Li Ying kept a stern face. “There is no sugar frost.”

“I bought some for you yesterday…”

“Did you?” Li Ying told a blatant lie with her eyes wide open. “You don’t mean that package you brought back in the middle of the night? I threw it away.”

Cui Xun: “…”

Li Ying scooped another spoonful of medicinal soup. “There’s no sugar frost, so it’s just this bitter. Will you drink it or not?”

How could Cui Xun dare to refuse? He could only steel himself and swallow it. Li Ying glanced at his brows, which were slightly furrowed from the bitterness, and said, “You’re not afraid of death, yet you fear bitterness?”

Cui Xun sighed. “Yesterday I had to prepare for Shen Que’s hearing, so I stayed late at the Office of Affairs. Once Shen Que’s matter is settled, I’ll report sick and stop going to the office.”

Hearing this, Li Ying’s face finally showed a trace of a smile. She said, “You promise?”

Cui Xun nodded. “I promise.”

Li Ying, smiling sweetly, blew on the spoonful of medicine in her hand and brought it to Cui Xun’s lips. “To prevent you from forgetting, all the medicine you drink today will be without sugar frost.”

Cui Xun: “…”

Cui Xun reluctantly drank the entire bowl of medicine, feeling the taste in his mouth was more bitter than even gentian. Just as he was about to get out of bed to find a cup of tea, Li Ying gave him a glance, and he didn’t dare move. Li Ying, with her back to him, put away the celadon medicine bowl, then suddenly turned around and opened her palm. “Here.”

In her lustrous palm lay an amber-colored sugar frost.

Cui Xun’s eyes lit up. He picked up the sugar frost and put it in his mouth. The clear, sweet, and cool flavor instantly masked the bitterness. He said, “Is this like giving a sweet date after a slap?”

“Indeed, it is.” Li Ying nodded. “To remind you that you now have a lady looking after you.”

This remark made Cui Xun feel a moment of bewilderment. He had never imagined that one day, he would have a lady at home who cared for him and longed for his return. He looked at Li Ying and asked in a very soft voice, lacking confidence, “Then… can you look after me forever?”

Though his voice was soft, Li Ying heard it. She curved her lips into a smile as beautiful as flowers and nodded without hesitation. “Of course I can.”

Cui Xun lowered his eyes and smiled faintly. With the sugar frost in his mouth, his cheeks were slightly puffed up. To others, his image had always been that of a cold and merciless person. This side of him was rarely seen. Li Ying found it amusing and poked his cheek. Cui Xun was startled for a moment, then spoke with a mixture of helplessness and affection, “Stop teasing.”

Li Ying, smiling radiantly, continued to poke his cheek. “I will tease you.”

When she smiled, her eyes seemed to be filled with countless stars, her mouth slightly upturned, and her jade-like face revealed two shallow dimples. Cui Xun felt as if the whole world had suddenly brightened. His heart skipped a beat. He stared at her blankly, desperately suppressing the urge to kiss her, and instead grabbed her fair wrist. “Stop teasing…”

Li Ying looked at his hand holding her wrist and laughed. “Hey? Did you wash your hands with orchid water a hundred times today?”

Cui Xun was stunned. “How did you…”

“How did I know?” Li Ying said, “If you don’t want others to know, then don’t do it.”

“I…”

“No need to explain.” Li Ying criticized, “You’re always overthinking everything. Haven’t you heard that extreme wisdom leads to harm?”

Caught red-handed, Cui Xun had nothing to say. He could only smile bitterly and shake his head. “Now I finally understand why young men in the world don’t want to marry Great Zhou princesses anymore.”

Li Ying asked, “Are you sure? You don’t want to marry me?”

Cui Xun didn’t understand how his general statement had become specific, but without thinking, he replied, “No, I do want to.”

Li Ying smiled and stopped teasing him. Instead, she used her other hand to hold the hand that was gripping her wrist, making it impossible for him to let go even if he wanted to. She said naturally, “I want to marry you too.”

She paused, then added, “I like you very much and am very willing to marry you.”

Li Ying had grown up surrounded by love. She was frank and pure. The Empress Dowager had taught her to be kind and gentle, but also told her that kindness was not weakness, and gentleness did not mean not fighting for what she wanted. The Empress Dowager said that a woman should not be afraid to pursue what she desired. If she wanted power, she could fight for it. If she wanted status, she could fight for it. If she wanted a husband, she could fight for that too.

So she never hesitated to repeatedly express her affection for Cui Xun. Cui Xun gazed at her, feeling a warmth spreading through his heart. But he was not like Li Ying. He had not grown up surrounded by love; rather, he had grown up in contempt. Except for those brief three years, he had always been surrounded by malice. This determined that he could never express himself as directly as Li Ying. He stared at her intently, wanting to say something, but in the end, his throat moved, and he said nothing. He coughed lightly and changed the subject. “In three days, Shen Que will be executed.”

“But isn’t he still unwilling to reveal the mastermind behind the Changle Post Station incident?”

“He has nothing to hold back now.” Cui Xun analyzed, “He desperately wants to die. The reason he refuses to reveal the mastermind is probably because he doesn’t want to give me what I want.”

Li Ying asked, “Why does he hate you so much?”

The answer to this question was well known to both of them—it was because of Ah’man.

Li Ying never discussed with Cui Xun the feelings that Ah’man and Ashina Jia had for him. To her, these women’s affection for Cui Xun was neither his fault nor theirs. She had already gained Cui Xun’s whole-hearted love. If she were to bring up Ashina Jia and the others’ feelings for him, what would she want to hear from Cui Xun? Pity? Indifference? Apology? Whichever it was, it would be disrespectful to these poor women.

She had previously seen her older sister, Princess Rongjia, bring her Prince Consort back to the palace. In front of everyone, they discussed a devoted woman who had remained unmarried for him her entire life. Princess Rongjia sighed to her consort, “What’s the point of this? Holding onto a hopeless, infatuated love alone. Ah, I hope in her next life, she won’t be so persistent.”

Princess Rongjia’s words were not problematic, nor did she mock the devoted woman. So her Prince Consort, known for his literary talent, also sighed deeply for the woman. All the consorts and princesses present expressed sympathy for the woman. Only Li Ying felt uncomfortable, vaguely feeling that the woman’s one-sided devotion should not be the subject of casual gossip.

Princess Rongjia’s consort was a handsome man at the time. Besides that devoted woman, he had numerous admirers. Later, when Princess Rongjia returned to the palace, she mentioned several of them, always in front of her consort. Some she mentioned with a jealous, teasing tone; others with a generous, regretful tone. Sometimes she would complain to her consort, “Why did you have to be born so handsome? Why do so many women like you?”

Her consort would just smile and follow along with the discussion. Later, when Princess Rongjia returned to the palace, Li Ying didn’t want to go anymore. She told her mother, “I don’t like hearing Sister Rongjia talk about those things.”

Her mother asked her why. After thinking for a moment, she said, “Maybe Sister Rongjia doesn’t mean it that way, but I always feel like she’s trying to tell us, ‘Look, my consort is so handsome, so excellent, so many women love him desperately, but he happens to like me.'”

She said, “Mother, young women’s admiration is the purest and most precious thing in the world. It should be carefully treasured, not used by Sister Rongjia to show off, and certainly not become part of her flirtatious banter with her consort.”

Her mother nodded and smiled. “Mingyue Zhu, in the future, if you win a man’s heart, don’t use other women to prove your worth. A woman conquering a man is nothing special. Your brilliance is not reflected by defeating other women in the competition for a man.”

She had kept her mother’s words in her heart, so she never mentioned Ashina Jia and Ah’man’s feelings for Cui Xun to him. She felt that no matter what she said, it would be a desecration of their pure feelings. She respected them as individuals and also respected their love.

She had never mentioned it, and Cui Xun had certainly never brought it up. Li Ying knew that there couldn’t have been only Ashina Jia and others who liked him. His appearance was too extraordinary—the Lotus Gentleman, as beautiful as a lotus. During those three years in the Tianwei Army, there must have been other young women who admired him. But Cui Xun had never mentioned any of them. This was not only because of his cold nature, but also because, unlike Princess Rongjia’s consort, he would never use other young women’s affection to show off to the one he loved. People always cursed him as despicable and shameless, a petty person, but what despicable and shameless petty person could respect the sincere feelings of others, regardless of their status or appearance, even if he couldn’t accept them?

So Li Ying and Cui Xun tacitly avoided the topic of why Shen Que hated Cui Xun so much. Li Ying said, “Shen Que dislikes you so much. I think even if you torture him, he won’t confess.”

Cui Xun thought the same. “Shen Que is different from Jin Ni. Jin Ni fears death, but Shen Que doesn’t. No torture would make him confess. Besides, with the Dali Temple and the Imperial Censorate jointly guarding him, they wouldn’t allow me to use unofficial torture methods.”

“So after all your effort to bring him back from Lingnan, you’re just going to let him be silenced in three days?”

“Not necessarily.” Cui Xun considered his words carefully, rephrasing what the Emperor Longxing had said, “They always use the common people as an excuse, saying that if they don’t quickly execute Shen Que, the people will think His Majesty is showing favoritism, as if the people are really that stupid. If the people knew that Pei Guanyue’s wife was also involved in killing Yunting, or if they knew that Yunting came to Chang’an to seek help because the Tianwei Army was trapped, and Shen Que just happened to ambush him outside Chang’an, wouldn’t they be suspicious?”

Li Ying asked, “You’ve spread Yang Heng and the others’ testimonies throughout Chang’an?”

Cui Xun nodded. Li Ying thought for a moment and said, “In this case, hastily executing Shen Que would make the people think they’re covering up the truth.”

She continued, “I estimate that the Tianwei Army case, which has been buried for six years, is now causing a stir in Chang’an again. If the doubts grow louder, Shen Que may not be executed in three days as planned.”

If Shen Que couldn’t be executed, then surely there would still be a way to make him confess.

Even in the worst-case scenario, if Shen Que died, the thick ice had already started to melt. If they could use public opinion to imprison Pei Guanyue, they might still be able to uncover the truth.

Thinking of this, Li Ying felt somewhat relieved. She then pondered how to make Shen Que talk.

However, the next day, Ah’man, still recovering from her punishment, sent someone to seek out Cui Xun.

She said she wanted to see Shen Que.