Suddenly Hearing the Emperor's Heart During Bed Service - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Looking at the imperial edict appointing me a noble lady, my feelings were extremely complicated.

Noble Lady Hui…

Was that supposed to be a compliment about my intelligence?!

For some mysterious reason, it sounded incredibly irritating!

My emotions were in turmoil, but to everyone else, I had already begun to look like a newly favored concubine.

The Emperor had always kept his distance from women, and everything had to be done according to ancestral rules.

If you were pregnant, you could be promoted.

If your father or brothers had rendered meritorious service, you could be promoted.

If you had nothing at all and still wanted a raise and a promotion?

Dream on!

My speed of advancement could be called utterly unrivaled in the harem.

The tree that stands tallest in the forest is the first to be destroyed by the wind.

I was far too conspicuous, and the Noble Consort was the first to lose her composure.

One afternoon, in the Imperial Garden.

The Noble Consort claimed I had offended her by getting in the way of her sedan chair and punished me by making me kneel in the Imperial Garden for four hours.

I knelt beneath the blazing sun while the Noble Consort sat in a cool pavilion, eating chilled, fresh fruit and making barbed remarks at me.

“Don’t think that just because His Majesty favored you a few times, you can get carried away.

“Noble ladies and Attendants in this harem are just like the wildflowers and weeds in the Imperial Garden. They bloom today and wither tomorrow.”

My knees ached from kneeling, and the oppressive summer heat had left me dizzy and groggy.

Then a warm current flowed out from below my abdomen.

Oh no.

I smiled bitterly to myself.

Maybe it was because the Emperor kept talking about it every day, but my monthly courses had actually come early.

I knew it was my monthly courses, but no one else did.

The palace maid beside the Noble Consort pointed at me in terror.

“Your Highness! Blood! There’s blood!”

The Noble Consort’s face also went deathly pale with shock.

Everyone thought I was pregnant with the imperial heir and was about to miscarry.

After a burst of frantic chaos, I was sent back to my palace, and an imperial physician was summoned to examine me.

The imperial physician looked to be around thirty, fair-skinned, with a faint mustache.

He took my pulse with one hand. After a brief moment of thought, his expression changed dramatically.

He hurriedly knelt to report.

“I fear the young mistress’s child cannot be saved!”

The Noble Consort: !!!

Me: !!?

The Noble Consort trembled in terror. I was so shocked my pupils nearly quaked.

No, explain yourself! What child?

Of the few times I served His Majesty in bed, which one of them could possibly have produced a child?!

Quack!!!

I sat stiffly on the bed, listening to that quack doctor make things up on the spot.

“The young mistress is already one month pregnant!

“But the pregnancy was not yet stable. After kneeling so long under the blazing sun, the young mistress suffered a miscarriage-”

He was lying without even preparing a draft first. I could not help interrupting.

“Imperial Physician, perhaps you should take my pulse again? My body may not actually be pregnant…”

Before I finished speaking, the Emperor arrived.

As though he already knew everything, the moment he entered the bedchamber, he slapped the table in a towering rage.

“The Noble Consort plotted against the imperial heir. She is to confine herself to her palace and reflect on her crimes for half a year. Remove her green-headed tablet. She is not to leave without an imperial summons!”

The Noble Consort went mad.

She knelt on the floor, her makeup smeared all over her face, weeping and begging nonstop.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! This consort truly did not mean it! Your Majesty!”

The Emperor turned his face aside and said nothing.

As if he truly were suffering the pain of losing a child.

But beside my ear, the Emperor’s inner voice was deafening.

[Hurry up and get locked away! Stop coming to see Us!

[The Imperial Guard has already reported to Us in secret that you purchased leather whips and handcuffs and placed them in your bedchamber.

[Did you think We would not know what you were planning?

[Absurd!]

Me: …

Is that what the Imperial Guard is for?!

That quack doctor was Imperial Physician Hu, the same man who had prescribed medicine for the Emperor earlier.

He had always been responsible for the Emperor’s health.

Favoring the newly selected palace women had worn the Emperor’s body down, and Imperial Physician Hu advised him to rest more.

The Emperor cared too much about his reputation and refused to publicly admit the fact that he could not perform.

But with so many women in the harem, each with her own tricks, he had nowhere to hide.

Left with no choice, the two of them came up with this desperate plan:

First, take out the Noble Consort, the biggest troublemaker!

After my “miscarriage,” the Emperor used the excuse that I had lost my child and was overcome with grief to promote my rank again.

Before Noble Lady Hui’s seat had even warmed beneath me, I transformed once more into Concubine Hui.

A concubine rank meant being the mistress of one’s own palace, with a residence of one’s own.

The Emperor assigned Yongshou Palace, beside the Hall of Mental Cultivation, for me to live in alone.

He said it was for me, but the interior decor and furnishings were basically a replica of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Storybooks, snacks-everything was fully stocked. It was clearly prepared so he could come here and stay over at any time.

To the outside world, meanwhile, the Emperor said Concubine Hui had injured her mind and spirit after her miscarriage, so he needed to visit her more often.

And just like that, of the seven monthly visits he was allotted to the harem, five were moved onto my head.

The remaining two were only because of ancestral rules: on the first and fifteenth of each month, the Emperor had to go to the Empress’s palace.

This was an unprecedented case of exclusive favor!

The entire harem was shocked.

Plenty of people gnashed their teeth every night and cursed me as a disastrous beauty.

Bah! What beauty?

I was clearly just a silly little girl!

But after single-handedly defeating the Noble Consort, I became famous in one battle. On the surface, at least, no one dared make things difficult for me.

Just as my reputation as a favored concubine spread more and more fiercely, I received a visiting card from home.

My stepmother and stepsister were coming to the palace to visit me.