Chapter 3
As if.
Ji Xingguang had disgraced the imperial house as crown prince. How could I let him continue to enjoy wealth and pleasure under its name?
One decree stripped him of his position and sent him to the imperial tombs to observe mourning on my predecessor’s behalf.
The court was deeply unhappy about the deposition. Unfortunately for them, I had acted first and packed Ji Xingguang off to the tombs overnight.
By the time the ministers reacted, the former crown prince was already outside the imperial city.
Even under my firm suppression, plenty still begged me to rescind the decree, proclaiming that “the crown prince is the foundation of the state.” They even found all sorts of excuses for his disrespect toward me and his visits to brothels.
But this was plainly an opportunity to put my civil and military officials in order.
Incompetent as my predecessor had been, his court had no shortage of people capable of doing real work.
Thus, two months later, when news spread that the empress was pregnant, nobody at court mentioned the deposed prince at the tombs anymore. All was harmony and promise.
Before I could feel pleased, however, the pregnant empress came to see me.
“Consort Yang wants to visit Yongning. But for the past few months, the princess keeps saying she is unwell and cannot come to the palace. She won’t even let the physicians we send inside.”
“Why is that?” I was puzzled.
My predecessor had few children, and his eldest, Princess Yongning, had enjoyed his favor for a time. Her present husband, Luo Chengxu, held a post in the Bureau of Military Affairs and was a useful enough official.
As far as I could tell, Luo Chengxu was no fool. Nor, in my predecessor’s memories, was Yongning meek and submissive. Why would they refuse even the imperial physicians entry?
But we already had the scandals of the prince publicly humiliating his wife and visiting a brothel, and the crown princess sleeping with his tutor.
I quickly sensed something was amiss.
“Send for Consort Yang. She shall come with me to the princess’s residence, and we will see how Yongning is doing.”
I left the palace incognito and caught Luo Chengxu completely off guard.
But when I saw Yongning kneeling at his feet, barely conscious and begging him for intimacy, I knew I was the one who had been caught off guard.
Her face was flushed and her clothes disordered. Luo Chengxu looked down on her coldly, nothing like the respectful man he was in my presence.
“Will you run away again?”
“No! I won’t!”
Yongning shook her head through her tears, reaching desperately for his belt. “Please, husband. Please… I’m begging you…”
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Was I possessed?
How else could I be seeing a princess on her knees, pleading with her husband like this?
She was a much-favored princess, and I, her emperor, held real power.
Her husband came from neither a great family nor distinguished nobility. He was a commoner who had gained my predecessor’s notice, and the chance to enter government, only because the princess had chosen him.
Where, then, had Luo Chengxu found the courage to drug a princess and humiliate her this way?
“Yongning!”
I was still dazed when Consort Yang cried out in a trembling voice and rushed forward.
“Yongning!”
Yongning shuddered and turned in alarm. Luo Chengxu looked around and instantly went white.
“Y-Your Majesty!”
“What are you servants doing? His Majesty arrives, and nobody thinks to tell me?”
He hurried forward to salute. I kicked him before he could.
“You beast!”
The guards swiftly restrained him. My fury burned, and I slapped him across the face as well.
“Luo Chengxu, who are you, and who is my Yongning? How dare you?”
Consort Yang’s anguished cries came from nearby. Whether it was my predecessor’s lingering emotions or simply the sight of the poor girl, my heart felt as if it were being stabbed with needles.
“What exactly has happened?”
I forced down my anger and watched the accompanying physician examine Yongning.
The girl shook violently in Consort Yang’s arms, biting her wrist to keep from making any sounds that would deepen her humiliation.
The physician looked grave and terrified. “Your Majesty, the princess’s pulse is difficult to interpret. I am incompetent. For the moment, I cannot…”
“Your Majesty!”
Consort Yang, her face already wet with tears, clutched my sleeve. “You must seek justice for our Yongning!”
“Without Yongning, Luo Chengxu would have been no more than a petty clerk at a local government office. How could he have entered the Bureau of Military Affairs? How could he have come this far?”
“And this is how he treats her? He… he actually…”
She could not go on. Luo Chengxu, meanwhile, seemed only now to recover from my kick and hurried to defend himself. “Your Majesty!”
“The princess has contracted a strange illness. She cannot be apart from me for even a day. The slightest lapse triggers an attack. She values her dignity above all, so I had no choice but to keep her in her residence. Only thus could I preserve her honor as a princess!”
According to Luo Chengxu, Yongning’s illness had come on suddenly. During an attack she lost all reason and was no different from an animal in heat.
He had been frantic with worry, but her status made him unwilling to reveal the illness to the public. That was why he had turned away the imperial physicians and Consort Yang, secretly seeking doctors himself.
What we had just seen was merely a sudden attack.
“When the princess is lucid, this is what she asks me to do.”
Luo Chengxu looked heartbroken. “Your Majesty, I know concealing this from you and Consort Yang was a grave mistake. Whatever beating or punishment you impose, I will accept it. But for the sake of my sincere devotion to the princess, please let me stay with her until she recovers.”
His every word was tender. My anger blazed as I listened.
“Luo Chengxu, do you take me for a fool?”
I strode forward and kicked him in the chest again. “If you are so devoted to my Yongning, who was that man coldly scolding her just now?!”
“What disease turns someone into an animal in heat? If such an illness truly exists, why refuse the imperial physicians entry? Are you suggesting my palace doctors are inferior to doctors outside it?”
Luo Chengxu spat blood but remained defiant. “If Your Majesty does not believe me, ask Princess Yongning!”
“Father…”
Yongning huddled in Consort Yang’s arms, her body still trembling. Hurt and indignant, she struggled to say something. But her eyes strayed involuntarily toward Luo Chengxu. Desire swallowed the last of her reason, and she sobbed, “Everything my husband says is true.”
She struggled upright and reached both hands toward him. “Chengxu! Husband—”
Luo Chengxu staggered toward her too, only to be restrained by the guards again. He could only stretch out his hand helplessly. “Princess!”
“Your Majesty, she’s having an attack. She cannot do without me. Please show mercy and let me treat her!”
I nearly laughed.
Anyone ignorant of the facts might think that I, her own father, was trying to harm my daughter and tear two lovers apart.
I glanced at the physician. Understanding at once, he rendered Yongning unconscious.
“Investigate! I refuse to believe there is a disease that can turn a perfectly healthy person into an animal governed by lust!”
My cold gaze swept over the servants kneeling all around, and I gave another bitter laugh. “A princess’s own residence, and you let some wretch who has usurped her place give the orders. Have you forgotten who your true mistress is?”