Chapter 111

Chapter 111

Siran Ming raised his eyes to meet the hand’s owner. Beneath the man’s openly mocking smile, Siran narrowed his eyes and bit the back of his hand hard.

But Fusheng Duan seemed prepared. The instant cold killing intent entered Siran’s gaze, Fusheng withdrew his hand and pulled Shengsheng Zhou away.

There was no time left. However unwilling, Siran could only give Shengsheng a long look before vanishing.

Under Shengsheng’s astonished gaze, Fusheng’s calm expression transformed the instant Siran left.

He looked at the back of his hand with disgust. When a guard led a crowd inside and stared openmouthed at the wrecked hall, Fusheng stood at its center and said one emotionless word: “Out.”

That single word made the guard captain, who had just finished bowing, straighten immediately. He led his bewildered men rapidly away and remembered to close the door.

The sequence flowed so smoothly one might have thought they had rehearsed it privately.

He belonged to the Empress Dowager, so naturally he treated the Noble Consort with respect, respect, and still more respect.

Watching the unreadable Fusheng, Shengsheng said shakily, “This servant… will fetch water for you.”

She glanced at his hand and spoke with remarkable tact, then turned to flee.

Before her foot touched the ground, someone lifted her into the air.

“Your High–Highness…” Caught entirely unprepared, Shengsheng hurriedly wrapped her arms around Fusheng’s long, clean neck.

Under her horrified gaze, Fusheng placed her on his couch.

“Your Highness… This is improper…” She tried to rise, but Fusheng’s icy look froze her.

*All right. I won’t move.*

Stepping across the fragments littering the floor, Fusheng went out.

It was easy to guess he had gone to wash his hands, Shengsheng thought.

She only wondered whether Little Ming had obediently returned.

He must be furious. She had never imagined she would one day become entangled with Fusheng either.

She would leave eventually. She did not want to hurt Little Ming or reject him publicly. A man’s pride mattered.

If she were in Little Ming’s timeline, she would work to release the knot in her heart and try being with him.

But this world belonged to Siran Ming. Little Ming could not occupy Siran’s body forever.

He too would leave her.

The thought clarified her intention to distance herself from him.

She needed to end it.

Tenderheartedness had always stopped her before, but this time was different. She had an excuse.

Watching the red figure approach, Shengsheng glanced at the hand hidden beneath his sleeve.

The sleeve concealed most of it, but the exposed fingers were red. He had probably washed them countless times.

“Now that he’s gone, Tail can answer the earlier question.” Fusheng approached without his usual languor, his face expressionless.

Shengsheng answered without hesitation, “I like Your Highness more.”

*I only like kissing him more.*

The unexpectedly decisive and rapid answer stunned Fusheng for a second.

Never mind. At least she was willing to coax him. There would be plenty of time for everything else.

“You have tomorrow off. Leave the palace,” Fusheng suddenly said.

Still absorbed in the previous question, Shengsheng was caught off guard by the abrupt change of subject.

“Huh?” she asked blankly.

Fusheng pinched her chin. “If you didn’t hear, forget it.”
Shengsheng Zhou hurriedly said, “No, no. This servant thanks Your Highness.”

Fusheng Duan frowned slightly and looked at the shattered objects strewn across the floor. “When we’re alone, you don’t need to call me that.”

He meant that she need not be so formal.

After leaving Fusheng’s bedchamber, Shengsheng summoned Xiangxiang and the others and told them to bring people inside to clean.

Xiangxiang asked fearfully, “Sister Shengsheng, what happened? Didn’t the guard captain go in to catch an assassin? Why was he driven out after only a few breaths?”

Shengsheng invented an excuse and brushed the matter aside. Earlier, Fusheng had issued an absolute order that no one enter without his command.

Thus, when trouble erupted, the maids’ first reaction had been to summon the guards rather than barge inside.

Still… the fact that Fusheng’s order frightened them more than an assassin was difficult to describe.

And this man, who embodied the phrase “using beauty to commit violence,” was her kissing partner.

Looked at that way, she had profited.

Back in her room, Shengsheng buried herself beneath the quilt and gradually understood.

Fusheng had given her a full day and permission to leave the palace. The implication was obvious.

He wanted her to make a clean break with Siran Ming.

Combined with Fusheng’s last words before she left–“If you come back smelling of dog again, changing clothes won’t be enough”–

Shengsheng became even more certain.

She had also wanted an opportunity to explain things to Little Ming and visit Zhiyu Jiang and the others.

Xiyuan Duanmu had been pardoned. Out of regard for Fusheng, and because mother and daughter had helped expose the criminals, the Empress Dowager agreed to spare them.

At that very moment, in an ordinary inn in the capital:

Rong Li’s eyes reddened with fury at the wounds covering her emperor.

“Your Majesty! Who did this? Who hurt you?”

His attacker was highly skilled. No injury showed on exposed skin, yet beneath his clothes every blow was more vicious than the last. The brutality was appalling.

Siran said nothing and kept his back to Rong Li. Once she placed the urgent dispatch from the Yong Kingdom on the table, he dismissed her.

He could not let a subordinate see him like this.

What emperor became red-eyed and tearful over a love affair?

Suppressing the tearing pain in his heart, he barely dared allow himself to think.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw his Shengsheng held in that man’s arms and kissed without restraint.

“Shengsheng…” Looking down at the hands that had once held her, he sniffed them as though her scent remained.

“Why don’t you want me anymore?” he whispered, almost weeping. He sat on the floor, hugging his hands and curling into himself.

He could not understand why his Shengsheng had abandoned him and chosen another.

“Such a trivial matter made you lose all reason and composure?” A cold, heavily mocking voice sounded in Siran’s mind.

“Shut up!” he ordered.

But the voice did not stop because of one rebuke.

Instead, it continued commanding him. “Read the urgent dispatch first.”

However unwilling, Siran rose and picked up the letter.

It contained one short sentence, every word revealing the writer’s anxiety.

*Return immediately. Barbarian unrest!*