Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Emperor escorted me back to Laiyi Hall, but he didn’t go inside himself.

He was in a hurry. “There are still matters at court. I have to go.”

He squeezed my hand. “I already told you-if something happens, come to me. They pile a charge like that onto you, and you don’t even know to call for someone to back you up?”

I looked up at him. “Is Your Majesty my support?”

He smiled. “I promised your brother. Besides, don’t forget-you’re still My Noble Consort.”

He instructed the people at his side, “Tell them this is My order: Noble Consort is not to go pay her respects to the Empress for the next few days.”

Then he bestowed quite a few little trinkets on me as well.

Xiao Tao happily cataloged them and had them put into storage. “Hmph, all those people are hoping we’ll fall out of favor, but His Majesty’s heart is here. No matter how anxious they get, it’s useless.”

Everything he sent over was to my taste.

There were even some precious medicinal herbs from the Western Regions.

If only these things could be sent to the army instead. They lack everything there.

Concubine Jing came to see me.

She was the only person in this palace willing to talk to me.

Looking at the rewards that had been delivered, she gave a soft laugh. “Just look at how much His Majesty dotes on you.”

She studied me. “Even if you weren’t willing to enter the palace, with His Majesty treating you this well, even a heart of stone would be moved.”

I sighed.

How could I not be moved at all?

Lying in bed, I thought about how Li Yu had looked today and slowly drifted off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I woke from a dream and suddenly sat bolt upright.

Damn it, I’d been played!

Starting with Noble Lady Liang, then the Empress flying into a rage, and finally the Emperor rescuing me from disaster.

It was a living, breathing chain of schemes!

The next day, the Emperor once again made a huge public display of sending me gifts, this time on the grounds of calming my nerves.

The truth was, there were no nerves to calm. I was only speechless.

As I walked around, everyone looked at me with fear.

I really had become the most favored woman in the harem.

“His Majesty really does dote on Noble Consort-”

“Isn’t it only because of her father and brothers?”

“But it doesn’t look that way to me.”

I listened in with great interest as two young palace maids gossiped nearby.

“Noble Consort is this overbearing, so if His Majesty were only favoring her for the sake of her father and brothers, keeping up appearances would’ve been enough. But now, for Noble Consort’s sake, His Majesty has practically lost his head.”

“Sigh, if you ask me, Noble Consort isn’t even exceptionally beautiful.”

“What do you know? His relationship with her is different. She’s known His Majesty since childhood. You could even call them childhood sweethearts.”

The corner of my lips curled up.

Then I pulled my attention back and instructed the palace servants, “Let’s go.”

I went to see Concubine Jing.

She hadn’t come to see me these past few days either.

When she saw me, she turned her head slightly. “What brings you here?”

I sat down on my own. “You haven’t visited me in days, and now you’re being polite with me?”

Concubine Jing said nothing.

I scratched my ear.

Having things dangling from it always gave me an uneasy feeling.

It felt as though someone could yank off my earring at any moment and hurt me.

I sighed. “I really wasn’t lying to you. I truly didn’t know him well before. As for childhood sweethearts, that’s nonsense.”

She stayed silent for a long while. “Maybe you just never noticed.”

Concubine Jing truly did like the Emperor.

She was one of the old attendants from his days at the princely residence, and she was even two years older than he was.

In truth, she was still delicately pretty, but in the palace she was already considered somewhat past her prime.

Seeing her lower her head, I bent over and stuck my face right under hers. “Are you really crying?”

Concubine Jing finally lost her temper. “No!”

I grinned. “Then what are you crying for?”

She let out a breath. Though she no longer looked so dispirited, she was still deeply dejected. “I’m afraid His Majesty has long since forgotten that I even exist.”

What was sincerity, really?

Sincerity was only that much.

It too could be cast aside like a worn-out shoe.

At first, Concubine Jing had been curious about me only because she thought the Emperor truly liked me.

In her despair, she wanted to know why he liked me.

Because I didn’t meet a single standard of what made a traditionally good woman.

I was surprised too.

Because she actually believed the Emperor liked me.

Which only went to show that she had no political sense at all.