Chapter 5
Chapter 5
I entered a national competition for my major.
To help everyone get good results, the department arranged a one-on-one mentoring system, pairing us with upperclassmen who had won awards before.
Unfortunately, I was paired with Xiao Xu.
My roommates teased me. “Other people would kill to be paired with God Xiao, and here you are, looking like the world is ending.”
“Why did you have to go and curse him out? Great, now who knows if he’ll get back at you.”
Exactly.
I couldn’t avoid him even if I tried.
But as it turned out, I was overthinking it.
Someone like Xiao Xu, after losing face in public, wouldn’t come looking for me if I didn’t go looking for him.
It was probably half a month before I finally ran into him in the lab.
He was tutoring Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan was also in the competition, which made her my rival.
My roommate was indignant. In a low voice, she said, “Gu Yu, how can God Xiao do that? Even if he won’t tutor you, he can’t go tutor someone else!”
I gave a dry laugh. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
On the lab bench sat a lone notebook.
I thought some classmate had left it behind, so I casually flipped it open.
But every page was filled with Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection.
Some lines were neat, some were scrawled. Aside from Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection, there was nothing else.
From the handwriting, one could tell the owner’s mental state: utterly deranged most of the time.
There was no need to wonder whose it was.
I tossed the notebook aside.
And Xiao Xu happened to see the look of disgust on my face.
It reminded me of some things that happened after I died.
On the day of Gu Yu, he came to the cold palace carrying a box of peach blossom pastries, wanting me to give in.
All he saw was my corpse.
He collapsed there in the cold palace, not eating, not drinking, not saying a word.
That night, wind and rain swept through the palace, and every peach blossom fell.
The next day, when the palace servants entered, all they saw was Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection covering the walls and the floor.
Every surface in the palace that could be written on had been filled by Xiao Xu with copied lines from Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection.
There were also countless sheets of xuan paper spread across the ground.
Xiao Xu’s hair turned white overnight.
He posthumously named me empress, and for the rest of his life, never touched another woman.
His temper grew strange, and he started doing things no one could make sense of.
For example, somehow, he found a male cousin from my mother’s clan.
Following the logic that “a nephew takes after his aunt,” Xiao Xu forced him to have children.
One after another.
At last, one child resembled me.
Xiao Xu adopted that child and raised him to be the next emperor.
Another example: the Flower Viewing Tower, a place I used to visit often. In today’s terms, it was a landmark of the capital.
Xiao Xu drove everyone out and burned it to the ground.
When the tower collapsed, he stood outside the firelight, half mad, calling my name.
Also, during his reign, no one in the world dared mention Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection.
If they did, they lost their head.
I shook my head and stopped thinking about it.
Until the lab session ended, Xiao Xu remained beside Shen Yuan.
A few peaceful days passed just like that.
One evening, my roommate and I went to feed the cats.
There were quite a few stray kitties on campus, all yowling to be fed.
But today, there was an uninvited guest.
Xiao Xu was there too.
His fingers were long and slender, and he was patiently petting a cat.
Hearing footsteps, he turned and glanced at me.
I ignored him and focused on calling over my babies.
But my roommate wanted to help ease the tension between us.
“Gu Yu and I come feed the cats all the time. Gu Yu really likes cats. She’s very caring! Senior, look, especially that calico kitty-Gu Yu even gave it a name-”
Alarm bells were screaming in my head, but it was already too late to stop her.
My roommate said:
“Little Jade Peach.”