng could be made to care so easily, there would have been no need for her to resort to schemes and stratagems.

Xu Yanheng never answered her, not even in the end.

But when Lady Jiang could no longer restrain herself and came looking for them, Xu Yanheng ordered without even turning his head, “Wei Ziming, escort Lady Jiang back to shore.”

Lady Jiang froze and instinctively cried, “Your Majesty?!”

Chu Qingwan also suddenly raised her head. Xu Yanheng pulled her to her feet, and she seemed startled as well, standing silently at his side.

Lady Jiang took in the entire scene. Convinced that Chu Qingwan had used some trick, she forced out a smile and said softly, “Your Majesty, what is the meaning of this? Did You not say that You would accompany me today?”

Xu Yanheng did not answer her question. He simply said, “Go back first.”

Lady Jiang was naturally unwilling to leave so easily. She was about to speak again when Xu Yancheng turned and cast her a glance, the expression between his brows growing cold.

From the shore until now, this was the second time Lady Jiang had failed to read the situation.

Wei Ziming understood at once and tactfully interrupted her. “Lady Jiang, I shall escort you back.”

He was not trying to save Lady Jiang from embarrassment. It was simply that angering the emperor would benefit no one.

Lady Jiang fell silent. She, too, sensed that the atmosphere had changed. Her eyes reddened slightly, but in the end she did not dare make another scene. She lowered herself into a humble bow.

“I obey.”

After Lady Jiang left, only Chu Qingwan and Xu Yanheng remained on the boat. Chu Qingwan was still somewhat unable to recover from what had happened.

Was Xu Yanheng responding to the question she had asked earlier?

She did not dare let her thoughts run wild, but someone asked her in an unhurried voice, “Are you happy now?”

Chu Qingwan felt deeply wronged. Widening her eyes, she protested, “Your Majesty must not accuse me unjustly. I was neither unhappy nor did I ask You to send Lady Jiang away.”

Every attendant on the boat lowered their heads, too frightened to listen to the conversation between their two masters. The boat drifted to a slow stop among the lotus blossoms.

Xu Yanheng neither said he believed her nor that he did not. He merely repeated her words. “You do not permit Me to go back and accompany her?”

Chu Qingwan choked for a moment, understanding the implication beneath his words. Since she would not let him return to Lady Jiang, what purpose was there in keeping Lady Jiang aboard?

Lady Jiang had come along for the lake excursion, but certainly not to watch the emperor and Chu Qingwan grow intimate.

Chu Qingwan slowly smoothed the strands of hair disordered by the wind, her voice slowing as well. “If You truly did not want her to accompany You, why ask her to come along in the first place?”

The surroundings fell silent for an instant. A light breeze brushed across the lake and drifted over them again. Xu Yanheng looked down at her. Whenever she spoke against her true feelings, she seemed to make some small movement; now her fingers remained suspended in her hair, never lowering.

Xu Yanheng did not point this out. He only asked once more, “You truly are not unhappy?”

She kept insisting that she did not care, yet every sentence revolved around Lady Jiang.

Chu Qingwan’s voice came to an abrupt halt. She sighed inwardly, feeling that Xu Yanheng was truly skilled at making things difficult for others. Thinking this, she voiced the complaint aloud.

“Your Majesty is making things difficult for me.”

She bit her lip. Her soft, delicate voice floated over, and even her complaint seemed like a hook.

Xu Yanheng adjusted his posture and listened at leisure for what she would say next.

Chu Qingwan wrinkled the tip of her nose. “I am not lying. You came out today to accompany Lady Jiang, and I have already taken You away from her. If I were unhappy merely because she came along, would that not make me seem insatiable in Your Majesty’s eyes?”

She had said that she had taken him away, the words seeming to circle once over the tip of her tongue, hesitant and indistinct.

But Xu Yanheng heard them.

He felt an impulse to laugh, and in fact lowered his head with a slight curl of his lips.

Chu Qingwan continued, her voice faintly muffled. “I do not want Your Majesty to see me that way. So I am not unhappy.”

She said she was not, but anyone could hear that what she truly meant was that she did not dare be.

For the first time, Xu Yanheng looked seriously at Chu Qingwan. In the past, he had thought of her only as a beauty. Beyond that, he had formed no particular impression.

But today, he suddenly found Chu Qingwan rather interesting.

Just look at the things she said, each one leading neatly into the next. She had not said anything as simple as being happy merely because he was happy. She sounded exceptionally sincere, yet Xu Yanheng knew that she was lying. Still, her eyes were clear and bright, and every so often she glanced toward him. Because of that, certain things no longer seemed important.

In the end, she was merely one of his consorts. Knowing how to please him was already rare enough.

Xu Yanheng said ambiguously, “Is that so?”

Chu Qingwan was left speechless. What kind of answer was that?

Xu Yanheng offered no explanation. He peeled a lotus seed and held it to her lips. Still dazed, Chu Qingwan bit down, and a clean sweetness filled her mouth.

“How is it?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Chu Qingwan replied, “Your Majesty removed the lotus heart. It is very sweet.”

“Then it will be perfect for making porridge tonight.”

Chu Qingwan understood the meaning behind his words and immediately smiled. “I shall have someone prepare lotus-seed porridge. I will await Your Majesty’s arrival at Jade Radiance Court tonight.”

Before leaving, Chu Qingwan turned back toward Xu Yanheng.

“Your Majesty must not break Your promise twice today.”

Xu Yanheng paused. Twice?

He suddenly recalled Lady Jiang’s words: Had You not said that You would accompany me today?

A moment later, he burst out laughing.

Even at parting, she had still found a way to bring up Lady Jiang.

She truly was rather petty.