adbindia Chapter 201
Chapter 201
Yun Wan entered the hall. Her eyes fell upon Emperor Jingxuan, who stood behind the coiled-dragon imperial desk. Leaning over slightly, he wielded a brush, splashing ink onto a blank imperial edict as if painting, his movements as smooth as flowing water and drifting clouds.
She stood in the center of the hall. The carpet beneath her feet bloomed with intricate, mysterious floral medallions, yielding no sound beneath her steps.
Yun Wan stood quietly in place, hesitating to step forward.
Until Emperor Jingxuan's voice startled her awake, "What is my wife staring blankly at over there?"
The vermilion brush in his hand hovered in mid-air as he raised his head to look over. His cold, stern face revealed a touch of relaxed gentleness, his gaze tranquil.
Her heart inexplicably skipped a beat. Yun Wan paced forward, avoiding his gaze to casually glance at the desk, and voiced the question that had been lingering in her mind for a long time:
"Does Your Majesty already know everything?"
Emperor Jingxuan set down the vermilion brush, wiped the ink from his fingertips with a handkerchief, and raised an eyebrow in a counter-question, "What is Madam referring to?"
Seeing that he was still deliberately teasing her, Yun Wan said with a hint of reproach, "You are asking when you already know the answer."
If he had not known about her calculations, how could he have so timely sent someone to inform her about the crimes committed by the Zou family?
"This concubine simply cannot hide anything from you," she said with certainty.
The man before her was no puppet emperor. He had ascended to this position entirely through his own formidable strength, and he was beholden to no one.
No one knew just how many eyes and ears he had.
Emperor Jingxuan frowned slightly and corrected her, "Madam has forgotten again. In private, you should refer to yourself as 'I'."
Not expecting him to change the subject, Yun Wan stammered, "This con... I am talking to you about serious matters!"
Emperor Jingxuan pulled her into his arms and said solemnly, "What I am saying is also a serious matter. Next time Madam addresses herself incorrectly, I will punish you by making you call me 'Husband' a hundred times."
Yun Wan was speechless.
Taking in her speechless expression, Emperor Jingxuan raised a hand to stroke her cheek. Under the caress of his rough fingertips, her porcelain-white, creamy skin flushed with a faint, delicate pink.
Yun Wan's gaze paused, and her expression gradually relaxed.
Emperor Jingxuan's lips curled up. Gently caressing her cheek, he said in a deep voice, "Power and influence are pursued by all. Everyone wishes to control their own destiny. Chasing after power is nothing more than human instinct."
He lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on her uneasy face, and suddenly chuckled lightly, "Madam is also a mortal. Why shouldn't you?"
Emperor Jingxuan had held power for over ten years. Not to mention the entire Great Qi, just within and outside the imperial palace alone, the number of his eyes and ears was unknown to anyone.
Yun Wan's little maneuvers could not escape his eyes at all. By simply piecing things together and giving it a little thought, her intentions were not hard to guess.
In front of someone who truly played with power and possessed deep shrewdness, her methods appeared somewhat naive.
Because of this, the Zou family had the audacity to think they could use his wife, believing she was as blinded by greed and ignorant of right and wrong as they were.
Yun Wan's eyes flickered. Meeting his smiling gaze, her heart trembled as she pursed her lips and said, "I never intended to help the Zou family in the first place."
They had no interactions in the past, yet now that they were in trouble, they came looking for her. What kind of good family could they be? It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they were birds of a feather with the Li family, a den of snakes and rats.
She was not an emotionless saint. It made no sense that after being bullied by Yun Shiyue in her childhood, she would now laugh off their enmity and mercifully help her husband's family through their crisis now that their statuses were reversed.
Yun Wan felt that her refraining from kicking them while they were down was already an act of great mercy.
"I know," Emperor Jingxuan's lips curled up slightly, a teasing urge rising within him. "Madam is picky. Not just anyone can catch Madam's eye."
Yun Wan's breath hitched, and she blurted out, "Since Your Majesty knows my ambitions, why don't you—"
She ultimately swallowed the rest of her words. Suddenly deflating, a hint of frustration and regret showed between her brows.
With a sigh, Emperor Jingxuan pulled her into his embrace. "Madam, the Crown Prince has committed no major faults."
"I do not want Sui'er to step upon the 'corpses' of his brothers to ascend the throne like I did. He should ascend cleanly and honorably, revered by millions, going with the natural flow of events."
In this current era of peace and prosperity, a reputation for propriety, righteousness, loyalty, filial piety, and fraternal duty was worth more than many things. He would not allow the mother and son to bear the stain of being unrighteous and unkind.
How could he not know that the Crown Prince had mediocre abilities, an impatient temperament, and was unsuited to be a ruler? But he was still his own son. Even a vicious tiger would not eat its cubs; Emperor Jingxuan could not be entirely heartless.
Yun Wan said, "I am sorry, I was too anxious."
As the Empress, even though she had people to share her burdens, she still needed to handle many affairs. Coupled with the hot and dry weather, Yun Wan had not been resting well these past few days.
Perhaps because of this, her temperament had also changed slightly recently.
Once she calmed down, she realized that her words just now had been highly inappropriate.
Emperor Jingxuan comforted her softly, "Madam has already done very well."
He had said he would always have her back.
It was inherently difficult to maintain one's original heart in the turbulent currents of power struggles. Madam was not doing this for herself, but for their child. To be able to do this much was already not easy.
Yun Wan breathed a sigh of relief. Catching sight of the completed painting on the desk from the corner of her eye, she asked curiously, "Is Your Majesty painting?"
Emperor Jingxuan nodded, pulling her around to the back of the imperial desk, and said with keen interest, "Madam, take a look. How is my painting?"
Yun Wan got a clear look at the painting before her. After pondering for a moment, words of praise came easily to her: "Your Majesty's brushwork is delicate, the plum blossoms are lifelike and beautifully complement the snowy scenery. Moreover, the composition is clever, the ink flows vividly, and the artistic conception is elegant and unrestrained. It is a rare and excellent painting of a winter snowscape."
"And what else?"
Yun Wan was taken aback. What else?
Emperor Jingxuan raised his eyebrows slightly, "Is Madam satisfied with my painting of you?"
Her?
Was she in this painting? Or rather, were there any people painted in it at all?
No, perhaps there was.
Yun Wan's gaze fixed on a certain spot in the painting, and she suddenly fell silent.
Amidst the pure white snow, winter plum blossoms bloomed radiantly. In the distance, the window lattice of a house was pushed open from the inside, and an unidentifiable lump was leaning against the windowsill, looking out at the plum grove and snowy landscape with a bizarre smile on its face.
Yun Wan's eyelashes fluttered, and her voice trembled slightly, "Is this... me?"
Emperor Jingxuan nodded, looking somewhat pleased with himself. "I spent two hours painting this. Although it is not finely detailed, it has managed to capture a bit of Madam's charm."
Staring at the blob of intertwined black, white, cyan, and red that was supposedly 'herself', Yun Wan was utterly speechless, unable to utter a single word of praise.
Meeting his somewhat expectant gaze, Yun Wan, unable to speak against her conscience, smiled and said, "Your Majesty paints very well, but your brushwork in fine-brush figure painting is slightly lacking."
Lacking to the point that it wasn't even as good as what Sui painted when he was three years old; at least his had a distinct nose and eyes.
Fortunately, Sui had not inherited his father's 'talent' for painting.
........
At the end of June, as the peak of summer arrived, the imperial palace grew increasingly stifling and hot. Yun Wan suffered in the summer heat; whereas she used to be able to eat a full bowl of rice, now she couldn't even finish half a bowl, and she had lost a considerable amount of weight.
Therefore, Emperor Jingxuan immediately issued an edict to move the court to the Western Mountain Imperial Villa to escape the heat.
The imperial villa was located over ten miles to the northwest of the capital. It was rich in lakes and mountains, and the scenery bore some resemblance to the gardens of Jiangnan.
Departing from the imperial city, traveling by boat along the Jingchang River would take only two hours to arrive.
However, as soon as she boarded the boat, Yun Wan began vomiting incessantly.