As he spoke, Nalan Xuan’s regretful gaze lingered over Han Ruifeng’s face for a long while before he reluctantly continued, “Don’t worry. Since your father was willing to sacrifice both daughters in order to preserve you, naturally I wouldn’t go against the wishes of an old man now dead. I do understand that the dead should be respected. So I’m afraid your younger sister will simply have to suffer. Since even her own father abandoned her, why should I meddle in someone else’s affairs?”
With that, Nalan Xuan rose, brushed the wrinkles from the hem of his robe, and prepared to leave. “Oh, right. Take good care of her. She’s particularly delicate at a time like this. It would be unfortunate if some accident happened.”
“Hehe… Hahahahaha!” Han Ruifeng suddenly burst into laughter.
Nalan Xuan turned back in surprise. Surely this little bit of punishment had not already driven him insane? That would make him far too easy to break. Nalan Xuan still had one performance after another waiting to be staged. It would be terribly disappointing if Han Ruifeng ruined the entertainment this early.
Yet what greeted him instead was Han Ruifeng’s arrogant bearing.
He ignored Xiao Qi’s condition completely and did not even glance toward her. For the first time, the way Han Ruifeng looked directly at Nalan Xuan made Nalan Xuan feel as though the other man were somehow looking down from above, like a controller standing high over the tiny lives beneath him, regarding them with pity and sympathy.
“You will regret this,” Han Ruifeng said with absolute certainty.
“I have never regretted anything I’ve done, especially what I did today,” Nalan Xuan replied decisively.
“And that is precisely why you’ll regret it.” Han Ruifeng became even more confident. “He really is pitiful, and so are you. The difference is that he once didn’t understand his own tragedy, but now he does. You, on the other hand, have already suffered such an enormous fall and still refuse to learn from it.”
Nalan Xuan frowned. The arrogant posture of someone already destined to lose was extremely unpleasant to look at. Even if Han Ruifeng was merely forcing himself to maintain it, it still irritated him.
“I’ll wait and watch. I want to see just how far you manage to take all this.” Han Ruifeng looked utterly detached, as though he had stepped outside the entire situation. “You said the difference between us is that I calculate against other people and pave my road with their blood, while you calculate against yourself and pave your road with your own body. Hehe. That isn’t actually true. You and I are the same. We both approached him carrying our own purposes, only to helplessly fall in love with the very person we intended to use.” Seeing Nalan Xuan frown, Han Ruifeng remained unconcerned. “Don’t rush to reject it, and don’t rush to deny it. Facts remain facts, even if that was only true once.”
“And he knew perfectly well that both of us approached him with our own motives. Yet just like you and me, he helplessly developed feelings and helplessly fell in love. That is why you were luckier than I was—because the person he fell in love with was you, not me. If our positions had been reversed today, if I had been just a little luckier and the person he loved had been me, do you really think you would be standing here flaunting your victory before me now?”
“Are you finished?” Nalan Xuan’s face had turned cold. He had finally watched the good show he had anticipated for so long, yet Han Ruifeng’s few disconnected remarks had somehow left him inexplicably irritated. “If you are, then let me tell you clearly: Feng Xuanyi has no love in him, and neither does Nalan Xuan!”
Nalan Xuan’s answer did not surprise Han Ruifeng. If anything, it seemed exactly what he had expected. His smile deepened, full of mockery and amusement. “That is exactly why you will never learn your lesson. You are too proud and too convinced of your own judgment. Of course, both of you possess enough ability to justify that pride, and because of it there are things neither of you will ever lower yourselves enough to acknowledge. You remain trapped inside the game without realizing it, suffering endlessly and unable to free yourselves. That is the performance I intend to watch. I look forward to seeing you play yourself to perfection.”
“Then keep waiting!” Nalan Xuan had no interest in wasting more words on such pointless matters. He turned and strode away, and therefore did not hear Han Ruifeng’s dreamlike murmur or see the desolation that instantly replaced his earlier arrogance.
“From the time I turned ten, I, Han Ruifeng, no longer needed friends, nor would I ever have any. There was only hatred, and the determination to obtain justice. Clearing my parents’ names became the only thing keeping me alive…” A self-mocking smile crossed his face, mixed with helplessness. “But Mo Qi… Mo Qi did have friends. Fleeting friendships in a brief life. One was named Ning Xuan, and the other Qing Zhu…”
“…Han Ruifeng is me… but Mo Qi… is also me…”
Inside the imperial study, the court officials had long since tactfully withdrawn in the face of the emperor’s expression, which was blacker than the bottom of a pot. Only Prince Yu, Feng Xuanzhen, could endure that foul face and the oppressive atmosphere surrounding it.
“Imperial Brother, how long do you plan to keep indulging him and yielding to him? Now he can make decisions for you in front of so many court officials and foreign envoys. Who knows what he does behind everyone’s backs!” Feng Xuanzhen launched straight into his accusation the moment he arrived. “He behaves like this and you still won’t rein him in?”
“Is that all you came to say?” Feng Xuanyi closed the memorial in his hand without pausing, exchanged it for another, and spread the new one open before him.
Once, nothing had mattered more to Feng Xuanyi than any threat to the authority of the throne. If someone had dared publicly make decisions on his behalf in the past, no one knew what fate would have awaited them. Yet now, astonishingly, he barely seemed to care.
“Imperial Brother, I know you dote on him. You believe you wronged him and want to compensate him, but there are things this younger brother truly has no choice but to say.” Feng Xuanyi’s reaction set alarm bells ringing in Feng Xuanzhen’s heart. “Even if this is true love, imperial authority still requires clear boundaries. You cannot indulge him past all limits. Or rather, how can what he is doing even be called mere spoiled behavior? This is clearly—”
“Eighth Brother.” Feng Xuanyi, who had been reviewing the memorial all along, abruptly interrupted the unspoken conclusion they both understood. “Some things do not need to be said aloud. I know what I’m doing.”
“Imperial Brother, forgive this younger brother for speaking too much. Even if you refuse to hear it today, I still have to say it. For the sake of everyone beneath heaven, I have to ask you this: do you intend to treat the realm as a game and simply hand it over to someone else?!” Feng Xuanzhen’s eyes reddened. Setting aside their personal affection and private relationship, Feng Xuanzhen was naturally happy that the only older brother who had ever treated him like true family since childhood had finally found someone who understood his heart. But that brother was not merely his brother—he also carried the weight of the entire realm upon his shoulders. That made the matter impossible to take lightly.
“Eighth Brother, I already said that I know what I’m doing.” Feng Xuanyi stopped annotating the memorial and looked up, faint displeasure finally appearing on his face.
This time, however, Feng Xuanzhen had no intention of backing down. Since things had reached this point, he might as well say everything at once. “Imperial Brother says you know what you’re doing. Then do you know that three nights ago, on the night the foreign envoys first arrived, he privately met an envoy from an enemy state late at night? Do you know that yesterday morning he went to Mother Empress without permission and held a secret conversation with her? As for the things that happened even earlier, there is no need for me to mention them.”
The servants of Fengyi Palace and the Empress Dowager’s residence might all keep their mouths tightly shut and give the same answer—that they knew nothing—but Nalan Xuan had marched to the Empress Dowager’s palace without the slightest attempt at concealment, accompanied by the full grandeur of the empress’s procession. How could no one know? If he truly did not want anyone to discover it, why bring such an enormous display, with hundreds of attendants following in a grand procession? And if there was no problem with people knowing, why make such an obvious show of ordering everyone to insist that nothing had happened?
The more contradictory it appeared, the more obvious the existence of a scheme became. The provocation practically announced itself. Why, then, did Imperial Brother insist on pretending not to see it?!
“If Imperial Brother intends simply to compensate him without end, then this younger brother can only say there is no need.” Feng Xuanzhen met Feng Xuanyi’s gaze without fear or retreat. Never in all the years he had known his older brother had he dared speak so boldly to him, but if he let this opportunity pass, he feared he would never again find the resolve to say these things. “Anyone seated upon the throne will inevitably face countless situations beyond his control. Every decision Imperial Brother has ever made has been right in this younger brother’s eyes—more than right, nearly flawless. Among all our brothers, there has never been anyone capable of standing beside you.”
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