Winning the Laurel - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I was confined in his bedchamber. The servants only told me that the Former Emperor and Former Empress were temporarily staying in a detached palace. As for the other imperial relatives, not a single one had been spared.

The first thing Zhao Linyuan did after court was return to see whether I was still there. He knew I would not seek death, nor would I try to run, because he held leverage over me. Both my father and mother were in his hands. I could not run.

“Le Ning, you didn’t eat?” he asked, very displeased when he saw the lunch the palace attendants had yet to clear away.

I slid the pearl hairpin steadily into my hair, glanced back at him, then continued dressing before the mirror. “I have no appetite.”

The shadows beneath his eyes were obvious; one look was enough to tell he had not rested well last night. There were still flecks of blood on his dragon robe. It seemed the matters at court had troubled him greatly, but coming to me would only make him more stifled. Zhao Linyuan curved his lips into a smile and even spoke to me in the coaxing tone one used with a child. “I haven’t eaten either. Come, keep Uncle company and have a little.”

I looked at myself in the bronze mirror and wished I could gouge out these eyes that resembled his. But in the end, there was nothing I dared do, nothing I could do. I could only drag myself over and sit down beside him against my will.

“Can’t you at least smile?” After a few bites, seeing me sit there woodenly, he put down his chopsticks and made an unreasonable demand of me.

Smile? How could I possibly smile?

I let out a cold laugh, but my eyes were already brimming with tears.

“Then I’ll find a way to make you smile.” Endless madness filled his eyes as he reached out and seized my chin hard. “Didn’t you say you couldn’t smile? Then I’ll have your mother brought here. In front of your mother, you will smile properly for me!”

He was so close to me that I could even see myself reflected in his eyes: swollen red eyes, a deathly pale face, even twisted with a strange distortion.

“Uncle, how do you want me to smile?” I could no longer look directly into his eyes. I averted my gaze in panic as tears fell. I could not even understand why he would treat our family like this, why he would treat me like this, why he would treat my mother like this. I did not understand why he hated us, or how things had become this way.

Before the palace coup, I had still been the only princess. Now I was his prisoner.

Yesterday’s rage had turned into an unknown fear today, congealing in my heart. The change in my status forced me to recognize reality. If I wanted to live, to live well, to have my parents live well too, then I could only rely on the man before me.

Using my looks to serve a man-had I, Le Ning, truly fallen to such a state?

He slowly released my chin and gently stroked my face, wiping away my tears. His movements were tender. His expression eased, though his tone was still a feigned fierceness. “I never saw you so timid before. What are you crying for now?”

At the end, Zhao Linyuan added, “Just… smile at me like you used to.” He seemed to sink into his memories. His expression softened without him realizing it, a smile resting at the corners of his mouth, and even his amber eyes were filled with gentleness.

Of course I could force out a smile to placate him. But what use was there in pretending everything was fine? The more he indulged in it, the more I wanted to make him wake up. “In the past, you and I were uncle and niece. What about now?”

What status was I supposed to smile at him with? Prisoner? Slave girl? Consort? Princess Le Ning? Or his niece?

He snapped out of his memories at once, his gaze turning vicious. He stared at me fiercely, as if he wanted to bore a hole through my face.

I had already prepared myself for him to seize me by the throat. I was ready to endure his fury. But instead, he gave a light, airy laugh. I could not see through what he was thinking.

“What status do you want?”

You asked for it.

I tilted my head and smiled, lightly placing my hand over the one he had against my cheek. His hand was warm, his fingers long and slender, his knuckles distinct-the most beautiful hand I had ever seen. Just as he wished, I swallowed down all my bitterness and smiled with dazzling brightness, deliberately saying, “I want to be Empress. Make me Empress.”

Of course he couldn’t possibly give me the position of Empress. Not only would the ministers of the court never agree, but even if he proclaimed it to the world, people would curse him behind his back, and future generations would spit upon him as shameless and lustful.

He could not afford to bear such infamy.

Who would have thought Zhao Linyuan would turn his hand over and grasp mine instead? He smiled brilliantly, as if he had planned this all along. “Granted.”

I yanked my hand back at once. I truly hadn’t expected him to have gone mad to this degree.

“How could you grant me that? You’re already a treacherous rebel who usurped the throne, and now you want to take on the vile reputation of forcibly marrying your own niece? You really have gone mad!” His smile had provoked me, making me almost truly imagine the scene of marrying him. I stood and kept backing away. “You really are mad, Uncle. You’ve gone mad.”

He fell silent. His smile slowly vanished, and his expression turned nearly indifferent. That face, beautiful enough to blur the line between man and woman, was like a painted skin-exquisitely lovely, yet utterly lifeless.

“Do you remember what you said when you were little?” In the great hall, his voice was cold beyond measure. “You said you would never abandon me.”

I froze. I thought I had indeed said that. His mother-consort passed away when I was seven, and he had been punished to kneel in the ancestral hall. Back then, I had sneaked into the ancestral hall to see him, knowing he was grieving, and kept him company.

At the time, his eyes were red and swollen, but his expression was dark and vicious. I knew his circumstances were poor, so I wrapped my arms around his waist to comfort him. He asked me if I would abandon him too. How could I have understood forever at that age? I had declared with absolute certainty that I never would.

Thinking back now, he had only been a thirteen-year-old boy then.

I had not known he would remember a single thing I said as a child until now, nor had I known he had taken it seriously. But there was one thing I had to correct him on. “I never thought of abandoning you.”

From the past until now, I had never thought of abandoning him.

I only hated him.

Zhao Linyuan suddenly burst into laughter. That fair face of his began to flush. Once he had laughed enough, he rose and walked toward me. “Le Ning, tell me-which of your words are true, and which are false?”

I steadied myself. “Uncle, if you think they’re true, then they’re true. If you think they’re false, then they’re false.”

Zhao Linyuan’s lips were red, so red they looked as if they might drip blood. With one arm, he pulled me into his embrace, and I could even hear his heartbeat. “Le Ning, go on and hate me properly.”

“It would be best if you hated me to the bone, so deeply that you couldn’t forget me even if you tried.”

“Why exactly… are you like this?” I wanted to ask him why he loved me, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. In the end, all I could do was let out a faint, helpless sigh.

He truly was a madman. A madman through and through.

Zhao Linyuan buried his face in the crook of my neck and bit me once, neither hard enough to hurt nor light enough to tickle. “You can hate me. Kill me. Aside from betraying me, I will allow you anything.”

“Then let us leave.” I slowly raised my arm and gave him a symbolic pat.

He noticed my movement and held me even tighter, imprisoning me in his arms. “They can. You can’t. You have to stay by my side. Even if I die, you have to die with me.”