The eyes that had seemed completely lost in desire still held, somewhere in their unfathomable depths, a trace of clarity and a sliver of calm. The curve at the corner of Nalan Xuan’s lips could have been pleasure at the night’s indulgence—or mockery of his own abandon.
Feng Xuanyi let out a low growl. Nalan Xuan’s body immediately tightened around him in repeated spasms, his entire frame going rigid and arching upward as a scorching rush flooded deep inside him. The heat seemed almost enough to burn, making Nalan Xuan shudder uncontrollably.
There were no lamps burning at that moment, yet Nalan Xuan knew that above him stretched a red gauze canopy like an inescapable net. It almost resembled a bridal chamber, yet not quite, because the pattern was not mandarin ducks but blood-red hibiscus flowers. They bloomed brightly, smiling beneath the light, yet somehow carried a stark and sorrowful beauty, a grief that neither fought nor struggled. It reminded him of his father as he had seen him beside the hibiscus blossoms in childhood: a peerless face beautiful enough to topple kingdoms, always smiling warmly at him, yet with a suffocating sorrow hidden somewhere deep inside, perhaps even despair. Everyone grieved desperately at the death of someone close to them. Yet when his father died, Nalan Xuan had only sighed. In the end, he still left.
He had barely caught his breath, barely drifted for an instant, when Feng Xuanyi turned him over without separating their bodies. Nalan Xuan ended up face-down on the bed with his back toward him. His knees were already weak enough that they could hardly support his own weight, much less two people, but Feng Xuanyi stubbornly hauled him up by the waist and began another round of possession.
“…Ah… mm… hah… ah… ngh…”
Panting, wet sounds, and the relentless creak, creak of the bed continued throughout the night, only beginning to fade when the eastern sky finally showed the faint gray-white light of dawn.
Outside, the servants of Fengyi Palace and the attendants Feng Xuanyi had brought from Yuliu Palace had listened through the entire night. Even those who had served in the palace for years had rarely heard such an intense encounter. One after another, they flushed and lowered their heads, though every now and then they exchanged barely concealed smiles. It was rare indeed to see His Majesty lose control so completely, and equally rare to hear the empress respond with such enthusiasm. The oppressive atmosphere that had hung over the harem for days finally seemed to have cleared after the storm.
The palace servants were already calculating happily among themselves, yet Mo Yan and Ji Yu, the two men who had followed Feng Xuanyi and Nalan Xuan most closely, wore grave expressions filled with worry.
If matters were truly as simple as everyone else imagined, Mo Yan would gladly have accepted it. Unfortunately, he knew this was nothing more than the calm before a storm. In the days ahead, even the earlier oppressive atmosphere might come to seem peaceful by comparison. The court, the harem, perhaps even the entire realm, could soon be swept into a bloody upheaval because of this.
Whether as the surviving son of the late veteran general Nalan Jian, Marquis Dingbei, or as the current Prince Nanyang of Xiliang, Nalan Xuan possessed an identity sensitive enough to cause trouble on its own. Add to that the grievances, attachments, and entanglements between him and the emperor, and the road ahead seemed destined to become a dead end. If letting go had truly been possible, Mo Yan would gladly have been the first villain to force it. But there was no “if” left to seek. His Majesty had already fallen too deeply. It was not that Feng Xuanyi could not see clearly, nor that Nalan Xuan’s performance was flawless. One of them provoked openly without bothering to conceal his intentions, while the other willingly turned deaf and blind and pretended not to notice.
Unfortunately, spilled water could not be gathered again, and old love could not simply return.
If a night of pleasure could truly remain only pleasure, without any sincerity behind it, how much easier everything would be.
If feelings could be turned on and off like a tap, how much easier everything would be.
If “true feelings” were nothing more than two meaningless words instead of something real, how much easier everything would be.
It was a very long dream, long enough that he did not want to wake from it, though it was not exactly a pleasant one. He never slept soundly, never deeply. Dreams came one after another, restless and disordered. Only now did he finally obtain a moment of peace. Even if this too was a dream, an endless world of white mist was still better than the overwhelming flood of chaotic information that usually filled his sleep.
There were no entanglements in this dream, no confusion, as though everything had become tranquil and harmonious. He could do whatever he wished or let his heart become utterly still. No one demanded anything from him, and he did not need to force himself through so many things he had no choice but to do. It was comfortable and quiet, like finally discovering the harbor he had searched for so long, a place that could shelter him from wind and rain without complaint or regret.
Yet something stubbornly refused to leave him alone. Through the haze, it murmured endlessly beside his ear. When he tried not to listen, it kept making noise. When he finally tried to understand what it was saying, it suddenly fell silent. Irritation surged through him, only to be extinguished by the warmth surrounding his body—gentle, mild, soothing, inexplicably relaxing.
A dream was still only a dream. No matter how reluctantly one left it, no matter how intoxicating it was, waking was inevitable, just as reality was inevitably cruel.
When Nalan Xuan opened his eyes, the sun was already high in the sky. The red hibiscus canopy caught the brilliant daylight, making his pupils ache, yet it was so strikingly beautiful that he could not look away. For one brief instant, Nalan Xuan could not tell whether he was staring at it or whether it was staring back at him.
His body had already been cleaned, and even the bedding had been replaced. Looking down through the loose front of the underclothes someone had put on him, he was unsurprised to see mottled marks covering his chest. He did not even need to move to know what condition the rest of him was in. After the previous night’s indulgence, the sensitive points on his chest still carried a faint sting, while everything below his waist scarcely felt like part of his own body.
He pushed himself upright, sending the brocade quilt sliding down with the movement, then swept the bed curtain aside. Ji Yu, who had been waiting nearby for some time, immediately startled and hurried forward to greet him. “Whatever Master needs, simply instruct this servant.”
Nalan Xuan shifted into a more comfortable position and let Ji Yu place a pillow behind his back. The sharp ache from behind made his brows draw together, and he silently cursed himself for having lost all sense of restraint.
“Have you found the people I asked for?” His voice, hoarse from nearly an entire night of moaning, carried an almost indecent sensuality. Nalan Xuan did not appear embarrassed by it in the slightest. If anything, he seemed rather pleased.
“They were brought here last night. They’re waiting outside now. When would Master like to see them?”
“Right now—” Nalan Xuan swept aside the loose strands of hair lying across his chest, only to freeze. The black dye had faded completely. He probably looked like a ghost now, his entire head covered in silver hair. Feng Xuanyi must have seen him like this too. Nalan Xuan wondered what he had thought. Satisfaction? Disgust? Regret that Nalan Xuan could not withstand even this much? Or perhaps—
“…I’m willing to cast aside all my pride… so… love me once more, all right?…”
The night had been hazy. Perhaps Feng Xuanyi had said it last night, perhaps the night before. Nalan Xuan could no longer remember clearly. But why had he said those words? Why had Feng Xuanyi been the one to say them to him?
His heartbeat seemed to stop for an instant.
Impossible!
He rejected every possibility without hesitation. From the instant he left the imperial capital, from the instant he climbed the palace wall, from the instant Feng Xuanyi had been unable to answer whether he had ever trusted him, Nalan Xuan’s heart had already turned to ash and severed itself from love. What supported him now, what he still possessed, was hatred and revenge alone.
Nalan Xuan could endure humiliation from anyone beneath heaven, but the one thing he could never tolerate was being humiliated like this by someone he had once treated with genuine sincerity. Not even in the past.
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