Chapter 10
Chapter 10
The air froze.
Cold sweat soaked the back of Zhiyu Jiang’s dress.
“Your Majesty is joking.” Fusheng Duan flexed his fingers. He spoke with a smile, but the warning in his eyes was unmistakable.
Siran Ming smiled carelessly and resumed drinking, as if he had never made the offer.
The servants in the room had gone weak in the knees. Several nearly collapsed.
Would they all be silenced?
It was the only thought in every mind.
Shengsheng Zhou assumed her part was over. A short while later, however, Xiaopingzi came to fetch her. Siran’s clothes had somehow gotten wet.
Her eyes lit up.
Leave everything to her!
Naturally, Qianyi Palace had no men’s clothing on hand. Yet Shengsheng was a palace maid of boundless resourcefulness. She procured a brand-new set made from excellent material and carried it to Siran.
Passing the screen painted with beautiful women, she lowered her voice.
“Your Majesty, this servant has brought your clothes.”
Then she stepped around it.
Siran was bare from the waist up. Smooth, hard muscle covered his broad shoulders and tapered waist, and his back possessed an unmistakably masculine beauty.
Unfortunately, a savage scar ran from one shoulder blade to his lower back and ruined the view.
Feeling the heat of her stare, Siran arched a brow.
“Why are you standing there?”
His cold voice brought Shengsheng back to herself.
Since he kept his back to her, she openly studied the scar.
*A-Pang, if I remember correctly, the original said Siran Ming got that scar in battle. He had just heard that Yanyan Yu died, lost focus, and let someone cut him, right?*
Busy speaking to A-Pang, she missed the instant of rigidity in the body beneath her hands.
Then a second, more childish voice sounded inside Siran’s mind.
[Shengsheng, your memory is amazing.]
Shengsheng needed to circle around to his front. She quickly schooled the pride from her face.
*Of course. I reread this part several times. It took me forever to guess who poisoned his lost love and disguised her death as the result of a grave illness…*
A hand closed around Shengsheng’s wrist without warning.
The grip was like an iron vise. Tears sprang to her eyes.
She looked up in confusion and met a pair of bloodshot eyes.
Shengsheng jumped.
*Did Siran Ming take an aphrodisiac?*
Her gaze slid discreetly downward.
Shock, fury, and a trace of speechless disbelief flooded Siran.
Yanyan had been poisoned?
Who was the murderer?
Could he believe this woman? And what was this “original” she kept mentioning?
Thoughts whirled through his mind. He wanted to demand how she knew Yanyan Yu had been murdered.
Instead, when he shoved her hand away and opened his mouth, only two words emerged.
“Get out!”
Shengsheng obeyed with impressive speed.
If not for her ulterior purpose, she would never have waited on this tyrant.
She had not forgotten those fourteen slaps.
Siran was still reeling from his inability to ask what he truly wanted. He therefore failed to notice a chubby little flying creature sprinkling powder over him.
When Shengsheng went back to find Fusheng, the room was empty. Only Zhiyu remained, happily eating.
At the sight of her, Zhiyu waved.
“Shengsheng! Come here. This is delicious.”
She picked up a golden-thread shrimp ball and offered it to her.
Shengsheng Zhou ignored Zhiyu Jiang’s overly familiar form of address.
“Where is the Noble Consort?”
“She said she was tired and left.”
That could not be right.
In the original, Fusheng Duan adored Zhiyu so obsessively that he would have wanted even the air around him to be the air she exhaled.
Was he ill?
Wonderful. Whenever that ladyboy Fusheng fell sick, Shengsheng could forget about sleeping.
“Wait, Shengsheng!”
As she turned to leave, Zhiyu caught her arm.
“Could you… put in a good word for me with the Noble Consort? That pervert Siran Ming wants to take me to the Yong Kingdom, but I don’t want to go!”
Tears of panic filled her eyes.
Shengsheng regarded her with maternal affection.
*You can’t escape.*
Aloud, she said, “I’ll ask him for you.”
It was not a lie. She would ask. Yet even Fusheng had failed to keep Zhiyu in the original. In the end, the heroine followed Siran back to the Yong Kingdom as a favored attendant.
When Fusheng rested, he usually chose the bright room in the western wing. If his position and Xunlan Liu had not constrained him, Shengsheng suspected he could have spent his entire life asleep on that couch.
Some people truly did survive on their looks.
Without that face, how could a spineless idler like Fusheng ever have risen to become Noble Consort?
Today, however, the door to the western room–normally guarded by a single maid–was crowded. Several soldiers of the Yong Kingdom stood there, along with a tall, capable-looking woman.
Shengsheng remembered her.
Rong Li, wasn’t it?
Rong recognized the red beauty mark beneath Shengsheng’s eye and nodded to her. Shengsheng returned the greeting, then tugged at Xiangxiang, who should have been attending Fusheng.
“The emperor of the Yong Kingdom is inside,” Xiangxiang volunteered. “He said he had important business to discuss with the Noble Consort and dismissed the rest of us.”
Siran Ming?
Remembering the beastlike look in his eyes, Shengsheng felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding.
Inside, gauze woven from sea silk hung before the enormous windows, softening the light. Fusheng liked sleeping in the sun but hated heat, so Shengsheng had arranged it that way.
He disliked floral bedding. Following Shengsheng’s own design, embroiderers had made a coverlet patterned with bluebirds for his favorite consort’s couch.
Even the unusual fruit tray had been designed by her.
Every part of Fusheng’s life bore traces of Shengsheng.
He rubbed his fingertips together. Only when the man opposite him began to lose patience did Fusheng open his half-lidded eyes.
“Six months. She comes back whole.”
For once, his voice had none of its usual intimate, lingering cadence. It was decisive.
Siran frowned.
“If you gave her to me, I could offer you two clues. For a loan, you get only one. Are you certain?”
“There is no need to trouble Your Majesty.” Fusheng laughed softly, sounding indifferent.
Siran could have seized Shengsheng outright, but he did not. Fusheng commanded a mysterious and formidable power. For now, Siran could not afford to make an enemy of him.
“Moonbank Lake.”
After quietly speaking those two words, Siran stood and left.
Fusheng remained on his side in the hazy light, long lashes veiling the unreadable darkness in his eyes.
When Siran emerged, Shengsheng gave him a perfunctory bow.
She did not expect his black boots, embroidered with coiling dragons and edged in gold, to stop directly before her.
His deep, magnetic voice sounded above her.
“Your master has given you to me.”