Chapter 26

Li Nanchu remained dazed for quite some time, her eyes widening involuntarily. When she finally came back to herself, she retreated several steps in an attempt to escape.

But she had forgotten the position they were in.

Backing away did nothing to diminish the softness and warmth against her lips. Instead, the sensation grew even stronger as Liu Jiuning merely leaned a little farther toward her.

Li Nanchu was still at a loss, trying to decide what to do next, when the girl sprawled against her moved first.

Liu Jiuning’s eyes were equally wide. She steadied herself, straightened slightly, and withdrew from the small space where their breaths had mingled.

Pressing her lips together, she murmured to herself, “That was my first kiss! It was cool and soft, and I think it even tasted a little sweet.”

Getting to share such a dramatically accidental kiss with her beautiful husband was absolutely worth it.

More than worth it!

She had originally intended to give Li Nanchu a thoughtful goodnight kiss on the cheek or forehead. She had never expected such an unexpected reward.

This kind of kiss seemed softer.

And much more delightful!

Liu Jiuning smacked her lips and savored the memory for a long while.

Only after the faint trembling in her heart gradually subsided did she narrow her eyes and solemnly address the great beauty before her, who had finally abandoned her usual cold expression for one of surprise.

“The goodnight kiss is complete! Husband, don’t work too late. You should rest early. I’ll go warm the bed and sleep for a while first! Wake me up when you get tired!”

With that, she wore a dreamy expression as she touched her lips and turned away, floating off barefoot.

Her steps swayed, sometimes quick and sometimes slow, constantly threatening to send her tumbling over. Yet she still looked as light as a butterfly.

After only a few unsteady hops, she vanished beyond the screen and disappeared from the emperor’s sight.

Li Nanchu remained frozen in the same posture, her expression unchanged, unable to recover for a long time.

Only when the forgotten gilded phoenix hairpin slipped from her hair because she had leaned too far backward, landing on the thick carpet with a muted sound, did she finally react.

She stared for a long while in the direction the noisy little drunkard had disappeared.

After confirming that Liu Jiuning truly would not reappear, and hearing the faint, steady breathing from the distance, Li Nanchu slowly withdrew her gaze.

Her fingers rested on an unopened memorial, but her eyes remained fixed on the desk covered in books and papers.

Her gaze was dark and unreadable.

No one knew what she was thinking.

Only after a long while did she bend down and pick up the exquisitely luxurious phoenix hairpin from the floor, closing her fingers tightly around it.

She studied the trembling golden phoenix and the black pearls embedded as its eyes, then lightly brushed the fine golden tassels hanging from it.

The strands of gold shimmered brilliantly beneath the candlelight.

The sight reminded Li Nanchu of the phoenix pin swaying in Liu Jiuning’s hair.

She also remembered the bright pearl swinging beside the girl’s ear, along with her watery eyes, flushed cheeks, and foolish drunken expression.

No one knew how much time passed.

The phoenix pin swayed, stilled, and was set moving again beneath the emperor’s fingers.

Only when the lamps began to dim did Li Nanchu reach for the brocade box on the desk.

She removed the green-jade, dragon-patterned writing brush from inside, then slowly placed the hairpin into the box, its golden tassels still trembling.

The vast, silent bedchamber remained brightly lit.

The emperor resumed reading the memorials.

Perhaps the red silk and brocade surrounding her had disturbed her concentration, because throughout the entire night, the memorials in her hands were always the same few volumes, scarcely changing at all.

Outside the bedchamber, the diligent officials sat on the ground, leaning against one another with their eyes closed.

None of them dared truly fall asleep.

Although they had guessed from the expressions of the palace maids and eunuchs that the new empress was still alive, they remained terrified that bloodshed might occur in the middle of the night.

They could only fight their exhaustion and listen carefully for any sound from inside the palace.

In truth, they did not want to behave this way either.

But the emperor’s past actions had been far too swift and decisive!

They did not dare hope that the emperor and empress would treat each other with the courtesy of honored guests or remain together until their hair turned white.

Such things had absolutely nothing to do with the sovereign they served!

All they wanted was for the wedding night to pass peacefully without any unexpected incident that might leave a particularly dark mark in the history books.

If something so horrifying truly happened, it would reflect poorly on them as ministers, both publicly and privately.

And if the small neighboring states watching Great Zhao hungrily learned of it, the empire’s dignity would suffer greatly!

Fortunately, the calamity they feared never occurred.

The first light of dawn broke across the sky.

Soft red sunlight gradually spread over the imperial palace.

The exhausted officials looked toward the crimson sun on the horizon and finally set down the heavy stone that had been pressing on their hearts.

Smiling at one another, they helped each other to their feet. After performing their bows and silently exchanging congratulations, they slowly walked toward the rising sun.

Because of the imperial wedding, not only had a general amnesty been declared throughout the realm, but officials of every rank were also granted three days of leave.

Since they did not need to handle official business, they naturally intended to return home and rest properly.

Keeping watch for an entire night was no easy task for old men their age.

The last to leave were the men of the Liu family.

They looked deeply at the emperor’s bedchamber, knelt, and performed a respectful bow before finally departing.

There was little more they could do.

They could only hope that the sovereign would treat Jiuning kindly in recognition of the Liu family’s generations of loyal service…

No.

They would not ask for so much.

They only hoped that after today, the emperor would forget that she even had an empress.

May their Jiuning live her quiet little life safely inside the palace, never encountering the emperor whether she had business with her or not.

As the red sun rose, the entire imperial palace and the capital beyond awakened.

People came and went among the red silk and embroidered brocade.

Only this vast palace remained quiet.

The sunlight grew increasingly intense.

Inside the bedchamber, still filled with the rich atmosphere of a newlywed celebration, Liu Jiuning gradually awakened on the crimson bed from a strange, illusory dream as fleeting as flowers in a mirror and the moon reflected on water.

Unable to distinguish dream from reality, she only felt that her head was dizzy, heavy, and painfully dull.

In her confusion, she thought she was still gravely ill, lying inside her old bedroom and struggling to survive while barely able to draw breath.

The instinct to live tightened her chest.

Liu Jiuning abruptly opened her eyes.

Staring at the unfamiliar red curtains above the bed, she wondered blankly whether she had arrived in the underworld.

They provided beds down here?

Was death something like a game where one merely moved to a different place and continued living?

As these thoughts wandered through her mind, she turned to inspect the room.

One glance nearly frightened her out of her wits.

Good heavens.

The room was as luxurious as the palace halls she had seen when accompanying her elders to imperial banquets as a child.

Did ghosts truly receive such excellent treatment?

Then Liu Jiuning noticed something strange.

Wasn’t this room far too red?

And why did she seem to see dragon-and-phoenix wedding candles?

Were ghosts assigned wives after death?

Confused and suffering from a headache, she gave up thinking.

She lay flat again, closed her eyes, and folded her hands peacefully over her stomach, deciding to sleep a little longer.

Her consciousness gradually began to fade.

Just as she was about to fall asleep, realization struck.

Yesterday, she had married Emperor Li Nanchu!

The kind of marriage that involved kneeling and bowing repeatedly before Heaven, having her name entered into the imperial genealogy, and celebrating with tens of thousands of people!

…

Liu Jiuning shot upright as though jolted awake from her deathbed.

Looking down at the comfortable sleeping robe fitted neatly around her body, she frowned and began recalling the events of the previous night.

She had the distinct feeling that something extraordinary had happened!

But perhaps her alcohol tolerance was simply too poor.

Or perhaps the ceremonial wine had been unusually strong, with an overwhelming aftereffect.

It was also possible that her dreams had simply been especially bizarre. She had even dreamed that she and the emperor lived happily together in the castle where a mermaid had fallen in love with a prince.

In any case, Liu Jiuning could no longer distinguish what had truly happened the previous night.

She remembered drinking wine, striking her forehead so painfully that it nearly killed her, putting out a fire, and eating an enormous meal.

Those events were highly likely to have been real.

As for calling Li Nanchu “Sister” and “Husband,” giving her a hairpin, and kissing her…

Those things seemed to have happened inside the palace where the mermaid loved the prince.

Liu Jiuning even remembered how Li Nanchu had fiercely chased away the mermaid’s prince and seized control of his castle!

At the end of the dream, the two of them had leaned against each other and kissed happily. They had also adopted [bailiantales.com]the mermaid after she mysteriously became small.

Every day, they fed the little mermaid, held hands, embraced, kissed, and did embarrassing things together.

Inside a castle decorated for a traditional Chinese wedding, they were as inseparable as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai dancing together on butterfly wings.

The dream was so strange that it could only be described as uncanny.

It was perfectly reasonable that Liu Jiuning could not tell which memories were real and which were false.

After all, the castle in her dream looked exactly like the bedchamber before her.

It had merely stacked several parts of the room into multiple floors.

Oh, she also remembered that the emperor had given her a book filled with words.

It had been extremely difficult to understand and utterly lacking in romance.

Thinking of this, an image flashed through Liu Jiuning’s mind of the emperor saying she needed to review memorials before they began drinking.

Finding such a clear scene among all the distorted memories was extraordinarily rare.

After pondering for a moment, she lifted the blanket and quietly stepped barefoot toward the place where she vaguely remembered seeing a writing desk.

Using the screen as cover, she cautiously poked half her head around it.

The scene was almost exactly as she had imagined.

The cold emperor, whose face was perpetually stern, rested her chin on one hand with her eyes tightly closed.

She was clearly exhausted and taking a brief rest.

Liu Jiuning was about to withdraw quietly when, before she could pull her head back, she met Li Nanchu’s cold, razor-sharp gaze.

Had eyes been capable of becoming arrows, ten thousand of them would already have pierced Liu Jiuning’s head.

After all, her head was the only part of her visible.

She offered an awkward smile.

Slowly emerging from behind the screen, Liu Jiuning said, “Good morning, Your Majesty. Did you really spend the entire night reviewing memorials here? You’ve worked far too hard. You must be exhausted. Why don’t you lie down on the bed and sleep for a while? Also, my tolerance for alcohol isn’t very good. Last night… I didn’t do anything strange, did I?”

After speaking, she stopped walking.

Maintaining a safe distance between them, she looked at Li Nanchu with wide, innocent eyes and an expression of complete sincerity.

Liu Jiuning was fairly certain that she had no bad habits when drunk.

She merely became more talkative.

Still, she could not guarantee that the scene in her dream—where she had performed a “moving dance” in front of the emperor and demanded praise—had truly been imaginary.

For safety’s sake, it was best to seize the initiative and emphasize that she had an extremely poor tolerance for alcohol.

Liu Jiuning considered herself extraordinarily clever.

But as the emperor remained silent for a long time and the gaze fixed on her seemed to darken considerably, her heart gradually went cold.

Had she…

Committed some unforgivably treasonous offense?