Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Xie Yun’s hand slipped from Wang Runhe’s arm.

He stared at her in disbelief.

“What? Was she telling the truth? Did you really do that?”

Wang Runhe was too guilty to meet his eyes. She pleaded, “Let’s talk after we go back.”

But Xie Yun refused.

His entire family, young and old, was about to be condemned.

The court officials had been arguing themselves hoarse over it. The Crown Prince Faction and the Prince Liang Faction were fighting until both sides were bloodied, yet no one paid any attention to him, the person at the center of it all.

With no other choice, he had pinned his hopes on women.

But I ignored him.

And Wang Runhe had betrayed him too.

His mind had collapsed. There was no way he could wait until they returned home.

He shook Wang Runhe by the shoulders, desperate for an answer.

“Tell me. Was what she said true? Was it?”

“That’s enough!”

Wang Runhe slapped him across the face. Her reddened eyes glared at Xie Yun, burning with fury.

“And what makes you so noble? You were thinking of divorcing your wife and marrying someone else all the same. You could abandon me to save your own life, so why can’t I abandon you to save mine?”

Xie Yun seized Wang Runhe by the throat.

“How can men and women be the same? I was only playing along with her. Once I saved the Xie Family, would I not have given you a good life? How can you fail to understand even that?”

Wang Runhe clawed desperately at his hands, trying to shove him away.

Unfortunately, she could not. She had exhausted too much of herself today.

Just before he strangled her to death, I signaled for the palace guards to pull Xie Yun away.

They could die if they wanted, but not here. Otherwise, it would be Her Majesty the Empress’s reputation that suffered.

Wang Runhe gulped in air like a fish on the verge of death, her mouth hanging open.

When she finally caught her breath, she cursed him in a hoarse voice.

“Ha! Back then, you abandoned Li Lüxue for fame and rank. Today, you abandon me to stay alive. Who would ever believe in your sincerity? How much is your so-called true heart even worth?”

Xie Yun knelt on the ground. The corners of his eyes reddened, and two tears slowly welled and fell.

“I regret it so much!”

I watched the scene with satisfaction, and some more of the resentment in my chest finally dispersed.

When I first entered the inner palace, I was only a lowly Female Scribe.

At the time, Wang Runhe had just married Xie Yun. The Wang family had sent a great deal of money to the Crown Prince’s residence, and she was at the height of her glory.

The Crown Princess brought her into the palace to see the world. Perhaps it was to help Wang Runhe vent her anger. I had clearly already hidden myself away in the Palace Bureau of Governance and refused to come out.

Yet the Crown Princess still used the excuse of looking for a set of palace regulations to give Wang Runhe and came to the Palace Bureau of Documents.

They ordered me to copy out a set of the palace regulations. Then, just as I was carefully transcribing them, one of them carelessly spilled tea over the pages and said lightly, “We will have to trouble the Female Scribe to copy another set.”

In front of me, they flaunted how well Xie Yun treated Wang Runhe.

Today he took her to admire flowers, tomorrow to boat across a lake, the day after to gallop on horseback.

I listened quietly, until I grew rather tired of it.

Suddenly, I felt it was all so meaningless.

If liking a man would make a person so narrow-minded, so crude, so vulgar…

Then I would rather not like anyone at all.

If I liked a man, it would have to be because being with him made me better. At the very least, I would still be myself.

If all he could do was drag me down with him, then what I had found was probably not a man, but a burden.

Just as I was about to finish copying, another cup of tea splashed over the pages.

Wang Runhe smiled sweetly. “It seems we will have to trouble the Female Scribe again…”

Calmly, I picked up the booklet she had soaked and said, “Madam, what you have stained is the copy of the palace regulations written by Her Majesty the Empress herself. You had better come with me in person to confess your offense before Her Majesty the Empress.”