Chapter 1
Chapter 1
“Very well! You have been taking contraceptive medicine behind my back again. Since you refuse to bear my children, you may squat in the Cold Palace. No one will ask you to bear any there.”
I had made Song Ziming angry again. He had spent all three years of favoring me in a state of constant fury, and somehow he never seemed to tire of it.
Carrying my exquisite little handbag, I moved into the Western Sixth Palace for the six-hundred-and-fifty-fourth time.
What a life. I was supposed to be the emperor’s favorite consort, yet I visited the Cold Palace more often than the privy.
“Off to the Cold Palace for a summer holiday again? Wait for me. I’ll bring braised pork knuckle over at noon.”
That was a house-call notice from my number-one neighbor on the left, Consort Shu.
“Hey, hey! You did not even last five days this time. Did you conspire with that abacus-rattling Consort Shu? If you went five days, the house would have taken everything!”
That furious interrogation came from my number-two neighbor on the right, Consort Jing. One glance told me she had lost her bet and was refusing to accept it.
Wonderful. They had started a betting pool on how many days it would take me to land in the Cold Palace. The imperial harem truly never lacked talent when it came to eating, drinking, and amusing itself.
Only Xiaoxi wore a miserable expression. “Your Highness, I turn twenty next month and should be released from the palace. But servants attached to someone in the Cold Palace cannot be entered on the discharge register. My cousin is still waiting for me.”
“His Majesty adores you so much. Why will you not give him an imperial son?”
I looked just as miserable. We koi genuinely could not afford to have children.
My name was Feng Chuchu, and I was a koi spirit living in the imperial palace of Great Zhao.
His Majesty the Emperor insisted on favoring me alone. I advised him to spread his grace evenly among the harem, but he simply would not listen.
Thus, I had secretly drunk contraceptive medicine for three years.
Song Ziming had never seen how spectacular koi reproduction could be. If he had, he might have swallowed the medicine even more diligently than I did.
The palace might be full of koi now, but three years ago there had been only three of us in the entire place. Koi were rare treasures then.
Unfortunately, the other two ordinary fish had never awakened their minds and could not resist mating season. One moment of excitement, and both ended up with bellies full of eggs.
Good heavens. On the day they spawned, it might as well have been firecrackers and crashing gongs. An endless black swarm of fry packed the entire pond.
My fear of dense clusters struck at once. I rolled my dead-fish eyes and fainted.
When I woke, I had transformed into a dripping-wet young palace maid beside the pond, where Song Ziming found me and took me in.
Xiaoxi’s cousin was probably handsome, because she wept with exceptional misery. To comfort her, I had no choice but to betray the dog emperor’s secret.
“Do not worry. Those ministers have been seeking him out constantly, so he must have encountered some troublesome matter. He will come fetch us soon.”
Xiaoxi did not understand. “What does that have to do with taking us back?”
Heh. Everything.
We koi fed on fortune and were lucky mascots whose blessings made wishes come true. Whenever Song Ziming faced a difficult problem, he summoned me to his bed. By the next day, no matter how serious the crisis had been, it would resolve itself.
He was far too shrewd an emperor not to have discovered the secret.
Yet he still pretended to be hopelessly devoted to me. What a dog of a man.