Her tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed, and the smile at the corners of her lips deepened. But the feeling of skin touching skin, and the warmth from her abdomen transmitting through her garments to his palm… his face couldn’t help but grow slightly warm. But having agreed, he wasn’t one to go back on his word.

Half an hour later, Xiaosi’s voice sounded outside the door, “Young Master, those young ladies are asking whether they should still come in to attend, or…”

“Just wait outside the hall. The Feng family does have some kindness toward me after all. Though Minister Feng was unrighteous, I cannot be unjust. Her condition isn’t very good—I’ll stay here to watch over her,” he said indifferently.

Xiaosi immediately replied, “Yes, the Young Master is someone who repays kindness. This servant will pass down the order immediately.”

The sounds faded, and Li Zhaoting slightly moved his body that had been sitting upright all this time, feeling somewhat stiff and numb.

“You sleep quite well,” he glared at her fiercely, putting down her hand. In her sleep, she seemed to sense this and restlessly grasped at the air with both hands.

But he didn’t walk away. Instead, he lifted her and placed her further inside, then took off his shoes and got onto the bed, sitting on the outer side with his back against the headboard. Just as he was about to take her hand back, she had already reached over. He sneered—she had been like this since childhood. What kind of proper young lady behaves this way? He had already rejected her… Well, just for tonight.

He held her hand and tucked the quilt around her again.

She fell asleep once more.

Though he was by no means just a scholar as he appeared, these past days—allying with Wei forces, suppressing Liu’s army, then fearing Si Lanfeng couldn’t control Wei Chenghui and might let her small life slip away—he had rushed all the way here and was also tired. Slowly he too closed his eyes and slept.

“Water… thirsty…”

After all, he didn’t sleep deeply. In the middle of the night, her mumbled voice reached him, and he immediately woke. Startled, he pressed his hand to her forehead—it was covered in sweat, but the high fever from before had subsided. He tucked the quilt tightly around her, then got off the bed to search the table.

There was only a bowl of leftover medicinal soup that Lian Jie had ordered prepared earlier. The hall had been unoccupied for days—shaking the teapot, it was empty. He opened the door to go out. Outside the hall were over a hundred guards keeping night watch, along with more than ten palace maids and eunuchs. Xiaosi was sitting in the corridor dozing, but hearing the sound, he jerked awake. “What are the Young Master’s orders?”

“Bring me a pot of tea.”

Xiaosi nodded, “Good, this servant will have it done immediately. Does the Young Master want Biluochun or Silver Needle?”

“No, I want Maojian tea. Also, bring a bottle of wine.”

After giving these orders, he closed the door again.

Xiaosi was somewhat puzzled, “When did he start drinking Maojian? He rarely touches alcohol either.”

But confused or not, he still quickly had it done.

The items were soon delivered. Li Zhaoting didn’t keep anyone to serve, poured a cup of tea, and brought both the wine and water to the small couch beside the bed. He helped Suzhen sit up, first opened the wine and held it under Suzhen’s nose. Though Suzhen abstained from alcohol, she was fundamentally someone who loved drink. With her eyes closed, she still instinctively leaned her head over to smell it. But Li Zhaoting didn’t give it to her—his lips curved slightly as he withdrew the item and offered the tea instead. Suzhen drank several large gulps from his hand, then fell into deep sleep again.

Li Zhaoting casually poured himself a cup and drank it down, then took her hand again and dozed by the bedside.

…

Suzhen felt she had experienced a very long dream.

In the dream, many people had died—Lian Yu had also died, right before her eyes. The pain made it impossible to breathe, yet in her confusion she was startled to realize that time was still that morning when he left to worship at the ancestral temple. Before departing, he had looked at her deeply, tucked her quilt, and spoken gentle words.

She wanted to tell him what would happen afterward. But she had no strength—he disappeared before her eyes, walking away with the morning light… She cried out, calling him back. Just when she was crying in despair with a dead heart, someone quietly appeared before her, with familiar features—it was him! She gripped his hand tightly, not allowing him to leave. She made him promise to stay with her and their child, perhaps taking them both away together.

He patted her belly, seeming to give her a promise.

He wasn’t dead… she had just had a very long dream. She suddenly sat up and tightly embraced him.

“You’re awake.”

A voice sounded indifferently above her head, also carrying the light hoarseness of just waking, but…

She suddenly released her grip. The man sitting beside her was not him.

Not him!

“Zhaoting.” After a long moment, she spoke in a low voice.

The other person leaned beside her, taking half the bed space. If it were someone else, or if she were someone else, perhaps she would have been frightened long ago. But Suzhen wasn’t—this person was strange yet too familiar, so familiar that she wouldn’t think there was any distinction between man and woman between them. In his eyes, she had always been just the neighbor girl, and in hers, he was also just the neighbor’s big brother.

Her romantic feelings in this life had been used up completely—the first dozen years given to him, the latter half of her life to Lian Yu. There would never be anyone else.

Therefore, she almost instinctively greeted him calmly.

“Mm.” Li Zhaoting responded, got off the bed to put on his shoes. “Don’t misunderstand, and don’t think too much. It’s only because you had a high fever last night and insisted I stay that I remained. You know your own nature well enough—when you act unreasonably and make trouble, it’s annoying and gives people headaches.”

Suzhen nodded, “I know how much I used to annoy you. Don’t worry, I don’t dare to have improper thoughts. Last night I originally…”

She wanted to say, “Last night I originally thought you were Lian Yu,” but she knew Li Zhaoting was proud and arrogant, and Lian Yu was his nemesis. No matter what, she couldn’t mention him too much in front of him, even though that person was already dead.

But she couldn’t show too much longing for him on her face either.

She looked at his back as he bent slightly to put on his boots at the bedside, and couldn’t help smiling. He and Lian Yu, if one traced their relationship, should be uncle-nephew cousins. Their appearances weren’t similar, yet their brows and back profiles sometimes felt strangely alike.

She hadn’t understood before, but now she knew such origins existed.

She had first liked him, then later fell in love with Lian Yu—it seemed like destined reincarnation, impossible to escape no matter what.

But this person, the big brother who lived next door to her—their relationship from love to letting go, to no longer dwelling on it, to the current strangeness and wariness, seemed like they had lived a whole lifetime. He was Wei Chenghui’s master, and she hated him too. Yet he had saved her after all, and ultimately he wasn’t her enemy—Wei Chenghui was.

If she wanted revenge, she absolutely couldn’t offend him. Their relationship had never been equal.

“Originally what?” Li Zhaoting suddenly turned around, his eyes holding scrutinizing depths.

“Originally didn’t want to behave improperly, but I have no one left around me—only you as a relative. Whatever offense there may be, please don’t take it to heart.” She deliberately emphasized the word “relative” heavily.

“Is it because Lian Yu is dead that you feel you have no one around you?”

But his concern was clearly not in this—he suddenly asked with a half-smile.

Suzhen was startled, her spine immediately turning cold. She then answered, “Yes, he treated me well. If I said I didn’t care, how would that be possible?”

“It’s just that he’s already dead—what else can I do?” she said in a low voice, then took the opportunity to say, “Zhaoting, since he’s no longer here and you are the Prince of Jin’s son who will inherit the throne—nothing could be more legitimate—could you spare Lian Jie and Lian Qin? They are your cousins. Such magnanimity would surely be praised by the people. I did have some friendship with them, and I truly can’t bear to see them meet violent ends.”

She didn’t mention once that they were Lian Yu’s brothers, only speaking from her own perspective. After speaking, she didn’t even dare raise her eyes to meet his gaze, fearing he would see the longing for Lian Yu in her eyes.

He didn’t answer for a long time, but the cold, sinister atmosphere gathering from the gaze above was enough to make her palms sweat and the pain from her head and shoulder wounds particularly clear. It’s just that beside her was no longer someone who would regard her life as his own, who would scold her yet love her—Lian Yu. Therefore, she could only endure, could only wait in this suffocating atmosphere.

“Feng Suzhen, who do you think you are? You think you can obtain two lives from me? Back then, did the late Emperor show mercy and spare the hundred lives of my household? Do you know how much I’ve sacrificed for revenge all these years? Why should I spare their lives?”

Finally, he spoke with a cold laugh, flames dancing in his eyes, his lips slightly raised—not in a smile, but in mockery of her overreach.

Suzhen nodded, “I didn’t know your difficulties before, but I know that Li Zhaoting was very lonely, because Young Master Li never liked to smile. I also know how insignificant I am in your heart. But could you—for the sake of the past, for all those years I accompanied you, wholeheartedly trying to make you happy—grant me this request? I only ask this last thing of you. Afterward, I’ll immediately disappear from before your eyes and never annoy you again—”

The two were so close they could hear each other’s breathing. Li Zhaoting’s temples were tense, his brow bone jumping bit by bit.

“Since you know you’re insignificant, how dare you make demands? Do you still think you’re Miss Feng protected by Minister Feng, or the woman Lian Yu foolishly loved by mistake? In my heart, how are you different from those humble palace maids outside?”

He suddenly stood up, smashing the wine and tea on the table to the ground with such force that all the liquid splashed onto Suzhen who had followed behind. Unable to help it, Suzhen was about to kneel and plead again. She didn’t notice until a piercing pain shot through her knee—she had knelt on broken porcelain. But these things weren’t happening to her for the first time, so she paid no attention. Just as she was about to speak, Li Zhaoting watched coldly as a streak of red seeped through her pants and dissolved in the water, saying word by word, “If not for your father saving my life, today, even if you died before my eyes, see if I would blink!”

After saying this, he immediately pushed open the door and left, his slightly raised eyes showing mockery and disdain.

Suzhen slowly stood up, limping back to the bedside and sitting down.

Li Zhaoting’s words had hurt her somewhat. Not because of Li Zhaoting as a person, but because it made her think more of Lian Yu.

No one in this world would care about her anymore.

Her whole body ached. She bit her lip, saw the medicine box was still on the table, and slowly walked back to get gauze and scissors from it. She rolled up her pants, used scissors to pick out the porcelain shards from her knee, then simply bandaged it with gauze.

She tilted her head back slightly, swallowing back those painful tears.

She gently patted her belly, as if the little thing inside could respond to her.

“I may not be able to save your father’s two brothers, little one. Am I useless? To Li Zhaoting, I have no value at all. I’ll try once more—if it truly can’t be done, I can only leave. I can’t stay in this palace. Once they discover you, you’ll die horribly. I must give birth to you, then come back to seek revenge on the Wei thief family. Only then can I properly arrange things and fight with everything I have.”

After Li Zhaoting left the hall, a household retainer approached and whispered a few words in his ear. He then walked into the adjacent imperial bedchamber. This was now tacitly acknowledged as his sleeping quarters. And this was originally his chamber—he walked with composed steps, confident without a trace of hesitation.

Someone was already waiting in the room.

It was someone who had always only met in secret.

The former Feng Shaoying, now Wuqing.

“The Six Gates constables are famously capable. How about it—were your people later able to track the exact route of the Murong army’s escape?” He patted his shoulder to show the other had worked hard, then quickly asked the pressing question.

One could see that Wuqing’s expression wasn’t comfortable either. His brows were tightly knitted. “We found some, but definitely not all.”

“What do you mean?” Li Zhaoting asked, then suddenly realized something, “Divide and scatter!”

His voice carried no small amount of gloom. “How many groups did they split into?”

“Countless.” Wuqing was silent for a moment, finally saying, “My subordinates discovered the tracks of several groups of suspected soldiers and are still secretly following them—we won’t alert them yet.”

Li Zhaoting laughed lowly, his eyes having turned completely dark and fierce. “Good—split a large force of tens of thousands into groups of several people each, agreeing to reassemble at one location. This not only speeds up travel, but even if your Six Gates had three thousand constables, you might pursue the wrong direction from the start. Some people are merely decoys who won’t rejoin the main force. Lian Yu had planned this long ago—this move is quite clever.”

“But it’s hard to guarantee we can follow the soldiers going to the assembly point.” Wuqing’s eyes still flashed with confidence. “If it were Lian Yu, he wouldn’t be easy to deal with, but Lian Yu is dead. Those are just soldiers after all. My people are still following—we’ll definitely discover some results.”

“Very good—be sure to follow closely, don’t let anything slip.” Li Zhaoting’s eyes held murderous intent. “I must completely annihilate this remnant army.”

“I understand, don’t worry.”

“Were you able to find Huo Chang’an later?”

“Huo Chang’an died in battle—his corpse is placed on the city wall.”

“Good! Send people to guard it. His corpse and Lian Yu’s are the best weapons to intimidate deserters.”

“Understood. I previously notified you that I wanted to search for Zhen’er’s whereabouts. You later replied saying you had news of her and would find a way to bring her back. Where is she now?” Having temporarily finished discussing important matters, Wuqing immediately asked.

Thinking of Suzhen’s appearance just now, Li Zhaoting’s heart sank slightly, but he didn’t show his anger, only smiled, “She’s in the side hall.”

“Wei Chenghui captured her to use in eliminating Lian Yu. I was still at the frontier then, having killed Liu Shouping. As soon as the battle ended, I hurried back and demanded her from him. It’s just that Lian Yu died at Wei Chenghui’s hands, and she suffered some hardships there. She and Wei Chenghui inevitably have some grudges—she must hate him to the bone now. This action by Teacher Wei was somewhat dishonorable, but I hope you’ll focus on the big picture and not investigate too deeply.”

“Wei Chenghui also killed one of my brothers, but I know my limits.” Wuqing’s eyes narrowed slightly.

His voice was cold, but Li Zhaoting knew he indeed had limits.

“Good, go see your sister first. I’ll reward your achievements at the coronation ceremony.”

Upon hearing this, Wuqing’s lips rarely lifted. “I was indeed once passionate about establishing achievements, but since the great change in my family, I’ve lost such thoughts.”

He bowed to him and quickly walked out.

“No, you’ll still like it.”

After he left, Li Zhaoting said indifferently. He then opened the door, summoned a household guard, whispered a few words in his ear, and the man immediately nodded and went to handle it. Having finished his orders, he called Xiaosi to attend to his washing, then went toward Aluo’s quarters.

As he had expected, Aluo hadn’t slept all night. Seeing him arrive, she wiped her swollen eyes and came forward.

He looked at her deeply, then sneered slightly, “It seems I’ve come at the wrong time. The one in your heart isn’t me—what’s the point of me worrying about you?”

Aluo was startled. To say she wasn’t sweetened would be false—she immediately stepped forward and gently nestled into his embrace.

“Zhaoting, I can’t forget him immediately in my heart, but I hope you understand—I loved him, but now I love you.” She spoke in low tones, half sincere, half false.

She had indeed developed feelings for the man before her, but she hadn’t just loved that man—she still thought of him now.

Li Zhaoting held her, reaching out to gently stroke her hair. “Alright, I’ll wait for you. I never know what to do with you.”

“Zhaoting…”

“Mm, there’s something I want to discuss with you. I know you hate Feng Suzhen, but her father did show kindness to me after all. You know Teacher Wei dislikes her and wants to eliminate her quickly. Teacher Wei commands heavy troops—once she leaves the palace, she’ll surely die. Only under my protection can she preserve her life. I want to keep her in this palace.” Li Zhaoting spoke softly, his slightly narrowed eyes flashing with the image of her enduring pain while kneeling on the ground moments before.