The early spring breeze swept over the green willows along the river embankment, their slender branches swaying gently. The Eastern Palace had a small river, with particularly verdant willows along its banks. Today, Shen Xihe wore a goose-yellow silk dress, with layers of transparent light gauze overlapping like white mist on her shoulders. A green silk scarf wrapped around her arms and floated down from her shoulders. Under the swaying willows in the clear breeze, her features appeared especially gentle.
Shen Xihe usually favored cool colors – snow white, moonlight white, sky blue, and lilac purple. In the three years since knowing her, this was the first time Xiao Huayong had seen her wear such gentle, sunrise-like attire.
She stood by the river, holding a Ding kiln porcelain plate decorated with twin fish and filled with fish food. Her fingertips unconsciously picked up a few pieces to scatter on the water’s surface, attracting koi fish that competed for the food. But her gaze wasn’t on these amusing fish – instead, she stared ahead, as if looking through the dense forest beyond the shore, through the towering palace walls, through the sun-filled sky, to some unknown distant place.
Standing at the bridge, Xiao Huayong raised a finger to signal Biyu not to disturb Shen Xihe.
Zhenzhu, who had returned with Xiao Huayong, silently led Biyu away. Tianyuan also tactfully departed. Xiao Huayong quietly stood beside Shen Xihe, his expression gentle, his eyes soft, silently watching her.
Yet as time ticked by, Shen Xihe maintained her pose. If not for her fingers occasionally sprinkling fish food, she truly would have seemed like a statue by the river.
Finally, Xiao Huayong couldn’t remain patient. He coughed lightly and stepped forward to stand beside her: “What are Youyou thinking about, to be so lost in thought?”
He had been standing there for at least the time it takes to burn an incense stick, yet she hadn’t noticed. Xiao Huayong felt somewhat unsettled.
With Shen Xihe, he never developed petty emotions over important matters, but in daily life’s small details, he couldn’t help being rather possessive – he couldn’t control it himself.
Shen Xihe withdrew her gaze but didn’t look at him, instead lowering her eyes and throwing another handful of fish food: “I was waiting for you, waiting for you to speak.”
Before he had reached her side, she had already caught his distinct complex medicinal scent in the wind – whenever he appeared as himself, even ordinary people could smell it when close enough.
Only when he sneaked out in disguise, concealing his identity for clandestine affairs, would he use fragrant water to wash away his medicinal scent and apply his favorite agarwood instead? But the agarwood was so faint that unless embracing him, only those with a keen smell like Shen Xihe could detect it.
Her words were casual, but he knew she must have asked Xie Yunhuai about the detoxification. She hadn’t insisted on going with him because she was waiting for him to tell her.
She trusted him so completely and openly. He deeply believed that whatever he said now, she would believe it and wouldn’t seek verification from Xie Yunhuai. She was that kind of woman – once she trusted, she never doubted.
Looking at her figure, gentle to the bone even in the way her hair swayed in the breeze, he knew she had likely dressed this way deliberately. She was telling him that at this moment, she was simply his wife – between them, there was nothing else to discuss except the implicit trust between husband and wife.
“Youyou…” Xiao Huayong gazed at the lake’s surface for a moment before slowly turning to face Shen Xihe. “My poison is beyond cure. We must prepare early. Also…”
Before he could finish, Shen Xihe suddenly turned to face him. Her obsidian-like cold eyes, usually inscrutable and distant when meeting others, now held a glimmer of moisture.
Though her eyes hadn’t reddened, Xiao Huayong precisely caught that fleeting gleam – like a shooting star, vanishing in an instant but burying itself in his heart, causing him pain and making him momentarily forget what he was going to say next.
For a moment, they stood in wordless regard.
One maintained composure while appearing unruffled, yet her heart surged like stormy waves. Her hand, hidden in her water sleeve, gripped the layered gauze so tightly that her nails turned white from the pressure.
The other felt his throat constrict. Though his expression seemed normal, his heart was taut, as if countless nerves from all directions bound his heart, constantly stretching, causing dense, spreading pain from his chest throughout his body.
He had half-deceived her. Even Xie Yunhuai didn’t know if his method would work. If she knew, he didn’t know whether she would, for this uncertain possibility, let him first lose his Crown Prince position and go into seclusion for treatment, taking another extremely difficult path that, if not traversed well, would lead the entire Shen clan to irreversible doom.
Or would she steelheartedly pretend not to know, remaining unmoved?
Neither outcome pleased him, so he concealed it from her – the only time in his life.
If he was fortunate enough to return, he would accept any punishment. But if he truly couldn’t return, at least she wouldn’t exhaust everything only to have hope turn to disappointment.
This was Xiao Huayong’s carefully considered decision.
Sourness welled up from deep within Shen Xihe’s eyes. She suddenly lifted her swan-like slender neck to look at the sky where white clouds drifted. After a moment, she lowered her gaze as if nothing had happened: “How much… time remains?”
Xiao Huayong had never heard her voice so dry, deep, and even slightly weak. Even when she first arrived in the capital before taking the bone-transforming pills, when her body was so frail, she had never sounded like this. Her backbone had always been straight as a ruler, her pride evident in every word and action.
The pain in his chest intensified. Xiao Huayong dared not look at Shen Xihe as he spoke hoarsely: “Less than… a year.”
He wouldn’t wait for death. By year’s end, he would leave to undergo Xie Yunhuai’s possibly doomed detoxification method, giving everything to fight for one chance. Whether he could return was unknown.
“Isn’t there… till next year?” They had said he wouldn’t live past twenty-four, but he would only turn twenty-four next year.
“The Crown Prince will not live past two cycles.” Xiao Huayong also thought of this prophecy. Perhaps he should investigate its source – besides the poisoner, who could so accurately predict when the poison would take effect?
These two cycles could be interpreted differently. Those hoping for his early death naturally wished he wouldn’t see his twenty-fourth birthday, while those who cherished him thought perhaps he wouldn’t see his twenty-fifth.
Shen Xihe was clearly among the latter.
Silence, another oppressive silence.
The spring scenery was beautiful, with verdant willows and lovely flower buds under gentle wind and warm sun.
Yet to Shen Xihe’s eyes, this beautiful scene felt more oppressive than storm clouds gathering before a tempest.
It was Xiao Huayong who took a deep breath and smiled, saying to Shen Xihe: “Youyou, in a few days, let’s announce that you’re with child.”