The distance between the hunting grounds and the capital could be covered in four hours by a fast horse, but the progress of this comprehensive force took an entire day. Emperor Jingren and the empress didn’t leave their carriage all day but rested inside it. Emperor Jingren had been working overtime to free up time to attend the autumn hunt, and it had worn him out. He had been so tired that the empress had even stopped his morning exercise, just so Emperor Jingren could get a little extra sleep.

There were still dark circles under Emperor Jingren’s eyes. The empress simply had him lay on her lap and sleep on the road.

Emperor Jingren let down his hair and lay down. He thought that the empress’s legs were really…thick and hard!

Luckily, there was nothing wrong with Emperor Jingren’s cervical vertebrae, or else his neck would have certainly ended up sore from having his head pillowed on such high knees.

Though his pillow was a little uncomfortable, the empress put her hand on Emperor Jingren’s head and gently began to massage it. Whatever technique the empress was using, Emperor Jingren felt air currents moving around his head, creating a pleasant sensation. To go to the autumn hunt, everyone had set out before sunrise today. Emperor Jingren had hardly slept. Now, lying in the soft bed, with his head pillowed on the empress’s knees, despite the rattling of the carriage, he still felt very comfortable and drifted off to sleep.

The empress wore hardly any perfume. Instead she had a clean, freshly bathed scent about her. Of course, the empress always bathed after morning exercise, and she always smelled of green, growing things, better than any perfume.

All the consorts and concubines in the palace used perfume, and all of it smelled about the same. In each palace, he smelled the same fragrance. Only the empress was different. He had never smelled any particular fragrance about the empress…

Fragrance…

The dreaming Emperor Jingren’s eyes flew open.

“What’s wrong, Your Majesty?” the empress asked in concern. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Emperor Jingren shook his head silently. He grabbed hold of the empress’s wide sleeve and put it to his nose: a clean scent of honeylocust. The empress’s clothes weren’t perfumed either. They usually smelled of honeylocust washing water.

The empress had also smelled her sleeve. She asked, “Would Your Majesty like me to use perfume?”

“No.” Emperor Jingren pondered, slowly shaking his head. “We were only thinking… We have only ever smelled one kind of perfume in the palace.”

He said nothing else. He sat up and thought for a while, then lay back down and closed his eyes.

But with the empress’s martial arts training, she was sensitive to people’s breathing. There was always a difference between the breathing of a sleeping person and a waking one, even if that person was pretending very convincingly to be asleep.

Emperor Jingren wasn’t sleeping. He had developed suspicions concerning that perfume.

Actually, the empress had long thought that that incense wasn’t dependable. If you wanted to win a person’s sincere affections, you couldn’t rely solely on external objects. Only sincerity could be exchanged for sincerity.

Emperor Jingren was a conscientious person with an understanding of gratitude. He could understand at once who had good intentions toward him, and who had only fake affections. He wouldn’t be fooled. With a person like this, using incense to create realistic dreams would only put ever more distance between him and the user.

The empress had taken away all the incense in the palace first as a warning to the others, and second out of compassion for this young emperor, only twenty-two years old.

He believed that he was the master of the realm, but in fact it was all an illusion. He believed that he was the object of everyone’s love and esteem, but in fact all those feelings were false.

The empress knew that this compassion toward an emperor earnestly living his life and sincerely acting for the benefit of the people was a little misplaced, but you couldn’t control your feelings. After enough contact, you couldn’t always keep your heart hardened. So she had taken everyone’s incense, hoping that if someone truly did one day succeed, it wouldn't be because of those fake dreams but because they had exchanged sincerity for sincerity.

Her hand caressed Emperor Jingren’s hair. It was long and beautiful, cascading like a waterfall when it was loose, straight and smooth. The empress always wanted to stroke Emperor Jingren’s hair, but that gesture was intimate. The emperor had already displayed an unusual interest in her. She didn’t want to toy with the young emperor’s feelings, so she did her best to avoid any intimate gestures. But now, thinking that the emperor might be unhappy, the empress once again violated her principles and gently consoled him.

Her hand was large and comforting. She didn’t smell of that familiar perfume. Emperor Jingren gradually let down his guard and fell asleep.

But he didn’t forget. When they reached the temporary residence, he immediately ordered all the incense in the residence, both what had been there originally and what the consorts and concubines had brought with them, to be brought to him. He personally smelled each of them one by one, which made him sneeze incessantly. He only stopped when he could no longer distinguish one smell from another.

The empress didn’t speak. She watched him in silence.

“Jinyi,” Emperor Jingren said a little gravely. “Three months ago, after we hit our head, hardly anything changed, but we have felt that everything around us has been slightly wrong. We thought that we were confused after the bump on the head, but now it seems that isn’t the case.

“We remember the scent of this incense,” Emperor Jingren went on. “The four consorts were given their status at the same time as we married you, but the first one we visited was the virtuous consort, three months after we were married. We were happy with you then and had no wish to go to the others, but after three months you had yet to conceive, so the empress dowager counseled us, and the ministers remonstrated with us on the basis of ancestral teachings, so we agreed. That night, we recall that we smelled a very pleasant scent, and we asked the virtuous consort what it was.

“A few days later, we smelled it in the pure consort’s residence as well. We asked the pure consort about it. That scent was very similar to the one the virtuous consort had, we said. It was very distinct. The pure consort said then that she knew we liked this scent, so she had borrowed some from the virtuous consort.

“From then on, wherever we went in the palace, we could smell that scent, apart from when we went to you,” Emperor Jingren recalled slowly.

“But later, we once again smelled that scent, in a different place. But the scent was too faint then, and we were only concerned with the new law, so we took no notice. Had it been some other scent, we probably would have quickly forgotten it. But the memory of a very familiar scent remains.” As he spoke, Emperor Jingren’s face turned grave.

The empress squeezed his hand and said nothing.

“When we smelled that scent in the palace of a consort or concubine, we would have a night of pleasure with that consort. When we smelled that scent on Lin Boyuan’s memorial, we dreamed of a passionate encounter with Lin Boyuan that night. Was that really a coincidence?” Emperor Jingren once again picked up a piece of incense and smelled it, then shook his head. “That incense isn’t here.”

“I discovered that incense three months ago,” the empress responded, knowing she could no longer keep silent. “I confiscated all that was in the palace and destroyed it.”

“Do you know what it is?” Emperor Jingren asked.

The empress thought about it, then answered with a half-truth: “Your subject wife only heard that this type of incense existed in the palace and therefore asked about it. I learned that it was an aphrodisiac. Most aphrodisiac medicines and scents are bad for one’s health, and make it harder to have children. While it’s all part of vying for favor in the harem, it still could not be allowed to continue. Therefore, I collected and destroyed this incense. There’s none left in the palace. I didn’t expect Lin Boyuan to have more. It seems it comes from outside the palace.”

“So that’s it.” Emperor Jingren nodded. “That night when you wanted the Bureau of Communication to copy his memorial, and constantly hinted to us that an erotic dream shouldn’t be taken seriously, you must already have noticed what was wrong with the memorial.”

“Yes. Your subject wife was aware of it but failed to report it. I have done wrong.” The empress slowly knelt to await Emperor Jingren’s decision.

“You’ve done nothing wrong.” Emperor Jingren sighed and quickly raised the empress to her feet. “There’s a long history of special aphrodisiacs being used in the harem. You destroyed it as soon as you discovered it, and you didn’t say anything. That was already giving full consideration to the dignity of the imperial family. Lin Boyuan, meanwhile… We believed he was an honorable man. What a surprise to find him scheming like this. Presumably, if you had not advised us to rest that night, we would have encountered Imperial Concubine Lin. Her incense had been confiscated by you, so she went to quite a lot of trouble to get that incense without alerting you.”

The empress was brought up short.

“When we return to the palace, let’s find a reason to reduce Imperial Concubine Lin’s status to an ordinary concubine. As for Lin Boyuan, we still have a use for him. We will see how he does in implementing the new law. If he does a bad job…we can always get someone else to do it!”

The final stamp had basically been put on the new law. As long as he chose a responsible and loyal person, it didn’t matter who it was; they would be able to do the thing well. He had no further need for a schemer like Lin Boyuan.

As a ruler, Emperor Jingren had no trouble casting a person aside once they had done their part.

The empress was speechless.