“This servant would not dare presume to guess Your Highness’s thoughts. It is only a hypothetical. If even princes who are blood brothers think this way when submitting to the Eldest Prince, then what of the other princes in the Crown Prince’s faction and the Eldest Prince’s faction, who joined together only for mutual advantage? How many of them truly harbor no resentment at all? Perhaps even the Eldest Prince and the Crown Prince themselves cannot tell. Right now the two sides are evenly matched, so everyone holds back and appears united. But if one side begins to lose ground, then those princes who once bowed their heads will surely start stirring and displaying their own schemes.”
“You understand quite a lot. Leave.” The idea was astonishingly similar to my own. Perhaps no one in this world understood me better than the blade standing before me. Killing him like this would be rather a waste. It was rare enough that I had not yet decided how to deal with him and had given him room to breathe, yet instead of leaving, he insisted on staying. Fine, then he could stay. “Can’t bear to go?”
That one sentence frightened Ning Xuan so badly that he turned and fled, forgetting even to make his formal farewell.
That day, I summoned no one to my bed and simply slept alone in my chambers.
“Your Highness, it is time for morning court.”
“Master, it is the first quarter of the Yin hour. It is time for morning court.”
“Damn it, are you getting up or not? If you keep lazing around and miss morning court, and your father whips you for it, don’t drag innocent people into the mess and accuse me of not waking you!”
Similar words buzzed endlessly beside my ear. In truth, I had already drifted halfway awake. The irritation I should have felt at being roused was somehow nowhere to be found. Instead, I woke in an unexpectedly good mood. Listening to a servant chatter beside me first thing in the morning, then putting on a stern face merely to frighten him a little, was actually rather entertaining.
“Yi Shu, dress me.”
Yi Shu and the others had served beside me for many years, so dressing and washing me naturally posed no difficulty, nor was there any room for him to interfere. I fastened the final frog button at my collar myself, glanced at the person who had been left standing uselessly to one side and was already thoroughly frightened, then gave a look. Everyone understood and withdrew to wait outside.
“You… Does Your Highness have any further orders?”
I caught his wrist in one hand, suppressing my laughter as I lowered my voice. “Now you know how to be afraid and respectful? What were you doing earlier?”
“This servant is only serving Your Highness for the first day, so some awkwardness is unavoidable. If anything was not done properly, I hope Your Highness will be magnanimous and not hold it against this servant.” His head was lowered, so I could not see his expression, but after these past few days, I could already imagine how vivid it must be.
“Of course.” I had not decided yesterday how to deal with him, and I had not decided today either, but that hardly meant I had no way to handle him. “Still, though you may escape death, you cannot escape punishment.”
Feng Xuanyi abruptly turns the threatened “punishment” into another intimate boundary crossing, catching Ning Xuan off guard.
Ning Xuan is visibly shocked and resistant, while Feng Xuanyi treats the familiarity far too lightly.
Feng Xuanyi notices how easily Ning Xuan’s reactions affect him and continues to test the limits of that closeness.
He fixates on Ning Xuan’s unguarded appearance with a possessiveness that unsettles even his own judgment.
Ning Xuan’s inexperienced reaction makes Feng Xuanyi wonder again whether the innocence he sees is genuine or an extraordinary performance.
Ning Xuan warns him to stop and tries to pull the interaction back under control.
Feng Xuanyi ignores the warning and crosses the boundary again, using Ning Xuan’s lack of experience as another test.
He draws Ning Xuan closer and recognizes that the situation is escalating beyond the playful teasing he had intended.
Feng Xuanyi’s self-control begins to slip, and he becomes aware that desire is overtaking judgment.
He pushes the moment too far before finally forcing himself to stop short of going further.
Ning Xuan’s startled protest breaks through Feng Xuanyi’s loss of control and helps bring reason back.
Feng Xuanyi pulls away when morning court is announced, leaving the unresolved tension for later.
I turned and left, rewarding Yi Guang, who was kneeling outside in fear and trepidation.
I had known it was dangerous and known I should not go so far, yet I had still played past the line and actually lost myself a little. That kind of loss of control had never appeared in my life. Once, I had believed it never had, did not, and never would. Now that it had actually happened, I felt less resistance than simple irritation. If the other person had been He Yilan or any concubine in the residence, I would have accepted it calmly. At worst, I would simply have made that person my Princess Consort or an established favorite. But this person understood me, could even see through my plans with unsettling ease, and yet I still knew nothing about his background. That was what made him dangerous.
“Yi Yang, tell Mo Yan to hurry. Within three days, I want the results.” Frowning, I stepped into the sedan chair.
“Yes.”
From then on, except while I was at court, there was another person beside me for all three meals every day, and he was someone I had summoned myself. Not only were his hands and feet hopelessly clumsy, he constantly made matters worse. He stumbled, crashed into things, and never remained quiet for even a moment. Yet somehow I was willing to keep him near me. Whether it was food, clothing, daily routines, travel, or even the study, where I had always strictly controlled who could enter, I let him stay. Even when I most hated being disturbed, the strange noises he made nearby did not seem unbearable. Sometimes I even found them amusing.
Whenever he was beside me, I would always end up doing inexplicable things. It felt like losing control, and yet also like instinct. Since childhood, I had understood how to read circumstances and conceal every trace of sharpness. But around him, I kept becoming my real self without meaning to. I deliberately caused trouble, deliberately teased him, deliberately provoked him. Sometimes I even forgot the time and place, forgot my own rank and identity, and forgot that anyone else existed around us.
When even Mo Yan, who had followed me for many years, gradually began showing surprise on his face, I knew I ought to restrain myself. At first, every step had still fallen within my plans. I had followed my curiosity, indulged it while it lasted, and intended to leave when the amusement faded. Yet that interest did not diminish despite Ning Xuan’s repeated mistakes and despite his ability to throw the main courtyard into complete chaos. Instead, it only grew with each passing day. For one brief moment, I even found myself wondering whether this person might truly be someone before whom I could remove my mask and become my genuine self, someone who would allow me to live simply as Feng Xuanyi, not the Fifth Prince, not Prince Rong, while he too would be neither servant nor page…
At first, the very thought struck me like thunder from a clear sky. Unable to accept it, I deliberately tried to distance myself from him. Yet gradually, within only a few days, I somehow grew accustomed to it. I nearly even forgot that I still had not uncovered his true background.
I had approached him with my guard raised, yet through repeated contact and clash after clash, my original purpose had not vanished, but it had quietly fallen into second place.
I wanted to tease him without thinking. I wanted to see more of his countless expressions, to see the version of him that hid absolutely nothing before me.
Without realizing it, I began paying attention to every word he said and every movement he made. My gaze followed him beyond my control. Sometimes I would not notice until someone reminded me it was time to eat that the memorial I had opened that morning still had not been read, while the mountain of documents on the desk remained untouched through an entire afternoon. I had never been particular about food, or perhaps I simply never allowed anyone to learn my likes and dislikes. Yet gradually, without my noticing when it began, not only did a regular companion appear at my table, but the dishes themselves increasingly began to favor his tastes.
My life had always been orderly, even monotonous, though I had never particularly noticed. I ignored every rumor spreading through Prince Rong’s Residence, and even at court people had begun asking whether I had found a new favorite and neglected the many beauties already in my household.
Was I indulging him too much? Was I gradually beginning to lose control?
Those questions slowly faded from my thoughts because the answer was already obvious, yet instinctively I refused to face it. Ning Xuan was like an addiction. Once touched, he became impossible to pull away from, leaving one only to sink deeper and deeper. Somewhere inside, I understood that forcibly tearing myself free would be like breaking bone only to find the tendons still attached. As for whatever deeper meaning lay beneath it, I no longer wanted to pursue it. It was not that I feared the answer. I simply sensed that it belonged to a realm I could not understand, and obsession would only bring pointless trouble.
“Master.”
I looked up at the voice. When I saw that the newcomer was not that walking disaster, I was strangely surprised and even… faintly disappointed.
“The information you requested.”
I accepted an unmarked letter that was not particularly thick yet somehow felt extraordinarily heavy. For a moment, I could not even remember what it was.
“This subordinate failed in his duty and asks Master for punishment. This contains everything we could find about Ning Xuan.”
Right. I had ordered them to investigate Ning Xuan’s background. The three-day deadline had already passed, yet I had neither noticed nor asked about it. I had nearly forgotten altogether.
I stared at the letter for a long time without wanting to open it. My heart inexplicably sank, heavy and cold. Instinctively, I resisted what I held in my hands, as though I already knew it could destroy everything as it was now, slice open the illusion before me, and force me to confront an ugly reality. And yet I had not grown tired of this pleasant dream. I was in no hurry to wake.
“Leave.”
Xuan Heng obeyed and disappeared as cleanly as though he had never been there.
I stared out the window for a long while. Who knew where Ning Xuan had run off to today? He still had not returned. Lowering my eyes to the motionless letter in my hands, I finally broke the seal and drew out the pages.
The contents were neither long nor short, but they were enough to explain everything. As my gaze moved across the black characters on white paper, my heart sank again and again. So even the scorching heat of midsummer could feel no different from the bitterest depths of winter.
His birth date and the details of his life were unimportant. One line alone was enough: Ning Xuan, true name Nalan Xuan, second son of Marquis Dingbei Nalan Jian. Because he rarely associated with outsiders, very few people knew what he truly looked like.
A portrait of Nalan Xuan had even been attached as proof beyond dispute.
As though he could erase the intelligence merely by destroying the paper, I stuffed the pages back into the envelope, held it over a candle flame, then dropped it into a copper basin and watched it burn to ash. But every word had already branded itself into my mind.
So this was why you approached me. So in the end, you were no different from anyone else. Power was truly a magnificent dye vat, turning men and women alike into experts at calculation and intrigue. Yet among them all, perhaps none could rival you, Nalan Xuan.
You understood perfectly what was rarest and most irresistible in this world, the kind of thing that could make a person recognize a trap and still step into it with his guard raised. No one could surpass you at pretending to be innocent and pure. I had guarded against you for so long, watched you for so long, tested you time and again, and in the end your methods truly were extraordinary.
And I had nearly done exactly as you wished. I had nearly lowered every defense and even considered removing this mask that had long since fused with my flesh. What a pity. Your performance had been flawless, yet one missed move was enough for my investigation to catch you. Since you were willing to use your appearance to approach me and achieve your purpose, why should I refuse? Besides, I had to admit that even the beauty of a kingdom could not compare with one of your smiles. Perhaps I might even come out ahead.
“Master.” Mo Yan entered to refill the tea, hesitating before he spoke. “Ning Xuan and Yi Xuan are by the lotus pond. They say they want to fish.”
“Then let them fish. Let them fish properly.” My eyes narrowed, danger showing plainly in them. “As for who will ultimately land the catch, that remains to be seen.”
“I will not need anyone attending my bedchamber tonight. Once dinner has been served, everyone is to withdraw.”
If Mo Yan still failed to understand after that, he would have been unworthy of his place as the closest of my trusted attendants.
“This servant understands.”
“You do not understand.” I stretched lazily. “No one can remove this mask.”
He did not know that the person who had first made Feng Xuanyi consider removing that mask, and who had then shattered the thought entirely, would also be the one who ultimately succeeded in taking it off and remaining beside him for the rest of his life. The road between them would be bitter and difficult, but fortunately, sweetness waited beyond the hardship.
No matter how fierce the storms, to love one person for a lifetime is a blessing. To be loved for a lifetime is also a blessing. And to find one person who loves you in return and grows old beside you, what more could anyone ask for?