Prince Huainan, who hadn’t seen this outcome coming at all, was completely beside himself when Eunuch Lian led him from the room. The Court of the Imperial Clan had already been summoned in the meantime and took him back. Emperor Jingren meant what he said; Prince Huainan would have to remain at the Court of the Imperial Clan until the fifteenth, when he could be tried.

Prince Huainan was beside himself, and Emperor Jingren wasn’t feeling too pleased either. When he had first woken up after hitting his head, everything had felt wrong to him, but gradually the sense of unease had faded. Especially of late, he had felt each day passing to his satisfaction; not only was everything going right for him, many irrational things were disappearing. But now, the sense that everything around him was wrong had returned.

He kept feeling that some people and things simply did not fit. Their existence seemed rational, but in reality, it simply didn’t accord with common sense.

It was a very subtle feeling, nothing that he could analyze with his reason: mere intuition.

And now, as Prince Huainan spoke, this feeling had been given form.

The Xia dynasty did not treat passions between men as a mark of elegance and worldliness, the way the Wei and Jin dynasties had. Anyone who really had the Longyang proclivity would conceal his interest in men; it was rare for anyone to display it openly. But now, he had encountered simply too many people who had it…

Yan Xu, Shen Junyi, the empress…even himself.

Setting himself and the empress aside, as they were husband and wife and everyone still took the empress for a woman, Yan Xu and Shen Junyi had both displayed inappropriate intentions toward him.

Had he been an ordinary person, there wouldn’t be any need to overthink this. But he was an emperor, which made it instead rather unreasonable.

Precisely because he was emperor, even if these people nursed an unseemly desire for him, they would have to keep it hidden, not daring to speak of it. Forget Yan Xu’s daring approach, there was also Prince Huainan… Where had he found the guts!

Emperor Jingren had already felt general discomfort after being fiddled with half the night by the empress. Now that he had so many things on his mind, his head ached. He remembered that the empress had told him to go rest in Zichen Hall after they were finished paying their respects, and when he had sent the consorts and concubines on their way, the empress would come join him.

This was a rather rude thing to say, but it had felt just right. As if they weren’t the emperor and empress of a nation, but an ordinary husband and wife, with the wife grieved by the husband’s weariness casually telling him to get some rest and planning to join him after taking care of some business.

Though he knew that it was impossible for an emperor to have this kind of ordinary life, it was nice to feel that way sometimes.

Emperor Jingren retreated to the inner hall to rest. There were many things troubling him, but they were all minor. As long as they did not threaten the nation, there was no need to forego his rest for their sake.

Soon, Emperor Jingren was asleep. He didn’t dream of Prince Huainan’s sincere confession but of the empress holding him and smiling.

He was immensely comfortable in the empress’s embrace, as if in this whole weary world, this was the sole harbor where he could rest.

In his dreams, he had the vague feeling of someone lying down beside him. This person was so familiar that Emperor Jingren didn’t even perceive a threat. He only instinctively drew closer to the source of warmth. In a daze, someone kissed his forehead, very lightly and tenderly.

It was a sweet sleep, and when he woke it was already afternoon. He had missed lunch.

When he opened his eyes, Emperor Jingren felt someone lying next to him, wearing only a very casual…very short pair of pants, with nothing on top, familiar chest exposed beside him.

Emperor Jingren, who was very properly dressed, put a hand to his forehead. The empress was wonderful in every way, except that in this respect he was a little inattentive to details.

As soon as Emperor Jingren moved, the empress woke. Opening his eyes, he very naturally pulled Emperor Jingren into his arms and kissed his lips. In a just woken, somewhat sensual drawl, he said, “Had enough sleep? Don’t get up, stay in bed a little longer.”

Then he pressed Emperor Jingren, who had already sat up, back into bed. His eyes were half closed, as if lying here were a matter of immense enjoyment.

Well, fine, it really was enjoyable. Emperor Jingren thought that lazing around like this on occasion could be nice. But there was one thing he couldn’t tolerate.

Emperor Jingren’s gaze fell on the empress’s firm chest just for an instant before he averted it. He softly scolded, “Get dressed. This is scandalous.”

The empress was rather disobedient on this point. He rejected the imperial decree. “It’s hot. Sleeping like this is comfortable.”

“It’s winter now, and you slept fully dressed when you shared a bed with us this past summer. You mean to say it’s hot now?” Emperor Jingren’s outer clothes were neatly hung up on their rack, while articles of the empress’s clothing had been flung around the room. It was a sight too dreadful to behold.

“That’s not the same thing at all,” said the empress, smiling. “There was no understanding between us in summer, and now we’ve been intimate. Naturally I want to get as close as I can. Sleeping in the nude is very comfortable. Won’t Your Majesty try it?”

“We are not interested,” Emperor Jingren said precisely. “And we would remind the empress to observe decorum.”

There was something adorable in one’s beloved being overly obstinate. The empress decided not to reason with him on this point but to forcibly acclimate him.

Therefore, the empress very rudely peeled off Emperor Jingren’s bright yellow sleeping robe. He had meant to go back to sleep holding him like this, but instead, once the clothes were off, revealing a physique that was much more impressive than it appeared covered up, as well as the marks the empress himself had left last night, he couldn’t help getting distracted by other ideas.

Naturally ideas were inferior to actions. The empress was a decisive person. He pounced at once on Emperor Jingren, determined that he had been so gentle last night that he hadn’t hurt him, then proceeded to display further disrespect toward His Majesty.

All Emperor Jingren’s anger was kissed away. He had been annoyed about the empress sleeping with his clothes in disarray…or rather, simply unclothed, but now he was no longer thinking of anything.

After emperor and empress had fooled around for a time, Emperor Jingren, panting, lay with his back toward the empress but found himself embraced and pulled toward a firm chest. He heard the empress’s satiated voice in his ear: “Isn’t it more comfortable to be close like this? Your Majesty belongs to the realm, and I can’t fight the realm for you. But here, I hope that I can be as close to Your Majesty as possible.”

Hearing this, Emperor Jingren’s faint ire dissipated, and he said seriously, “We are concerned that your identity will be discovered. When you sleep, your guard is down. You should be more careful.”

Hearing this, the empress felt a trickle of warmth in his heart. The young emperor knew very well that there were many points of suspicion about him coming to the harem as a man, but even before he had found an adequate explanation, he could give precedence to concerns about the empress’s sex being revealed. The young emperor treated him with total sincerity, but he couldn’t give him the truth, because the truth was simply too cruel.

The empress could only manage a half-truth. “Don’t worry. Has Your Majesty forgotten my abilities, my acute sight and hearing? Even in dreams, if someone approaches this room, I will wake at once. This is true for all soldiers at the frontier. They can sleep as soundly as the dead, so that a crash of thunder won’t wake them, but as soon as they hear the hoofbeats of invaders, however far off they might be, they will wake at once.”

“Have you been in battle, Jinyi?” Emperor Jingren asked.

“Yes,” said the empress, nodding. “Many times. I’ve seen the cruelty of war. A living person stands before you, and then, before you even have a chance to blink, their head is separated from their body. That person might have been a veteran of many years, or they might have been a green soldier going to war for the first time, not even married. Death isn’t picky. Everyone is the same on the battlefield. But I have also experienced love between comrades in arms. Death is so frightening, but there are people who can face the world’s greatest terror to protect you, who can still stand and shield you even with their limbs crippled.”

His tone grew graver and graver. From the emotion in his voice, Emperor Jingren knew that the empress wasn’t lying.

“Why did you come to the palace, Jinyi?” Emperor Jingren asked.

Since he loved the soldiers of the frontier so deeply, since he dreamed of defending the border, why would he still come to the palace?

The empress considered it. He had a reason, which had been prepared for him by the technicians when he had come here, so he could use it in case his identity was exposed. He didn’t want to lie to Emperor Jingren, but he preferred giving him this reason to telling him the truth.

“My father, Marquis Zhenbei, has five sons and one daughter, and I am that daughter, his youngest child. The five before me were all taken to the battlefield by my father before they were ten years old. My eldest brother died in battle at twelve, and my third brother’s legs were broken at fifteen, but he still goes to the front lines in his wheelchair to command. My second, fourth, and fifth brothers have many old wounds, which ache terribly during stormy weather. When I was born, my eldest brother had just died. My mother did not want her youngest son to be taken onto the battlefield as well, so she bribed the midwife to help her fool my father into thinking I was a daughter, and the deception went on for over a decade. My father was often away from home and had no opportunity to learn my true sex.” This background was real; it hadn’t existed in the original novel but had been designed by the technicians for him when he came.

Emperor Jingren was silent for a long time, then said a little heavily, “In that case, why did you come to the palace? In Mobei, nothing would happen if you were discovered to be a man dressed as a woman, but in the palace, it would be incredibly dangerous.”

“Imperial commands cannot be disobeyed,” the empress responded simply.

Emperor Jingren vaguely recalled when he and the empress had been engaged. Marquis Zhenbei had just won a major victory against foreign invaders. There were four generals in his family, and even his handicapped son was given a position at court. This was supreme glory, but it also threatened to eclipse the might of their sovereign. The late emperor had been wary of Marquis Zhenbei and his sons, but he could not take action against them immediately after this victory, making his courtiers think he would reward success with death. Therefore, to reassure Marquis Zhenbei, he had arranged a marriage between the crown prince and Marquis Zhenbei’s only daughter, leaving the highborn girls who had wanted to be crown princess slackjawed with shock. The late emperor had meant to force Marquis Zhenbei to give up his military authority a few years after this reassurance, but he hadn’t lived long enough. Two years after the marriage was arranged, he died of illness, leaving the crown prince, per the late emperor’s decree, to marry Marquis Zhenbei’s “daughter” Xiao Jinyi and inherit the throne.

These memories had before been nothing but memories, but now Emperor Jingren couldn’t help but feel a little saddened by them. Only when he had heard Jinyi describe life at the frontier did he truly understand what kind of place a battlefield was, and what a bloody struggle the border soldiers engaged in. But in order to keep military authority from passing into the hands of others, each generation’s emperor had to exercise control over courtiers who had served with merit. The fortunate among them could doff their armor and retire to a civilian life, their children and grandchildren barred from holding official positions. The less fortunate would have their property seized while they were executed, unable to die a peaceful death.

But, from his throne, Emperor Jingren understood what a frightening thing power was. Could a commander holding power over a multitude of soldiers truly resist its lure? All emperors had pondered this question, including himself, and none had found a satisfactory answer.

Seeing Emperor Jingren frown, the empress reached out to smooth his brow and said in his ear, “Do not be concerned, Your Majesty. If ever someone dares to use his military authority to attempt a rebellion, even if he should have tens of thousands of troops behind him, I will take his head and present it to Your Majesty. All my martial talents exist for Your Majesty’s sake.”