Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In the autumn of the second year of Yong’an, Yan Yuheng was targeted by an assassin at the hunting grounds.

The arrow shot out from the depths of the forest, glinting with the dark sheen of poison. By the time the guards lunged forward, it was already too late. The shaft grazed his shoulder, and blood instantly soaked through his imperial dragon robes.

I was standing only three paces away from him.

While everyone else shielded the Emperor and retreated, I was the only one who hiked up my skirts and rushed forward. I snatched a bow from the ground and fired an arrow toward that patch of forest.

My archery was mediocre; I didn’t hit anyone, but I gave the guards a direction to follow. The assassin was eventually captured on the spot, but because I had lunged so recklessly, I was knocked over by the panicked horses. I hit the ground hard, half my body covered in blood.

Yan Yuheng picked me up right then and there and carried me back to the traveling palace.

That night, I developed a high fever and drifted in and out of consciousness. One moment, I heard the imperial physicians reporting that the danger had passed; the next, palace servants were kneeling and begging for forgiveness. The noise made my head throb. Eventually, at some point, the surroundings finally fell silent, and there was only one person who kept holding my hand.

“Shen Heng.”

It was the first time he had called me by my full name.

Not Ah Tang.

Not Empress.

But Shen Heng.

I almost thought I had misheard him, and I forced my eyes open with great effort. In the candlelight, his jaw was covered in dark stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been keeping watch for a very, very long time.

“Don’t sleep,” he whispered. “The physician said that if you fall asleep now, you might never wake up.”

I looked at him, desperately wanting to ask: *If I died, would you be sad?*

But I didn’t even have the strength to speak.

He pressed my hand against his heart, his voice low and raspy. “Nothing can happen to you.”

In that single instant, my heart-which had long been restless-sunk completely into the depths of love.

By the time I woke up again, it was dawn.

Yan Yuheng had fallen asleep slumped against the side of the bed, his hand still tightly clutching my sleeve. Chunbi secretly wiped away tears, telling me that His Majesty had watched over me for three days and three nights without a drop of water, even turning away ministers who sought an audience.

I sat in a daze for a long time before I asked softly, “Did he say anything?”

Chunbi shook her head, then nodded.

“I only heard one thing. His Majesty kept saying, ‘Ah Heng, don’t scare me.'”

For that entire day, my heart was in a state of turmoil.

I even harbored a hope that was almost laughable.

Perhaps he finally saw me.

Perhaps during those three years, it wasn’t that he hadn’t cared for me at all.

But that evening, when Yan Yuheng woke up and saw my eyes open, he first let out a sigh of relief. Then, he instinctively reached out to touch my forehead and murmured, “Ah Tang, your fever is finally gone.”

The tiny spark that had just begun to flicker in my heart was instantly extinguished.

It turns out that when a person is at their most panicked, the name they call out is still the one they can never let go of.

It wasn’t me.

It was never me.