“Mmm.” Yan Yunning accepted the medicine bowl, suppressed the discomfort in her stomach, tilted her head back, and drank down the medicine.

Xiao Wan took back the porcelain bowl and immediately offered up a candied plum.

Fafa let out a sigh. [Master, you clearly dislike taking this medicine so, so much. Why have you spent these past few days furrowing your brow and forcing it down regardless? What does it matter if you stay a little longer?]

Hearing Fafa’s flat, mechanical voice, Yan Yunning’s hand tightened around the candied plum, and she could not stop herself from trembling.

Xuan Yanyu, assuming the medicine’s bitterness was making her shudder, said sympathetically, “Don’t drink it anymore. From now on, you don’t have to drink it.”

He had already asked Imperial Physician Wen — food could nourish her body as well.

“No, I have to drink it.” Yan Yunning placed the candied plum in her mouth and pushed down the urge to vomit.

No matter how much she loathed it, how little she wanted to, how badly it made her want to be sick — she had to drink it.

“Crown Princess, would you also like some Chinese quince?” Xiao Wan asked.

“Mmm.”

Xiao Wan picked up a toothpick, carefully skewered half a piece of Chinese quince from the tray that Xiao Yue was holding, and handed it to Yan Yunning.

Yan Yunning took a bite. The sourness made her squint, her teeth going soft and tingly.

“Not ripe?” Xuan Yanyu leaned over. The moment the fruit entered his mouth, his brow creased sharply. “Why is it this sour?”

Xiao Yue said quietly, “Is it very sour? The Crown Princess loves it. She has wanted some every day these past few days.”

“It’s delicious when it’s this sour.” Yan Yunning took another bite.

It was extremely sour, yes, but she found herself unexpectedly fond of it.

Xuan Yanyu looked at her helplessly. “You’ll finish it all off even while making that little scrunched-up face?”

“Mmm. It’s delicious.”

The man circled his arm around her waist and heaved a helpless sigh.

——

After the evening meal, in the sleeping chamber with the candles extinguished, Yan Yunning lay on her side. Borrowing the moonlight that filtered through the carved lattice window, she gazed at the man lying with eyes closed, his features strikingly handsome.

She moved her lips and murmured softly, “Xuan Yanyu, if I were gone, would there come a day when you fell in love with someone else?”

She felt she was asking something rather pointless. After she left, regardless of whether Xuan Xixi loved again or not, the Xuan Wang Palace could not possibly go without a mistress, could not possibly go without the next Xuan Wang.

Without that, things would simply be unrealistic.

Yan Yunning rubbed at the spot over her heart. Even just imagining it made her ache terribly…

Xuan Yanyu, furrowing his brow, looked at her. “Without you? Where would you be going?”

“It’s a hypothetical! Don’t you know — in those picture stories, girls ask this kind of thing all the time.” Yan Yunning gripped the man’s large hand and looked at him with bright eyes.

Xuan Yanyu thought for a moment and said, “If I had never met you, this lord would not fall in love with someone else. But things would still end up the same as with the Emperor.”

In these twenty-two years, apart from Ningning, he had not encountered a woman who had moved his heart.

So if he had never met Ningning, he would not have fallen in love with someone else.

Yan Yunning pursed her lips. She understood what he meant now — if he had never met her, the Crown Prince’s residence would have had not only a Crown Princess but also secondary consorts.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, what if I had never told you from the start that I refused to share a husband with other women?” Yan Yunning propped herself up on the soft pillow with curiosity. “Would the Crown Prince’s residence also have secondary consorts by now?”

Xuan Yanyu was quiet for a moment. He pulled the brocade blanket over her and covered her properly. “Close your eyes. Sleep.”

“Would it?” Yan Yunning answered for him.

After a silence, Xuan Yanyu, unwilling to deceive her, gave a “Mmm” of affirmation.

Yan Yunning: “……”

His honesty made her want to hit him — though, in fairness, he was the Crown Prince. For someone like him, this was entirely normal.

“Xuan Yanyu, after coming of age, have you ever had any personal attendant maidservants? Or a chamber mistress?” Yan Yunning pinched the man’s chin and met his dark eyes directly. “Tell me the truth. You cannot deceive me.”

She had asked Ye Chen and Ye Jian before, but she had never once asked Xuan Yanyu directly.

Xuan Yanyu gave a faint smile. “Crown Princess, asking this lord now — isn’t it a little too late?”

Yan Yunning shook her head. “It’s not too late. If there were, then I’d be jealous. I’d keep thinking about it and getting more and more jealous, and then I’d abandon you and leave.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” The man’s expression changed. “This lord would ensure you never left the Crown Prince’s residence by so much as a step.”

Sensing danger, Yan Yunning swallowed. “So — have you?”

Xuan Yanyu raised an eyebrow. “You said you’d abandon this lord — can this lord still admit to it?”

“Tell me the truth.”

The man lifted his eyelids.

“Fine. If you won’t say, then you won’t say.” Yan Yunning yanked the brocade blanket toward herself, not leaving Xuan Yanyu so much as a corner, and rolled over with her back to him.

“There hasn’t been. You are the first.” Xuan Yanyu said, helplessly.

“Why not?” Yan Yunning pressed further.

By all normal expectations, there should have been.

“Because the Emperor had decreed that before the Crown Princess entered the residence, the Crown Prince’s residence could not have a single woman in it.” Xuan Yanyu explained.

Now, looking back, the Emperor had been right to issue that decree.

Yan Yunning scrutinized him. “You actually followed the Emperor’s decree? Did you comply in appearance but act otherwise? Don’t deceive me.”

Fafa watched the drama unfold and said, [Master, he did. This time Fafa is absolutely not lying to you. He did.]

[GET LOST!!] The moment Yan Yunning heard its mechanical voice, it irritated her.

Fafa said, aggrieved, [Master, you don’t believe me — you’ll regret this! I swear it!!]

[GET LOST!!!]

Fafa: [……]

The man propped his cheek up on one hand and watched her with great interest, his voice low. “Crown Princess, why don’t you guess?”

“I’m tired.” Yan Yunning closed her eyes. With Fafa stirring up trouble, she had no desire to say anything more.

Seeing that Yan Yunning was actually annoyed, Xuan Yanyu told her honestly, “There was no acting otherwise. This lord was very obedient toward the Emperor’s word at that time.”

Yan Yunning made trouble for no reason. “But what if the Emperor had never said that to you? Would the Crown Prince’s residence now have…”

“There is no ‘what if.’ The Emperor did say it to this lord.” Xuan Yanyu coaxed her. “Don’t be upset. There are no ‘what ifs,’ only facts.”

“Oh.” Yan Yunning hooked her leg over his knee, her eyes unblinking, gazing at the man’s dark eyes. She said offhandedly, “Xuan Xixi, do you think — is it possible that this place is a story? And that I’m not someone who belongs in this story, but that you are a character from within it?”

“Or perhaps I’m the one who’s in the story, and you’re not.” To avoid Xuan Yanyu catching on, Yan Yunning added another line.

“Impossible.” The man didn’t even need a moment to think.

“I mean hypothetically — what if it were?” Yan Yunning smiled brightly. “What if I suddenly left the story? What would you do?”

Xuan Yanyu looked at her curious expression and lazily curved his lips. “There is no hypothetical. Not being something simply means not being it, and you would not suddenly leave. Stop letting your imagination run away with you. Close your eyes. Sleep.”

“I just want to know the answer.” Yan Yunning looked at him stubbornly.

The man smiled faintly, his tone unhurried and light. “Didn’t this lord say before that he would wait for you in the same spot? You couldn’t be so heartless as to stay away and never once come back to see this lord, could you?”

The moment she heard his tone, she knew he thought she was joking. Yan Yunning grew a little more serious. “What if I couldn’t come back — ever?”

Xuan Yanyu furrowed his brow in thought. “Why would you think like that?”

What hypothetical was this?

What is false is simply false, what doesn’t exist simply doesn’t exist!

“Never mind why. Answer me.”

“Never able to come back again?” The man repeated it softly. “Never able to come back again…”

“Yes. What would you do?” Yan Yunning asked with a calm composure.

Xuan Yanyu shifted onto his side. His arm draped over her waist, his voice languid. “That won’t happen. People who are meant to meet will always meet again, no matter what. There is no such thing as never being able to see someone. If you truly couldn’t, then that would mean the two of us were never fated, and one should let go, and continue to live well.”

——