The bright moon hung high in the sky, the weather dry and cold. Though no snow had fallen yet, winter had clearly arrived.
The courtyard of the yamen in the dead of night was eerily quiet. Shen Suifeng had somehow found a broken chair and was leisurely sitting on it, admiring the moon. One of his feet rested on the edge of a raised well, using the leverage to lift the front legs of the chair, turning an ordinary chair into a makeshift rocking chair.
The moonlight was beautiful, and rare tonight—there were even a few stars. Shen Suifeng was watching when a cheerful voice suddenly came from not far away: “Mr. Shen truly lives up to his name—your courage is certainly greater than most.”
“Why do you say that?” Shen Suifeng continued gazing at the sky without sparing her a glance.
“The well under your foot has been here for at least a hundred years. Who knows how many unjust souls have been buried here over that time? Even the people in the yamen normally avoid it, but you, Mr. Shen, show no fear at all, even daring to step on it while admiring the moon. Isn’t that quite extraordinary courage?” She didn’t mind that he was ignoring her and strolled over slowly.
Shen Suifeng silently curved his lips. “I didn’t know about these things. The ignorant have no fear.”
“Well, you know now.” Feng Lezhen’s face appeared above him.
Shen Suifeng turned his head slightly to meet her gaze and lazily let out a soft “Mm.”
“Are you afraid?” she asked curiously.
Shen Suifeng remained calm. “Yes.”
Feng Lezhen’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
Shen Suifeng didn’t see what was funny about it. He set his feet down, letting the chair sit flat, but made no move to stand up. “Why isn’t Your Highness in the room with Young Master Chen? What brings you out here?”
“Of course, I came to see Mr. Shen,” Feng Lezhen replied.
Shen Suifeng raised his brows. “To see me?”
“When you left just now, you didn’t seem very happy. I was worried and came to check on you,” Feng Lezhen explained softly.
“You came to check on me?” Shen Suifeng laughed. “It’s been at least an hour since I left that room, right? Did Your Highness come by horse or by carriage? How could you be so slow?”
“So you really were waiting for me to chase after you?” Feng Lezhen smiled. “Don’t tell me even the late-night pill delivery was intentional? I thought it was strange that you gave him decoction medicine in the evening, and then suddenly had him take pills in the middle of the night. Were you afraid that once I entered that room, I wouldn’t come out, so you purposely found an excuse to leave?”
Shen Suifeng was silent for a long time, then finally lifted his lips slightly. “Your Highness is overthinking. The medicine he drank in the evening was for body nourishment. The pills just now were for pain relief. They serve different purposes and must be taken separately.”
“So Mr. Shen didn’t purposely come to find me?” Feng Lezhen asked.
Shen Suifeng’s expression remained calm. “No.”
“And you weren’t waiting for me to chase after you?” she asked again.
Shen Suifeng gave the same answer: “No.”
“Alright then, it was just my wishful thinking,” Feng Lezhen sighed in mock disappointment and turned to leave. “Then I won’t disturb—”
Before she could finish, an arm suddenly wrapped around her waist from behind and pulled her back, and when Feng Lezhen came back to her senses, she was already sitting on his lap.
“What are you doing?” She reached out and tapped his chin with her finger.
Shen Suifeng leaned lazily against the chair. “I was about to ask you. Weren’t you leaving? Why are you suddenly sitting here?”
…She now fully understood the meaning of twisting the truth. Feng Lezhen stared at him silently for a while, then suddenly couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Shen Suifeng actually became a bit unhappy.
Hearing that, Feng Lezhen laughed even harder, leaning her entire weight against him, making Shen Suifeng and the chair sway along with her. Shen Suifeng found her ridiculous, but his expression still unconsciously softened.
When Feng Lezhen had laughed enough, she finally looked at him again.
The night was quiet, the trees sparsely shadowed, and it felt as if the world only contained the two of them.
No one knew who moved first, but when Feng Lezhen came back to her senses, they were already deeply entangled in a kiss.
It began soft and slow, but at some point, it suddenly turned uncontrollably fierce like fire meeting oil. The old chair creaked under the strain, and Feng Lezhen, sitting on Shen Suifeng’s lap, felt an increasing sense of instability—as if the chair could collapse at any moment. But she didn’t warn him and instead allowed this dangerous imbalance to continue, until Shen Suifeng’s hand slid to her lower back…
Clang!
A loud sound interrupted the kiss. Both of them looked toward the noise and saw Chen Jinan standing at the courtyard entrance.
Although his face didn’t show much emotion, Feng Lezhen could easily see his confusion and helplessness. Her gaze softened as she was about to speak, but Chen Jinan suddenly stepped back in panic. “I… this servant… didn’t mean to intrude. Please forgive me, Your Highness!”
As if waking from a dream, he turned and hurried away before Feng Lezhen could say a word.
He suddenly appeared and disappeared, completely disrupting the atmosphere. Shen Suifeng leaned against the chair with an unreadable expression. Seeing Feng Lezhen still staring in the direction Chen Jinan had left, he said blandly, “Your Highness isn’t going to chase him?”
Feng Lezhen came back to her senses, met his gaze, and chuckled. “Why should I chase him?”
“Your Highness, that’s quite heartless. The person from your own residence just left in heartbreak after seeing you tangled with another man. Isn’t it only natural for you to go and comfort him?” Shen Suifeng asked, his tone cool.
Feng Lezhen blinked slowly and, after a while, nodded. “You’re right.”
Shen Suifeng’s gaze instantly turned cold.
“I’ll go right now,” Feng Lezhen said, making to rise.
Shen Suifeng could no longer restrain himself. His face darkened as he pulled her tightly into his arms.
Feng Lezhen laughed as she collapsed against him, the chair beneath them becoming even more dangerously unstable.
“If Your Highness leaves today, I absolutely won’t stop you,” Shen Suifeng said, but the hand gripping her waist didn’t loosen in the slightest.
Feng Lezhen clicked her tongue. “Mr. Shen is quite fierce.”
“Fierce, maybe not, but I truly can’t accept sharing a wife with another man,” Shen Suifeng said. As he spoke, something else came to mind, and his eyes grew even more mocking.
Feng Lezhen crossed her arms. “Besides that, what else can’t you accept?”
“I can’t accept that Your Highness has someone else in her heart. I can’t accept that you mistook me for someone else,” Shen Suifeng stared into her eyes, finally voicing the displeasure he’d bottled up these past few days, “and I especially can’t accept that you hide things from me and don’t treat me as one of your own.”
“That night… so you really did come back.” Feng Lezhen understood.
Shen Suifeng tugged at the corner of his lips, no longer bothering to deny it.
“Why lie back then?” Feng Lezhen refused to let him off easily.
“If I hadn’t lied, was I supposed to tell you that even in your dreams you were calling another man’s name?” Shen Suifeng retorted. He’d never liked that man surnamed Fu, and now he couldn’t even bear to say his name.
Faced with his questioning, Feng Lezhen wasn’t the least bit guilty. In fact, she sounded quite justified. “Who told you to suddenly wear red robes out of nowhere? I was sick. Mistaking you for someone else was perfectly reasonable.”
“I was wearing white that night,” Shen Suifeng said flatly. “Perhaps Your Highness was too feverish and confused to see clearly.”
Feng Lezhen: “……”
After a brief silence, she humbly asked, “What did you mean when you said I don’t treat you as one of my own?”
“The attack from Liu Mingde, the secret guards pretending to be overpowered and letting the soldiers into the training grounds, and Ah Ye’s sudden move to seize Liu Mingde—all of this was planned in advance between Your Highness and Miss Ah Ye, wasn’t it?” He asked directly.
Feng Lezhen was surprised. “You’re upset about that?”
“Shouldn’t I be upset?” Shen Suifeng shot back.
At that time, the situation was dire. He had been fully prepared to die fighting to carve a path for her. Yet in the next moment, he saw her exchange a glance with Ah Ye and realized she had planned everything from the start. Even without Chen Jinan, things would never have reached a dead end.
Whether she told him or not didn’t matter, but in the chaos of that day, it seemed like he was the only outsider. It left him deeply unsettled.
“That was my mistake, but I didn’t hide it from you on purpose. You’ve been working hard these days, and I’ve barely seen you. After a while, I simply forgot to tell you,” Feng Lezhen softened her tone.
He had expected her to laugh at him for being petty, but instead, she straightforwardly apologized, leaving Shen Suifeng a bit uncomfortable. “Your Highness admitted fault so quickly—it makes me seem unreasonable.”
Feng Lezhen chuckled, pinching his chin and forcing him to meet her gaze.
Bathed in the gentle moonlight, she looked down at him with a radiant smile.
“Shen Suifeng, you’ve worked hard during this time.”
Her voice seemed to carry an enchanting spell, and Shen Suifeng’s throat bobbed as he momentarily lost focus.
“And also… Jinan isn’t someone from my bedchamber,” she added, smiling brightly as she explained.
Shen Suifeng’s expression had been impassive, but at her words, his brows slowly furrowed. “What does Your Highness mean by that?”
“Don’t understand?” Feng Lezhen raised her brows and straightened up to meet his eyes.
Shen Suifeng met her gaze for a moment, then also slowly sat upright. “But everyone in the Eldest Princess’s residence says…”
“It’s false. Back then, I deliberately treated Jinan well to provoke Fu Zhixian… though maybe not entirely deliberate. I did genuinely want to cultivate him, so I made several arrangements for him. But as for anything else, there was nothing. You’re free to be jealous, but there’s no need to be jealous of him.” Feng Lezhen explained slowly.
Shen Suifeng stared at her for a long time, then leaned lazily back in his chair. “Your Highness now really sounds like a scumbag trying to cut ties with an old lover to appease a new flame.”
“What would it take for you to believe me?” Feng Lezhen shot him a look.
Shen Suifeng innocently spread his hands. “That’s something Your Highness must figure out.”
Feng Lezhen laughed and said nothing more.
By the time she left Shen Suifeng’s place, it was already past midnight. Feng Lezhen walked alone through the courtyard toward her sleeping quarters.
Because she hadn’t returned for a long time, lanterns were hung all along the path, lighting the way to her chamber door. Ah Ye was sound asleep leaning against the door, one hand habitually resting on the dagger hidden in her sleeve, as if she was still standing guard even in her dreams.
Chen Jinan stood beneath the eaves, dressed in nightclothes, his body still wrapped in bandages, inexplicably giving off a sense of coldness.
“When did you get here?” Feng Lezhen asked softly. The half-asleep Ah Ye briefly opened her eyes and, seeing it was them, quickly drifted back to sleep.
Chen Jinan stared at her for a long moment before finally saying, “…Just now.”
“You’ve been waiting here for a while, haven’t you?” Feng Lezhen calmly exposed him. “You felt uneasy after leaving earlier, so you stayed here on purpose to wait for me, planning to confess and ask for punishment, didn’t you?”
Every word she said was correct. Chen Jinan pressed his lips together and instead fell silent.
“This Eldest Princess wouldn’t blame you over such a trivial matter. Go back and rest. Don’t overthink it. The most important thing for you now is to recover well.” Feng Lezhen passed by him, leaving behind a faint scent of powder.
Chen Jinan lowered his gaze and only responded after a long moment.
When Feng Lezhen returned to her chambers and had just sat down, Ah Ye came in yawning. As she skillfully began undoing Feng Lezhen’s hair, she asked sleepily, “Why did Chen Jinan suddenly come by?”
“That child tends to overthink. He came to see if I was angry,” Feng Lezhen casually answered.
Ah Ye paused. “Why would Your Highness be angry?”
Feng Lezhen recalled the kiss under the moonlight that had made her heart race and cheeks flush. She raised her eyebrows and said, “Some things are not for children to pry into.”
Ah Ye: “……”
Finally, she no longer had to sleep on the hard boarding beds at the drill grounds, and Feng Lezhen slept soundly that night. Unfortunately, she was awakened after less than two hours by the news of Liu Mingde’s suicide in prison.
With Liu Mingde’s death, a cascade of matters awaited handling. Feng Lezhen stayed nearly seven or eight days more to sort everything out. By the time things were fully settled, word had already spread to the capital that Liu Mingde, in his efforts to curry favor with the powerful, had nearly endangered an entire city by cultivating orchids.
For a time, all the officials who had accepted those orchids were on edge, fearing the investigation would lead to them.
As for Feng Ji, who had personally praised the lush orchids, it was as if he had been slapped hard in the face. Not only did he have to quell public resentment, but he also had to face the censure and fury of the imperial advisors. The shock even made him fall gravely ill.
Feng Lezhen, however, cared little for the chaos in the capital. Once she had stirred the waters enough, she happily continued on her journey.
When she left Xijiang City, almost all the commoners came to see her off. Amid the thunderous cheers, Feng Lezhen turned to Shen Suifeng and asked, “Do you hear that? This is the will of the people.”
Shen Suifeng wasn’t particularly concerned about winning the hearts of the people, but when he saw her looking so spirited, a faint smile still curved his lips. “Congratulations, Your Highness.”
Feng Lezhen was merely sharing her mood in passing. After that, she continued riding ahead. Instead, it was Chen Jinan who followed behind, staring dazedly at her upright back.
“Hey, hey… what are you looking at?” Ah Ye asked him.
Chen Jinan came back to his senses and looked at Feng Lezhen once more. “Looking at Her Highness.”
“…I’m not blind,” Ah Ye said, exasperated.
Chen Jinan pursed his lips and after a long pause finally said, “Her Highness looks… very different today.”
Ah Ye raised her eyebrows and suddenly lowered her voice, “Do you know why?”
“Why?” Chen Jinan asked.
“Because of power,” Ah Ye said proudly. “I’ve been dressing Her Highness since I was a child. Rouge, powder, fine jewelry, beautiful robes—they may add to her beauty, but only power can truly make her radiant. What you usually see is just our master, but today, what you see is the Eldest Princess, most cherished in the hearts of Great Qian’s people. Of course she looks different.”
Chen Jinan stared fixedly at Feng Lezhen’s figure. For a moment, Ah Ye’s voice seemed distant, while something within him seemed to be quietly sprouting.
In Xijiang City, the nights in October were chilly, but during the day there were still one or two warm hours when the sun shone so pleasantly that one could almost feel it was spring.
But a thousand miles away, at Yingguan Pass, October already meant heavy snow sealing the city, so cold that the doors could barely be opened.
Even the intense sandalwood incense couldn’t suppress the medicinal scent in the study where the floor heaters were burning at full strength. The faint candlelight inside was not as bright as the white snow outside.
A slender figure sat quietly at a desk, turning the pages of a book amid the noisy sounds of the snow outside.
It was unknown how much time passed when a young attendant respectfully said, “Shizi, it’s getting late. You should rest.”
The person reading moved his gaze slightly, and after a long time, he looked toward the tightly shut window. “The snow has sealed the roads. I wonder when they will arrive.”
The young attendant hesitated, faintly feeling that his young master’s tone seemed to be waiting for someone.
But his young master never left home and had no friends. Who could he possibly be waiting for?
