Mu Fulan had not expected Xi’er to come at this hour.

The inner chamber was vast and deep, its curtains layered upon one another, and no one had announced his arrival. By the time she sensed his presence, the child was already standing directly behind her.

The moment she turned and saw him, an absurd, utterly ridiculous pang of guilt and flustered alarm surged up within her heart — the kind one feels when caught in a secret affair.

She quickly rose from the bedside, left the man on the bed behind, and turned to walk toward her son.

“Xi’er, it is so late — why are you still not asleep?” she asked.

“Mother, you are tired. Since Imperial Father has awakened, please go and rest. I have just slept for a while and cannot sleep anymore. Let me take your place and keep Imperial Father company.”

Mu Fulan hesitated.

“Mother, please go and rest properly. Is there not a couch here? If I grow drowsy, I shall sleep there.”

A smile appeared on Xie Changgeng’s face. He seemed to want to sit up and said, “Xi’er, there is no need for you to stay either. Both of you, mother and son, go and rest…”

Xi’er walked quickly to his side, steadied his arm, and helped him lie slowly back down.

“Mother!”

He turned his head and looked at Mu Fulan. “I wish to keep Imperial Father company.” He repeated the words with emphasis.

No one knew better than she did the depth of Xi’er’s admiration and trust for this man. During these past days while he had been unconscious, the one most consumed by worry and grief must surely have been this child.

Mu Fulan looked at the two figures — one tall, one small — and finally gave a slow nod.

“Your Imperial Father has only just awakened and is still very weak. Do not speak with him too much. The medicine will be brought shortly. Once he has taken it, you should sleep early yourself. If anything happens, call for me at any time — or the Imperial Physicians.”

Mu Fulan gave her instructions carefully. Xi’er agreed to each one.

She turned her head and glanced back.

In the lamplight, the man lay half-reclined, his pair of eyes quietly watching her. She suddenly felt a vexed irritation rise within her — she loathed the way he looked at her like that.

She turned her face away quickly and made to leave.

Xi’er accompanied her out and instructed the palace attendants waiting in the outer chamber to see her to her rest.

The young boy stood there, watching Mu Fulan’s figure recede into the distance, lost in thought.

A palace attendant came hurrying in, carrying the medicine.

He turned and returned to the sleeping chamber, received the bowl from the attendant’s hands, stirred it slowly, blew on it gently, and when the liquid had cooled a little, held it in both hands and presented it to Xie Changgeng, saying: “Imperial Father, it is time for your medicine.”

Xie Changgeng looked at him, a faint smile hidden in his eyes. He took the bowl and drank it down in several gulps.

“The medicine is very bitter, is it not?”

Xie Changgeng shook his head with a smile. “It is not bitter.”

“Imperial Father, are you feeling better?”

“Much better.”

Xi’er handed the empty bowl to the attendant beside him and dismissed everyone from the room. He looked at Xie Changgeng lying before him, then knelt before him in a proper, formal bow, pressing his forehead to the floor.

Xie Changgeng was somewhat startled. He sat up again, propping himself with one hand on the edge of the bed and leaning forward, extending his other hand to help him up.

“Xi’er, what is the matter? Come, rise.”

Xi’er finished his bow and raised his face. “Imperial Father, in order to allow me to be properly invested as Crown Prince before the eyes of all under heaven, you disregarded your own safety. This is a debt I owe you, and you deserve this obeisance.”

Xie Changgeng smiled, and the gaze he turned upon him was filled with warmth and heartfelt relief.

He said, “It is nothing. Imperial Father knew full well the extent of his own injuries. Besides, Imperial Father’s life is tenacious — I will not die so easily. Now rise.”

When he had finished speaking, seeing that the young boy still had not risen but remained kneeling before his bed, he said, “What is the matter? Is there something more?”

Xi’er said, “Imperial Father, may I be so bold as to ask you something?”

Xie Changgeng gave a nod.

“Imperial Father, you are clearly not my birth father — and yet why have you treated me with such goodness? Not only did you acknowledge me as your own son before all the world and make me Crown Prince, but you also risked your very life to hold the ceremony on schedule?”

Xie Changgeng paused for a moment, then slowly leaned back. He averted his gaze from the boy’s steady scrutiny and said quietly, “Imperial Father regarded you as his own son from very long ago. This realm — now that Imperial Father has obtained it, to whom else would I pass it, if not to you?”

The young boy shook his head.

“Imperial Father, the reason you have always treated me so well — it is because of my mother, is it not?”

Xie Changgeng raised his eyes and looked at the boy again.

He said, “Imperial Father, when I was small and did not yet understand, I always hoped that Mother would get along well with you. These past few years, as I have grown older, I have come to understand — my mother, she has in truth never liked you, Imperial Father. In fact, her feelings toward you are ones of aversion — even hatred. I do not know why this is, but she must have her reasons. Mother is such a kind person; she would not treat you this way without cause.”

“Imperial Father, do you know why my mother treats you this way?”

Xie Changgeng froze.

The quiet satisfaction and warmth that had stolen over him just a short while ago — the feeling of having woken to find her sleeping quietly at his side — had not yet had time to be savored in secret before it was, like something stolen, stripped away entirely in this moment, vanished without a trace.

He felt as though his chest had suddenly been struck by a great stone, wave after wave of suffocating heaviness pressing in, heavy enough to ache.

He looked at the young boy kneeling before him.

The candlelight fell on the child’s handsome features. The boy’s gaze was dim and hazy, half-lit, half-shadowed.

“It is because Imperial Father once wronged your mother…”

At last, he replied.

“Imperial Father, what happened between you and my mother in the past — Xi’er does not wish to ask further.” The young boy continued. “When Imperial Father was unconscious, Mother stayed by your side. I believe this was her gratitude for how well Imperial Father has treated me, and also because Mother is a healer, and healers carry compassion in their hearts.”

“It is entirely my fault — it was because I said I wanted to be a prince that she came to the palace for my sake. But Imperial Father, I know you are not the kind of man who forces others against their will.”

The child bowed his head to the man on the bed once more.

“Xi’er knows that every word just spoken was deeply disrespectful, but for Mother’s sake, Xi’er could not but speak. If I have given offense, Imperial Father may strip me of my Crown Prince’s position — I shall not utter a single word of complaint.”

Xie Changgeng stared fixedly at this young boy kneeling before him, and in his daze, he thought of the boy from a previous life — the one who had severed their father-son bond with blood.

If that boy were to return, he would surely despise him, and would never permit him to draw near his mother by so much as a single step.

The color drained from Xie Changgeng’s face, his expression growing bleak, his gaze heavy and dim.

After a long while, he said quietly, “Rise. Imperial Father understands.”

The young boy before the bed finally rose from the floor. He supported the Emperor, carefully helped him lie back down once more, and pulled the blanket up over him.

The young boy smiled, his voice utterly sincere: “Imperial Father, the kindness you have shown my mother — I will hold it firmly in my heart. In the days to come, I will certainly repay you.”

Mu Fulan, though exhausted, did not sleep well. The whole night, she tossed and turned, sleeping and waking by turns, until just as dawn broke she rose, freshened herself quickly, and came back — only to find that Xie Changgeng was nowhere to be seen.

Danzhu, the maidservant who had been attending her, told her that early that morning, at the first watch of the fifth period, the Emperor had risen, brought the Imperial Physicians with him, and moved back to the Hall of Yuanchen.

“His Majesty instructed this servant to convey to the Empress that he will recuperate there, that the Imperial Physicians will accompany him and the arrangement will be the same, and moreover that it will not overly delay court affairs. He asks the Empress not to worry.”

This was her sleeping chamber. When he had lost too much blood and fainted that night, he had been brought here for convenience.

His sudden action came as quite a surprise to Mu Fulan.

His wound had not been light to begin with, and on top of that he had lost a great deal of blood — he should have done nothing at all and simply rested quietly in bed.

She stood in the sleeping chamber, looking at the bed before her — already tidied so thoroughly that not a trace remained of anyone having slept there the night before. She stood motionless for a moment, then walked over, braced herself against the edge of the bed, and slowly sat down.

She did not go after him to the Hall of Yuanchen. That day, deep into the night, Cao Jin sent a small eunuch to summon her.

Mu Fulan arrived outside the Hall of Yuanchen, where the waiting Cao Jin reported to her on the Emperor’s meals and the Imperial Physicians’ treatment that day, then quietly led her inside, through the imperial study toward the rear hall. He said quietly, “Early this morning, His Majesty summoned several ministers. After they left, the Imperial Physicians urged His Majesty repeatedly to rest well. But Empress, look… this servant truly has no recourse — I had no choice but to trouble the Empress…”

Mu Fulan paused in the passageway leading to the rear hall. Through layer upon layer of curtains, she could just make out the man lying half-reclined, resting on his side on the imperial bed.

The lamp at the bedhead burned brightly. Beside his pillow was a pile of memorial scrolls a foot high. He held a scroll in his hand and was reading it with lowered head. When he finished, he turned slowly, with some effort, and accepted an ink-laden brush from the waiting eunuch at his side and began writing his response on the memorial. His hand seemed to tremble slightly; at one moment he failed to hold it steady — with a sharp sound, the memorial fell to the floor.

“Pick it up—”

He frowned, his expression displeased, brush in hand, urging the eunuch.

The eunuch hurried to retrieve it.

Mu Fulan could no longer suppress the thread of anger rising within her. She stepped forward, lifted the curtain, and walked in.

Xie Changgeng had just received the memorial again from the eunuch and was about to continue when he heard footsteps approaching. He looked up, and the hand holding the brush went still.

“Your Majesty, the Crown Prince was brought by you from the Kingdom of Changsha. Even if Your Majesty is confident in your own robust health and does not take the physicians’ instructions to heart, I ask that you spare a thought for the Crown Prince. He is still young, and I fear he is not yet able to hold up this great realm and throne of the Dacheng Dynasty on his own.”

She fixed her gaze on the man on the imperial bed and spoke in an even tone.

The man’s expression seemed to grow subdued. He held her gaze for a moment, and the hand holding the brush slowly lowered.

“Has the medicine all been taken?” she asked the eunuch.

“The medicine has been taken,” the eunuch answered promptly.

“Collect all the memorials. See to it that His Majesty retires to rest immediately!”

The eunuch gave an assent, stepped respectfully forward, and glancing at Xie Changgeng’s expression, carefully took the brush and the memorial from his hands. Seeing no reaction from him, he hurriedly gathered up the rest of the memorial scrolls piled to one side as well.

Xie Changgeng said nothing and stopped looking at her.

He lowered his eyes, as though intending to lie down.

The eunuch moved forward to assist him, but was shoved away with one hand. He supported himself on the bed with both hands, turned to face inward, and slowly lay down on his own.

The eunuch drew the blanket over him. He lay face down, his back motionless, as though he had already fallen asleep.

“Attend to him carefully. If anything happens, come and call for me.”

Mu Fulan did not look at him again, only gave the eunuch her instructions and turned to leave.