Chà Chà Novel

【Ding! Current A-rank Instance “Pillow of Mountains and Rivers”: main storyline progress 63%, side quests completed 1/5, instance difficulty increased by 67%. Host, please return to the original—】

【Ding! Current A-rank Instance “Pillow of Mountains and Rivers”: instance difficulty 57%. Keep it up, Host~】

Song Liang: “……”

Song Liang: 【What the hell was that?】

3085: 【Encouragement~】

Song Liang: 【Encouraging who?】

3085: 【You, of course.】

Song Liang: 【I get encouragement for going to bed with someone?】

3085: 【……】

3085: 【It’s encouragement for lowering the instance difficulty.】

Song Liang slowly opened his eyes and stared up at the bed canopy. “Why did the difficulty suddenly go up and then down again? Is it bugged?”

Before the system in his head could reply, he heard a voice beside the bed urging in a low tone, “Quick, His Majesty wants a myna bird, go find one!”

Song Liang: “……”

“Come back,” he called out, and immediately felt a faint sting on his lips. He raised a hand to rub them and came away with sticky ointment on his fingers. The faint, cool scent of herbs filled his nose—clearly someone had applied medicine for him.

“Your Majesty is awake?” Zhou An leaned in, smiling warmly at him. Seeing him touch his lips, his smile widened. “The Regent applied the medicine for Your Majesty with his own hands.”

“Why with his own hands and not his own lips? Still no sincerity.”

“……”

Zhou An was stunned by his Majesty’s unreasonable fussing. Just as he was forcing a laugh and trying to think of a reply, an impatient voice came from the doorway. “What’s a grown man doing being so fussy?”

Song Liang rolled onto his side, propping his head up as he looked at the person standing at the door, and said lazily, “Your prince and I have already consummated our union. If your prince has even a shred of conscience, he ought to marry me into his household. And when that day comes, you being a mere servant, I’ll sell you off first thing.”

“……”

Cen Huan had a bellyful of curses he couldn’t let out. His face went black, and in the end he managed to squeeze out, “Of course our prince has a conscience.”

“So you approve of my marriage to your prince?” That was clearly not something the man in front of him would say on his own. Song Liang raised a brow. “So polite all of a sudden—don’t tell me your prince seized the throne after fucking me unconscious?”

“Ahem, ahem!” Zhou An hurriedly cut off his crude words and explained, “The Regent watched over you for most of the night, and even summoned Miss Qi from his manor to examine Your Majesty. Only after she had seen to Your Majesty did he let Miss Qi take his own pulse.”

The corner of Song Liang’s mouth curved up slightly. With a half-smile, he cast a sidelong glance at the man at the door. “So does your prince know what poison I gave him?”

Cen Huan’s face stiffened slightly, as though he felt quite uncomfortable. “Why did you……”

“Spit it out.”

“Why did you…… give the antidote to Biluo to the prince?”

He truly wanted to know. He had wanted to know ever since last night, when he learned that the little emperor had obtained the Biluo antidote from the Grand Empress Dowager and fed it to their prince without waiting even a moment.

He clearly didn’t have to give it to their prince. He clearly could have used poison to suppress the Xie clan like the late emperor did, or restrained and used the prince like the Grand Empress Dowager did. So why did he choose to give the antidote to their prince without the slightest hesitation?

“Because I feel for him, of course,” said Song Liang.

Cen Huan choked. “But aren’t you…… the emperor?”

“So what if I’m the emperor? Who says an emperor can’t care about someone?”

Song Liang yawned and sat up on his own. Unsurprisingly, he saw the marks a certain someone had left on his wrists last night—and besides those, on his neck, his chest, his thighs, his ankles……

Last night, a certain someone had acted as though he truly wanted to tear him apart and devour him. Perhaps he had actually half-believed that what he’d been fed was poison, and simply decided to teach him a good lesson before he died—to make him hurt, to make him suffer. Yet in truth, he couldn’t bear to be rough with him. He made him feel good twice before getting to the main event, as if terrified of hurting or injuring him. In the end, it was Song Liang himself who took the initiative and met him halfway, finally driving the other man past the edge of reason.

He looked so cold, yet he was actually so very gentle—he melted the moment you kissed him. Like a rose that had endured years of hardship, frost, and snow; beneath the frost lay a beauty so piercing it made one’s heart ache.

“Where is he?” Song Liang asked as he got up and dressed.

Cen Huan’s voice faltered suspiciously.

Song Liang paused mid-motion and asked him directly, “Who did he go to kill?”

Cen Huan’s eyes went wide, and for once he stammered. “H-how did you know?”

“Other than to kill someone, there’s no way he’d vanish the morning after sharing my bed.” Song Liang stepped slowly down from the bedside. “Once he knew I’d gone to see the Grand Empress Dowager, he’d guess that woman was the one who drugged me. He’d also know that woman arranged for the maid to crawl into my bed.”

At this, he suddenly paused and asked Cen Huan, “Was he furious?”

“……”

Cen Huan was utterly convinced now. Furious was an understatement, he thought. After coming back, the prince had stood before the little emperor’s bed and stared at him without blinking for a while, then taken up his sword and gone alone to Shoukang Palace. He hadn’t even let Cen Huan follow, insisting that he stay here and guard the little emperor.

Song Liang walked past him in a long black robe embroidered with gold patterns, leaving behind a single line: “I told you long ago—your prince is hopelessly in love with me.”

Cen Huan stood frozen. Had he heard those words even a few hours earlier, he wouldn’t have believed them. But after last night, he had no choice but to believe.

After a long moment, he whipped his head around and shouted in embarrassed fury, “That’s our prince’s outer robe! Where do you think you’re going to show it off?!”

In Shoukang Palace, the incense burner had long gone out and the tea on the table had gone cold. Qin Zhiwei was still dressed in the same palace attire she had worn when meeting Song Liang the day before, not having changed so much as her posture.

Even when Xie Yun stormed in with his sword, she only said calmly, “It seems he gave you the antidote.”

Xie Yun walked toward her step by step, yet she carried on speaking as if to herself. “I told him I wanted to make a wager with him—a wager on whether he would touch that girl, and whether you, upon seeing him lying with her, would break with him for good. But I never expected he could actually withstand the drug and not touch her.”

“I told him to choose power, because with power he could have you. It seems he refused.”

She raised her eyes to the man looming over her and sighed. “Today you may kill me for his sake, but one day you may well kill him for the sake of your Xie family, for the sake of power.”

Xie Yun pressed his sword against her throat. “You lost.”

Qin Zhiwei fell silent for a moment. She had lost. She had lost seven years ago when she summoned back the Xie family’s only hope for vengeance. She had lost seven years later when the little emperor returned from Hanshui City. And now those two stood together.

She gave a soft laugh and lifted her gaze to the palace eaves beyond the window. “Great Yao is riddled with wounds. Your road ahead is still long. Only if the two of you truly make it to growing old together will I have truly lost.”

The moment her words fell, she slowly closed her eyes. Her head of white hair seemed to lose its luster.

Xie Yun stood there watching for a moment, then finally sheathed his sword and walked out of the hall—where he saw the person waiting for him beneath the portico.

A black outer robe with dark gold patterns, slightly too large, yet it only made the long, straight line of his back stand out all the more. His black hair was bound up in an emperor’s golden crown, and he tilted his head slightly back, gazing at either the sky or the eaves above. Even from behind, his arrogance and unrestrained spirit were plain to see, as though nothing in the world could hold him down. He was like a sword, sworn to cleave apart everything in this world that sought to bind him.

Xie Yun thought: how could there be such a person in this world? Where did he come from, and where was he going? What would it take to make him stay? His life? His loyalty? Or everything he had in this lifetime?

As if hearing his thoughts, the figure turned to look at him, glanced at the sword in his hand, and smiled, reaching out a hand to him—

“Come on, have a meal with me.”

“You’re free now.”