After the Retired Emperor Abdicated - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Retired Emperor was nothing if not efficient. On the third day after proposing to me his grand concept of “adultery by imperial decree,” he summoned Pei Jun back to the capital.

It seemed the old man had been prepared from the start. He had simply waited until the last moment to inform me.

Pei Jun still didn’t know the truth of his birth. Naturally, neither the Retired Emperor nor Xuan Yun could possibly let him find out.

I once asked why I had to go down the seduction route instead of simply telling him the truth. We could lay everything out for Pei Jun and call it the two of us sacrificing ourselves for the nation.

Xuan Yun did not answer me directly. Instead, she asked me a question. “If you were Pei Jun and you learned your true identity, would you obediently become a tool that could never see the light of day, or would you think that since you were chosen by Heaven anyway, you might as well rise up in rebellion and take back everything that belonged to you?”

I fell silent for a long while before I had no choice but to admit, “You know me. I’ve never had much in the way of moral boundaries. But I feel like Pei Jun should at least have some…”

Xuan Yun was deeply shaken. “Jiang Zhi, you’ve changed. You’ve actually started believing in men?”

Once she put it that way, I felt even guiltier toward Pei Jun and loudly argued back, “Nonsense. It isn’t as if a man has ever deceived me. I’ve only ever deceived men. The problem now is, after Pei Jun was tricked so miserably by me, will he ever believe in women again? Especially when that woman is me!”

Xuan Yun always had some mysterious confidence from who knew where. She patted me on the shoulder and comforted me. “Don’t worry. You’re his natural nemesis. Every fall he takes in this life will be because of you.

“With other things, he learns from his mistakes. But whenever it involves you, he falls once, falls again, falls again… and in the end realizes the pit tastes pretty good.”

I crouched down, covered my face, and wailed, “Don’t say it like that. You’re making me feel even guiltier.”

The next time I saw Pei Jun was at the welcome banquet the Retired Emperor held for him. It was called a welcome banquet, but in truth, hardly anyone had been invited. After all, the Retired Emperor’s motives were impure, and too many people would only make things inconvenient.

I had a guilty conscience too, so I kept losing control and looking toward Pei Jun.

He did not dodge in panic, nor did he pretend not to notice. Instead, he respectfully and calmly gave me a slight nod, then offered a perfectly distant smile.

He looked as if he had let go of the past and attained total enlightenment, which only made me seem even more at a loss.

In truth, over the years, I had imagined my reunion with Pei Jun ten thousand times. Ideally, it would be a hurried glimpse during some chance encounter. He would say nothing, and my eyes would redden.

Then we would brush past each other, and from then on, dust would return to dust, earth to earth.

In my imagination, the two of us should have been Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. Who could have expected that when we met again, we would have to act out Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian instead…

I cast a resentful glance at Wu Dalang beside me… Ah, no! I meant the Emperor. A wave of endless emotion rose in my heart:

Since ancient times, parting has always wounded tender hearts. How much worse when-damn you, Xuan Yun!

How are you going to repay what you owe me?!

When the Retired Emperor tried for the seventeenth time to force more wine on Pei Jun, Xuan Yun stopped him. Then, on the grounds that Pei Jun could not hold his liquor, she graciously allowed him to stay in the palace for the night.

Pei Jun had just apologized and withdrawn to change his clothes when, under the tacit approval of the Retired Emperor and Xuan Yun both deliberately looking the other way, I followed him out.

I blocked him on the path he had to take.

“General Pei, I seem to have had too much wine today and have somehow forgotten the way. Pei Jun, would you be willing to guide me and walk with me for a while?”

This was how I had always been in the past. Every time I racked my brains for a way to get close to him, I still never bothered to come up with a proper excuse. In truth, I simply liked watching him helplessly indulge me even when he knew perfectly well I was lying.

This trick had never failed before, but now it no longer worked at all.

Pei Jun bowed to me, but did not spare me so much as a glance from the corner of his eye. “Imperial Consort, this lowly general has been away from the capital for a long time. I fear I do not know the way either. Please wait here, Your Highness. This lowly general will go find a palace servant.”

With three people weaving a net to catch this one fish, there was no way he would find anyone now.

Just as he was about to leave, I cried out, “Ow!” and twisted my ankle. He did stop, though he maintained a distance of three steps, as if trying to determine whether it was real or fake.

I lifted my head, my eyes full of tears. Whether they were from pain or sadness, even I did not know. “Pei Jun, have you been well?”

“Mm.” It was such a soft sound that I even doubted whether he had answered me at all. After that came long stretches of silence.

With tears in my eyes, I kept up my pitiful pose and remained frozen like that.

In the end, I still could not hold back. “You… don’t you want to ask me too?”

Pei Jun finally turned his head and pulled out an extremely strange smile. “This lowly general has heard a little about how well Your Highness has been doing. After all, though the frontier is far away, there are still one or two storytellers there to relieve boredom from time to time.”

The instant he mentioned storytellers, I understood exactly what he had “heard.”

“First love awakened: emperor and consort join in clouds and rain within the bedchamber; heart concerned for the realm: a censor listens at the bedside past midnight.”

Because that steamy, lingering, tragic-romantic “story” about Xuan Yun and me in the mouths of those storytellers was one I had written myself. Who knew it could spread that far? What a sin!