As Xiaoyan’s words fell, Gu Yi opened her mouth but still couldn’t make a sound.

Her throat felt stuffed with loose cotton, weak and powerless. No matter how she opened her mouth or how hard she tried, she couldn’t say a single word.

*Damn this plot, where’s your honor!*

One, two, three, four…

She counted the seconds in her mind.

In the speechless moment, Xiaoyan’s dark brown eyes were like cold ashes that had burned out and cooled, gradually dimming.

…twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven…

Gu Yi saw the hem of his robe move as he turned to leave. She hurriedly reached out and grabbed his right hand. When Xiaoyan tried to shake her off, Gu Yi instinctively clasped his right hand with both of hers and pressed it firmly against her left breast.

Xiaoyan’s face froze, and he tried to withdraw his hand again, but Gu Yi forcefully held his right palm steady over her heartbeat.

…thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight…

Gu Yi’s heartbeat grew more rapid, each beat faster than the last. Thump-thump, it transmitted through the thin layer of clothing to his palm. Before him, Gu Yi’s almond eyes were wide open, her nose slightly wrinkled, looking as if she might cry at any moment.

Xiaoyan’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Why don’t you speak?”

…forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one…

Gu Yi opened her mouth but remained speechless, only holding onto his right hand tightly. Her gaze shifted to the blue-robed palace attendant still kneeling outside the bedchamber.

Xiaoyan’s gaze followed hers. He coldly commanded: “Get out!”

The blue-robed attendant had already been keeping his head down, not daring to look up, yet unable to find the right moment to leave. Hearing this command, he quickly knocked his head on the ground and retreated from Heluo Palace.

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty…

Gu Yi suddenly let out a long sigh, as if the grip on her throat had finally loosened.

“Xiaoyan…” she spoke, feeling like crying without tears. The damn plot had silenced her for a full sixty seconds! How inhuman!

Xiaoyan lowered his eyes to look at her. “How insolent.”

Gu Yi raised her head slightly to gaze into his eyes. “Your Majesty, what just happened?” She tightened her grip on his right hand. “Of course I have a heart!”

Under Xiaoyan’s palm, her heartbeat remained rapid, her chest soft and warm.

Seeing that he didn’t answer, Gu Yi swept her gaze around the dressing table where he had been standing earlier. She asked suspiciously: “Your Majesty… did you see something just now?” Could he have seen the red-jeweled ebony hairpin she had hidden? Did he know she had kept the Ji Mother Beads?

Xiaoyan released himself from her grasp and withdrew his right hand. His face was cold as frost.

“What should I have seen? Does Concubine Rou have something I shouldn’t see…”

This reaction didn’t seem about the hairpin…

Gu Yi’s mind raced quickly, then she saw Xiaoyan suddenly turn and open her treasure box, taking out the white porcelain bottle.

The cold light in his eyes made Gu Yi’s chest tighten. After feeling guilty for half a second, she said: “Your Majesty saw this porcelain bottle?”

Speaking plainly, she continued, “Since I agreed to Your Majesty’s request, I have never used these pills again.”

“Oh?” Xiaoyan’s eyebrow twitched slightly. “Is that true?”

He had thought Gu Yi would again pretend to be ignorant.

Gu Yi nodded, her attitude solemn: “Absolutely true. If I speak even half a false word, may heaven strike me with lightning!” After speaking, she carefully observed Xiaoyan’s expression. She saw him close his eyes briefly, then open them again, examining her for several breaths.

His shoulders lowered slightly as he retreated to a chair and sat down.

Gu Yi slowly stepped forward, seeing his expression anxious yet somewhat relieved, though increasingly bewildered.

“Why does Your Majesty suspect me?” she asked softly. “Is Your Majesty afraid I’ve listened to others’ slander?”

Xiaoyan looked up, his temple seemingly throbbing twice, a flash of shock and anger crossing his face. “Gu Yi, you’re too presumptuous!”

But at this moment, he was sitting while Gu Yi stood, looking down at him, so she wasn’t afraid.

She lightly clenched her fists inside her sleeves and slowly said: “I… have never cared about the Great Mu or the Danta. In my heart, I have only ever cared about Your Majesty…”

Xiaoyan stared at her in astonishment. “Did Xiao Lü tell you this?”

Gu Yi neither nodded nor shook her head. “I lived in Pingcui Palace for so long, just across the courtyard. How could I not know…” She laughed briefly. “Your Majesty has underestimated me.”

“Gu Yi…” Xiaoyan called her name softly.

Seeing that his expression still showed doubt and surprise, Gu Yi pressed on: “Your Majesty is now the Emperor. Your Majesty is of the Late Emperor’s bloodline. What does it matter about the Danta or being different? Those are just others’ baseless claims. Your Majesty may have been born in Danta, but all under heaven belongs to the sovereign; all people within the four seas are his subjects. Your Majesty will, one day, be the Emperor of all under heaven.”

She snorted derisively. “Others speak of the Great Mu’s legitimate bloodline, which is absurd nonsense—merely the jealousy of cowardly, mediocre, incapable people!”

Gu Yi knelt, both hands grasping his knees, looking up at him: “Has Your Majesty listened to this nonsense for years and truly believed it? Those scholars who worship bloodlines, who consider themselves noble and pure, who can recite the Great Mu’s ancestors backwards, who pursue reputation and fame—which one of them is truly a hero? Which one can honestly say they haven’t failed heaven and earth, haven’t failed the good people? They are nothing but all talk and no action, a bunch of glib-tongued cowards…”

Xiaoyan watched her kneeling before him, speaking passionately until her forehead turned red, her clear eyes glimmering with starlight.

In truth, he had never cared how irrelevant people evaluated him.

He only cared about one person.

“Gu Yi…” he placed his index finger over her lips, sighing. “No need to say more. You’re too noisy…”

Gu Yi paused, stunned.

Had she once again misplaced her passionate feelings?

After being silenced by the plot, was she now being silenced by Xiaoyan?

She looked up again to see his expression. He was gazing down at her, his finger gently caressing her lips, just silently watching her.

He finally smiled at her, his eyes reflecting her flushed face. Gu Yi felt the light dim before her as Xiaoyan’s lips pressed against hers.

This was a kiss unrelated to passion or desire, only a silent comfort between them.

The night sky was clear, the moonlight gradually shifting westward as the spring night approached dawn but had not yet arrived.

Eunuch Gao stood outside Heluo Palace, looking up at the sky before quietly yawning with his mouth closed.

There had been quite a commotion, but in the end, it was much ado about nothing.

Nothing worth watching.

He tapped the back of his thigh, and immediately a sharp-eyed palace servant quietly brought him a bamboo chair.

Eunuch Gao gave him an approving glance before sitting down, taking a sip of the strong tea that a servant offered.

Moments later, he looked up to see the palace servant who had been sent to Jianjia Palace hurrying back, running with small steps directly to him before stopping and whispering: “Eunuch Gao, Chief Physician Hu from the Imperial Medical Institute has gone to Jianjia Palace during the night to check on Concubine Zhao.”

Eunuch Gao nodded and asked: “What did Chief Physician Hu say?”

“Chief Physician Hu said it’s… difficult to say.” The servant hesitated—this kind of difficult task was unfortunate for whoever had to handle it!

Eunuch Gao frowned. “What do you mean, ‘difficult to say’?”

The servant looked around and lowered his voice further: “Chief Physician Hu said to request that His Majesty visit tomorrow. He said Concubine Zhao’s illness has dragged on too long, and if it doesn’t improve soon, her health may completely collapse.”

Eunuch Gao frowned and glared at him. “Fine, I understand. Next time, be more clever. You may withdraw now; it’s almost 5 a.m.”

Heluo Palace remained quiet. Now that the days had grown longer, the gauze curtains in the bedchamber had been changed to bamboo-green ones, with strings of pearl and jade hanging from the canopy, occasionally making delicate tinkling sounds in the breeze.

Gu Yi lay in bed, having heard the jade sounds several times. Her mind and body remained in a state of extreme excitement—she hadn’t slept a single second the entire night.

Beside her, Xiaoyan’s breathing was light and steady; he had long fallen asleep. She could only close her eyes and pretend to sleep, while thoughts galloped through her mind like ten thousand horses.

The plot was getting desperate.

It had deployed a sixty-second silence cooldown skill against her—a skill very easily seen through.

At this thought, she became excited again, her palms trembling slightly as she clasped her hands together and clenched her fists.

Didn’t this mean that the plot could no longer casually and brutally kill her?

Come to think of it, it had been a long time since she had seen that familiar white light or felt the deadly threat of headaches.

Given the plot’s previous brutality, where she could choke to death on a baked flatbread, this time it had taken such a roundabout approach to target her.

Didn’t this mean that her existence was no longer as easily erasable as the original Concubine Gu?

Gu Yi excitedly opened her eyes, blinking to adjust to the darkness within the curtains.

Although the plot remained cunning and had coincidentally touched Xiaoyan’s reverse scale this time, it ultimately hadn’t killed her.

Otherwise, she could have truly choked just from drinking water.

After lying low for so long, had she finally found the right approach?

Saving Huaihua had been an accident, which prevented Imperial Concubine Liu’s death. But saving Xiao Lü had cemented Xiaoyan’s reputation as a benevolent ruler; sending away Tao Jia had helped Xiaoyan force Qi Shu to leave the palace.

And then there was… Gu Changtong from Fuzhou…

Her existence had to be intricately intertwined with Xiaoyan’s imperial main storyline.

The main plot and the romance between the male and female protagonists were already in ruins, but the career plotline remained intact. She needed to find a way to support the career plotline—perhaps then she could truly save her life and survive until the end!

Thinking of this, Gu Yi took a deep breath and gently turned to study the sleeping Xiaoyan.

The soft, thin moonlight fell on his face, giving him a strangely beautiful yet fragile appearance.

Gu Yi extended her index finger, tracing his silhouette from a hair’s breadth away, stopping at the shallow scar lying across his temple—a faint color, like a half-moon.

The mark of an escaped slave.

Xiaoyan had been branded with this mark at birth.

Though his father was an emperor, at the time of his birth, he was merely a prisoner captured by the Danta. Xiaoyan’s birth itself was considered a sin.

Even though Tazhu eventually took him and fled thousands of miles, this escaped slave mark could never be erased.

With Tazhu dead, unless the Danta were conquered, Xiaoyan’s inner demons could not be exorcised.

Gu Yi sighed silently and withdrew her hand before closing her eyes, finally falling into a drowsy sleep.

Before 5 a.m., Xiaoyan suddenly awoke from his dream.

He turned his head to look at Gu Yi, seeing her forehead pressed against his shoulder, sleeping deeply.

He didn’t move.

Just now, he seemed to have dreamed of Gu Yi. The dream was sensual, vaguely set on this wooden bed in Heluo Palace’s bedchamber.

Though he couldn’t see the face of the person in his dream, he felt it was Gu Yi, except that on her calf was an extremely deep knife scar, reddish-brown where skin and flesh met, appearing quite hideous.

Gu Yi didn’t have such a scar on her leg.

Beside him, Gu Yi moved slightly, still sleeping soundly, but turned away.

Though he knew it wasn’t there, Xiaoyan was inexplicably compelled to lift the silk covers slightly, revealing her bare calves, flawless as white jade.