She still wanted to live a while longer, still wanted to keep on living this ancient-times life a bit more — it was quite interesting here, and having managed to time-travel once, in such rare fortune, she certainly couldn’t end up meeting a gruesome death!

Madam Wan looked at her worriedly, and after some hesitation, nodded.

She truly wanted to believe in her daughter — but the Emperor already had his suspicions. Could a simple wedding ceremony really put those doubts to rest?

Hua Chun’s expression was firm and resolute, and seeing this, Madam Wan gradually felt reassured. It would be fine — her own daughter was capable of anything; nothing could stump her.

“Go on, then.” She waved her hand.

Hua Chun nodded, went to change into her official robes, took a few things with her, and walked out through the gates of the Hua residence with her chest puffed out and head held high.

But the moment she got into the carriage, her whole body slumped, and she scratched at the carriage wall, her face crumpling.

She really had no confidence in this at all! How was she supposed to prove that a woman was actually a man? Why did this century’s hardest riddle have to land on her? What if it backfired, and the Emperor decided to just strip her clothes off to check?

Hua Chun fretted so much she felt she might lose her hair over it. The carriage wheels rattled along toward the palace, the sky gradually darkening. Once she went in this time, there was no telling when she’d be able to come home.

Ah, why was her fate so hard?

“Prime Minister Hua has entered the palace?”

Having just finished bathing and changing, the Emperor was sitting in the rear hall of Zichen Hall receiving a high monk when he heard Eunuch Qin’s report, and his eyes lit up. “Bring him in.”

Hua Chun carried a stack of memorials in her arms — to project a bit of “manly bearing,” she lifted the entire hefty stack in with just one hand.

“This humble subject pays respects to Your Majesty.”

Looking him over, Yuwen Jie said, “Bringing in memorials this late?”

“Reporting to Your Majesty, some of these memorials concern urgent matters, and I feared delay, so…” Hua Chun set the memorials down and cupped her hands in salute. “I must trouble Your Majesty with them, I’m afraid.”

“No trouble at all.” Yuwen Jie said, “Come, sit first.”

Perhaps because they had gone out together for so long recently, Hua Chun felt the Emperor’s attitude toward her had grown considerably warmer — no longer the stone-cold, deathly face he’d always worn before.

It seemed sworn brotherhood really was the best way to draw two people with nothing in common closer together.

Hua Chun obediently went over and sat down, glancing at the figure standing in the middle of the hall.

So late at night, and there was still a monk standing here? Could it be that Yuwen Jie, young as he was, had also begun researching methods of immortality?

“Great Master,” the Emperor said, “Prime Minister Hua is an important minister of our dynasty. Could you divine his fate for us?”

He had originally planned to have the monk examine Hua Jinghua tomorrow after court, but since the man had delivered himself here tonight, he might as well have it done now — it would set his own mind at ease. If Hua Jinghua really had been possessed by some female ghost, better to exorcise it sooner rather than later.

Thinking this, Yuwen Jie watched the monk with a grave expression.

Hua Chun found this rather strange. She had thought the Emperor was such a rigorous, serious person — she hadn’t expected him to believe in this sort of thing? Though there surely were still many things in this world beyond human understanding, Hua Chun was an atheist at heart; she didn’t believe in fate, and even less in fortune-tellers.

Still, since the Emperor wanted someone to divine her fate, she simply lifted her head and looked at the monk obediently.

Zhili was a high monk from the imperial temple, already past fifty, and always spoke with an air of authority. In truth, though, he wasn’t particularly skilled at fortune-telling — he simply improvised vague nonsense with whoever he met and muddled through. Standing before the Emperor now, he was in fact quite nervous inside, unsure what the Emperor wanted to hear, and unable to find any way to begin.

But the eyes of the Prime Minister before him were so clear — as though they held wisdom that saw through all worldly illusions — and the moment their gazes met, he found himself utterly unable to speak nonsense.

What Yuwen Jie saw was the high monk gazing very solemnly at Hua Jinghua, while the latter calmly returned his gaze, and the air between them seemed to carry some strange ripple.

After a long moment, Hua Chun blinked her eyes, which had begun to sting from staring, and spoke first: “Great Master, how is my fate?”

Zhili came back to himself, hastily murmured a Buddhist chant, and bowed with folded hands. “The Prime Minister’s fate chart is exceedingly auspicious — a life of great wealth and great honor!”

“Oh?” Yuwen Jie frowned. “Nothing strange about it at all?”

Hua Chun paused, wondering — could he actually have brought in a monk to check her gender? That seemed a bit too far-fetched, didn’t it?

“Nothing strange at all.” Zhili said, cold sweat trickling down. “The Prime Minister possesses a loyal and steadfast bone structure, and is destined to serve His Majesty faithfully all his life.”

Hearing this, Hua Chun relaxed. Glancing sideways at the Emperor’s still-pensive expression and taking it to mean he still had doubts, she smiled and asked further, “I am about to marry — Great Master, can you tell how many children I will have in the future?”

“This…” Zhili considered for a moment. “The Prime Minister’s fortune with descendants is quite abundant as well — at the very least, two children in the future.”

“Wonderful, then. My thanks, Great Master.” Hua Chun smiled and cupped her hands, then turned to the Emperor. “Your Majesty, since I am here in the palace, there is one more matter I wish to report.”

“Mm?” Yuwen Jie was lost in thought, somewhat distracted.

“I intend to take Miss Qing Niao as my wife. On the day of the wedding, I hope Your Majesty might grant me half a day’s leave.”

Coming back to himself, the Emperor turned to look at her. “You intend to marry that courtesan from the pleasure quarters?”

Taking a deep breath, Hua Chun nodded solemnly and said with great feeling, “I have remained unmarried for many years, all for the sake of meeting her. Now that I have met her, I naturally wish to give her the very best. Status matters little — true affection is what’s rare.”

Frowning slightly, Yuwen Jie found this hard to understand. “You’ve come to like her this quickly?”

“Quickly, you say… it is indeed a bit fast. But when you meet the right person at the right time, feelings naturally develop quickly too.” Hua Chun said earnestly. “Besides, I ought to be continuing the Hua family line as well.”

Continuing the family line? The Emperor looked him up and down. This young whippersnapper who hadn’t even fully grown his beard was talking about continuing the family line? He had already thought Hua Jinghua was effeminate enough as it was, and now this effeminate fellow was marrying a woman — it all struck him as very off somehow.

“There’s a great deal happening in the court lately. Must you insist on marrying at precisely this time?”

The tone sounded quite displeased. Hua Chun’s heart lurched, and she pressed on with gritted teeth. “It need not be exactly this time either — if there’s a great deal going on, it can certainly be delayed. I came to discuss it with Your Majesty.”

“Why would you discuss your own marriage with me?” Yuwen Jie rose to his feet, his face utterly without expression. “Find your own free time for it. I won’t be granting you leave.”

Hua Chun: “……”

What had she done now to upset this man again? He was the one who thought her too effeminate, and now he was also the one refusing to let her prove her manliness — what was wrong with him?

The Emperor swept his sleeves and walked off; Zhili likewise withdrew. Hua Chun felt quite helpless, and rose to leave the palace.

She couldn’t help but wonder if it was just her imagination, but she felt more and more that the Emperor didn’t actually suspect her gender at all — rather, he seemed to be suspecting something else entirely, even going so far as to have a high monk read her fate. Could he possibly think she was possessed by a ghost?

If so, this monk’s skills really weren’t up to much — he hadn’t noticed a thing. She really was, after all, a ghost from the twenty-first century.

A lively, adorable, entirely harmless little ghost.

Having quietly praised herself, she returned to the Hua residence at ease. As long as she married Qing Niao, and then found some way to arrange for a child, her whole life would be settled and secure. But there was no rush for that — she’d take it slow.

Youyang Palace.

Hua Liuying had been in tears all day, for who knew how many days now. Word from the palace kept coming — either that the Emperor had taken a new consort, or that some other palace had received a reward — while she was left shut up here in Youyang Palace, utterly desolate.

The former glory of being Noble Consort, and the Emperor’s favor, still seemed to hover before her eyes; she simply couldn’t accept how everything had changed in the blink of an eye. Aside from crying, there was nothing she could do.

“Mistress!” Her chief maid Shiyu came running in, excited. “Stop crying — the Emperor is here!”

Hua Liuying, deep in her sorrow, could barely make out the words. “Who’s here?”

“The Emperor! His procession is already at the palace gate!”

With a jolt, Hua Liuying quickly pulled herself together, checked her tear-streaked, dishevelled face in the mirror on her dressing table, wiped away the tears and mucus, hastily touched up her makeup, then lifted her skirts and rushed outside.

“This humble consort welcomes Your Majesty!”

Yuwen Jie sat in the imperial carriage in a daze, eyes lowered toward the Huo Consort kneeling beside it, not entirely sure himself why he’d come here.

For a woman he’d grown tired of, he was never one to favor her again.

But since he had already come, there was nothing for it — Yuwen Jie stepped down from the carriage and walked into Youyang Palace.

“How have you been lately?”

At these words, Hua Liuying’s tears welled up again. “This humble consort has longed for you day and night… haggard with worry… I had thought Your Majesty would never come again.”

Indeed, he hadn’t planned to come again.

The Emperor sat down in the seat of honor and looked at her. “Prime Minister Hua said today that he’s to be married, so I came to see how you were doing.”

Married? Hua Liuying was startled. Hadn’t Hua Jinghua always refused to marry? How had he suddenly come around?

If he married and later had a son, wouldn’t that child become the legitimate eldest grandson of the Hua family? Then his standing within the family would rise even further — wouldn’t that make Madam Wan insufferably pleased with herself, leaving no foothold left in the household for her own mother?

The thought alarmed her, and she said hastily, “Elder Brother is wholly devoted to the state — marrying some young lady might just hold her back.”

“Oh?” Yuwen Jie glanced at her. “You don’t wish for your elder brother to marry?”

“It’s not that I don’t wish it…” Hua Liuying said. “This humble consort has no business interfering in such matters. If Elder Brother truly loves her, that would be wonderful — but if it’s only for the sake of an heir… as a woman myself, I naturally feel for his future wife.”

Truly loves her? He didn’t believe for a moment that the man could have come to truly love some girl in so short a time — after all, for all this time, he’d been wholly devoted to the court, wholly devoted to him, and had never once shown any interest in women.

He often found him effeminate, but that had little to do with his behavior — rather, it was because, some time ago, the way Hua Jinghua looked at him had seemed off. Though his face showed nothing, the look in his eyes had been no different from that of the consorts in the back palace.

For that, he had come to loathe him down to the bone.

Now, though, everything seemed different. He was no longer as cold and laden with hidden feeling as before — instead he’d become lively and carefree, and the way he looked at him now was full of fear, with not a trace of that former charged, lingering gaze left in it.