Chapter 5

Little Two was very well behaved. His favorite thing was snuggling up to me.

As we spent more time together, I gradually learned to read his moods.

When he was happy, he rolled around on the floor. When he was especially happy, he even turned a few somersaults in the air.

When he was unhappy, he stayed rooted to the spot like a great, gormless egg.

And he really was sturdy. I could roll out pastry with him or sit on him when I was tired. No problem at all.

I could even skip him across the water, and he would zip over the surface for dozens of bounces.

Truly, an indispensable egg, at home or on the road.

But even after two hundred years in my care, he showed no sign of hatching. He had only grown considerably larger and learned to control his golden glow at will.

When I was bored, I wrote and drew on his shell. When I craved a snack, I had him adjust the strength of his glow to roast meat for me.

Ever since I’d casually mentioned what had happened between Cangwu and me, though, Little Two had pestered me every day to take him to Siming’s and watch Cangwu’s mortal trials.

He rocked from side to side as he watched. I rubbed my chin and decided he was probably laughing at Cangwu.

Cangwu had been undergoing mortal trials for almost three hundred years. Without orders from the Emperor and Empress, no one dared let him return.

In those three centuries, he and Song Ruiying had lived more than a dozen lives. On average, they died in their twenties.

Life’s hundred sorrows, its thousand calamities and countless hardships, were not easy to bear.

Without their memories, they would simply have believed themselves to be among those unfortunate mortals destined to suffer.

When they died, the misery of that life would have vanished with them.

But Cangwu and Song Ruiying remembered every life in perfect detail. For all practical purposes, they had endured three hundred uninterrupted years of hell.

I suspected Song Ruiying had lost some of her initial courage. Not everyone could be as ruthless with themselves as the Emperor. He’d been through all this before.

But Cangwu still had his exalted identity. If she wanted a way out, she had to hold on to him.

So she worked hard at seeming strong and caring in the mortal world, keeping his heart firmly in her grasp.

The Mirror of Fate didn’t lie, though. Every little thing she did behind Cangwu’s back was recorded in detail.

I couldn’t help laughing when I saw her secretly eating meat, then carrying a bowl of wild-greens soup out to share Cangwu’s hardships.

After a few days, I lost interest. I left the egg with Siming and went to make more spirit-infused liquid for Little Two to soak in, hoping it would help him hatch sooner.

As I stirred the spirit herbs in the tub, I marveled at myself. I had never been this generous even with my own needs.

Cangwu had always assumed my cultivation kept pace despite my lack of talent because I trained hard in secret. He had even lost his temper with me over a few spirit plants the Empress gave me.

What he didn’t know was that no one had more cultivation resources than I did. Not even the Emperor.

Every bit of my cultivation had been piled up with resources. I had barely ever worked at it.

Dad and my uncles had left their private treasuries entirely to me. Even with Cangwu being Heaven’s crown prince, I could have demanded that he marry into my family and had the means to back it up.

If he’d had the slightest sense, I wouldn’t have minded giving him a hand.

Unfortunately, he was an idiot. I’d rather have fed a dog than wasted anything on him.