They realized that not only had they backed the wrong side — they had gone to every length to mock and humiliate the woman who would become the future Crown Princess right to her face. They had practically been spending the lives of their entire households just to enjoy a moment of spite with their tongues.

Several of the less worldly ones broke down weeping on the spot. The rest began to live in a state of perpetual dread and anxiety, wishing they could will another rebel vassal army to descend upon the capital at once and overthrow Prince Beizhen without delay.

The household of the Duke of Jun had been thrown into complete chaos. The Duchess of Jun sat in her chair in a daze, having been stunned senseless by the news.

The Duke of Jun, for his part, would have liked nothing better than to slap this foolish woman twice: “I said from the very beginning — since the engagement had already been made, we should accept it. To be the first to propose breaking it off was to forfeit all claim to moral standing. I told you to wait, and not to tear things apart openly. But you and Second Son took matters into your own hands and managed to offend that entire family from top to bottom.”

Had the engagement never been broken, his house — the Jun Ducal estate — would have been the family that wed the new Emperor’s daughter, basking in boundless imperial favor. Yet his Duchess had not only resorted to contemptible means to dissolve the betrothal; she had also gone out of her way to mock the girl while seeking refuge in Maolin County, making enemies of them all beyond any hope of repair.

The Duke of Jun recalled the Beizhen Shizi in the great hall, hurling his blade to sever the beast’s carved head from the pillar, and felt the prospects of every soul in his household grow bleak. He found himself wondering whether any of the apothecary shops that had been ransacked and smashed in the capital had yet reopened — whether he ought to go purchase some rat poison, so that his whole household might at least depart this world in peace.

The Duchess of Jun, meanwhile, was muttering to herself: “Was His Majesty locked up in that detached palace until he lost his mind? How could he make such a preposterous decision?”

The Duke of Jun flew into a thundering rage, jabbing his finger at his wife’s face: “You still dare speak ill of His Majesty at a time like this? I must have been blind the day I married a fool like you!”

From the day she had married into the house, the Duchess of Jun had always been the one who set the terms of any conversation — never once in her life had her husband pointed at her nose and cursed her in this manner.

Yet the calamity she had brought about this time was truly enormous. There was nothing to do but cover her nose and dissolve into choking, heaving sobs.

Never mind the chaos that had descended upon the Jun Ducal estate. The Duke of Lu, for his part, made his way home burdened with a heavy heart.

But before he had even had the chance to drop the bombshell on the women of his household, trouble had already erupted within. It turned out that the wet nurse watching over the little Shizi had dozed off from exhaustion, and when she opened her eyes she found that the infant beside her had vanished.

She went to search in a panic, and found the Princess Rui standing at the edge of the garden pond, holding the infant — then suddenly she let go, and the child tumbled into the water.

The wet nurse let out a shriek of horror, leaped into the pond, and hauled the infant back up. Fortunately, the child had been born only a short time ago and still retained some instinct carried over from the womb. Upon hitting the water it had automatically held its breath. Even so, once pulled out, the little infant wailed and screamed in shock.

This commotion naturally brought servants running to report to the Duchess of Lu. When the Duchess came rushing in and saw her drenched and dripping grandchild, her heart ached terribly. She glared at Fang Jinshu and demanded to know what in the world she had been trying to do.

Fang Jinshu looked at the child — the one who bore such a resemblance to the Ninth Prince — and replied without the slightest remorse, in a voice of perfect calm: “He was squirming about. I lost my grip for a moment and he fell in.”

The Duchess had already heard the wet nurse’s account and did not believe a word of her daughter’s nonsense. An infant still in swaddling clothes — how much force could he possibly exert?

She pulled her daughter into an inner room, and when the two of them were alone, she demanded in a severe voice: even a tiger will not devour its own cubs — what demon had possessed her mind, to drive her to do something so utterly monstrous?

Fang Jinshu looked at her mother with cold eyes, and gave a desolate smile: “You all treat him as a treasure, of course — a precious little gem for preserving the Fang family’s wealth and glory. But what about me? Has anyone — you or Father — ever given a thought to what becomes of me? If he becomes Emperor, even should His Majesty show mercy and not separate mother from child, what then? Since when in all of history has a dowager empress ever remarried? For the rest of my life I would be caged inside the deep palace, every word and gesture required to be proper and decorous, without a single joy left in living. Has anyone ever once thought about that for my sake?”

The Duchess had harbored some premonition before asking, but she had never imagined her daughter would admit to it so readily. The child she had so carefully raised — to think she could be capable of something so utterly beneath a beast. The Duchess, in her fury, could no longer hold herself together, and she brought her palm down hard across her daughter’s cheek.

It was the first time she had ever struck her daughter. Even as she struck her, tears were streaming down her face, and she was reproaching herself without cease — it was already too late to strike; they had spoiled her too thoroughly, between the two of them as husband and wife, and now she was so selfish she could not spare a thought for the lives of the whole clan.

Just as mother and daughter were locked in this unbridgeable conflict, the Duke of Lu returned home with the look of a man attending a funeral.

Perhaps the blows of the day had been too great: when the Duke of Lu heard that his daughter had intended to harm the infant, he was entirely unmoved, and merely said to Fang Jinshu, “Next time you want to do away with him, take him in your arms and throw yourself into the river along with him — that way the matter will be clean for everyone.”

The Duchess could not have imagined that her husband would receive this news without the slightest ripple of emotion, and for a moment she was stupefied as well — until the Duke of Lu slowly spoke of Emperor Weihui’s abdication and the passing of the throne to Prince Beizhen Han Yi. At that, the Duchess’s eyes went glassy and she nearly fainted dead away.

But Fang Jinshu, after hearing it all out, stood in a daze for a long while — and then broke into full, unbridled laughter. She seemed to be recalling something sweet, for a smile suffused with inexplicable pride spread across her face: “I always knew he was born for great things… How could I have misjudged him…”

Then her laughter gradually subsided a little. She rose slowly to her feet, and turned to face her parents — grinding out each word from between her teeth: “If you hadn’t blocked him back then, if you hadn’t kept his letters from me, I would have married Han Linfeng long ago. But you were so clever in your calculations — well? Are you not struck dumb now? All your careful scheming, and yet none of you calculated that he would one day become Crown Prince. What are you still standing here for? Go — quickly — take your precious little grandchild and rush to the palace to compete for the throne!”

The Duke of Lu could no longer restrain himself either. He raised his hand and gave Fang Jinshu a hard slap: “You grow more outrageous by the day! You have no eyes for your own son — have you no eyes for your own parents either?”

Fang Jinshu received the blow, yet she was still laughing. Only the tears were falling steadily from her eyes as well.

All her life, from childhood onward, she had believed herself to be heaven’s favored daughter — more fortunate by far than anyone else. Yet she had never imagined that all the twists and reverses of her life were lying in wait for the second half of it.

How laughable that she, while in Maolin County, had still been mocking that woman — imagining that one day she could crush her beneath her foot into the mud without effort.

She had never imagined that, in the end, she would be the one made a laughingstock.

The Duke of Lu had no patience to entangle himself with these women. Before long he returned to the reception hall, to receive the heads of the other great families who came calling one after another.

This change of imperial succession had upended every noble house and caught them all off guard.

In such circumstances, they had no choice but to deliberate on strategies to weather the upheavals that would follow in the court ahead…

On the morning that Emperor Weihui announced his abdication and the passing of the throne to Prince Beizhen Han Yi, attentive palace servants came sprinting in a rush to congratulate the future Crown Princess on the great happy event.

Never mind that the great ladies of the capital had been struck as if by lightning — even she herself had needed quite a long while to come back to her senses.

Only then did Luoyun understand: the night before, when Han Linfeng had seemed to be on the verge of saying something and then held back, it had been because he was concealing the news of the Emperor’s imminent abdication in favor of Prince Beizhen.

When Han Linfeng returned from the court hall, having overawed that congregation of old foxes, Luoyun asked him whether he had known about the abdication all along.

This time, Han Linfeng admitted it openly.

Luoyun listened, was silent for a moment, then said she was tired and wanted to rest. With that, she slipped off her shoes, climbed onto the bed, and lay down with her back to him.

She shut her eyes. No matter how Han Linfeng tried to coax or tease her, she said not a word for a long while.

Han Linfeng, who could remain composed in the face of a hall full of unruly ministers, found himself utterly at a loss when confronted by this slender, silent woman.

All he could do was offer her grapes at one moment, press her legs at the next, and finally hold her in his arms, his lips close to her ear, asking why she would not speak.

Luoyun sulked for a while in silence, then turned her face toward him and said in a low voice, “You didn’t tell me — apart from it being a matter of great importance that required secrecy, you were also afraid I wouldn’t like living in the inner palace. Weren’t you?”

Han Linfeng looked at her expression and spoke slowly, “Once Father inherits the imperial throne, you and I will most likely be living a very different kind of life from before. You won’t be as free as you used to be… In the end, I have wronged you.”

Luoyun heard this and lowered her eyes: “How can you say that — it was I who was unworthy to begin with. Even when you were an idle Shizi, I was already reaching on my tiptoes just to be with you. If you are to be named Crown Prince someday, what virtue or ability does a commoner woman from a merchant family have to stand at your side? Even if you say nothing, there will always be people who criticize this without end.”

Han Linfeng, upon hearing these words, narrowed his fine eyes slightly, and drew out his reply with deliberate slowness: “If you are unworthy — then what do you intend to do?”

Luoyun lifted her eyes to look at the man lying beside her. Such a remarkably handsome man — he was already the object of many a young woman’s dreaming fantasies.

Add the title of Crown Prince to that, and it would not only be lovestruck young women whose hearts stirred — their mothers and fathers would be falling over themselves to rush forward as well.

Thinking further ahead: once he became Emperor, how could the inner palace remain sparse, with only a single flower to tend?

Luoyun had always been practical. Though she loved Han Linfeng deeply, she placed no faith in promises as such. After all, there were words that simply could not withstand the test of years — and furthermore, what lay ahead of the two of them would likely be even more than she was already worrying about.

So when he asked, Luoyun spoke her heart honestly: “What else is there to do? Take it one step at a time and see. Only — if in future you truly find yourself in a position where you have no choice, just let me know. I won’t blame you for it. I won’t be a burden to you either. Just as we agreed when we first married — let us part on good terms…”

She had never harbored dreams of becoming an Empress. And yet he would inevitably need to forge ties with the great noble families through marriage.

This was not a matter of fickleness or wandering affections — it was simply something that a man in a position of power had no choice but to do.

Luoyun would not stand in the way. But neither was she willing to live in submission and self-abasement. When the time came, she would discuss it with him, and take the initiative to step aside gracefully — giving them both a measure of dignity in the parting.

But before she had finished speaking, Han Linfeng had already stopped her mouth with his hand, his nose touching hers, his gaze clear and cold, speaking one word at a time: “I don’t care what scheme for slipping away you’re cooking up in your head right now — throw every last bit of it as far from you as you can.”

Luoyun looked at his utterly serious expression, then couldn’t help but let out a small, easy laugh. She pinched his nose and said, “Father hasn’t even ascended to the throne yet, and you’re already carrying yourself like a Crown Prince in full authority. Are you about to press me into the cold palace for interrogation?”

Han Linfeng, seeing the smile break across her face, felt the tension in his chest ease at last. It had been many days since he had been close to her, and the longing had become a persistent ache.

Just as he bent down to kiss her, however, she shoved him hard and turned over to hang off the edge of the bed, retching with dry heaves.

Han Linfeng startled, and immediately called for someone to bring a physician.

Since escorting the Emperor back to the palace, fearing that someone might tamper with things, he had not used any of the imperial physicians at all — only the doctors he had brought with him into the palace. Even the physician who had treated Luoyun’s eyes had been brought along to the capital.

Han Linfeng had assumed at first that Luoyun had eaten something that disagreed with her. But when the physician finished taking her pulse, he turned to Han Linfeng with a face full of joy and offered his congratulations: “Congratulations, congratulations — the noble lady is with child. From the looks of it, she is approximately three months along.”

Upon hearing this, Han Linfeng was dumbstruck, and blurted out almost stupidly: “Elder physician — are you certain you have not made an error?”

He knew that Luoyun had been secretly using contraception, and that he himself had been away at war for long stretches of time. The two of them had been together far less than they were apart — in just those few occasions, how had she become pregnant?

The old physician had not expected the Shizi to say such a thing, and was momentarily thrown. He also thought to himself: given how little this lord and lady had been together, and knowing their private affairs better than anyone else — could it be that… the Shizi’s consort had been taking another man behind the Shizi’s back?

For a moment, the old physician was at a loss as to how to proceed, but could only steel himself and say, “This joy-pulse… this old one is not one to make errors.”

In the next moment, Han Linfeng had already knelt beside the bed and was reaching out with careful hands to rest them on Luoyun’s abdomen, his face suffused with wonder and happiness. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he raised his head and said with great seriousness, “Quickly — show the physician that sachet of yours. Could that thing cause any harm to the child in the womb?”

At his words, Luoyun startled and asked in a small voice, “What sachet?”

Han Linfeng raised his head and gave her a pointed look, then said lightly, “The one you always keep under your pillow.”

Luoyun’s bright eyes went wide. She had stopped using it long ago — and yet he had known about her contraception all this time. That meant he had discovered it early on and had simply never brought it up.

All she could do was say softly, “I put it away long ago. Otherwise, how would I have become pregnant?”

Han Linfeng raised his head and looked at Luoyun in surprise. So this pregnancy was not an accident at all — she had left it to happen deliberately?

After the old physician confirmed that the fetal heartbeat was strong and that all was well, he took his leave.

Luoyun looked at Han Linfeng with some unease, uncertain how to read his reaction, and asked tentatively, “You… you’re not displeased that I am with child at a time like this?”

After all, his status was entirely different going forward. Once his father held the enthronement ceremony, he would hold the rank of an imperial prince.

What she carried in her womb would very likely be the imperial family’s future legitimate grandchild. Compared with the daughters of noble families — she truly had no standing to be the one who bore this child.

Han Linfeng, seeing that retreating look in her eyes, guessed that her mind had once again gone off in some troublesome direction.

He held her by the waist and pinched her nose. “What nonsense are you talking? I’m already this old and still have no children — how could I not be pleased? Only… at the time I was in the midst of battle with the Tiefu, with my life uncertain from one moment to the next. Were you not afraid you might end up a widow raising a posthumous child on your own?”

Luoyun felt his words were entirely without filter, and fixed him with a wide-eyed stare before slowly replying, “It was precisely because I was afraid — that I wanted to have the child.”

Some things needed no further elaboration. The meaning lay wholly in what was left unsaid.

At this moment, Han Linfeng felt a bittersweet sensation rise up within him that he could not quite name. He knew better than anyone just how deeply insecure was this little woman he had schemed and striven so hard to make his wife.

Perhaps to an outsider she seemed to have a strong and decisive character — quick-witted and fierce in protecting her younger brother, setting up her own shop at an early age, a woman who knew her own mind.

But he knew that in the deepest reaches of her heart, she was still that little girl — the one who had lost her mother too soon, been neglected by her father, and could only hold her little brother and weep in helplessness.

She was cautious in matters of the heart and refused to stand upon an unstable tower.

But because she had come to know him — this down-and-out imperial clansman — every step she had taken since had been like walking on thin ice. The two of them had been able to do nothing but lean on each other and feel their way forward.

Yet this woman, whom others might dismiss as calculating and shrewd, had never once shown cowardice or hesitation. She had remained steadfastly at his side throughout.

It had been so in the beginning, when Luoyun agreed to marry him to save him. It was so now, too: fearing he might fall on the battlefield, she had been willing to carry his bloodline forward even knowing that her own circumstances afterward would be precarious.

In this life, becoming a king, rising to high office, even achieving the work of establishing an empire — none of these were impossible to accomplish. But to find one heart of such genuine and unguarded devotion — how many people in a lifetime could be so fortunate?

Just then, Luoyun also asked quietly, “Since you knew all along that I was using a contraceptive sachet, why did you never ask?”

Han Linfeng said in a measured voice, “I understood what your concerns were at the time. Even birds and beasts know to build a stable nest before they can bring offspring into the world. If I could not give you a secure place in which to carry a child, how could I have the shamelessness to put you in that difficulty? For now, though the situation is not yet fully stable, at the very least I can let you hold your head high — you will no longer have to bow and scrape before anyone. Although there will inevitably be inconveniences that come with Father’s accession, so long as you trust me, I will never let you or our child come to any harm.”

Luoyun knew that the promises of men were generally not worth much. Yet when Han Linfeng said these words, she understood that he had thought them through very carefully indeed.

He had wanted a child for a long time. But having discovered her inner calculations, he had not forced her — instead, he had quietly thrown himself into building the Iron-Faced Army, quietly consolidating his own strength, working to put her heart at ease.

That was the kind of man he was. He was not much inclined to offer the sweet, honeyed words men used to charm women. Yet whatever she was anxious about, once he perceived it, he would quietly act on it — removing her worries one by one from the shadows.

When she understood this, the fact that he had concealed his father’s coming ascension from her seemed, somehow, no longer quite so important.

He had been striving with everything he had to earn a future for her and their child — a future that would not require a blade at anyone’s throat.

Though that road was no smooth and easy path either, and might yet give rise to unforeseen changes, at this moment Han Linfeng’s true heart lay plainly before her. How could she afford to be so laden with misgiving, and leave him alone to face the waves of what was to come?

With that thought, Luoyun reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, and said quietly, “As long as you do not tire of me, I will stay by your side.”

Han Linfeng, who had held his heart in suspension for the whole of that long night, was finally able to let it fall heavily back into place at her words.

Who could have imagined it — a man who had just helped his father secure the imperial throne, and yet was terrified above all else that his own elevation might cost him his wife.

He smiled slowly, a smile that spread wide and deep, and held his life’s most precious treasure close against him, lowering his head to kiss her lips.

At this hour, the Palace of Guanju lay wrapped in the night. Yet the tall palace lanterns had already been hoisted aloft, and the palace attendants were busying themselves in preparation for the new Emperor’s enthronement ceremony two days hence.

Only the distant mountains beyond the capital still lay shrouded beneath dark clouds, and no one could say when the rains would fall.

The sun rose and the sun set, pausing for no one. Now that the abdication decree had been issued, the new Emperor’s enthronement ceremony proceeded without interruption, each step following in its proper order.

Two days later, the Ministry of Personnel, following the new Emperor’s instructions, simplified the enthronement rites, retaining only the obeisance paid to the retired Emperor Weihui — now the Grand Emperor — and the ceremony in which the Emperor led his assembled ministers in paying respects at the ancestral temple.

However, one additional ceremony was included that day: a military review conducted from the city gate tower, as the Iron-Faced Army made its solemn and ceremonial entry into the capital.

Since the new Emperor’s family members had not yet arrived in the capital, the new Emperor Han Yi, robed in imperial yellow, stood without any consorts or ladies around him, and ascended the gate tower accompanied only by his assembled ministers.

Of course, in addition to the ministers, there was also Su Luoyun — now the Emperor’s daughter-in-law — who ascended the gate tower together with the court ladies of noble rank to observe the ceremony.

On this day, Luoyun wore a deep purple ceremonial robe heavily embroidered throughout — made in an urgent rush by the Office of Palace Attire — over an inner gown of pale purple that trailed the ground, her hair dressed high in an elegant coil. She looked every measure a woman of commanding grace and distinguished bearing.

At so important an occasion, the new Emperor had no Empress or consort to preside over things at his side. The task of managing and attending to the noble ladies and their families thus fell to his eldest daughter-in-law.

Fortunately, the eldest daughter-in-law had attended various palace banquets before and was quite well-acquainted with the various ladies.

And this former Consort of the Beizhen Shizi maintained an attitude of letting past grievances dissolve with a smile, conducting herself as though there were no prior history of enmity, receiving with a pleasant expression every one of those ladies whose faces were etched with anxiety.

Only when the pleasantries were concluded and she turned her face away did the smile on Su Luoyun’s face fade considerably.

Perhaps it was the early stages of pregnancy making themselves felt — she had not been able to eat much of anything, and that morning she had vomited again. Han Linfeng had been so anxious that he kept telling her to lie down in the palace and skip the new Emperor’s enthronement ceremony entirely.

That was absolutely absurd and completely unhelpful. At an occasion like this, how could she as his daughter-in-law be absent? Besides, if she did not come today, rumors about the future Crown Prince seeking a new Crown Princess would be all over the capital by tomorrow.

So even though she was somewhat exhausted, she had to hold herself together for this occasion. She simply need not force a smile onto her face when no one was watching.

Luoyun had never in her life yearned quite so much as she did right now for a soft, yielding bed. The moment she returned to the palace tonight she could collapse into it and sleep until she could sleep no more.

Standing at her side was her sister-in-law, née Qian.

By any ordinary reckoning, the family of a seventh-rank district magistrate had no business ascending this review tower. But as the sister-in-law of the future Crown Princess, her presence here was entirely as it should be.

Only Qian Xiaoyu was still in a daze up to this moment, not quite able to make sense of how she had come to be standing here at all.

Being elevated so suddenly and so high was rather like ascending this gate tower itself — dizzying beyond what one had time to adjust to.

However, Qian Xiaoyu noticed that she was not the only one who felt this way. Her elder sister-in-law, who had been elevated in a single step to the heights of the sky, had not smiled much since summoning her into the palace to accompany her that morning.

It was not that she was holding her expression stiff and cold — only that whenever she smiled at people, it always carried a trace of weariness, a certain listlessness, the smile never quite reaching her eyes. She did not look particularly happy.

But Qian Xiaoyu could understand. To those in the capital who were eager to attach themselves to whoever held power, the news of her father-in-law ascending the throne as Emperor in a single bound might seem a cause for wild, delirious joy.

Yet for a woman with as fine and careful a mind as her sister-in-law, the things she was thinking about were entirely unlike what those lords and gentlemen were thinking.

Just that morning, when she and her husband Su Guiyan had been accompanying her sister-in-law in receiving those noble ladies, those ladies had already begun — whether intentionally or not — to inquire into the marital situation of the new Emperor’s second son.

And of course, in the course of their pleasantries, those ladies had also been weaving in questions — seemingly casual — probing Su Luoyun about why there were still no children yet, and whether there had been any concubines or additional wives at the Beizhen estate in the north.

The domestic affairs of the former Beizhen princely household had, from the moment Prince Beizhen ascended the throne, entirely become matters of state that touched the hearts of all.