Day after day passed. Beneath the apparent calm, hidden currents continued to churn. Feng Xuanyi was not, as many had imagined, as carefree and indulgent in the inner palace as he had been when he was still a prince, nor did he visit Moon-Embracing Palace every day and leave Nalan Xuan constantly on edge, trying to decipher this gesture or interpret that glance. To Nalan Xuan, Feng Xuanyi’s behavior as emperor—so different from his days as a prince—was hardly surprising. Back then, Feng Xuanyi’s reputation for romantic excess and unruliness had been little more than a smokescreen, a convenient means of deceiving others while secretly pursuing his true plans. To the court officials who had remained neutral and silent, and to the common people at the bottom of society whose fates had never truly been their own, the “unexpected” diligence of the new Emperor Huawu was nothing short of a blessing to the entire realm.
Although Feng Xuanyi seldom visited the inner palace, Nalan Xuan did not exactly have much peace either. He was not favored to the point of being summoned every night, and Feng Xuanyi remained perfectly capable of distributing his attention among the various palaces. Yet every so often he would summon Nalan Xuan to attend him, perhaps to share a meal or chat for a while. When he was overwhelmingly busy, he would even make Nalan Xuan sit around doing nothing in the imperial study for a time before dismissing him. Nalan Xuan had no idea what Feng Xuanyi was planning with all this, but it was more than enough to make him the target of everyone else’s resentment over the emperor’s supposedly even-handed favor.
Nalan Xuan could not be bothered to guess. Given his current rank, imperial favor, and family backing, he had no need to concern himself with such petty grudges. What troubled him instead was the passing of time and the advancing months of his pregnancy. On one hand, carrying a life within a male body—something that defied all ordinary understanding—brought discomfort and physical strain that left him listless and exhausted all day, his complexion worsening with each passing day. On another, he constantly worried that some visible change in his body would expose the truth and racked his brain for excuses for something so rare that no explanation could possibly sound convincing. And on top of all that, he still had to contend with Feng Xuanyi’s considerable demands.
As a man himself, Nalan Xuan could understand the physical needs and desires of another healthy man. But “excessive indulgence” benefited absolutely no one. He had never imagined that he possessed enough allure to make another man so persistent. Whenever he was summoned to attend the bedchamber, Feng Xuanyi behaved as though possessed. No matter how carefully Nalan Xuan reasoned with him or explained the consequences, the result was always the same: he was never allowed much rest. Sometimes Nalan Xuan could not help sinking into gloomy, ridiculous thoughts. How could they both be men, yet he—who spent most of his days doing practically nothing beyond trading a few barbed remarks with assorted men and women—be so exhausted that he wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed, while the sovereign of an entire nation, occupied from morning until night with matters great and small across the realm, somehow remained bursting with inexhaustible energy?
What frustrated Nalan Xuan most, however, was his own body. Given his present circumstances, intimacy was no longer anything unusual. More precisely, serving diligently in the bedchamber was considered one of a consort’s duties. Nalan Xuan had stopped resisting that reality and simply allowed himself to drift with the current, but even he could not withstand such relentless exhaustion. Recently, especially, although mentally he remained passive and indifferent, refusing only in principle rather than actively resisting, he could not deny that every move Feng Xuanyi made drove him nearly mad. Whenever Feng Xuanyi touched him—or sometimes merely gave him a certain look or made some veiled, suggestive gesture—Nalan Xuan seemed to become someone else entirely. The abandon and shamelessness of his own behavior afterward were things he would rather forget ten thousand times over. Every breathless sound, every involuntary invitation made him seem like a starving refugee suddenly presented with an extravagant feast. Each time he woke afterward, Nalan Xuan was consumed with humiliation, while Feng Xuanyi enjoyed himself immensely and only became less restrained.
Tonight, for example, Feng Xuanyi was spending the night at Yonghe Palace, with Guishi Liu attending him. Nalan Xuan had grown accustomed to the excess and madness of their nights together. Now that the space beside him was suddenly empty, the missing warmth seemed branded into his heart, leaving behind a hollow absence, as though something essential were missing. He could neither explain nor define it. Asking a man like him to admit that he needed another man’s embrace and comfort—whether physically or emotionally—was something Nalan Xuan simply could not accept.
He tossed and turned, unable to sleep through the night. Whenever he closed his eyes, thousands upon thousands of thoughts rushed into his mind. Naturally, none of them appeared earlier in the day; they had waited specifically until bedtime. Most infuriating of all, he was exhausted enough to collapse, yet somehow could not summon the slightest trace of sleepiness. Nalan Xuan wrapped himself tightly in the cloud-brocade quilt until he resembled a dumpling and rolled restlessly from side to side, venting both his frustration and his fear of the habits and changes that had crept into him without his noticing.
A breeze stirred the candle flame. Something strange flickered through the air and vanished in an instant. The nearly inaudible movement would have escaped anyone else, but not someone whose senses and vigilance had been sharpened by bloody battles and life-or-death danger beyond the frontier.
Nalan Xuan jolted alert. His entire body tightened instantly, his smooth muscles drawing taut like a bowstring filled with stored force. He rolled sideways in one fluid motion, then sprang upright from the bed with a kip-up, narrowly avoiding a vicious sword strike that sliced through the air at the very last moment.
Nalan Xuan flung the quilt over the black-clad assassin with one hand while using the momentum to roll backward and create distance. Bending low, he snatched the decorative sword hanging upon the wall. There was no time to judge whether it was truly battle-worthy or whether it could match the assassin’s weapon. His wrist turned, tracing a sword flourish, and the blade cleared its sheath in the blink of an eye. Gathering strength, Nalan Xuan angled his body and thrust forward, toes touching lightly against the ground. He put the principles of striking first and seizing the initiative into practice to perfection.
The black-clad assassin was clearly no ordinary intruder. Even when the situation abruptly reversed, the assassin remained calm and unflustered. A raised hand and turning wrist sent the sword flashing through a succession of flourishes. The brocade quilt obscuring the assassin’s vision was instantly shredded into strips of nearly even width and scattered through the air. At the same time, the assassin retreated rapidly, widening the distance as much as possible to prepare for a lethal counterattack.
The assassin adapted instantly to having lost the initiative and fallen into a disadvantageous position. Nalan Xuan’s fierce blade flashed past with a metallic clang beside the assassin’s ear, narrowly missing the most critical strike. Nalan Xuan pressed the advantage, raining down one attack after another without losing momentum. The assassin refused to yield. After a brief pause to regain footing, the assassin suddenly pushed off and surged forward against the attack, meeting technique with technique. In only a short span they exchanged nearly thirty moves, sword-light flashing beneath the candles with an even colder gleam. They were evenly matched. Neither could gain a decisive advantage, and neither could easily subdue the other.
Attacks and blocks, sword techniques and palm strikes, large and small joint locks followed one after another, while neither fighter’s footwork showed the slightest disorder. The Nalan Xuan of today could no longer be compared with the inexperienced man who had first arrived in this world. Just as Feng Xuanzhen had once said when ordered to teach him: either Nalan Xuan had possessed a foundation in martial arts all along and was merely concealing it, or he truly was an extraordinary martial talent. He could remember seventy or eighty percent of any technique, mental method, or mnemonic after seeing or hearing it only once. Given enough time, his potential would be impossible to measure.
But that had been then, and this was now. Although outwardly his body looked no different from anyone else’s, his strength and physical condition were no longer what they had once been, nor could he move entirely as he pleased. Nalan Xuan spun and parried, his blade turning through another flourish. He had intended to follow a low scooping maneuver with a sudden small joint lock. Even if it failed to land decisively, the unexpected combination should at least have disrupted his opponent’s rhythm.
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