Even after they exited the Meridian Gate, Pang Huazhen was still wondering whether he wasn’t dreaming?
When did His Majesty come to know a woman outside the palace, and even let him go help take a look at her illness—and it wasn’t even some ordinary illness. This relationship definitely wasn’t ordinary. He originally thought that the Emperor, with that dog-like temper, would be alone for the rest of his life. He didn’t expect that after a mere few days apart, he’d need to look at him with new eyes.
As before, Meng Fu and Li Yue were still meeting at Yunxi Tower. Once they arrived, Meng Fu first sent Pang Huazhen off to the next room. Pang Huazhen, feeling a bit curious, tried hard to peer through the crack of the door, but unfortunately, couldn’t see anything. He thought, this is all quite mysterious, and wondered what sort of divine being that girl was to actually make His Majesty care this much.
Li Yue arrived a bit earlier than Meng Fu. When Meng Fu entered the room with a request for a pot of hot water from the server, she saw him sitting on a chair with his head down, not knowing what he was thinking about.
Upon hearing Meng Fu enter, Li Yue finally lifted his head. His expression was foul, as if carrying some grievance.
Meng Fu momentarily felt like laughing, but also thought it was not very kind. She coughed lightly, poured a cup of hot water for Li Yue, set it in front of him, then sat across from him and softly asked: “Did you come out alone?”
“Came with Qingping,” Li Yue said, holding the tea cup.
Li Yue actually didn’t want to bring Qingping, but Qingping was really uneasy about him, insisting on coming along. He refused, and she just sat there, dropping tears one by one. Li Yue had no choice but to bring her with him. Before Meng Fu arrived, he had already sent Qingping out to buy things. He deliberately asked her to buy a bunch of trivial and worthless little trinkets, but many and miscellaneous ones. To gather them all, Qingping would have to go from East Street to West Street, then run to South Street—it would take her at least one or two hours to return.
“How are you feeling now?” Meng Fu asked.
Li Yue let out a long sigh and said weakly, “Not very well.”
This was the first time Meng Fu saw His Majesty looking so low in spirit. Before, no matter what he encountered, he always had the air of wanting to beat down all demons and monsters. But now, faced with the demons tormenting himself, he was completely helpless. Meng Fu pressed her lips together and said softly, “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm?” Li Yue raised his head and looked at Meng Fu, puzzled. “Why are you apologizing to me?”
Meng Fu lowered her head and said: “If we hadn’t swapped bodies, you wouldn’t have encountered all this.”
Li Yue waved his hand indifferently and said: “It’s not your fault, no need to say sorry to me. Just like that bald-headed Huaiming said—it’s all fate, there’s no way around it. If you want to blame someone, blame the heavens. Also, I’ve been wanting to tell you, you shouldn’t always look for the fault in yourself first. You’ve already done very well. If there’s still a problem, then it must be someone else’s fault. If you’re in the right, what are you afraid of? You ought to carry yourself with confidence. For example, today—you shouldn’t have apologized to me, you should’ve pointed at my nose and asked why I didn’t listen to you and stayed at the marquis manor properly. What did I come out for?”
Meng Fu: “……”
She was a bit dazed. Why was His Majesty suddenly saying these things to her?
“Interactions between people are mutual. If you’re willing to give a little more first, that’s not a bad thing. But if the other person keeps ignoring your goodwill, then you don’t need to keep considering them, always trying to accommodate their thoughts,” Li Yue said, using a rare tone that was earnest and slightly weighty. He had always been the type who, regardless of who you were, would scold if he wanted to. And if he really couldn’t scold, he’d still use his aura to let the other person feel his anger.
He’d met Meng Fu a few times, and from Qingping’s mouth had learned quite a bit about the past—enough to make Li Yue furious, wishing he could flip over the entire marquis manor. Meng Fu was great—smart and responsible—but she wasn’t happy. She wanted to be the virtuous wife outlined in books, wanted to do everything perfectly, wanted to make everyone around her satisfied, but that was fundamentally impossible. Even if Guanyin Bodhisattva came down, chances were there’d still be a group of Daoists pointing fingers and picking faults.
When facing problems, Meng Fu would often blame herself more harshly than most people. This kind of reaction was most likely related to the education she received in the past. Thinking of this, a surge of anger suddenly rose in Li Yue—that Meng Yanxing, does he even know how to teach a daughter? He’d even been a Grand Tutor, and yet Meng Fu was raised like this, while the younger daughter Meng Yu seemed to be the complete opposite. She dared to lie right to the Emperor’s face, saying she’d been picking out gifts for Meng Fu with Xie Wenzhao—yet Xie Wenzhao in the marquis manor couldn’t even fart in his presence.
Li Yue got angrier the more he thought, and the more he spoke, the more worked up he became. In the end, he simply stood up and said, “Before you seek to please others, you must first learn to please yourself. Being an emperor, I can’t be selfish, but being the marquis’s wife—you can. Once you and I switch back, you have to think more for yourself, stop always letting that Xie Wenzhao bully you. If you can’t handle it, tell me, I’ll back you up. I once met a—”
Li Yue’s voice suddenly stopped. He drew in a sharp breath—here it comes again, again and again! He quickly turned and sat down. It had been flowing for most of the day, yet he still hadn’t gotten used to this sudden hot rush.
Even though Li Yue had placed a menstrual pad underneath, each time the blood surged out, he still worried whether it would leak. What kind of earthly torment was this! And yet all the women in the world had to endure it once a month—it truly wasn’t easy at all.
Meng Fu saw that just moments ago he had the air of someone who’d scold even if the Heavenly King himself came down, and now he suddenly wilted. She couldn’t help but cover her lips and softly chuckle. Li Yue heard her laugh, looked up and glared at her, saying fiercely: “Still laughing!”
He glared with his big round eyes. Meng Fu didn’t know whether it was because he was using her body, but she felt that this tone of his, though it carried blame, also had a bit of coquettishness. This current His Majesty was really quite adorable.
Meng Fu restrained the smile at the corners of her lips, nodded, and said seriously: “I’ve remembered everything you said.”
Years ago, someone had also told her similar things. She had tried to break free of those heavy shackles, but ultimately failed, still went with the flow and drifted along with the world. Perhaps this time, she could have a new beginning.
She wanted to give it a try—maybe this life of hers didn’t have to be so pitiful and sorrowful.
Li Yue knocked on the table and said: “Remembering is useless. You have to do it!”
Meng Fu thought this sounded quite familiar. Not long ago, that Divine Doctor Pang had said the same thing in her ear. So without hesitation, she repeated those words to His Majesty: “Divine Doctor Pang told you not to get angry for the next three months—did you remember that, too?”
Li Yue was stunned for a moment. That topic jump was too fast. But since he had just told her to learn how to please herself, and now she could tease him, that was good—progress. However, he didn’t want to respond to this particular question. Li Yue coughed and said, “These peanuts taste off. Did Yunxi Tower’s head chef change?”
His Majesty’s method of changing the subject was truly clumsy. But Meng Fu still followed his lead and said, “Then I’ll go ask later.”
Li Yue gave a hum of acknowledgment. The room fell into a brief silence. Meng Fu saw that Li Yue was clutching his stomach, and figured he must be feeling quite unwell. She brought out the hand warmer she had prepared before leaving the palace, placed it in front of him, and said: “Place this on your stomach. It might make you feel a bit better.”
Li Yue looked at the hand warmer, and there was a trace of complex emotion in his eyes. Back in the northern borderlands, he and his soldiers dared to train in thin clothing for hours in the snow and ice. At the time, they’d even given the frail military advisor, who hugged a hand warmer in the tent all day, the nickname “Flower of the Army.” And now, he himself had become the delicate flower. Truly, the wheel of fortune turns.
He did as Meng Fu instructed, placing the hand warmer on his lower abdomen. Li Yue’s eyes lit up—It works! It really works! Much more comfortable!
This emperor rarely ever concealed his emotions. Meng Fu smiled and said to Li Yue: “By the way, I brought Divine Doctor Pang with me. Should I have him take a look at you?”
“Pang Huazhen, huh,” Li Yue slumped over the table and exhaled. “Since he’s already here, let him come and have a look.”
Pang Huazhen, waiting in the next room, was practically clawing at his heart and scratching his liver. He desperately wanted to know what kind of woman it was that could make His Majesty fall for her—Could it be someone with three heads and six arms?
He had waited for quite some time before finally hearing His Majesty summon him. He immediately grabbed his medicine box and ran over.
He finally saw this young woman. Meng Fu was undoubtedly a beauty—graceful forehead and willow brows, bright eyes and white teeth—but Pang Huazhen inexplicably felt that the aura this woman gave off was even more captivating. Even though she was currently lazily lying on the table, Pang Huazhen still sensed a kind of inexplicable dissonance.
But there were thousands of beauties in the world, each with their own charm. Everyone had their preferences; beauty could never be ranked first or second. But if one person could enter your heart, then she would be the most beautiful under heaven. And this woman, it seemed, had already become the one in His Majesty’s heart.
Pang Huazhen came forward and carefully took Li Yue’s pulse. Thinking of the young woman’s future identity, he was especially attentive in the examination. After he withdrew his hand, Meng Fu asked, “Can you make it not hurt?”
From Meng Fu’s tone, Pang Huazhen could already tell—His Majesty had truly fallen this time. Stroking his beard, he said to Meng Fu: “It’s impossible for it not to hurt right now. I’ll write a prescription. Use it to adjust the condition for about half a year, and it should improve.”
Li Yue asked him, “Whether it hurts or not is secondary—can you make this thing stop flowing?”
Pang Huazhen was truly shocked by Li Yue’s question. He couldn’t help but give Li Yue a thumbs-up. After all his years practicing medicine, it was the first time he’d heard a woman make such a request. One must know—Guishui is tied to reproduction. This truly was a rare kind of strange woman, to have such a thought!
After sighing internally, he turned to look at Meng Fu. Meng Fu asked, “Why are you looking at me? Can it be stopped?”
His Majesty is also wild!
Pang Huazhen nodded and said, “It can be done, but Guishui is the essence of the kidneys. Only when Heavenly Water arrives can one bear children. When the time comes, it will naturally stop. If one forcibly stops it through medicine or acupuncture, it will be somewhat harmful to the body—and if severe, it could affect fertility.”
The moment Li Yue heard that it would be harmful to the body, he knew this suffering was something he would have to endure. “When Heaven is about to place great responsibility upon a person, it must first burden their mind and spirit”—perhaps this was Heaven’s way of tempering him. But Heaven sure had a lot of tricks up its sleeve—to think of this kind of method to grind a person down, truly something else.
“Then forget it,” Li Yue said, and after speaking, gave Pang Huazhen a “hating iron for not becoming steel” kind of look. “What’s the use of you!”
Little people full of question marks sprouted from Pang Huazhen’s head. Why does this young lady look more like His Majesty than His Majesty himself?
He turned his head to look at the emperor and found that Meng Fu was sitting there with a faint smile at the corner of her lips—not the slightest bit offended by this young lady’s words.
Could this be the legendary: “an evil person is subdued by one even eviler”?
Pang Huazhen shook his head, casting a “seeing through it all” gaze back and forth between Meng Fu and Li Yue, and then winked mischievously at Meng Fu.
Meng Fu: “……”
She instantly understood what was going on in Pang Huazhen’s mind and said to him, “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
Pang Huazhen chuckled and said to Meng Fu, “Your Majesty, don’t worry. I didn’t think anything—I can swear to Heaven.”
Li Yue gave a cold snort upon hearing this. Trusting Pang Huazhen’s oaths? Might as well trust the pig at home to climb a tree.
Pang Huazhen’s expression now was blatantly saying—not only did he think it, he thought a lot.
Li Yue said to Meng Fu, “Ignore whatever he’s thinking. Anyway, he wouldn’t dare talk about it.”
Meng Fu gave an “mm,” though she was actually thinking about something else. When she heard Pang Huazhen swear, she immediately recalled that he had sworn an oath back in the palace too. In that case… that jar of wine of His Majesty’s was probably stolen and drunk by Pang Huazhen. She just didn’t know whether His Majesty had figured it out.
After sending Pang Huazhen downstairs, Meng Fu and Li Yue began to discuss state affairs. Originally, she had come today with many government matters to discuss with him. But seeing him like this, Meng Fu felt a bit unwilling to disturb him, so she first brought up Liu Changlan’s case to cheer His Majesty up a little.
Li Yue gave a cold snort. Meng Fu knew His Majesty was secretly pleased, so she continued talking about matters of court, weaving in some amusing stories about the young prince.
Time passed quickly. In a blink, an hour had gone by. Qingping should be coming back, and Meng Fu ought to leave. Before leaving, she reminded Li Yue: “In the coming days, don’t eat cold things, don’t do strenuous activities, and don’t get angry. You can drink more brown sugar water—but make sure it’s hot.”
“Got it.” Li Yue hugged the hand warmer and let out a long sigh, a face full of “no will to live.”
Meng Fu added, “It’ll be over in three to five days. Just endure it for a bit.”
“Got it,” Li Yue said.
Meng Fu: “Then… is there anything you’ve been craving to eat but haven’t been able to?”
Li Yue smacked his lips. He wanted something sweet—hazelnut candy. But no matter the dessert, as a marquis’s wife, there was nothing truly beyond reach. The only thing out of reach… was the taste of before. And that, even if he told Meng Fu, she wouldn’t be able to help. He shook his head.
Meng Fu prepared to leave, but at the door, her steps halted. She turned back and asked Li Yue:
“By the way—do you have a girl you like now?”
Li Yue, upon suddenly hearing this question, felt his heart inexplicably skip a beat. Why is Meng Fu asking this? He lifted his head and pretended to stay calm as he asked, “Why are you asking this?”
Meng Fu explained, “I was thinking, if there’s a girl you like, then in front of her, shouldn’t I be more mindful of my behavior?”
Li Yue let out an “ah,” then waved his hand in disappointment: “No.”
Not long after Meng Fu left, Qingping returned with her arms full of things. She hadn’t even sat down yet when Li Yue said he wanted to return to the marquis manor.
Qingping was exhausted, but didn’t complain. Hugging the pile of stuff, she hurriedly followed Li Yue down the stairs. After getting on the carriage, she noticed Li Yue was now holding a hand warmer in his hand—she didn’t know when it had appeared. Qingping asked curiously: “Eh, Madam, where did this hand warmer come from? I didn’t see it before.”
Li Yue looked down at the hand warmer in his hands. The outside was covered with a plush case embroidered with two little cats. He said to Qingping: “I conjured it out of thin air.”
“You’re just teasing your servant.”
The carriage rumbled along toward the marquis manor. Li Yue lifted the curtain and glanced outside—and happened to see Xie Wenzhao leading a young woman into an antique shop. Judging by the figure, that girl should be Meng Yu.
Those two were, no matter how you put it, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, right? And in broad daylight, they didn’t even try to be discreet.
Well, not completely undiscreet—Meng Yu was wearing a veiled hat.
The chattering Qingping followed his gaze and also saw Xie Wenzhao and Meng Yu. She instinctively said: “Madam, don’t—”
She was about to comfort Li Yue and tell him not to be heartbroken, but when she turned her head, she saw Li Yue opening a pouch of golden candy clusters, biting off half in one go—he didn’t look the least bit heartbroken.
“Don’t what?” Li Yue asked her.
Qingping: “…Don’t eat too much. We still have dinner later.”
Li Yue: “Oh.”
The setting sun shone dimly, the glazed tiles of the palace glowed golden. On the way back to the palace, Pang Huazhen asked Meng Fu: “Your Majesty, who is that girl anyway? If you like her, why don’t you bring her into the palace? Why suffer like this, running back and forth in and out of the palace?”
Before Meng Fu could reply, Pang Huazhen answered his own question: “I get it. It’s a matter of taste.”
After he said this, he chuckled to himself, mumbling quietly, “This way you keep the freshness, and it’s full of excitement. Truly, only someone like Your Majesty could think of this.”
Meng Fu didn’t want to speak with this Pang divine doctor. What is he even talking about? This divine doctor’s ability to fill in the blanks was simply too remarkable.
Upon returning to the palace, Meng Fu quickly sent Pang Huazhen back to the Imperial Medical Bureau. She still had to make a trip to the Empress Dowager’s place today—to check on the young prince.
As she passed the Imperial Garden, Meng Fu faintly heard someone shouting in the distance: “Noble Consort—Noble Consort—don’t bite! Don’t bite!”
She stopped in her tracks, somewhat confused. She had never heard of His Majesty taking a consort. Even if he had secretly taken one, after being in the palace so long, it was impossible that she hadn’t seen her even once.
She turned and was about to ask Gao Xi, when the next moment, she heard the palace servant shout even louder: “If you keep biting, the Crown Prince’s ear will be gone!”
What kind of terrifying conversation is this!?