Lotus in a Bottle - Chapter 25

Section 41

Because a certain someone was stubborn to the bitter end and refused to let the imperial physicians so much as touch him unless I came along, I had no choice but to accompany him back to the palace.

After all, I was worried the New Emperor might die before his coronation. Dayan would be plunged into civil unrest all over again, and that would be a disaster.

As we sat in the carriage, I scratched my head. “Why do I feel like I’ve forgotten something?”

Tan Lian promptly dropped the carriage curtain. “If you can forget it, it clearly wasn’t important.”

And just like that, my trip to Jiangnan somehow turned into a tour of the imperial palace.

Instead of admiring flowers and sipping tea, I spent every day changing Tan Lian’s dressings and feeding him medicine.

If they hadn’t paid me the same allowance as an imperial physician, I would never have been so diligent.

Then one night, Tan Lian rolled over in his sleep and put pressure on his wound, tearing open the injury that had finally been close to healing.

After much desperate pleading from the imperial physicians, I had no choice but to sleep beside a certain patient and keep watch over him.

Thanks to my experience in Xiangyang, I was quite practiced at it.

It wasn’t as though we had never slept together before. Besides, the imperial bed was enormous. With separate blankets, it was no different from sleeping in separate beds.

…Or at least, it shouldn’t have been.

Then I climbed into bed and found a certain someone staring fixedly at me.

Sometimes being too beautiful was a problem.

Take Tan Lian now, dressed in his nightclothes. His face was pale from excessive blood loss, yet his lips remained as red as though they had drunk their fill of nectar.

He looked exactly like one of those seductive ghosts from storybooks that fed on people’s life essence.

I silently turned over and put my back to him.

In the time it would take a stick of incense to burn, the seductive ghost had soundlessly slipped beneath my blanket.

“Early spring is still a little chilly. The imperial physicians said I mustn’t get cold. Baoping, warm me up, won’t you?”

Bullshit.

Hadn’t the underfloor heating been turned off because he said it was too warm?

But for reasons I couldn’t explain, I didn’t say that aloud.

So the seductive ghost pushed his luck, wrapping both restless arms around my waist.

I was just about to speak when Tan Lian habitually pinched my side between two fingers.

And pinched out a little roll of belly fat.

Me: “…”

Tan Lian: “…”

I flipped over, ready to kick those grabby hands and their owner back under his own blanket, only to be met with a theatrical hiss of pain.

Hiss, hiss, hiss. Hissing was all he ever did. His hands and feet were as cold as a snake, his heart was as venomous as one, and now he spent all day hissing too.

This man must have been a snake in his last life!

I pinned down the hand that was still roaming around.

“I really should let all those people outside who praise you as a living Buddha see what a snake demon you truly are.”

Still, I didn’t dare kick him again.

Tan Lian, however, knew exactly how to take advantage. He nestled against my ear, his voice turning soft and clinging in the darkness.

“I won’t let them see. I’ll only coil around you. Is that all right?”

I turned my head to look at him. Our faces were so close that the true emotions in Tan Lian’s eyes had nowhere to hide.

He tried to look away, suddenly ill at ease, but I reached out and stopped him.

For the first time since our reunion, I let my false anger and coldness fall away. Looking into his eyes, I sighed with bone-deep weariness.

“Tan Lian, there can never be anything between us again.”