Today, several tutors assisting the Eastern Palace were present, taking turns to discuss the recent literature exam content.

They did not fully agree with Zhou Ji’s grading, believing he was too young and many of his insights lacked depth. Thus, they voluntarily came, meticulously analyzing words and phrases, eloquently explaining in detail to the “Crown Prince” for two hours.

Zhao Yān pondered whether these old ministers were refuting Zhou Ji’s evaluation without reason, wondering if this was the conservative faction’s idea or… The Father Emperor’s intention.

Pei Sa had not performed well on the exam, and now he was dozing off during the lecture. Being called out by the elderly tutors, he was punished to face the wall outside the hall.

Pei Sa couldn’t have asked for more and immediately rose to leave the hall, infuriating the elderly tutor, who shook his head.

At noon, the morning lessons finally concluded.

After sending off these old scholars, Li Fu led the palace servants to bring simple lunch meals for a brief rest in the rear hall.

Zhao Yān instructed Li Fu: “Go tell the Marquis of Jinping’s heir to rest and have a meal. The melting snow makes it especially cold; don’t let him freeze.”

Just as she spoke, Pei Sa, who had been leaning against the doorway with folded arms, suddenly stood straighter, awkwardly looking elsewhere.

Then, a graceful figure walked past him, entering the hall with lowered head—it was the Fourth Princess, Zhao Xun.

…

…

“Fourth Sister, why have you come?”

Since Zhao Yān had helped her escape from Consort Xu Wan’s control to stay under Empress Wei’s care, the two had gradually become more familiar.

Zhao Xun tilted her ear slightly to listen, taking the food box from the palace maid’s hands, and said gracefully: “In the cold winter, Mother Empress personally prepared ginger sugar water and told me to bring it to the Crown Prince to ward off the cold.”

Zhao Yān knew she had something to say, so she dismissed everyone around, then picked up the hot bowl of ginger soup to warm her hands. “Li Fu is one of us; Fourth Sister, please speak freely.”

Zhao Xun nodded, her hands properly clasped on her lap: “This morning, after the snow stopped, Consort Xu Wan slipped on the steps.”

Zhao Yān was startled: Xu Wan was over eight months pregnant and would give birth in another month. A slip at this time could certainly be made into a major issue.

She asked: “Is she alright?”

Zhao Xun’s voice lowered: “Although palace servants steadied her in time, Consort Xu Wan continued crying in distress, and it reached Father Emperor’s ears. Just now, the palace maids and eunuchs responsible for sweeping the steps received severe caning.”

Zhao Yān put down the ginger soup bowl, surprised: “Could Consort Xu Wan be suspecting Mother Empress?”

Zhao Xun remained silent.

This punishment was both a display of imperial authority and a warning. With careful thought, it wasn’t hard to guess where Father Emperor’s heart truly lay.

Even holding a hot soup bowl and sitting by the charcoal brazier, Zhao Yān still felt a chill.

The Father Emperor had few offspring, so he valued the child in Consort Xu Wan’s womb greatly. The number of palace attendants assigned to serve her even surpassed those who had attended Empress Wei when she was pregnant with twins.

Once Consort Xu Wan gave birth to a prince, Father Emperor would immediately elevate her rank to Gracious Consort and reward the Xu family with ten thousand acres of fertile land.

If it were a healthy prince, the path of the Eastern Palace would only become more difficult, let alone…

Zhao Yān lowered her gaze, looking at her chest, flattened by the binding.

She was growing day by day. No matter how masculine the Crown Prince appeared, the truth could not be concealed forever.

Consort Xu Wan was beautiful and carried the imperial seed. Her tear-stained face would be difficult for even the Emperor to resist. With a few provocative words, the small rift that had formed between the Emperor and Empress due to the Wei Yan case would likely widen by another two inches…

Thinking of something, Zhao Yān’s eyes shifted.

She looked at the remaining bowl of ginger soup in the food box and said with a smile, “Fourth Sister, I cannot drink two bowls. Would it be possible to reward the Marquis of Jinping’s heir with a bowl? He was punished to stand for an hour by the tutor and must be frozen.”

After Zhao Xun went to deliver the ginger soup to Pei Sa, Zhao Yān took the silk handkerchief handed by Li Fu, steeled her heart, and bit her tongue.

The sharp pain shot straight to her forehead. Zhao Yān covered her mouth with the handkerchief, coughing up a small amount of bright red blood with an “mmf.”

Li Fu was so shocked that his hat nearly flew off. After a moment of stunned silence, he rushed over: “Your Highness is coughing blood!”

Zhao Yān painfully hunched over the desk, clenching her fists. This time it wasn’t entirely an act; she had bitten down harder than intended.

But playing the victim—who couldn’t do that?

Zhang Xu had just arrived, and the Emperor and Empress came one after another. Upon seeing Zhao Yān lying weakly on the couch and the empty teacup beside her, Empress Wei’s eyelid twitched almost imperceptibly.

“Father Emperor, Mother Empress…”

Zhao Yān’s tongue still hurt, making her speech weak and unclear, adding to her feeble appearance.

“You’re ill; there’s no need to perform courtesies.”

The Emperor gestured to stop Zhao Yān, who was tremblingly trying to bow, then looked at Zhang Xu kneeling behind him. “Continue! And summon everyone from the Imperial Medical Academy. Cure the Crown Prince’s chronic illness, and I will reward you.”

Zhao Yān had drunk the tea prepared by Zhang Xu in advance, making her pulse unstable. Several elderly imperial physicians from the Medical Academy couldn’t diagnose the cause, and finally, considering the recent weather, concluded it was “cold evil entering the body, invading the lungs.”

This was exactly what Zhao Yān wanted.

She coughed quietly and said hoarsely: “Since winter began, Mother Empress has been worrying herself to exhaustion over this child’s health, unable to sleep well. I thought I had recovered, but who knew a snowfall would trigger the old illness… It’s just my weak constitution.”

Her words were cleverly crafted. First, she pointed out that Empress Wei had been focusing all her energy on her son lately, barely able to take care of herself, let alone harm Consort Xu Wan. Second, she attributed her illness to the cold snow; falling ill in snowy weather was perfectly normal. Compared to Consort Xu Wan’s unreasonable tantrum, the difference was clear.

She measured her words with precision, achieving her goal without appearing deliberate.

The Emperor temporarily softened his expression, comforting her: “You needn’t worry too much; just take good care of yourself.”

At that moment, a eunuch knelt outside the hall, requesting from afar: “Your Majesty, Consort Wan is suffering from severe palpitations and still cannot drink the medicine.”

A slip on snowy steps, yet worth making such a fuss repeatedly.

The Emperor favored her for the child in her womb, but even he was growing annoyed. He calmly said, “If she won’t drink it, force it down. If anything happens to the imperial offspring, her entire family will come before me to receive punishment.”

“Yes.”

The eunuch’s shoulders trembled, his voice changing pitch, as he hurriedly retreated on his knees.

The Emperor, unprecedentedly, sat by Zhao Yān’s bedside for a while longer. Zhao Yān had taken the medicinal soup to induce sweating and was lying down, enduring the discomfort. She gave a muffled cough and weakly raised her eyelids. Only then did Empress Wei find an excuse to escort the Emperor away, taking the irrelevant palace servants with them.

As soon as they left, Zhao Yān came back to life.

Seeing no one around, she lifted the blanket and fanned herself, sitting up to drink some tea. However, the warm tea irritated her injured tongue, leaving her with a mouthful she could neither spit out nor swallow.

Someone was coming!

Zhao Yān quickly swallowed the tea and shrank back onto the couch, closing her eyes and perking her ears. She heard footsteps circling the screen, entering the inner chamber.

She smelled a familiar scent, and her eyeballs moved slightly under her eyelids.

The person bent down, and a low, mellow voice said: “I heard Your Highness coughed blood.”

Zhao Yān’s eyes flew open, seeing Wenren Lin’s handsome face up close. Her eyes involuntarily rippled with joy, seemingly both complaining and delighted: “Why did you only come now…”

Before she could finish, she frowned and covered her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” Wenren Lin removed her hand from her wrist.

“Self-inflicted…”

Zhao Yān’s voice was unclear, but her eyes were bright. “Consort Xu Wan slipped in the snow and wanted to make an issue of it. I couldn’t let her ride roughshod over us.”

“So Your Highness bit your tongue, pretending to be seriously ill from the cold, which could arouse the Emperor’s sympathy while allaying his concerns, making Consort Xu Wan’s scheme fail.”

“In snowy weather, who wouldn’t catch a cold or slip? Yet she bullies others with her position, playing the victim and acting innocent.”

Zhao Yān stuck out her tongue tip and snorted heavily, “For those who use underhanded means, one must defeat them with underhanded methods. This is something I excel at.”

Wenren Lin recalled how, when he first became Grand Tutor last year, the young princess had deliberately bumped her head on the chessboard to avoid his probing.

He smiled and raised his finger to grasp her chin, bending down: “Let this prince take a look.”

Zhao Yān slightly raised her head and opened her mouth with an “ah.”

The tip of her tongue was soft and bright red, with a dark red thin cut on it. The bleeding had stopped, and it was pitifully curled up.

Wenren Lin looked at it for a long time. Zhao Yān noticed his eyes deepening and darkening, and she grew nervous, asking with her mouth open: “What is it? Did I bite my tongue off?”

Wenren Lin said nothing, adjusted his angle and pressed his lips to hers, gently licking that pitiful wound with affection, pushing slightly.

Pain, followed by a tingling sensation.

Zhao Yān’s spine trembled, her tongue tip curling like a clam’s flesh. She straightened her tongue and said: “You…”

“It needs medicine.”

Wenren Lin raised his hand to pat Zhao Yān’s head, acting like a proper gentleman. “Otherwise, it will become inflamed and swollen, making eating difficult.”

The medicine applied to the tongue tip had to be ingestible and was very bitter.

While Wenren Lin was using a jade piece to apply the medicine powder, Zhao Yān was so bitter that she kept withdrawing her tongue, unable to cooperate at all.

“Don’t move.”

Wenren Lin’s voice was deep as he held her chin with his fingers. “If you keep moving, this prince won’t mind using another method to apply medicine to Your Highness.”

Remembering the feeling of their tongues touching earlier, Zhao Yān immediately became obedient and didn’t dare move.

Although the medicine was bitter enough to make one’s brain ache, it worked remarkably fast. Within less than an hour after application, her tongue tip felt numb and warm, and the pain disappeared.

Zhao Yān wanted to drink tea to suppress the bitter taste, but Wenren Lin stopped her: “Drinking tea now will dilute the medicine’s effectiveness.”

Zhao Yān had to reluctantly give up, pursing her lips and resting her chin on her hand: “My tongue has suffered; I need to eat something delicious to make up for it.”

She had said this casually, so when she saw Wenren Lin rise and go behind the screen, producing two strings of bright red candied haws wrapped in oiled paper from the table like a magician, her dull eyes suddenly brightened.

“Tanghulu!”

Zhao Yān smiled, reaching out to take them. Too precious to bite, she held them to her nose, sniffing the sweet and sour aroma. “Where did you get these?”

“A street vendor was selling them; I bought them in passing.”

Wenren Lin sat by the couch, holding a wooden box in one hand, looking at her with a half-smile. “Snacks that children love.”

Zhao Yān heard the teasing in his words, picked out one string, and bit the top one, sitting on the couch,x looking back at him: “Who are you calling a child?”

Wenren Lin thought for a moment and said, “Hmm, not so small anymore.”

Why did that not sound quite right either?

The refreshing sweet and sour flavor dispelled the medicine’s bitterness. Zhao Yān contentedly curved her eyes slightly, murmuring: “I never imagined you would buy such things.”

After all, Wenren Lin was exceptionally handsome with a cold aura; everyone in court feared him to some degree. In winter, when everyone’s breath turned to white vapor in the cold, his speech produced no such mist, unlike a living person.

For such an intimidating figure to buy tanghulu, Zhao Yān imagined the scene and found it extraordinarily novel.

Yet she was happy because this traveler who never lingered in the mortal realm had finally begun to cherish the smoke and fire of human life.

Wenren Lin tapped his fingers lightly, his eyes taking in Zhao Yān’s satisfied expression, saying nothing.

Recalling the shocked looks of the imperial guards and ministers when he entered the palace holding two strings of tanghulu, he felt a rare sense of pleasure.

It was just an ordinary little item that he wouldn’t have given a second glance at on normal days.

But he thought of her and wanted to give it to her.

“In Huayang, there are tanghulu made with oranges. Huayang oranges are small but have thin skin and sweet flesh, making the tastiest tanghulu.”

Zhao Yān fingered the tanghulu, kneeling against the light, saying, “In the future, I must let you try them.”

She very naturally included Wenren Lin in her future.

Wenren Lin said, “I look forward to it.”

So Zhao Yān smiled and pointed at the wooden box on his knee, “What’s this?”

Wenren Lin opened it. Inside, crushed ice carefully cradled a rabbit ice lantern, crystal clear with smooth craftsmanship.

Zhao Yān, with the last candied haw in her mouth, quickly reached out to lift the lantern handle, full of admiration.

Before the New Year in the palace, ice lanterns would be carved on the frozen Penglai Pool. To allow the Emperor, Empress, and consorts to view them from afar, they were built in the shape of towers and palaces, grand and majestic.

Zhao Yān had never seen such a delicate and adorable ice lantern. If a candle were placed inside at night, it would be extremely elegant.

She couldn’t sit still and immediately got off the couch, put on her leather boots, and urged Wenren Lin to return to the Eastern Palace with her to light the lantern.

Winter days are short and nights long. By the time they returned to the Eastern Palace, it was just getting dark. Zhao Yān extinguished the standing palace lamp, leaving only the rabbit ice lantern. The warm, lustrous light immediately filled the inner chamber, hazy and beautiful.

The charcoal fire in the hall was spring-like. Zhao Yān looked at it for a while, reluctant to let the heat melt the ice lantern, so she hung it in the cold shade of the corridor, hoping it would last a few more days.

With her injured tongue and having eaten tanghulu, she only had a bowl of porridge that night.

After catching up on the military strategy lessons missed during the day, she realized it was already nearly midnight.

Zhao Yān rubbed her eyes and, looking across at Wenren Lin from behind the string of tanghulu in the porcelain vase, rested her chin on her hand: “Has the Grand Tutor noticed anything different about the incense Liu Ying just lit?”

When Liu Ying came to burn the incense, Wenren Lin had already smelled it—it was sleep-inducing incense.

“Has Your Highness not been sleeping well lately?” Wenren Lin put down his vermilion brush and asked.

Zhao Yān shook her head slightly, pointing at the sesame seeds on the tanghulu: “The few nights you’ve stayed at the Eastern Palace, you’ve never slept soundly. I’ve noticed. I don’t know if it’s because I move around at night, making your sleep light…”

“It’s not that,” Wenren Lin interrupted softly.

It was his struggle with nightmares, unrelated to the young princess. All he could do was try not to wake her when he awoke.

Zhao Yān smiled, her eyes filled with light: “So I had them change to sleep-inducing incense. Will you try it again?”

Over the years, the only thing that eased his heart was the satisfaction of watching chess pieces fall into his trap one by one.

But Wenren Lin didn’t refuse.

After washing up and returning to the bedchamber, Wenren Lin found Zhao Yān had already undressed and gotten into bed. Hearing footsteps approach, she instinctively moved inward, making room for him.

Extremely drowsy, she still remembered to pass half of the silk quilt over to him, then turned to face Wenren Lin, her forehead against his shoulder, gently patting his chest with her hand.

Before long, those light stroking fingertips slowed down and gradually stilled.

“What helps this prince sleep is not some sleep-inducing incense.”

Wenren Lin wrapped her fingertips in his palm, turning his head to place a light kiss on her hair.

Whether the sleep-inducing incense worked for Wenren Lin, Zhao Yān didn’t know. All she knew was that when she woke up, it was already bright daylight.

“The hour of Chen?!”

Zhao Yān sat up with a start, hurriedly getting up to dress and put on boots. “Today I need to enter the palace to discuss the Father Emperor’s birthday celebration. Why didn’t anyone wake me… Where’s my other sock?”

Liu Ying glanced at Wenren Lin but didn’t dare speak.

Wenren Lin rose leisurely from the armchair, retrieving the satin sock the young princess had kicked off from the bedding.

Prince Su, who could be exempted from kneeling before the Emperor, now knelt on one knee before the bed, placing the young princess’s bare foot on his knee, carefully putting on her sock and boot.

“This prince called Your Highness three times.”

He had used his hand, his mouth, and she had only groggily awakened.

“Really?”

Zhao Yān smoothed her scattered long hair, supporting herself on the edge of the bed, asking, “Is this sleep-inducing incense so effective? Did you sleep better?”

“Perhaps.”

Seeing Zhao Yān frown, Wenren Lin pinched her calf and said, “Somewhat better.”

So Zhao Yān’s brow relaxed, and she wiggled her toes as she got off the bed: “It will gradually get better.”

Wenren Lin smiled languidly, full of tenderness.

Before, he had only complained that the net was closing too slowly, that vengeance wasn’t swift enough. Now, he began to cherish the “gradual” pace she spoke of.

Wenren Lin also needed to attend an imperial council, so he escorted the young princess to the palace.

The snow along the path had frozen hard, forming crystalline grains that sparkled in the sunlight. At the foot of the Taiji Gate, several civil officials surrounded Left Chancellor Li Kexing as he approached.

“Isn’t that Prince Su and Crown Prince?”

Among the group of officials, someone softly exclaimed, “Why are they walking together?”

“Don’t you know? Prince Su has recently either had a change of heart or something else, but he’s become fascinated with assisting the Eastern Palace Crown Prince.”

Another replied, “The Crown Prince studies diligently, often burning the midnight oil. Prince Su keeps him company, answering questions and explaining doubts, even staying at the Eastern Palace daily.”

“How could a fierce beast lower itself to teach? Is his heart truly so kind? I fear the young and naive Crown Prince, being controlled by others, cannot distinguish between loyalty and treachery.”

“Isn’t Consort Xu Wan about to give birth? The future is truly unpredictable.”

“That’s incorrect! The Crown Prince is virtuous and benevolent. Unless he commits a grave offense against morality and propriety, his position won’t be shaken.”

“We should be cautious with our words at the palace gate.”

After a moment of silence, amid the whimpering wind, the first speaker couldn’t help asking: “Left Chancellor, what do you think?”