As soon as he said this, Emperor Jingren experienced a whirlwind and found himself pressed heavily to the bed. Flames seemed to burn in Xiao Jinyi’s eyes, and in those flames was Emperor Jingren’s image. He was gazing wantonly at Emperor Jingren, and he seemed to have offered the same insult as Yan Xu.

But Emperor Jingren felt no anger. The person close to him now was the empress; he didn’t mind. He said mildly, “Shen Junrui is willing to spend this life hand in hand with Xiao Jinyi, till death do us part. Even if people despise our affections, Shen Junrui will not care. But Emperor Jingren must have an heir. Shen Junrui can act on his whims, but Emperor Jingren must consider the good of Great Xia.”

Shen Junrui was Emperor Jingren’s name. Since he had inherited the throne, no one had dared to speak this name, not even the empress dowager. But now, in front of Xiao Jinyi, he wasn’t Emperor Jingren; he was Shen Junrui.

Only Shen Junrui could overlook the fact that the empress was a man, while Emperor Jingren could not. As a good ruler, he couldn’t have a man for an empress.

Xiao Jinyi wasn’t using force. Emperor Jingren pushed him off with a gentle shove.

“Your Majesty means to overlook my identity?” The empress looked at Emperor Jingren with a trace of sadness in his eyes. The empress had always been strong. Nothing had ever been able to shake his emotions. But now a rare expression of sorrow appeared on his face.

Emperor Jingren let out a long sigh. As if acknowledging his fate, he closed his eyes and said, “As emperor, spying on a woman in her bath is inappropriate, even if it should be his own wife. Therefore, the person who spied on you that day was Shen Junrui, not us.”

This was taking wilful blindness to the full! Xiao Jinyi was so incensed he didn’t know whether to get angry or to laugh. The young emperor was doing all he could to excuse him, but there was no way he could forget that he was an emperor. Tolerating him remaining empress despite being a man was already Emperor Jingren’s utmost limit.

“Your Majesty is welcome to hold a selection.” The empress’s expression returned to normal. He spoke calmly. “But as Your Majesty’s first wife, I am a very jealous person. I’m afraid I will prevent these new women from getting close to Your Majesty.”

Then he drew close, in spite of Emperor Jingren’s resistance, and hugged him, then planted a kiss on his lips. Now that they had talked it out, the empress not only showed no signs of guilt, his conduct toward the emperor was even more forthrightly impudent, as if he had no thought at all for his own identity.

The kiss wasn’t deep, only the gentlest touch, but Emperor Jingren felt his lips tingle, as if the empress had cast a spell on him to make him savor this kiss.

Remembering the night they had shared wine, Emperor Jingren felt that even had there been no wine, he would still have been intoxicated. This person’s very existence was a colossal lie, but he still couldn’t help drawing nearer, going in pursuit of that kiss.

The kiss had Emperor Jingren, who had already sat up, once again pushed down by the empress. This time, it was a long while before he could sit back up. The empress kept him pressed down and kissed him deeply, leaving him no room to even catch a breath.

As they kissed, they grasped each other’s lapels. The empress clasped Emperor Jingren in his arms, as if he wanted to absorb him into his own flesh, never to part. Emperor Jingren was also a little excited. Inadvertently, he touched the empress’s firm chest.

This familiar sensation instantly cleared Emperor Jingren’s mind. He put a restraining hand against the empress’s chest, not letting him continue.

“Impertinence,” said Emperor Jingren, his cheeks slightly flushed. He couldn’t muster a trace of majesty.

The empress put his own hand over the one on his chest and couldn’t resist bending his head to kiss Emperor Jingren’s face again. Tenderly, he asked, “You really don’t want to? Don’t you not care that I’m a man?”

Emperor Jingren pushed the empress aside. “Though we do not care about your sex, we do not want to be lied to. We know you are hiding something from us. Until you come clean, we do not plan to be with a dishonest person.”

Then he stood, straightened out his own clothes, and then the empress’s. Finally, he called out, “Servants, take the empress back to her palace.”

There was one good thing about being emperor: no one could force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

Eunuch Lian and Little Shunzi, who always personally waited on Emperor Jingren, came quickly. Seeing both emperor and empress looking upset, they bowed and made an inviting gesture toward the empress. The empress gazed at Emperor Jingren for a while, saw that he showed no signs of relenting, and followed Eunuch Lian out.

When they were outside, Eunuch Lian carefully asked, “Empress, His Majesty… Has he learned about your real sex? But even if he has, given his feelings for you, he shouldn’t care.”

The empress was in a bad mood. He said peevishly, “Do you know why not one of you has succeeded to this day in catching Emperor Jingren’s eye?”

“Well…” Eunuch Lian couldn’t very well respond to this. Wasn’t it because Emperor Jingren was fated to fall in love with Su Huailing, and none of his feelings for anyone other than Su Huailing would be real? But if that were truly the case, none of them could reach the goal. In other words, it must be possible for Emperor Jingren’s feelings to change, and the empress must have exploited this miniscule potential in order to win his affections.

“Because all of your impressions of him are limited by what you know of the original novel,” the empress said. “But you’ve all forgotten that when we came here, the guide book said in bold text that the characters’ personalities had been designed according to the way they appeared at the very start of the novel, to accord with logic. And the novel itself isn’t a logical book.”

Behind them, Little Shunzi’s ears were pricked up as he followed them, all his attention on the empress’s wise remarks.

“None of you understand what a wise ruler Emperor Jingren is. For the sake of this nation, he can kill off all of his emotions. It is practically impossible for such a person to give up the whole world for a single person.” The empress let out a long sigh.

He’d never wanted to make Emperor Jingren give up the whole world for his sake. He had only been using this process as a coverup; this wasn’t his objective. But now, he had actually fallen for this young emperor who was unkind to himself, who forced himself to be patient and calm.

“Then…then does that mean no one can unlock the achievement?” Eunuch Lian blurted out. “In the original, for Su Huailing’s sake, Emperor Jingren…”

“Shut up!” said the empress fiercely.

Eunuch Lian realized that he had accidentally said “unlock the achievement,” a taboo term. According to the rules, if you said a taboo term more than three times, you would automatically be out of the game, and you would owe a great deal of money in compensation. Apart from this, dying would also get you out of the game, but you weren’t permitted to leave by means of killing yourself. They had all signed contracts before coming here. They didn’t have the option of giving up. That was why Yan Xu had to endure torture and couldn’t kill himself to escape, and he certainly didn’t dare to use any taboo terms.

These rules were very unreasonable. Though their lives weren’t in danger, there were absolutely no safeguards for the players’ mental wellbeing. But this had also been mentioned in the contract; they had no means of seeking redress.

Though the game was unreasonable in several respects, the cash prize for winning was considerable, so many people had still come here. And Eunuch Lian remembered that, if no one fulfilled the mission within a certain length of time, another batch of people would be sent in.

While Eunuch Lian was lost in thought, he heard the empress suddenly ask, “Where’s Little Shunzi?”

“He was following us…” Eunuch Lian looked back. Little Shunzi, who had always quietly followed him like a guardian angel, was gone.

“Could he have thought of a way based on what we said?” asked Eunuch Lian.

“Let him try whatever he likes,” the empress said indifferently. “Emperor Jingren isn’t that stupid. There’s nothing he can do.”

Thinking back to the Embroidered Guard’s prison and how Emperor Jingren had seen through Yan Xu’s inability to feel pain, the empress couldn’t resist letting his lips turn up in a smile. This young emperor was smarter than all of them imagined. Everyone had underestimated him. They had absolutely no idea how insightful he was.

—

After bringing things out into the open with the empress, Emperor Jingren stopped spending his nights at Qifeng Hall. But he also didn’t go to the palaces of the consorts and concubines. Though the pure consort had made up her mind to take desperate measures, she didn’t even get a chance to get close to Emperor Jingren.

During this time, Emperor Jingren slept in Zichen Hall. He didn’t summon any of the consorts to accompany him there. Beside him were only the maids and eunuchs who normally waited on him. Eunuch Lian was elderly, and Emperor Jingren was considerate toward his servants; he never made old eunuchs stay up through the night. It was Little Shunzi and another young eunuch who stood the night watch now.

Little Shunzi had always been a taciturn but very clever person. Though he spoke little, everything he did was very satisfactory, and lately he had been even more diligent than usual. Often Emperor Jingren had only to raise a hand for Little Shunzi to know what he wanted. Having his services was very convenient, so Emperor Jingren kept him around.

Later, he happened to discover that Little Shunzi was skilled at massage. Since his open discussion with the empress, Emperor Jingren had rarely gone to exercise, because remembering what had happened before made him melancholy. He spent a lot of time sitting and exercised little, so naturally his body became fatigued and sore. Little Shunzi’s massages made him feel comfortable and refreshed.

When a person is constantly around, even if you didn’t pay attention to him to begin with, you start to notice things about him without meaning to. Gradually, Emperor Jingren found that Little Shunzi’s looks were quite remarkable. He had a face like a lovely girl. Perhaps on a woman this face would only have been fine, but on a man, it was quite pretty and cute. Little Shunzi was normally unassuming, always keeping his head bent, and he was also short. This made it hard for people to see his face clearly. Had Emperor Jingren not occasionally looked up while being massaged, he might well not have discovered that he had such a handsome young eunuch in his service.

Everyone likes nice things. Little Shunzi was pleasing to the eye, he was considerate and canny, and he could give Emperor Jingren massages that relieved his fatigue. He was soon promoted, going from an unranked eunuch to an eight-rank palace official. Since he regularly waited on Emperor Jingren, despite being only eighth-rank, some eunuch stewards still had to bow their heads before him. Even some consorts and concubines who hadn’t received imperial favor for a long time came to Little Shunzi for news of Emperor Jingren.

The empress naturally also heard of all of this. He only smiled. He wasn’t very concerned.

The days passed quickly. Soon it would be the end of the year. Once all the year-end business had been dealt with, the time came for the Ministry of Rites to prepare for the New Year celebrations. On New Year’s Eve, Emperor Jingren would give a banquet for the officials; everyone who was anyone in the capital received an invitation. And this year the vassal princes were also coming to the capital for the empress dowager’s full decade birthday.