How did he come here?

Qin Yining was somewhat surprised. She tucked away the cleaned plum blossom ornament and stepped forward to perform a deep bow: “This subject’s daughter pays respects to Your Majesty.”

Ji Yun, Bingtang, and Qiu Lu also followed with their bows.

Yuchi Yan, drenched in sweat, leaned against a small tree gasping for breath, waving his hand at Qin Yining: “Rise. No need for excessive ceremony.”

Qin Yining stood up and asked respectfully with lowered head: “How does Your Majesty come to be here?”

Yuchi Yan panted for a while longer. When his breathing had stabilized somewhat, he said: “I heard that your home was invaded by rioters and your family members were all missing. I was very worried. After ordering an investigation, I learned that you had long since moved here with your family.”

Looking up at Ning Garden’s pink walls and black tiles, remembering that this place was given to Qin Yining by Pang Xiao, Yuchi Yan frowned with displeasure.

But he couldn’t criticize Qin Yining for anything. After all, she was just a weak woman. Moreover, if she hadn’t made early arrangements and brought her family up the mountain, the Qin family would probably have been harmed by the rioters by now.

Yuchi Yan smiled self-mockingly. The way he was being an emperor—going hungry all day himself, unable to give Qin Yining anything—what could he use to pursue her? Could painting pictures and writing calligraphy fill one’s stomach?

“All of you withdraw. I have words to speak with Xuan Su.” Yuchi Yan’s mood had calmed considerably as he waved to those beside him.

Eunuch Lu and several guards bowed and retreated. Seeing this, Qiu Lu, Ji Yun, and Bingtang had no choice but to withdraw as well, leaving this space to the two of them.

Yuchi Yan leaned against the tree trunk, carefully observing the person he had been thinking about day and night.

She had grown much thinner. Her small face was palm-sized, but this only made her eyes appear larger and brighter, her delicate nose and rosy lips very pretty. Though she wore coarse cloth dress and skirt and her hair was simply braided into a single plait, this lack of makeup and powder better revealed her natural beauty—incomparable to those beauties modified with rouge and cosmetics.

Yuchi Yan discovered that he still liked her. Seeing her, his heart still fluttered.

He smiled helplessly.

Now that the nation was on the verge of collapse, he still had the leisure to think about such things. It was just that recent days had been too painful. The depression in his heart had nowhere to vent. Though Duke Anguo Li Mian served as commander-in-chief, he avoided battle and repeatedly requested to restart peace talks, his words even suggesting surrender.

How could Yuchi Yan’s dignity as an emperor endure such trampling?

But the current situation wouldn’t allow him otherwise.

Yuchi Yan wearily sat on the ground: “You sit down too. Save some strength and keep me company in conversation.”

Seeing Yuchi Yan like this, Qin Yining’s wariness lessened slightly. She found a stone to sit on three steps away from him.

Yuchi Yan looked up at the leaves swaying in the wind, leaned against the tree trunk with closed eyes, and after a long while said slowly: “Do you know? Yesterday, the Great Emperor disappeared.”

Qin Yining looked at Yuchi Yan in surprise.

Yuchi Yan said wearily: “The eunuch delivering food to the Great Emperor discovered that the meal brought in hadn’t been touched. Thinking something had happened to the Great Emperor, they searched the entire palace but couldn’t find him. A perfectly fine person just vanished into thin air like that.”

“Does Your Majesty believe this?” Qin Yining frowned.

“What?” Yuchi Yan looked at Qin Yining.

Qin Yining said: “A perfectly fine person doesn’t vanish into thin air. If it wasn’t someone outside helping the Great Emperor escape, then it means there are secret passages in the palace.”

“Secret passages?” Yuchi Yan straightened up. “How did you think of this?”

“Because when Imperial Uncle Cao was captured, they supposedly discovered tunnels in his mansion.” A cunning rabbit has three burrows—how could these old foxes not leave themselves escape routes? Imperial Uncle Cao had dealt with the Great Emperor for a lifetime. Even if the Great Emperor was muddle-headed, he had plenty of schemes. If even Imperial Uncle Cao had tunnels, the Great Emperor wouldn’t be unprepared.

Yuchi Yan was slow to react, but quickly understood the key point: “You’re right. How did I not think of this?” He immediately called over a guard, whispered a few words in his ear, and the guard bowed and quickly withdrew.

Yuchi Yan stared blankly at one spot, then leaned against the tree trunk in a daze for a while before saying: “It seems the Great Emperor wants to take that large sum of money to Nanyan.”

Qin Yining smiled slightly but didn’t say much.

If the Great Emperor thought he could take that huge sum to Nanyan and have Liu Yingshi and Nanyan’s new emperor acknowledge him as the former emperor, that would be too naive. They would gladly take the money, but the Great Emperor’s life wouldn’t be guaranteed.

Having finally sat on that lofty position, even though Nanyan was just a small country formed by merging several prefectures and counties from Great Yan—altogether about the size of the coastal nations of Japan and Goguryeo combined—no one would give it up.

While Qin Yining remained silent, many thoughts ran through Yuchi Yan’s mind.

Finally, he leaned wearily against the tree trunk and said quietly: “It seems Heaven truly doesn’t favor me. That old thing Li Mian keeps advising me to negotiate peace every day. I trusted him and even made his daughter Empress, yet he’s lazy in battle, cowardly and afraid of death! In all this time leading troops, he’s only launched one major offensive, and that was because he fell for the enemy’s trick. Not only did he lose 20,000 troops, but if not for Grand Tutor Qin’s timely rescue, that old thing Li Mian would have died out there. Heaven doesn’t help Great Yan—natural disasters and human calamities, talented people are all gone.”

Qin Yining now understood why the Emperor had come.

He was holding in a heart full of depression with nowhere to vent, and had come to confide in her.

At the same time, he was already considering retreat and wanted peace talks.

But in the current situation, peace talks were simply a pipe dream.

Qin Yining didn’t mind pouring cold water on Yuchi Yan’s hopes: “The peace talks Duke Anguo speaks of are actually inappropriate.”

“Oh?” Yuchi Yan looked at Qin Yining with hopeful eyes.

Qin Yining said: “To want peace talks, it requires a situation where both countries have similar status, and we need to have conditions we can negotiate and exchange that would satisfy both sides—that’s what’s called peace talks. To speak words that boost others’ morale while dampening our own—Great Zhou currently has overwhelming unilateral advantage. Why would they negotiate peace with us? Even if they agreed to peace talks, what conditions could we offer that would move them?”

These words instantly made Yuchi Yan feel as if he’d been thrown into an ice cave. The little hope he had harbored was completely crushed to nothing.

Yes, he was now like a homeless dog. Why would they negotiate peace with him?

But if there was no hope, why did Duke Anguo keep repeatedly urging him to do so?

Could it be…

“That old thing Li Mian—his urging me to negotiate peace is false, urging me to surrender is the truth! He wants to place me in a position of disloyalty and unfilial conduct. How can I face the ancestors of the Yuchi family? He wants to make me a ruler who loses his country!”

Yuchi Yan thought of the Great Emperor who had disappeared with a large sum of money, thought of what the Great Emperor had said to him, then thought of the faces of those in court during this time of crisis. His heart ached as if someone were stabbing it with needles.

“Born at the wrong time—what can be done? Your Majesty, please don’t be too sorrowful. As long as one lives, there’s hope for everything.” Qin Yining lowered her eyes and spoke gently in consolation.

Yuchi Yan was stunned, staring blankly at Qin Yining: “As long as one lives? You say this too?”