SEHE Chapter 155.2

In this moment, Gu Jiuqing’s heart was adrift.

He wanted desperately to grasp that ephemeral, intangible feeling — the care he had once dared to hope for — yet it seemed to be slipping away all the faster.

His entire life he had walked alone. And in this moment, he too yearned for someone to appear in his life who would love him with ardent devotion.

Before he could even answer, Pei Yanci’s back broke out in goosebumps; every hair on his body stood on end.

From the unnoticed shadows, a pallid hand reached out from the darkness. Fingertips trailed lightly upward along the lean, slender spine; finally, an index finger came to rest at the side of his neck and tapped twice against his porcelain-pale cheek.

Pei Yanci felt, inch by inch, the overwhelming and domineering possessiveness radiating from the figure behind him. His back went rigid.

Tangxi Zhui was angry.

He had almost forgotten what this person looked like when he was truly furious.

Ice-cold fingers locked around his shoulder. On the other side, that magnificent, devastatingly beautiful face drew silently close and breathed softly against him.

“You two have been chatting so warmly — have you forgotten someone?”

Those large, long-shaped eyes curved into two narrow, dark slits. The crimson lips curved upward at both corners, looking like a finely crafted yet utterly lifeless mask.

Gu Jiuqing was struck with terror and stumbled back two steps in succession. Both hands visible at his sides trembled uncontrollably.

From the very instant that figure in deep violet had emerged from a corner of the night, his mind had already gone completely blank.

Tangxi Zhui bent slightly at the waist; his other hand gripped Gu Jiuqing’s upper arm. “Where had you two gotten to in your conversation just now — whose heart, contains whom?”

“And who,” — his two hands gradually tightened, nearly digging into Pei Yanci’s shoulders and upper arms down to the bone — yet at the same time trembling almost imperceptibly with a faint and hidden dread — “wishes to become Empress.”

“Come back with me. I’ll explain everything to you,” Pei Yanci said quietly, eyes downcast.

Tangxi Zhui slowly widened his eyes and looked toward Gu Jiuqing.

Gu Jiuqing’s fear and revulsion toward certain people was etched into his very bones. His instinct was to retreat warily and leave without a second thought — yet he somehow overcame the instinctive terror welling up within him and stopped in his tracks.

“Yanci — in what way am I inferior to this castrated man?”

He truly could not accept it.

If it were someone more outstanding and more powerful than himself, he could yield.

But to lose to a castrated man — this was an unbearable humiliation!

“I wonder if the Regent Prince has forgotten,” Tangxi Zhui murmured, his cheek brushing against Pei Yanci’s in a feline nuzzle, those pitch-black, sinister eyes hollow in their pupils, carrying not a shred of human warmth, yet brimming with thorough intimacy and possessiveness. “It was you who pushed him toward this lord.”

Gu Jiuqing’s pupils contracted sharply.

“You even presented him like a gift, offering him up with both hands to this lord. Now that you want him back — is it not a little too late?”

The clear, melodious voice rose at the end, carrying several notes of pleasure and unmistakable pride.

“So — may you leave now?”

What a pestilent nuisance.

Gu Jiuqing’s nostrils flared; his sharp, thin lips parted and trembled — but in the end, nothing more was said.

This time, he did not look back even once.

“Can you let go now?”

Tangxi Zhui slowly loosened his stiffened fingers — but in the very next instant wrapped them around his waist from behind.

“Tangxi…”

“I know. You were joking — teasing him.” In just a moment, even as he spoke, Tangxi Zhui had already released him, affecting a tone of ease. “It was nothing.”

He had always been keenly attuned to the shifts in others’ emotions. Before Pei Yanci could feel disgusted or angered, Tangxi Zhui had already moved first.

Pei Yanci gave a brief explanation of the scene just now and changed the subject. “I spotted a black cat here earlier — did you see it?”

Tangxi Zhui shook his head. “It may have gone into the abandoned palace. Never mind it — there are quite a few stray cats here. Be careful not to let those dirty claws scratch you.”

Only then did Pei Yanci recall that this man had just come out of the abandoned palace. There still clung to him the dank, mildewed smell of mossy stones from the dark, damp courtyard. “What were you doing inside?”

Tangxi Zhui paused, then said, “My adoptive father — he died here.”

Pei Yanci was briefly silent.

“Your feelings toward him…”

He had never quite understood the twisted bond of father and son between eunuchs.

“I was the one who killed him. Here.”

The reactive tension in Tangxi Zhui’s body gradually subsided back to normal. “Did I hurt you just now? Let me see.”

“You have some conscience after all. When we get home, you will massage it for me properly — and you may not sleep until I say stop.”

“I was wrong. In the future I absolutely will not lay hands on you like that again,” Tangxi Zhui said with deep remorse.

“Let us go. It is eerie and gloomy here. If I stay any longer I will catch a chill.” Pei Yanci wrinkled his nose and walked ahead.

This wound had better take a full day to heal — and for that day, this man is sleeping in the study!

No — even once it heals, he can sleep in the study for another half a month, to teach him a lesson. What does he think he is doing, flying into jealous rages at the drop of a hat, and now he’s gone and hurt me — the skin is probably broken, my bones ached from how hard he squeezed.

The more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt. He turned and shot a fierce glare behind him — only to see the figure following him silently curling his five fingers inward, pressing them exactly onto his own upper arm, in precisely the same spot where he had gripped Pei Yanci.

“Hmm?” Pei Yanci let out a single sound from his throat and narrowed his eyes at him.

Tangxi Zhui sheepishly dropped his hand.

Immediately, blood seeped through from beneath the violet robe.

“Well, aren’t you something — settling a score on yourself the moment it’s owed, not a beat wasted. And doing it right in front of me — aside from offending my eyes, who exactly are you trying to perform your misery for?”

Tangxi Zhui’s face went chalk-white.

“You are mine — have you forgotten? Last time I already told you: if you ever try to harm yourself again, you can go as far away from me as possible.”

Tangxi Zhui reached out to grab hold of him, but Pei Yanci turned aside and evaded.

“Yanci, Xiao Pei’er — I was wrong, I was truly wrong. This time is different — I carelessly hurt you, and even ten thousand cuts could not absolve me of that. Please give me one more chance.”

Tangxi Zhui followed behind him carefully and helplessly, wanting to draw close yet no longer daring to.

Pei Yanci stopped walking and glanced back at him, then said with a sigh of resignation, “Hold me.”

“Ah?”

“Both my arms were hurt by your grip. Are you really going to make me endure the pain and hold you instead?”

Tangxi Zhui’s arms seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. He slowly, haltingly opened them and wrapped them loosely around Pei Yanci, barely enclosing him.

Pei Yanci rested his head heavily on his shoulder, feeling the faint cool warmth radiating from him through layers of cloth, and said in a gentle voice, “You grew accustomed to inflicting harm upon yourself — and so you may do the same to others without thinking. Do you want me to be hurt because of you again and again in the future?”

Tangxi Zhui’s whole body went rigid. After a long moment, he made a solemn promise. “I will never do this again.”

Unlike the last time, this time he truly took it to heart.

“I do not know how much suffering your past has caused you. But from now on — love yourself, just a little.”

“Understood.”

He could harm himself, but he could not harm Pei Yanci.

No one could. That included himself.

****

Gu Jiuqing took the long way around from the abandoned palace, and had barely entered the side hall when a teacup came flying directly at him.

He sidestepped it. The attendant beside him cried out furiously, “Princess, how dare you show such disrespect to the Regent Prince!”

“Oh ho — so this dog of yours has finally found its voice? Where was it just now? Your master didn’t dare make so much as a sound.”

“You openly and in full view spoke up at the banquet to win power for the Cui family — shall I call you foolish, or call you stupid?” Gu Jiuqing moved to the side and slowly, methodically washed his hands.

“If this princess doesn’t speak up, is this princess supposed to wait for you, you block of ice, to open your mouth? Can you not see how unfavorable the court’s balance of power has become for us?! And still you have the leisure to play at being above it all!”

“You have overstepped.” Gu Jiuqing’s gaze turned glacially cold.

“Overstepped? Who do you think you are? This princess will not only scold you — this princess will scold Gu Yisui too! Look at him — that feeble, incompetent, gutless wretch! How did the Gu family produce such a spineless creature?!”

“Since your ambitions are so great and your abilities so strong, go ahead and take that throne yourself,” Gu Jiuqing said idly.

Princess Gu Yueqian’s arched brows shot upward. Then, in an instant, every trace of rage was reined in; a smile spread across her face. “Surely you know this princess has always supported you. Is this princess not simply too anxious — a mere subject is now lording it over both our heads.”

A flicker of impatience passed through Gu Jiuqing’s eyes; he turned his face away.

“This princess bribed Li Ren’an, drew the Cui family and the Xue family to our side, recruited advisors — every one of these undertakings, this princess has labored over on your behalf.” Gu Yueqian said softly. “Pei Yanci guards against you far more than he does against this princess. You should rest for a while at the Regent’s mansion — this princess will handle things on the outside.”

Gu Jiuqing gave her a flat, impassive glance and shook her hand from his arm.

Gu Yueqian did all of this so that, once he ascended the throne, he would remember her kindness. A woman cast aside by Great Xi, with no power and no backing, a widow at that, with a son locked away in prison with his fate uncertain — without power to lean on, her twilight years would be as wretched as those of the cold-palace consorts.

“If the princess truly is scheming and planning on this prince’s behalf, there happens to be one idea,” he said. His ice-cold hand glided over Gu Yueqian’s fair and tender cheek. “Jiang Yi is far from Anjing City — in the short term, even if Pei Yanci has troops outside the capital in his hands, he has no way to bring them back quickly to defend it. The most critical point is the Imperial Guards.”

“Gu Wanchong has already refused this prince. But Peng Chulang — his stance has been somewhat ambiguous.”

“What do you mean…” Gu Yueqian had an ill premonition about the hand resting on her face.

“If the princess truly wishes to support this prince, it just so happens that General Peng lost his wife in his early years and has not remarried for over ten years.”

Gu Yueqian’s delicate lips trembled and began to pale. “This princess is a Grand Princess.”

“So you think a Grand Princess can ascend the throne?” Gu Jiuqing said languidly, spreading his hands.

“You think this princess is coveting that seat? Are you the one who has lost his mind, or is it this princess?!” Gu Yueqian was so shocked she was nearly speechless. “This princess is furious that you would so demean your own royal sister! Peng Chulang — a mere third-rank brute — and this princess is supposed to serve as his wife and bear his children?!”

“Rest assured, princess,” Gu Jiuqing’s tone carried not a single shred of feeling, as cold and detached as if he were discussing a stranger’s lifelong happiness, “this is merely a means of drawing General Peng to our side. Once this prince has taken that seat, an imperial decree will settle your separation, and this prince will find you a far better match.”

“And if this princess refuses?” Gu Yueqian turned serious as well. “Are you not afraid this princess will no longer work on your behalf?”

“After the marriage, the princess may still move freely through the Xuanwei Palace, come and go from the Regent’s mansion, and counsel this prince at his side — all that is owed you, this prince will not withhold a single thing. However,” — something cold and keen flashed through his eyes — “if the princess will not agree to this marriage, this prince must also wonder whether you harbor some other intention.”

Marrying Gu Yueqian off to Peng Chulang — one purpose was to win him over. But the other purpose was in truth to cut off her path.

Gu Jiuqing was a man of deep suspicion by nature. This time, his suspicion had turned toward Gu Yueqian.

Where power was at stake, even a woman — he would calculate carefully and guard against her vigilantly.

“I truly never imagined it: with Gu Yisui sitting ahead of you occupying your rightful position, you do not move against him; with Pei Yanci watching with a tiger’s eye, you do not deal with him — yet the first blade you turn is on the ally who has stood by you all along? What a contemptible creature, born of low origins! Gu Jiuqing — no wonder you can only ever be a Regent Prince. With a character like yours, you will never amount to anything great!” Gu Yueqian said, and the more she said, the more absurd it all seemed.

Gu Jiuqing said nothing, simply waiting for her to finish her tirade and give him an answer.

At last, she drew a deep breath and nodded. “This princess has sacrificed so much for your great enterprise — you had best remember what you promised this princess today.”

The gloom that had hung over Gu Jiuqing’s face for over half a month finally eased. He gave a solemn promise. “I will.”