After the Retired Emperor Abdicated - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ever since that day at Changyin Pavilion, Pei Jun seemed to have gone from one extreme to the other.

Before, he had guarded himself against me as if defending a city wall, keeping as far away as possible. Now, he racked his brains every day just to see me once.

To create chances for us to be alone, Xuan Yun graciously allowed me to return to Jiang Mansion to visit my family, then specifically appointed Pei Jun to escort me.

In my old boudoir, Pei Jun removed my hairpins and ornaments. We embraced, kissed, and then…

And then there was no then. Because that stubborn mule refused to take even one step further!

He said he was already committing treason by coveting the Imperial Noble Consort, that he had failed in his duty as a subject. If he added muddling the imperial bloodline to that, he would never forgive himself for the rest of his life.

He really was such a good boy. All it did was make me look more and more like some shameless seductress of a consort.

But I was a good girl too! What did he know? I was doing this precisely for the sake of the imperial bloodline!

More importantly, after kissing my lips swollen, he was telling me now that we couldn’t?

I was so angry my teeth itched. “You said I could do whatever I wanted, and now you’re allowing this but not that! What kind of tease are you?”

Pei Jun’s ears turned red all the way through. He took off his clothes, piece by piece, revealing sharply defined lines and firm, powerful muscles. Then he took my hand and guided it to his waist and…

His breathing grew heavy. Slowly, he coaxed me, “Don’t be mad. I’ll let you touch. Does that count as teasing?”

I bit him hard on the shoulder. “You scheming, rotten man. You know exactly who’s teasing who!”

Pei Jun did not get angry. He laid me down on the couch, kissed my eyes lightly, his breath so hot it was almost unbelievable. “Actually, I learned other things too. Close your eyes, all right? Don’t look at me. I can’t take it…”

…

But no matter how much I begged him, Pei Jun would not budge an inch on his bottom line.

When I finally pushed him too far, he pinned me to the bed so I could not escape and stared into my eyes. “Let me ask you this. If we really had a child, what would you do with me? I can be your nameless, statusless lover. That would be me debasing myself willingly, and I would deserve it! But I cannot let a child bear this sin with me.”

Pei Jun did not know his own identity, nor did he know my purpose, much less that a child born to him and me would be the hope of Great Chu. He only instinctively believed that we could not do something that would throw the court into chaos.

But there was one thing he had not asked wrong: after we had a child, what then? Where would Pei Jun and I go from there?

Before, I had thought of it very simply. It was nothing more than keeping the child and getting rid of the father.

But I could not bear to abandon Pei Jun a second time. And it would be even more impossible for me to abandon a life I had brought into this world.

When I returned to the palace from the Jiang Family, Xuan Yun laughed so hard she could not even straighten her waist. “Are Pei Jun and the Stinky Old Man really father and son or not? One is unbelievably unreliable, while the other is both extreme and unbelievably reliable.”

I could not laugh, because I was thinking about a question I had been avoiding all along: if I really had a child, what was I supposed to do with Pei Jun?

So I simply tossed the question to Xuan Yun, hoping to firm up my resolve. After all, she was the true instigator of this whole affair.

But this creature had always been exceptionally skilled at shaking troop morale whenever she felt like it. She asked me that same question again. “Jiang Zhi, there’s no use asking me. Ask yourself. Do you like him?”

This time, I did not dodge the question. “Nonsense. If I didn’t like him, would I be this conflicted?”

Xuan Yun propped herself up on one arm and looked at me with leisurely composure. “Then let me ask you. If Pei Jun and I fell into the water at the same time, who would you save first?”

…I shook my head like a rattle-drum. I really didn’t know.

Xuan Yun simply skipped the question and changed to another one. “Then what if you were the one who fell into the water, and Pei Jun and I were both standing on the bank? Whose hand would you reach for?”

This time, the first face that surfaced in my mind was Pei Jun’s.

But I had been stubborn my whole life and refused to admit it. “I’d yell for help and see which one of you jumps in first. Whoever jumpss first gets a point. Whoever doesn’t, once I get back up there, I’m shoving you into the water!”

The bad thing about being too familiar with someone was that Xuan Yun saw right through me with ease. “You’re avoiding the question because you already have an answer in your heart. You aren’t telling me the answer because the person you chose isn’t me.”

She pulled me down to sit, speaking heart-to-heart with me like she had on countless nights when we were little. “You’re good to me because you think you owe me for saving your life. You feel like you always have to do something for me. You’re always afraid of being indebted to me, always unable to refuse my requests. But Jiang Zhi, you’re my friend, not my tool.”

Of course I knew that. But to me, Xuan Yun had long since become more than just a benefactor. “It’s precisely because we’re friends that I can’t just abandon you.”

Xuan Yun shook her head, then asked me in return, “As a friend, you’ve already done more than enough for me. If choosing your own happiness counts as abandoning me, then that’s far too unreasonable. Is my being alive getting in the way of your happiness?”

I lowered my head and muttered, “That wasn’t what you said before. You were the one who begged me to have a child with him, and said to just treat it as doing it for you…”

A weight settled on the top of my head. Xuan Yun stroked my hair the way she had when we were little. “The Stinky Old Man wanted you to have a child with his illegitimate son because he’s an idiot. I’m not an idiot. I only did that because I knew that if not for the Stinky Old Man’s suggestion, if not for me begging you, you would never take even one step closer to Pei Jun for the rest of your life. You would spend your whole life in the palace, serving as my signboard.”

She tightened her grip on my hand, her eyes filled with determination and blessing. “This is the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. As long as you do this one thing, consider every debt you owe me repaid. I ask you to follow your own heart.”

I was bewildered. Instinctively, I touched my empty belly, then raised my head, my eyes shining with idiotic light. “Then what about the child? I…”

Xuan Yun tapped my forehead. “Are you stupid? Pei Jun isn’t the only person under heaven with imperial blood.”

My brain failed to keep up. These past few days, all my troubles had been about how to seduce Pei Jun, so seduction was the only thing on my mind now. “You aren’t thinking of seducing some imperial clansman and getting pregnant yourself, are you?”

Xuan Yun glanced at me, her whole face saying I was beyond saving. “Recently, I found the Stinky Old Man a great many beauties. His favorite is one who can sing opera. I heard he’s secretly learning opera these days, all to win a smile from the beauty.”

So that was it. So the continuation of the imperial bloodline didn’t have to depend only on the Emperor and the Imperial Noble Consort. It could also depend on the Retired Emperor and an Imperial Dowager Consort. Brilliant!

Only, I suddenly recalled the Retired Emperor’s “heavenly voice” that day at Changyin Pavilion, and felt that whether or not this beauty would be able to smile was truly hard to say.

Xuan Yun’s abacus was clacking away loudly. “The Stinky Old Man is only in his forties. He’s right at the age to go out and make things happen. What’s wrong with making him give birth to a little brother for me to use as a son?”

No, wait. I’m a little confused. What kind of family hierarchy is this?