Chapter 5

Chapter 5

In Pei Yunruo’s third year in the palace, she became pregnant.

It was His Majesty’s first child.

But His Majesty had yet to take an empress. This child should never have existed.

Pei Yunruo had always drunk the contraceptive decoction on time after serving His Majesty. No one knew why, but somehow, she had conceived.

The moment His Majesty heard the good news, he hurried over. He circled Pei Yunruo from head to toe, utterly at a loss, even anxious, and kept asking the imperial physician, “Is there truly a child in her belly? Could you have made a mistake?”

Even the imperial physician grew a little displeased at hearing that. “This humble subject’s medical skills may be lacking, but I would never misdiagnose a pregnancy pulse.”

His Majesty crouched before Pei Yunruo and pressed his head against her stomach. To our surprise, he began to cry. “This is our first child.”

Pei Yunruo stroked the back of His Majesty’s neck, again and again. “Yes, Your Majesty. This is our child.”

Everyone in the palace was delighted, and so was I. I racked my brains to prepare meals for Pei Yunruo, hoping that even if her morning sickness was severe, she could still manage to eat a little.

Because Pei Yunruo was with child, His Majesty promoted her rank, chose Rong as her title, and moved her to Qingluan Hall.

Rewards flowed in endlessly during those days. I was sincerely happy for her. “His Majesty is so pleased. If Your Highness gives birth to a prince in the future, perhaps even the position of empress will not be beyond reach.”

Pei Yunruo rebuked me softly, “You mustn’t speak nonsense.”

But I could see that the ice in her eyes had already melted. I thought that once this child was born, she and His Majesty might truly be honest with one another.

I knew how much Pei Yunruo loved this child.

Perhaps she did not love His Majesty, but she certainly loved this child that belonged to them both.

Pei Yunruo had few kin. Both her parents were dead, and she had been forced to wander a thousand miles to the capital to seek shelter with relatives.

Though she never said it aloud, I could tell that she wanted a child of her own.

On one of His Majesty’s days of rest, after he dragged her into some mischief, she had intended to follow the rules and drink the contraceptive decoction. But His Majesty clung to her and said, “Don’t drink that wretched thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to bear Us a little prince?”

Pei Yunruo, who had always observed the rules with utmost care, hesitated for a moment. Then, in a daze, she truly forgot.

Thinking back, it must have been after that one time that this child came to be.

After the imperial physician confirmed her pregnancy, Pei Yunruo did not dare move for a long while, until I could not help laughing. “Your Highness, the little prince is not so fragile.”

Only then did Pei Yunruo carefully rise to her feet and take a few steps. She looked utterly helpless, yet her expression was filled with surprise and joy.

When she sat by the heated couch near the window, embroidering tiny clothes for the child, His Majesty would keep her company at her side, playing with the threads and brocade in her sewing basket. Sunlight poured over them like water, and time seemed so beautiful it had almost come to a standstill.

That beauty bewitched Pei Yunruo as well. Without thinking, she would call out, “Ah Zhao, pass me the thread.”

Ah Zhao was His Majesty’s personal name.

The moment the words left her mouth, Pei Yunruo jolted awake. She hurriedly rose to apologize, but His Majesty smiled and pressed her back down. “It’s only a name. Did it frighten you that badly?”

I could sense that in that instant, Pei Yunruo’s heart had truly softened. If His Majesty had asked her for a piece of her true heart then, she would surely have given it.

Unfortunately, this child was never born.

Even though I had guarded against every possibility, and even though everyone and everything around Pei Yunruo had been handled with utmost care, the child was still lost.

When she was four months along, Pei Yunruo suddenly collapsed one day.

The imperial physician took her pulse for a long while. In the end, all he could say was, “Perhaps the summer heat weakened the mother’s body, making it difficult to preserve the pregnancy. Your Highness and this child were not fated to remain together.”

When Pei Yunruo first learned the news, she merely sat there in a daze, her eyes empty. His Majesty could only hold her in his arms with tears streaming down his face, calling her name again and again before he could call her spirit back.

Since entering the palace, Pei Yunruo had never shown such intense emotion. Even when she was angry, she would still be smiling. But now, curled in His Majesty’s arms, she wept as though her heart were being torn apart. Anyone who heard her would have been heartbroken.

His Majesty kept comforting her. “We will have other children.”

Because they had conceived this child together, there was now another bond between them, one that could not be severed.

And because they had lost this child together, their grief resonated as one, drawing them even closer.

During the month after Pei Yunruo’s miscarriage, she could not sleep night after night, so His Majesty stayed with her constantly.

I knew that even if His Majesty said nothing at all, as long as he stayed by Pei Yunruo’s side, she would feel much better.

But in the end, His Majesty was not hers alone. He also belonged to all the people under heaven.

That year, Huizhou suffered a flood. The crops rotted in the fields, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, and they were all waiting desperately for the court’s relief grain. No matter how deeply His Majesty grieved, he still had to pull himself together and handle affairs of state.

Pei Yunruo had always been clearheaded. Only this once, she crossed the line.

She clutched His Majesty’s hand and pleaded, “Your Majesty, please let this concubine stay in Mingzheng Hall. As long as I can be a little closer to Your Majesty, that will be enough. This concubine will not disturb Your Majesty.”

His Majesty, who had always indulged Pei Yunruo in everything, refused her for the first time. “There is no rule allowing consorts into Mingzheng Hall. Be good. Once We finish dealing with state affairs, We will come see you.”

Pei Yunruo would not let go. His Majesty crouched down, placed his hand over Pei Yunruo’s face, and patted it gently. Then he said coldly, “Consort Rong, you have overstepped.”

A single sentence snapped Pei Yunruo awake.

She released his hand, and His Majesty left.

Afterward, she said to me with deep self-reproach, “Auntie, I was wrong. He is the emperor. How could I ask him to abandon the people of this world for my sake? How could I do something so foolish?”