LNTSWJLY Chapter 59

Fine snow fell softly, covering the world in a vast expanse of white.

Inside the palace hall, bronze pillars burned with warmth, filling the room with a cozy heat that kept out the bitter cold outside.

Ying Qingzhu rose and carefully pulled the brocade quilt over Yu Zhi. His calm gaze fell upon the person who was still sleeping soundly, and the lingering affection in his eyes was completely undisguised.

He quietly watched him for a moment.

In the end, he leaned down. His rosy lips gently brushed against the slightly pale lips of the sleeping beauty, leaving a soft kiss.

The fragrance of medicine filled the air, while his warm breath lightly touched the other’s skin.

Afraid that he would wake him, Ying Qingzhu reluctantly pulled away and quietly left the hall.

However, the moment he stepped outside, the person standing guard approached him and said, “Your Highness, the Fourth Prince’s Consort from the Imperial Clan Court requests to see you. Apparently, she has some important information regarding… the Heir of Prince Ying that she wishes to report to you.”

The guard was nervous.

Who in the palace did not know about the relationship between the Heir of Prince Ying and Ying Qingzhu?

Coming to report this to him was already taking quite a risk. But he did not dare conceal the matter and fail to report it. If something happened in the future, would they not come looking for a minor figure like him?

“She?” Ying Qingzhu raised an eyebrow slightly, a trace of surprise in his heart.

What information could that woman possibly have about Yu Zhi?

How could he not know about it?

After thinking it over, Ying Qingzhu recalled how much attention Yu Zhi had been paying to those two. The refusal that had been on the tip of his tongue ultimately went unspoken.

“Lead the way.”

The Imperial Clan Court was a place specifically used to confine members of the imperial family. Although the conditions were not particularly good, they were nowhere near as crude and harsh as an ordinary prison for common criminals.

The Fourth Prince and Rong Yunchang were merely forbidden from leaving their rooms and had lost their freedom. Aside from that, their circumstances were not too bad.

When Ying Qingzhu arrived, he even wondered whether he had been placed under some kind of spell. He had actually come all this way because of the words of a woman who was practically a stranger to him.

If this had been about something else, he probably would have taken the attitude of say it or don’t, it makes no difference to me.

But the moment he heard that it concerned Yu Zhi, he found himself unable to remain patient.

“What do you have to say?”

Ying Qingzhu stood above her while Rong Yunchang stood at the foot of the steps, looking up at the unfamiliar man before her.

At last, she understood.

This time, she had truly lost.

And the person standing before her, was he the one who had also succeeded in her previous life?

So this was what he looked like.

So unforgettable.

She resigned herself to her fate and knelt down. She did not even care that she was several months pregnant as she properly knelt before Ying Qingzhu.

“This guilty woman has a world-shaking secret to report to Your Highness. May I ask Your Highness to dismiss those around you?”

The two guards accompanying Ying Qingzhu immediately showed their disapproval. They were about to reprimand Rong Yunchang for her audacity when Ying Qingzhu spoke first.

“You two, leave.”

“Your Highness!”

“Leave.” Ying Qingzhu insisted. “Do not make me say it a third time.”

The two men had no choice but to withdraw.

Soon, only Ying Qingzhu and Rong Yunchang remained in the room.

“Your Highness, this guilty woman wishes to report to you that the Heir of Prince Ying harbors treacherous intentions and intends to seize the imperial throne!”

Looking down at the woman kneeling below him, Ying Qingzhu’s gaze turned cold. His sharp, knife-like eyes pierced straight toward Rong Yunchang, while a faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His sharp edge was completely exposed.

“Miss Rong, do you know that you cannot simply say whatever you please?”

Under his blade-like gaze, every hair on Rong Yunchang’s body stood on end. She felt as though thorns were pressing into her back.[2] Yet she still stubbornly straightened her body and looked at him.

“Your Highness, this guilty woman is not speaking nonsense. I have evidence!”

Ying Qingzhu’s fingers stopped rubbing together. The pressure emanating from his entire body also dropped noticeably.

“Heh. Evidence? Then let me hear it.”

He put on a slightly interested expression, which gave Rong Yunchang a little more confidence.

She went over the words she had prepared beforehand and carefully chose how to phrase them.

“This matter concerns this guilty woman’s own experiences. It may sound too strange and unbelievable, but I swear that every word I say is true. If I utter even a single falsehood, may Heaven strike me with thunder, and may neither I nor the child in my womb die a peaceful death!”

She dared to swear such a heavy oath. Surely that was enough to prove that everything she said was true.

Ying Qingzhu showed nothing on his face, but inwardly, he wondered what kind of absurd story this woman was about to tell him.

He never expected that Rong Yunchang’s very first sentence would leave him stunned on the spot.

“This guilty woman has a secret. I have been reborn.”

Reborn?!

Ying Qingzhu’s pupils contracted slightly, but his expression did not change.

“Continue,” he said coldly.

Rong Yunchang glanced at him before continuing.

“In my previous life, this guilty woman did many wrong things. I did not love the Third… Fourth Prince. Instead, I loved the hypocritical Eighth Prince, who was sweet-tongued on the surface but secretly vicious. I listened to his slander and helped him harm the Fourth Prince, only to be discarded by him once I had served my purpose.”

“After I died, I never imagined that I would return to two years earlier. So I resolved to change my fate.”

Ying Qingzhu let out a cold laugh.

“Setting aside whether what you say is true, let us talk about what you actually did. You claim you wanted to change your fate. Does that mean you abandoned the Eighth Prince who harmed you, only to truly throw yourself into the Fourth Prince’s arms?”

“You harmed him in your previous life, and that still wasn’t enough. In this life, you cling to him again. Do you think you owe him something? That you are making it up to him? That you are the one repaying a debt and returning his kindness?”

Rong Yunchang bit her lip.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Ying Qingzhu walked a few steps toward her and looked down at the kneeling woman from above.

“You are so self-righteous!”

Rong Yunchang’s face flushed deeply, and a flash of anger appeared in her eyes as she looked at Ying Qingzhu.

But she quickly lowered her head again.

She knew that she was in no position to resent him.

“Continue. Skip all of that. I have no interest in hearing about how you came back to life and then tried to repay your debt. How boring.”

Ying Qingzhu cast her a sidelong glance, not even bothering to look at her properly.

Rong Yunchang felt deeply humiliated, but she had no choice but to continue.

She had not finished taking her revenge yet.

Ying Qingzhu, it would be better for you to see whether you can remain this calm after hearing everything.

She took a deep breath.

“Your Highness, do you not want to know what the Heir of Prince Ying experienced in his previous life?”

Ying Qingzhu rubbed the jade pendant at his waist for a moment. After suppressing that faint itch of impatience in his heart, he said calmly, “Miss Rong, you are the one who wants to speak. I am not the one who wants to listen.”

The implication was clear: If you want to talk, then talk. If you do not, then don’t.

Rong Yunchang felt a knot tighten in her chest, but she no longer argued with him and went straight to the point.

“In the previous life, Your Highness was also the winner. You successfully seized the Imperial Power. Prince Ying rebelled, and the Heir of Prince Ying, having become a discarded pawn, was executed according to the law!”

Ying Qingzhu’s pupils contracted sharply.

His hand tightened, and he almost shattered the jade pendant at his waist!

Executed?!

He died?!

Ying Qingzhu did not even pay attention to what she had said about him seizing the throne. His entire mind was filled with those words—

Yu Zhi was executed.

A faint disturbance appeared on his face. Rong Yunchang, who had been watching him the entire time, noticed it and felt a surge of delight.

It seemed that this man truly cared about the Heir of Prince Ying.

Their relationship was not merely one of cold, calculated mutual use.

“In your previous life, Your Highness also successfully claimed the throne. Neither the Fourth Prince nor the Eighth Prince was the final winner,” Rong Yunchang continued.

“After I was reborn in this life, I deliberately investigated the matter. I never expected that the playboy Heir of Prince Ying from my previous life would have undergone so many changes.”

“In his previous life, he was nothing more than a useless wastrel who spent all his time among women from beginning to end. Your Highness, why do you think the Heir of Prince Ying has changed so much in this life?”

Rong Yunchang deliberately hinted at the answer without saying it outright.

Everything she had said was true.

But she had deliberately rearranged the order of events.

First, she told Ying Qingzhu that the Heir of Prince Ying had been executed in the previous life. Then she told him that Ying Qingzhu himself had been the one to seize the throne in that life.

It was very easy for him to draw the conclusion that Ying Qingzhu had ascended the throne first and then had the Heir of Prince Ying executed.

If the Heir of Prince Ying had also been reborn, then he would naturally know who would ultimately seize the throne.

Everything that had happened in this life was nothing more than an act performed by that man to save his own life.

From beginning to end, Yu Zhi had never truly loved him!

That was the grand gift Rong Yunchang had come here to give Ying Qingzhu today.

Even if he successfully seized the throne, so what?

The person he had kept in his heart had been deceiving him all along.

She hoped that the two of them would develop a rift and become completely estranged.

The Fourth Prince might not be able to obtain the throne, but she was determined not to let these two people who had ruined her plans have an easy time either.

“No.”

After remaining silent for a long time, Ying Qingzhu suddenly spoke. His sharp, piercing gaze fixed on Rong Yunchang.

“You are lying!”

He stared sharply at Rong Yunchang.

“If you died at the hands of the Eighth Prince, then how could you possibly know that I would be the one to benefit in the end?”

Rong Yunchang was momentarily at a loss.

“That was because I saw it! Before I died, I saw Your Highness kill the Eighth Prince!”

In her panic, she even slipped up in the way she referred to herself.

“If you died that early, then how did you know when Prince Ying would rebel, and when the Heir of Prince Ying would be executed?”

No matter what, he refused to believe that he would kill Yu Zhi, even in his previous life.

When he had first encountered Yu Zhi at Yangliu House, even when Yu Zhi had been knocked unconscious after deliberately causing trouble for him, he had already found himself unable to summon the will to kill him.

Not only did he not want to kill him, he was unwilling to hurt him at all.

It was a powerful instinct that came from the deepest part of his heart.

He believed that even if he had encountered Yu Zhi in his previous life, he would not have been able to do such a thing.

“That was because… because…”

Rong Yunchang thought for a moment. Then her eyes suddenly lit up, and she immediately intended to say that her soul had remained behind for some time after her death.

“Lies from beginning to end!” Ying Qingzhu shouted.

“You are trying to sow discord between us. Your intentions are vicious, and your heart is as poisonous as a snake!”

Rong Yunchang trembled all over.

She had never imagined that one day she would be mocked, scolded, and humiliated by someone to such an extent!

As poisonous as a snake…

She was not like that!

She was trying to make Ying Qingzhu see Yu Zhi’s true nature. Even if she had gone about it too aggressively, even if she had ulterior motives, there was no denying that what she was doing was helping Ying Qingzhu in her own way.

“Sweet words and a pleasing face, yet your story is full of holes. And to think I actually believed your nonsense!” Ying Qingzhu sneered as he rose to leave.

Rong Yunchang’s eyes widened. She hurriedly called out, “Your Highness! Everything I said is true!”

Ying Qingzhu knew that some lies were most difficult to expose precisely because they mixed truth with falsehood. He could not trust a single word this woman said.

He had no interest in staying here any longer. Just as he was about to walk out of the room, Rong Yunchang shouted desperately, “Your Highness! Even if you refuse to believe anything else, Yu Zhi really does have a problem! In my previous life, he really did die, yet in this life, he has clung to you and refused to let go. He must be someone who has been reborn as well!”

“Do you really believe that he sincerely loves you?”

“You should know that his reputation as a flirtatious wastrel back then was not fabricated.”

Ying Qingzhu walked out of the room without saying a word and returned to the palace.

His face was as dark and still as water, while his thoughts churned violently inside him. No one could tell what he was thinking, and no one knew exactly what Rong Yunchang had said to him.

Rong Yunchang remained imprisoned.

Judging from that, whatever she had told His Highness had clearly not been anything good, so naturally, no one dared to pry into it.

“Where is the Heir?”

After returning to the palace, Ying Qingzhu did not see Yu Zhi anywhere. He could not help frowning as he asked the palace servant guarding the door.

The servant immediately knelt and replied nervously, “Your Highness, His Majesty sent someone to summon the Heir.”

What did the Emperor want Yu Zhi for?

Ying Qingzhu could not figure it out. But recently, the rumor spreading fastest throughout the palace was still the relationship between him and Yu Zhi. Presumably, the Emperor’s summons had something to do with that.

Ying Qingzhu sat down on the edge of the bed, his palm slowly stroking the silk brocade quilt. The soft, smooth texture felt so pleasant that he found himself reluctant to stop.

It seemed as though that person’s warmth still lingered on it.

He knew perfectly well that he should not believe Rong Yunchang’s nonsense. The idea of being reborn after death was far too absurd. There was no way for anyone to verify it, and no one could determine whether anything she had said was true.

His reason told him that Rong Yunchang was someone who had become his enemy through the struggle between victor and defeated. She had merely lost, and now she was trying to retaliate.

Yu Zhi, on the other hand, was the person he had placed in his heart.

Yet he could not help remembering how Yu Zhi had mentioned the past life and this life several times before.

Could this past life and this life…

…really be what Rong Yunchang meant by living through one lifetime again?

Then was he…

Was Yu Zhi really after something from him from the very beginning?

Was that why he had refused to let go and kept pestering him?

Even when he had thought Ying Qingzhu was a woman from a brothel, he still had not been willing to let him go?

A bitter smile pulled at Ying Qingzhu’s lips.

His hand clenched tightly around the brocade quilt, twisting it into a deep, ugly wrinkle, almost tearing through the fabric.

………………

“Yu Zhi, did you ‘fall in love with me at first sight’ because of my identity?”

The moment Yu Zhi heard this, he initially thought that Ying Qingzhu had overheard his conversation with the Emperor.

But after thinking about it again, something did not quite add up.

Could it really have happened so quickly?

“Why do you ask?” Yu Zhi said unhurriedly. “My wife, have you forgotten? I have never cared whether you take that position or not.”

The Emperor.

His people.

The Fourth Prince.

The Eighth Prince…

One person after another passed through Yu Zhi’s mind.

In the end, his thoughts stopped on someone—

Rong Yunchang?

Had she said something?

“My wife, I told you before: don’t listen to what other people say. Look with your own eyes and feel with your own heart. I thought by now we understood each other well enough. If you hear only one side of a story and let it create a rift between us, I don’t think that is what either of us wants to see.”

Yu Zhi had only just returned from outside, and the cold of the winter wind and frost still clung to him. His hand was icy when he took Ying Qingzhu’s hand, the chill seeping straight into Ying Qingzhu’s body.

“Do you believe me, or do you believe someone else?” he asked, looking at Ying Qingzhu.

His tone was casual and relaxed, but there was unmistakable seriousness in his eyes, while the curve of his lips remained warm and gentle.

Ying Qingzhu’s originally chaotic thoughts gradually settled because of Yu Zhi’s calm manner.

He pressed his lips together and remained silent for a moment.

In the end, he said only two words:

“Believe you.”

Yu Zhi smiled.

“Then believe me.”

Believe that this lifetime of mine exists only for you.

Ying Qingzhu’s hand relaxed slightly. The two of them sat together on the bed, leaning against each other.

“Actually, my wife, even if you don’t believe me right now, it doesn’t matter. We still have an entire lifetime ahead of us. I can use that lifetime to prove to you whether everything I have said is true. What do you think?”

Ying Qingzhu thought that sounded very good.

But he did not say so.

Instead, he said, “Don’t you want to know who said what? She told me a secret shocking enough to shake the heavens.”

Whether it was true or false, the matter of being reborn was something strange and uncanny.

“No matter what the secret is, it has nothing to do with you and me. As for people who try to drive a wedge between us, I have no interest in them.” Yu Zhi more or less knew what Rong Yunchang had said, so he had no interest in hearing about the things she had done.

All he needed to know was that his beloved would not go easy on her.

“But I want you to hear it,” Ying Qingzhu insisted stubbornly.

He looked up at Yu Zhi, his eyes filled with the kind of stubbornness that clearly said: Even if you don’t want to listen, you still have to.

Yu Zhi was both amused and helpless, so he could only give in.

“Fine. Then tell me everything in detail, my wife.”

Ying Qingzhu proceeded to tell him about Rong Yunchang’s rebirth, including everything she had claimed had happened in her previous life.

The moment Yu Zhi heard it, he knew that the woman had deliberately manipulated things in her story.

He felt somewhat annoyed, and he finally understood why Ying Qingzhu had been thinking this way.

“She talks nothing but nonsense, and who knows how much of it is true? Just listen to it as a joke. You absolutely cannot take it seriously.”

Ying Qingzhu knew that Rong Yunchang’s words could not be trusted.

Yet he felt that Yu Zhi’s reaction was somewhat strange.

“Shouldn’t you first deny that you are the kind of person she described?”

Why was Yu Zhi’s first response to say that Rong Yunchang’s words could not be taken seriously?

Normally, when someone was questioned about such a thing, they would first explain themselves and clear themselves of suspicion.

Only when they had actually done those things would they be more likely to say that the other person was wrong and shift everyone’s attention onto them instead.

Yu Zhi: “…”

That was a mistake.

Sure enough, a guilty thief always had a guilty conscience.

And when someone had a guilty conscience, they were bound to let something slip.

Faced with Ying Qingzhu’s suspicious gaze, Yu Zhi hurriedly smiled.

“Perhaps it’s because I also find what she said amusing and ridiculous. It can be taken as nothing more than a source of entertainment. As for why I didn’t deny it… naturally, it is because I trust my wife. You know what kind of person I am, so I simply didn’t take it to heart.”

That explanation did make sense.

Ying Qingzhu reluctantly withdrew his suspicious gaze.

Yu Zhi secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed that, from now on, he would have to mention the subject of past and present lives less often.

“So if it isn’t the rebirth Miss Rong said you had, then which previous life were you talking about?” Ying Qingzhu stared straight at him, wanting an answer.

Yu Zhi: “…”

After finally brushing Ying Qingzhu off with an explanation involving a dream, Ying Qingzhu still could not remain idle for long. His time was soon swallowed up by government affairs.

Previously, Yu Zhi had disliked seeing him so busy.

At this moment, however, he almost wished there were even more matters of state to tie him down.

Being interrogated by the person you loved was not a pleasant feeling.

Especially when you knew far too much yourself and did not like lying.

After the New Year, the court gradually resumed its regular schedule.

Yet the first court assembly that should have been held was tense and awkward.

The Emperor did not come.

It was presided over by the Third Prince.

Although this suddenly revealed legitimate eldest imperial prince was practically a confirmed Crown Prince already, and was about to inherit the throne, this was still far too blatant.

The ministers wanted to rein in his arrogance a little, so they asked why the Emperor had not come.

Ying Qingzhu merely smiled warmly and shut them down with:

“His Majesty’s face is disfigured, and he is ashamed of his appearance. He is recuperating deep within the palace and does not wish to see anyone.”

In other words, it was not that Ying Qingzhu had prevented the Emperor from attending.

The Emperor simply did not want to come himself.

Ying Qingzhu pretended not to notice the looks from the others and calmly announced the punishments for the remaining people who had committed treason:

The Fourth Prince and the Eighth Prince were stripped of their imperial status and reduced to commoners. Noble Consort Gui was sent to the Cold Palace, while her maternal family was implicated as well and exiled. Everyone else involved was dealt with according to the laws governing treason.

The outcome surprised quite a few people.

They had assumed that this newly appointed imperial prince would make an example of someone to frighten the others. Even if he did not kill both of his rebellious brothers, surely he would execute at least one of them to establish his authority.

Who would have thought that he would not kill either of them?

Not only that, but very few people from their residences were executed either.

His methods were simply too lenient.

The only person explicitly sentenced to death was the Zhaoyi who had plotted against the Emperor.

And even that execution was personally ordered by the Emperor himself.

After learning that he had been poisoned by opium poppy, the Emperor was both furious and frightened. Once he woke up, he immediately ordered that the Zhaoyi be subjected to the punishment of being cut into a thousand pieces. By now, she was already dead.

“If you handle things this way, I’m afraid quite a few people will think they can climb over your head,” Yu Zhi said to him.

Holding a book in his hand, Ying Qingzhu was thinking about what Yu Zhi had just said regarding water conservancy while also reading, dividing his attention between the two.

“That is exactly the effect I want.”

Once those people became arrogant and started acting recklessly, he would step on them so thoroughly that they would never be able to recover.

Yu Zhi smiled and took Ying Qingzhu’s hand, idly playing with it.

“Some of the things at the rural manor have already been completed. I believe it won’t take more than two years before they can spread throughout the entire country.”

Ying Qingzhu stopped reading.

He turned to look at Yu Zhi, feeling a little itchy with curiosity.

“What reward do you want?”

If Yu Zhi wanted to enjoy some intimate time in bed with him, Ying Qingzhu supposed that indulging him once in a while would not be out of the question.

Ying Qingzhu’s eyes gleamed with eager anticipation, and he could not help returning Yu Zhi’s handclasp.

Yu Zhi glanced at him, then declared with righteous solemnity, “My wife, we are one as husband and wife. There’s no need to thank me.”

Yu Zhi could finally hold back his amusement no longer. It seemed his beloved had quite a talent for restraining himself.

“I should thank you.”

“There is no need.”

“I really should.”

“No need.”

“…”

Half a month later, the Emperor issued an imperial edict abdicating the throne. Ying Qingzhu bypassed the position of Crown Prince entirely and ascended directly to the throne. He honored the former Emperor as the Retired Emperor, who thereafter resided permanently in the Hall of Longevity.

The day of the enthronement ceremony arrived.

The Son of Heaven wore dark ceremonial robes and a crown with hanging bead strings. He paid homage to his imperial ancestors and offered sacrifices to the mountains and rivers.

Yu Zhi stood quietly to one side, watching that person stand beneath the gaze of countless people. He watched the grand ceremony as all the officials knelt and cried out their blessings, wishing the Emperor ten thousand years of life.

He watched as the false phoenix finally became a true dragon.

“We pay our respects to Your Majesty! Long live the Emperor! Long live, long live, long live!”

“Rise, all of you!”

Ying Qingzhu lowered his head and met Yu Zhi’s gaze from the corner of his eye. In that instant, his features were like mountains veiled in mist, with a breeze sweeping through the peaks. Their eyes met, and both were filled with affection.

In the twentieth year of Chengping, in the second month, Emperor Jing ascended the throne.

In the third month of the same year, Prince Ying rebelled.

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