“Then please enlighten me, Grand Empress Dowager. How exactly did I entice—”
“It was my fault.”
Song Liang abruptly interrupted him. Rising, he addressed the Grand Empress Dowager. “I have already publicly agreed to make the Grand Preceptor’s daughter empress. The prefect of Hanshui and the people there all heard it themselves. An emperor cannot go back on his word or change his decision at will. I ask for your understanding.”
Ruan Chong and Cen Huan froze, never expecting such a sudden turn of events.
Xie Yun looked toward Song Liang as well.
Song Liang pretended not to notice and continued confessing his offenses to the Grand Empress Dowager. “Leaving the palace without permission was my first offense. Defying your wishes was my second. I am willing to confine myself to the ancestral temple and reflect on my conduct, to appease our ancestors.”
Naturally, the Grand Empress Dowager was unwilling to accept this. She would sooner depose Chen Min than let him escape her control and allow Xie Yun’s faction to claim the position of empress. But as Song Liang had said, an emperor could not go back on his word. If the emperor lost his authority, the imperial power she depended upon would cease to exist as well. She had no choice but to concede.
“In that case, I have nothing more to say. However, appointing an empress concerns the future of the realm and requires further deliberation. I am tired. You may all withdraw.”
The Grand Empress Dowager’s expression was so ugly that she could not even be bothered to maintain appearances. She simply dismissed them coldly.
Upon leaving Shoukang Palace, Song Liang spotted Xie Yun from afar, standing in a pavilion beside the garden’s covered walkway. Dressed in a purple python robe, he stood tall and straight, handsome and dignified, with an air of indescribable nobility.
Song Liang told his eunuch attendant to wait, then made his way over on crutches. Standing beside Xie Yun, he gazed at the scenery ahead.
“Have you come to thank me, Your Highness?”
“You should be thanking me, Your Majesty. Had I not been present, confinement in the ancestral temple would hardly have been your only punishment.”
“I took a risk rejecting the Grand Empress Dowager’s choice of empress. I also brought the Grand Preceptor’s daughter openly to her attention.”
“Even without your help, I had ways of obtaining her agreement.”
“Then consider it unnecessary meddling on my part.”
Song Liang turned to leave, only to hear the man behind him add, “If you were afraid I would make trouble for that couple, you may rest assured. I rarely go back on my word. Having agreed to let them go, I will not harm them again.”
“Rarely go back on your word? Meaning you still do sometimes?”
“Everyone has moments of regret. I am no exception.”
“For example?”
“None so far.”
“…”
Song Liang clicked his tongue and turned to look at Xie Yun’s profile.
“You really are full of yourself, Your Highness.”
The amusement in his voice was so obvious that Xie Yun turned toward him. Sure enough, he found an upturned mouth and smiling eyes.
“You smile much more than you used to, Your Majesty.”
“Perhaps because I see you so often. Looking at that face of yours puts me in a good mood.”
“Everyone who has ever said such things to me is already in the underworld.”
“Then am I still alive because you showed me mercy?”
“Because you are the emperor.”
“…”
Song Liang’s smile faded slightly.
“What if I weren’t?”
“That is not a possibility.” Xie Yun lowered his gaze to him, his green eyes so calm they bordered on indifference. “You had better pray you remain on that throne. Otherwise, your death will follow.”
“My death.” As though he had heard no threat at all, Song Liang smiled and asked, “Then could I ask you to do it yourself when the time comes? I’m allergic to ugly people.”
“…”
Xie Yun stared at him as though trying to look through his eyes and into his heart. Yet all he could find was that irreverent smile, and his brows drew together.
Song Liang seemed oblivious to his impatience. He stepped closer, tilted his head up, and asked, “The ancestral temple will be boring, and I don’t even know how long I’ll be there. Will you come visit me?”
“Utter nonsense.”
Xie Yun’s expression turned cold. He swept his sleeve aside and strode away.
His purple python robe billowed with his steps, and the hair trailing down his back lifted in the wind, betraying its owner’s anger. Song Liang watched him leave with a quiet chuckle before calling his attendant over to help him back.
From a distance, Cen Huan watched his prince exchange a few words with the young emperor before abruptly sweeping away in anger. He could not help being curious. There were scarcely two people in the entire capital capable of provoking his prince like this. What on earth had the young emperor said?
Both men were trusted subordinates who had followed Xie Yun onto the battlefield, and they were seldom overly formal in private. So when Xie Yun returned, Cen Huan asked outright—and, unsurprisingly, received an icy look from his master.
Rubbing his nose, Cen Huan followed him and tactfully changed the subject. “Still, the young emperor really has changed. To secure Your Highness’s protection, he even volunteered for confinement in the ancestral temple.”
Ruan Chong looked puzzled. “What’s wrong with the ancestral temple?”
“When the young emperor was first brought to the capital, he cried every day to go home. The Grand Empress Dowager locked him in the ancestral temple and only let him out once he stopped crying.”
“Wasn’t he only eight then?” Ruan Chong was appalled. “They locked a child that young in the ancestral temple all by himself?”
“Yes. I heard they sometimes even withheld his meals. The longest he was kept there was a whole month. When he came out, he ran a fever for days and kept raving deliriously. The Empress Dowager cried herself hoarse.” As he spoke, Cen Huan looked puzzled. “You didn’t know?”
Ruan Chong faltered and instinctively glanced at Xie Yun.
“I wasn’t in the capital that year.”
“Why weren’t you in—”
Something abruptly occurred to Cen Huan. His expression changed, and he dropped to his knees before Xie Yun.
“I deserve death!”
“It is nothing,” Xie Yun said mildly. “I was not in the capital that year either. Continue.”
Cen Huan quietly stood. After checking Xie Yun’s expression, he resumed. “In any case, everyone in the palace knows the young emperor is terrified of that place. Just mentioning it frightens him, and he falls ill every time he returns from there. Afterward, whenever he disobeyed, the Grand Empress Dowager only had to threaten to lock him in the ancestral temple, and he would immediately behave. It worked every time.”
Understanding dawned on Ruan Chong. “No wonder the Grand Empress Dowager let His Majesty off so easily. I thought she was afraid of our prince.”
“She was still afraid of him to some extent. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have ended with confinement in the ancestral temple. The young emperor dragged our prince into this because he wanted to use his authority as protection.”
Listening to the two men’s quiet conversation behind him, Xie Yun recalled the expression on the young emperor’s face a quarter of an hour earlier, when he had stood beneath the pavilion and asked whether Xie Yun would visit him at the ancestral temple.
Zhaoyang Hall.
Only after returning and seeing the Empress Dowager wailing in distress did Song Liang learn that the young emperor had been traumatized by his childhood confinement in the ancestral temple. But he was not the young emperor and had none of those childhood fears. He could only soothe the Empress Dowager by saying he was no longer afraid. Naturally, she did not believe him and insisted on pleading with the Grand Empress Dowager.
Helpless, Song Liang recounted everything that had happened at Shoukang Palace. The Empress Dowager’s eyes widened as she listened, seemingly unable to believe her son had dared secretly stir up such enormous trouble.
“How could you dare defy the Grand Empress Dowager’s orders behind her back? And that regent—is he a good man? How could you dare involve yourself with him?! Aren’t you afraid he’ll—”
What followed was too inauspicious to say, but everyone in the palace knew what she meant. After all, the regent scarcely bothered to conceal his ambition. An open rebellion was practically the only thing he had yet to attempt.
Song Liang did not think he would lose. He simply needed time. Confinement in the ancestral temple was nothing to him; it was already the best punishment he could secure by using Xie Yun’s authority as a shield.
After offering the Empress Dowager a few words of comfort, he packed his belongings and left for the ancestral temple early the following morning.
Back at the prince’s residence, Cen Huan had been unable to sleep all night. First thing in the morning, he went to Xie Yun’s study and blurted out, “Why don’t you punish me, Your Highness? I couldn’t sleep a wink after going home last night.”
“Your reason.”
“I spoke out of turn and reopened an old wound.”
Cen Huan glanced at his prince’s unusual green eyes, feeling even more guilty.
“Let it serve as a lesson. I’ll remember never to speak so carelessly again.”
“Very well.”
Xie Yun casually tossed a letter in front of him.
“Then carry out an errand for me.”
Cen Huan picked up the letter and asked curiously, “What errand? Something good or something bad?”
“For a certain person, it could be considered something good.”
“…”
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