Looking down at her own belly, she supposed that made sense — it had been a long time since they’d shared a room, and it was about time she spent some effort deepening their bond.

So she stayed.

There was clearly still a thick stack of memorials on the Emperor’s desk, but he seemed to have no interest in reading them tonight. He took her off to wash up, and the two of them warmly climbed into bed.

Qing Niao tactfully withdrew, and Hua Chun hugged the blanket and stared at the Emperor. “It’s been several months now — has Your Majesty never thought of favoring anyone else?”

He glanced sideways at her. “I’ve heard that being pregnant is hard on a woman.”

“Yes, yes, look at my feet — they’re still swollen, it’s miserable.” Hua Chun immediately put on a pitiful expression, pulling up her trouser leg to show off just how bad it was.

The Emperor pressed his lips together, reached out and pulled her leg over to rest it on his knee, gently massaging it with his hands, though his voice carried no warmth at all. “Didn’t you want equality between men and women? Since you’re suffering so much, then I’ll suffer along with you.”

What kind of “suffering along with her” was that supposed to mean? Hua Chun didn’t quite catch his meaning at first, but once she did understand what his “suffering” actually referred to, the tips of her ears turned a little red, and a small thrill of happiness rose in her chest. “Really?”

“I’ve never gone back on my word.”

“What a noble level of consciousness!” Hua Chun exclaimed, clicking her tongue. “Where I’m from, plenty of men feel hard done by if their pregnant wives can’t attend to them — a lot of them end up having affairs.”

“Where you’re from?” The Emperor raised an eyebrow. “The Hua family?”

Pinching her own mouth shut, Hua Chun gave a couple of awkward laughs. “Right, the Hua family.”

Mentioning the Hua family made the Emperor think of Hua Zhengrong, and his expression darkened. He turned his head away. “Go to sleep.”

Hua Chun wasn’t foolish — she knew he was clearly still brooding over the matter with the Empress Dowager, and thought it best not to say too much. She simply lay down obediently beside him.

“About what happened with the Empress Dowager…” Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard him ask again, “It really had nothing to do with you, did it?”

Hua Chun opened her eyes and answered earnestly, “It had nothing to do with me. When the Empress Dowager summoned me on her deathbed, it was to try to get me to persuade you to set Prince Xi free. I refused, so she had Yuejian frame me instead.”

This was something she should have explained long ago, but the Emperor had never given her the chance. Now that it was out in the open, she felt she’d done all she could — whether he believed her or not was up to him.

“Mm.” Yuwen Jie nodded. “Mother was far too attached to Prince Xi.”

Or rather, attached to Hua Zhengrong.

“Come to think of it, that makes Prince Xi practically my half-brother,” Hua Chun suddenly remembered, counting on her fingers. “He and I share the same father, different mothers, and you and he share the same mother, different fathers. Good thing, good thing — at least it’s not incest.”

His face darkening on one side, the Emperor said, “A man like him, and you still want to think of him as a brother?”

“No,” Hua Chun said. “I won’t acknowledge him as one — I was just saying it offhand.”

“I will not set him free,” the Emperor said, closing his eyes. “A man like that is far too reckless, and his influence at court hasn’t necessarily been fully rooted out. Letting him out would do more harm than good.”

Still, it wasn’t something that could simply be cut off outright either — Yuwen Xi’s identity now was rather special, being both the Emperor’s own younger half-brother and Hua Chun’s own half-brother.

“Mm.” Hua Chun nodded. “Let’s sleep — there should be plenty to deal with tomorrow too.”

The Emperor nodded, closed his eyes, and pulled her into his arms. He felt her breathing gradually grow steady and even, but found he himself couldn’t fall asleep at all.

The Empress Dowager had already been laid to rest in the imperial mausoleum, yet disasters kept striking across the realm — the spring cold had frozen many people to death, drought plagued various regions, and plague ran rampant. This great domain of Liang seemed about to fall into chaos.

Somehow, word of what Zhili had said had leaked out, and in no time the whole realm believed Consort De to be a bringer of misfortune. The matter of the Emperor wanting to name an Empress kept getting suppressed by the court officials, and even the people within the palace didn’t dare go near the Hall of Mental Cultivation, afraid of being tainted by the bad luck.

“Why keep a woman like that around at all?” Prince Xi sat in White Horse Temple, giving a cold snort. “The child she’s carrying is probably an ill omen too — sooner or later she’ll bring great calamity upon Liang!”

Quite a few officials at court had originally sided with Hua Chun, but as the disasters grew worse and the state treasury ran short with the people suffering, they too gradually fell silent — even Tang Yue and Lü Sanbian weren’t sure anymore whether they should keep speaking up for Consort De.

The Emperor grew anxious. He was skilled in warfare, but had no idea how to handle natural disasters. Hua Chun wanted to help, but he didn’t want her exposed to it, worried the sharp words in the memorials would hurt her.

“Do you think I’m made of glass or something?” Hua Chun rolled her eyes. “This concubine has the ability to help — why must you sit there troubled all on your own? I can already guess what they’re saying, and this concubine truly doesn’t mind at all. You don’t need to worry.”

The Emperor frowned. “Others insult you for no reason, and you don’t mind at all?”

“That’s because they don’t understand — even if I do mind, there’s nothing to be done about it except upset myself over it, so I might as well ignore it,” Hua Chun said, pouting. “Plenty of people get insulted for no good reason. It stings a bit, sure, but it’s not enough to truly hurt me. So step aside.”

With that, she pushed the Emperor away and sat down herself, picking up a memorial from the desk to read.

Beside them, Eunuch Qin sucked in a sharp breath and stared wide-eyed at Hua Chun. Afraid of drawing too much attention and displeasing the Emperor, he quickly turned around.

Consort De was sitting on the Dragon Throne.

The Emperor, as if utterly unbothered, simply stood beside her watching her go through the memorials, his eyes full of concern.

The memorials were filled with old officials openly declaring Consort De a scourge who would ruin the nation, some even presenting the words of fortune-tellers claiming her birth chart clashed with the fate of Great Liang — in short, doing everything they could to get him to depose Consort De and lock her in the Cold Palace.

Not knowing was one thing, but seeing it laid out was still a shock. Hua Chun clicked her tongue. “When did they start hating me this much?”

In truth, it had been going on for quite some time — he had simply been suppressing it and keeping her from finding out.

The Emperor sighed. “Do you still want to keep reading these?”

“Read, read, no point reading this nonsense — let’s talk about the disaster relief instead,” Hua Chun said, tossing the memorial aside and speaking in an earnest, businesslike tone. “The disaster relief plan I drew up for you before should still be usable. Combined with the Price Stabilization Bureau, we can keep prices under control during the disaster, and things shouldn’t get too dire either way.”

“Mm.” The Emperor nodded.

That Price Stabilization Bureau had always drawn plenty of grumbling — many of the old officials had repeatedly wanted it abolished — and yet whenever disaster struck, they found that with it in place, the common people wouldn’t be driven to ruin by profiteering merchants, and could at least still scrape by.

She really was something else, this woman. Perhaps she truly had been reincarnated with the memories of a past life after all.

Winter gradually passed, and the weather began to warm. Hua Chun was now entering the final stretch before giving birth.

But Great Liang, plagued by disaster and with its national strength weakening, had given the Western Xia an opening to exploit.

Perhaps still smarting over the loss of those ten gold mines, Western Xia chose this very moment, when Great Liang was in disarray, to come and pay tribute.

“Paying tribute at a time like this?” the Emperor said angrily. “Might as well just declare war outright — that would at least be more straightforward!”