No Prying into the Prince's Secrets - Chapter 2

By the next day, news that Feng Lian had become my concubine had spread throughout the residence. Everyone was delighted except the elderly steward, who looked thoroughly miserable.

As the maids passed, I heard them whispering.

“Wonderful! His Highness isn’t impotent!”

“Yes! I can finally tell my third aunt to stop listening to those rumors. Our prince is more than capable!”

“And I can finally climb into his bed. Hee-hee!”

“…”

None of that was necessary. Really.

Uncle Chen came to see me, weighed down with worries. He closed the door and asked cautiously, “Your Highness, have you found some secret potion that made you grow… a jade stalk?”

I choked on my water. “Cough, cough—Uncle Chen, what are you thinking? Nothing like that exists!”

His gaze grew even more complicated. “Then you’ve developed a taste for women?”

I waved my hands frantically. “No, no!”

Uncle Chen had served as steward since the old Prince of Anyang’s day. He had known from the beginning that I was a woman passing as a man.

I couldn’t tell him Feng Lian was a man, so I could only brush him off. “I just needed someone to fend off the rumors. At my age, showing no interest in women is bound to arouse suspicion.”

Uncle Chen was doubtful, but he finally sighed in relief. “You’re an adult now, Your Highness. You can make your own decisions. I worried too much.”

“Uncle Chen, I’ve always thought of you as family. I know you care about me.”

Deeply moved, he said, “For those words alone, I’d climb a mountain of blades or plunge into a sea of fire for you. You wouldn’t hear so much as half a ‘no’ from me.”

He had barely finished when the door opened. Feng Lian walked up to me, looking pitiful, and pulled my hand down onto his lower abdomen. “Your Highness, I don’t know why, but my stomach hurts so much. Feel it, please.”

I had no idea what he was up to this time. “Uncle Chen, fetch a doctor for Lian’er.”

“No.”

What happened to not even half a “no”?

Uncle Chen’s wary expression all but said, “And you still claim you aren’t lovers?”

Feng Lian must have seen how little the steward liked him. Undaunted, he looked innocently at Uncle Chen. “Dear steward, my stomach really does hurt. When I went to relieve myself just now, there was so much blood.”

“Pff—cough, cough—”

Men hadn’t evolved that far yet! If he was bleeding down there, it could only be a burst hemorrhoid!

Under their puzzled gazes, I kept that thought to myself and told Feng Lian solemnly, “Your monthly courses must have started. It happens to all women once they’re old enough. It’s no illness. Don’t worry.”

Uncle Chen’s heart softened after all. “I’ll fetch a doctor to examine you.”

With that, he left.

I studied Feng Lian as he pretended to be delicate. What dedication to his disguise! I’d only tested him a little last night, and today he was faking a period to put me at ease.

“Your Highness, why do women have monthly courses? Won’t I die from losing so much blood?”

Watching him play an innocent girl having her first period, I decided to seize every opportunity to make him crack.

“Having your monthly courses means you’re going to get pregnant. In ten months, you’ll be able to give me a child.”

“…”

I thought I could read a message in his wide eyes: Don’t make me slap you.

Feng Lian lowered his lashes halfway, hiding the murderous look in his eyes, and said with exquisite shyness, “I’ve heard there are many things one must do to have a baby. One person alone can’t manage it.”

Making things up came as naturally to me as breathing. “That’s right. It takes two people. A man and a woman hold hands and sleep together. Didn’t we do all that last night? That’s why your monthly courses came today. Now you can have a baby.”

Feng Lian played along through gritted teeth. “So that’s how it works. I’ll do my best.”