Chapter 33
Ruilin ~
The guards. What are they doing? Why is he within my walls? Feng Ming stood exactly where he should not be—too close, too familiar to Yi Nuo, like a serpent sunning itself on sacred stone.
I landed soundlessly behind the eastern colonnade. The courtyard breathed the perfume of late-spring peach blossoms, their petals drifting down like rain. The jade tiles beneath my boots gleamed with dew, unmarred—until now.
Yi Nuo stood near the terrace rail, a vision quiet and composed. Her spine straightened at my presence, subtle as the drawing of a bowstring. Her gaze flicked to mine—a glance, a breath—then dropped again, careful. Measured.
“Yi Nuo greets Crown Prince Ruilin.” She greeted me on ceremony.
She understood. We both did. In the presence of serpents, we, although husband and wife, must play strangers.
Feng Ming turned at the shift in air, the silk of his sleeve whispering as he twirled. Surprise crossed his features—but only for a heartbeat. He was a master of masks.
“Dege,” he drawled, folding his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels. “What a sight for sore eyes. I wasn’t aware you had returned from the Nine Heavens.”
I regarded him from the shadows for a breath longer than necessary. How easily he stood within what should have been sanctuary.
This is who Feng Ming is—sly, silver-tongued, and soaked in entitlement. He is happiest when inflicting pain on others. He is most content watching others suffer, but this wasn’t always so. There was a time he was innocent and good, and we were close.
As boys, we shared everything from stolen pastries to secrets too large for our age. Once, we hid in eldest Jiejie’s wardrobe to surprise her when she and our brother-in-law returned home three days after their wedding—but we learned more than we should have about newlyweds instead. We swore a pact that night—brothers in mischief and silence for all of eternity.
But something changed.
I do not remember exactly when the shift occurred, only the aftermath. Perhaps it began the night I overheard Father and my godfather, Zhe Yan, speaking under the lantern’s hush in Father’s private chambers. I pretended to be asleep, but Zhe Yan said it plainly, without flinching and without bias: “Feng Yi, though Second Prince was born of a viper, it is his choice. His dark nature is a conscious decision. Therefore, you mustn’t have anymore children with Lie Xi. Remember a viper can swallow a Phoenix whole.”
I remember the stillness. The silence that followed. The deafening hush made my blood run cold. I wanted to be angry for Feng Ming. I wanted to deny it. But I could not. Not after that night. After that, everything changed. I became Crown Prince. And Feng Ming never forgave me.
He thinks the throne belongs to him—that I have usurped what was rightly his. Here he was now, smiling in a sea of blue silk like he belonged, like he had the right to be here — we both know he doesn’t.
I stepped into the light. “Just walked in,” I replied coolly, smiling just as he was. “Perfect timing. Haven’t you outgrown pestering women?”
I stood up to my full height — I was a full head and a half over his head. I know it annoys him that he has to step back and raise his chin just to meet my eyes. I am aware that he drinks daily growth tonics, but it’s futile—he’s built like his mother, and I haven’t even hit the end of my growth spurt.
I won’t deny the pettiness in this. But it is good for him; a little humility is exactly what he needs. “I wasn’t aware you’d taken up strolling through private residences without escort. Especially the Eastern Palace. Emperor Father won’t be pleased when he hears of this. We all know how Father feels about respecting each other’s private spaces. We also know how Father favors Yi Nuo, my esteemed guest since she saved my life.”
His smile widened into a ghastly grin exposing all his teeth. Teeth he would sink into my jugular given the chance. “Aya, you’re threatening your poor didi again. Dege, forgive me,” he said, his voice shrinking to a child’s and rubbing his palms together as one does in prayer. “Please don’t tattle to Father. I’m sworry.” Then his voice boomed so loudly that nearby birds took flight startled. “The Eastern Palace’s beauty beckoned me! The gardens, naturally. And the peach blossoms—they’re in glorious bloom this season!”
He paused for effect—always theatrical. More dramatic than our youngest drama queen sister, An Lan. There was a reason some called him Princess Feng Ming behind his back. His gaze drifted—not toward the trees—but to Yi Nuo. “And so they were. Along with another blossom.” His words dripped thick like honey, but the venom was unmistakable.
My skin prickled. I inclined my head. “It’s that time of year,” I replied softly. “The climate agrees with her.”
Feng Ming narrowed his eyes, testing the surface for cracks. He found none. He shifted, trying again. “The Nine Heavens must have been dazzling,” he mused. “I imagine the Celestial Swans were in season? Their dances are said to rival those of the Nine Tailed Foxes. Did any catch your eye?”
I saw it.
The way Yi Nuo’s fingers twitched. The grip tightened on her sash—just slightly. But I didn’t look at her. I didn’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, I smiled—slow, unbothered, lethal in its restraint. “I had no time for swan dances,” I said. “The Skylord kept me occupied. Politics, as you know, rarely allow indulgence.”
Feng Ming sucked air through his teeth and then made a mock-sorrowful sound. “What a shame. A man gone so long would be forgiven for seeking warmth in colder skies. Perhaps even… a goddess, to practice for his wedding night with Princess Changying.”
There it was. The dagger beneath the princely silk. He watched Yi Nuo now—carefully, hungrily. Waiting for the flicker. The break. She gave him nothing.
She stood still.
Unmoving.
Unshaken.
As if carved from moonstone—her posture unfaltering, her eyes lowered just enough to show respect. No jealousy. No fear. It infuriated him. And pleased me.
I turned, voice measured. “Lue Lue,” I said to the trembling servant just beyond the terrace watching the scene with panic on her face, “I’ve returned. Prepare tea in the west study—for me and Feng Ming.”
His mouth tightened. “Ah, I’d love to stay, truly. But duty calls. Always in motion—the Second Prince. And my mother is waiting for me with my favorite snacks.”
There he goes again. Rubbing the fact that he has a mother in my face. He bowed—not deeply enough—and turned to go. But of course, he lingered. Three steps, then a glance back at Yi Nuo. An invitation in his eyes. A dare, but she did not lift her gaze.
Only when his shadow left the courtyard—like the final strain of a dissonant note—did I breathe.
I turned to her. Yi Nuo stood still, one hand resting over the swell of her belly. A blossom had fallen into her hair, and I had the strongest urge to brush it away with my lips. She hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t broken. But I noticed the way her jaw clenched, the tension she held tight in her shoulders. Like a flame buried beneath snow, waiting to ignite.
We couldn’t touch. Not here. Not yet. But her eyes met mine—and I saw it. The storm she’d kept inside. The one that mirrored my own. Nine months. Nine months of separation. Of yearning.
I stepped close until the silk of our sleeves nearly kissed. “Did he say anything troubling?” I asked quietly. “Did he frighten you?”
She slowly shook her head, sure and deliberate. “Nothing I couldn’t ignore.” Then, softer: “I’m glad you’re home. Everything is fine.”
But her voice cracked—just a little. Not in fear. Not in jealousy. In longing. And that—that was far more painful than rage.
Yi Nuo~
Though tired, the delicate curve of his lips hinted at a softness that fought the exhaustion pooling beneath his resin-amber eyes. The sight ached within me—a familiar pain, sharper now in its battle with his graceful bearing. I’d rehearsed this moment for hours, half-dreaming it in the lilac hush of dawn or while stitching pale threads into baby clothes. But now, I could only stand, heart pounding, hands folded at my waist like a child awaiting judgment.
We maintained a distance, each of us holding to formality as though it might shield us from the flood threatening to rise beneath our skin. The corridor was a channel of light and shadow; the hush broken only by the distant trickle of water in the garden and the faintest echo of Feng Ming’s footsteps as he receded.
Once the last sound faded, and the silence between us grew too heavy to bear, Ruilin crossed the distance in three long strides.
He stopped just before me, hesitating—offering me space to retreat, to rebuke. But I could only look up into his face and see my longing reflected there.
That was all it took.
In one motion—fluid but unhurried—he gathered me into his arms. The first breath I took within his embrace tasted of sandalwood and home. The world became suddenly lighter, as if the gravity anchoring my bones belonged not to the earth, but to him.
I pressed my cheek into the harness of his chest, overwhelmed by the urge to cry, to laugh, to scream at the stars in gratitude or protest. Instead, I trembled and anchored myself to his warmth, desperate to confirm that neither of us had vanished.
He felt it—the shudder that passed through me—and pulled me closer still. His chin rested tentatively on the crown of my head. One hand stroked my back, fingers splayed along the ridge of my spine; the other cupped the back of my skull with a reverence usually reserved for sacred scrolls or holy relics.
We stood that way for a long moment, breathing each other in. The world outside the terrace dimmed, as if retreating from the sanctity of our reunion. The air inside brightened with the hush of everything I’d ever wished but never dared to ask. I clung to the front of his robe, pulse thundering, and only then realized I was shaking in earnest—my composure unraveling, seam by seam.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. Some sadness lingered in his expression, but affection eclipsed it. “You’re trembling,” he whispered.
He brushed my cheek with the side of his thumb, finding the spot on my face that he had kissed a thousand times, the small beauty mark under my eye. “You’re safe,” he said—and the weight of his certainty in that word made my throat tighten.
I couldn’t keep my hands from his. I locked my fingers over his, grounding them to my skin, holding them in place as if to say: Don’t let go. Not yet.
Perhaps it was then that the restraint between us—so carefully attended for so long—finally lost its hold. The next moment, he bent his head and kissed me. It was unhurried, no more than the press of his lips against mine, as if relearning the weight and shape of a memory. Then his mouth moved—gentler, then surer, then hungry enough to make me dizzy.
He broke away only to breathe, his forehead pressed to mine. “I missed you,” he said, the words nearly lost beneath the soft hush of the falling cherry blossoms.
I found my lost voice at last. “I missed you more.”
Then he was kissing me again, and I was answering with every part of myself that remembered the rhythm, the cadence, the unspoken conversation of our bodies. My hands climbed to his shoulders, then tangled in the midnight of his hair. He gathered me fully into his arms and lifted me from the ground as if I weighed nothing—light as a moonbeam, swift as spring rain.
I felt the world tilt, then steady. We were moving, passing through a series of hushed chambers. Doors opened and closed behind us without a word. Someone had prepared for this. We met no one—only corridors blooming with the scent of rain-drenched jasmine and spirit wood. My mind blurred, but my heart recorded every step, every sweep of his hand at my back and the careful way he never let me stumble.
When we reached my bedchamber, he set me gently on my feet. I remembered how to breathe only when I saw the heavy curtains drawn and the soft glow of lanterns casting honeyed light across the stone floor. One of his phoenix feathers, a magic charm, drifting from a silver chain above the hearth, flickered with gentle spiritual light—warding against intrusions from sky or spirit.
With his mouth on mine, he kicked the door closed behind us. For a heartbeat, we stopped kissing and only looked at and drank each other in. His gaze mapped the new shape of me: the lines at the corners of my eyes, the ribbons woven into my longer hair, the weight of change borne in my frame.
He reached for me again—slower this time, with a deliberation that felt like a prayer. He loosened the ties of my dress, hands so steady I might have thought him unmoved, if not for the slight tremble in his jaw and the way his breath hitched when he brushed my collar from my shoulders.
My body had changed. My breasts were fuller, growing heavy with milk. My nipples big, deep and dark like ripen blackberries. My hips had softened into a mother’s shape. The gentle swell of my belly rose like the curve of a full moon. Even my hands bore subtle signs—swelling, warmth, sensitivity.
“Yi Nuo.” he breathed. ‘You’ve changed so much.” He knelt as if before an altar. He kissed across my thighs, nuzzled the tender shape of my ankles, rested his palm over my belly with reverent awe. His lips trembled against the skin there, whispering things, humming beautiful things too soft for the room to hear.
I reached down, cupping his jaw. “You look tired and thin,” I said, brushing my fingers across the faint scar above his brow.
He huffed a laugh, wry and warm. “You’ve never met my employer.”
I laughed too. The sound surprised me, bright and breathless. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since joy had taken up space in my chest.
What began as stillness became motion. What began as reverence became ache. We kissed as though the rest of the world had dissolved—irrelevant, forgotten, a tale from another lifetime. He kissed me with a quiet hunger, a worship carved from absence. His hands were warm and certain, sliding over me like memory rediscovered.
When he lifted me again, I laughed aloud, giddy and drunk off of him. He carried me to the wide, low bed, and we tumbled down together in a tangle of silk and want. Clothes fell like petals. Skin met skin. We couldn’t stop touching each other.
He reached to brush a stray hair from my cheek. “I thought of you every day,” he whispered.
“Liar,” I breathed, the word escaping like a petal—a light, fleeting thing, forgiven almost as soon as it was spoken.
“You caught me.” He smiled, then sobered. “I didn’t think of you every day but every hour, then…every second.”
There was a need between us—not new, but ancient, as inevitable as the pull of tide to the moon. It didn’t matter how long we had been apart. Our bodies remembered—far better than our minds dared to. They remembered the precise place where his hip aligned with mine, the hollow beneath his throat where my breath once lingered. They remembered the ache, the surrender, the rhythm we had written in secret, inked into skin and silence.
We did not resist. Could not. Not even if the heavens themselves had torn the stars down to stop us. When his longing met the open bloom of my willingness, the world unraveled at the seams. Time dissolved. Space collapsed. There was only him—only us. Everything else blurred to ash and air.
The moment he entered me, the universe narrowed to a single, incandescent thread—a live wire of memory and want, snapping between us with the charge of all we had denied ourselves. Pregnancy had made my body a vessel of fire and water, heightened and raw. Every brush of skin, every press and pull, sparked across nerves stretched fine as spider silk.
My arousal was tidal, rising fast and unrelenting, spilling between us in sighs and low, helpless cries. I moaned his name like it was sacred, like it was salvation. That fullness—gods, that exquisite pressure—drew forth everything I had buried over months of aching solitude. We still fit. As if we had never been apart. As if absence had only made our reunion more inevitable.
We moved together with reverence, a rhythm ancient and unhurried—two halves of a lost sutra finally restored, syllable meeting syllable, breath for sacred breath.
His forehead pressed to mine, his breath brushed my lips. He watched me—truly watched me, as though my face held every answer he had searched for in his time away. Each stroke was a vow, each kiss a reclamation. The rhythm built slowly, then deeper, more urgent, as if the months apart had become kindling.
I clung to him, my fingers curling into his shoulders, leaving behind tiny crescent marks—proof that I was still here, still his, still burning for him.
“Ruilin, I love you.” I moaned—his name no longer a word, but a raw invocation and full of desperation.
When release came, it was not just pleasure—it was revelation. My heavy body arched beneath his, strung tight like a bow loosed toward the heavens. Waves of heat rolled through me, curling my toes, making the edges of my vision dissolve into starlight. I cried out—not just from sensation, but from the unbearable truth that he was real, here, holding me again.
Panting my name, he joined me a moment later, a husky groan ripped from his belly — shattered, exquisite godly. There, his face twisted into something that was beyond release — something exposed, and rough and somehow fragile. The sound of it broke something open inside of me, something wide and irreparable. And in that moment I knew it: I loved him.
I loved him so much it hurt.
Afterward, we lay curled together, limbs entwined, skin still warm from the echoes of what we’d just become. My head rose and fell with the rhythm of his breath, steady beneath my cheek. His fingers threaded gently through my hair, each stroke slower than the last, as if memorizing the shape of comfort before it vanished.
He hums our secret melody to me and our child, then says, “I’m here. I’m here.” Repeating it, as if the words could make it so.
And for one impossible moment, I believed him. I let myself drift in that fragile stillness, soft and aching as a phoenix feather adrift in smoke. But even within that warmth, I felt it.
The inevitability.
He would leave again.
Consort Lie Xi~
Rain whispered down the carved windows of Lanxin Pavilion, the sound too soft for mourning and far too steady for peace. In the shadowed chamber, the scent of sandalwood clung like rot, unable to mask the bitterness in the air—the quiet decay of betrayal steeping in velvet silence.
Consort Lie Xi reclined stiffly on a lacquered chaise, wrapped in layers of crimson and charcoal silk, phoenix feathers embroidered in muted gold along her sleeves. Her golden finger coverings curled over the swell of her belly—her claim to legacy. Or so she had believed.
The physician’s voice quivered as he knelt beside her. “Your Highness… the fetal pulse is weak. It stutters. Fades. I fear the child may not survive the turning of the moon.”
A pause. “And the prenatal tonics?” She asked, her voice flat as winter soil.
He hesitated. “They were—ordered by His Majesty. A blend meant to strengthen… but upon deeper review…” He swallowed. “They contained the ghost flower root, Your Highness. Disguised under snow lotus. Small amounts. Barely traceable.”
A breath left her lips—not a sigh, not a gasp—but something darker. A silence full of realization. She wryly sneered and then laughed. Once. Sharp as shattered lacquer. “He’s been aborting my child… under the guise of protecting it.” Her fingers twitched. “Charming. How fitting, Feng Yi. I give you all of me, and this is how you reward me — by killing our child and then hiding in seclusion!”
The physician bowed low. “I followed orders—”
“You worthless son of a whore! Get. Out before I have you and your entire family beheaded!” She threw a couch cushion as the man scuttled out like a beetle, leaving behind the stench of failure and fear.
Alone, Lie Xi leaned forward, resting her hand flat against her stomach. Her nails had carved red crescents into her palm. She did not weep. She did not tremble. She smiled sardonic and bitter. She had seduced the Emperor in her dead sister’s silks. She had stood in the late Empress’s place and dared the world to flinch. And they had. They still did. But now—he dared to poison her? He dared to end her line while smiling in her face?
“Still throwing tantrums, Mother?” Feng Ming sauntered in, impeccably dressed, the echo of rain carried in on his boots. He moved through the incense like he owned the chamber. “You should rest,” he soothed her, but there wasn’t a hint of sympathy in his tone; rather he was mocking her. “Aya, what terrible news. How pitiful. Poor Consort Mother.”
She turned toward her son—the son she regretted, the son who had failed her. “He is murdering my child. Your poor innocent meimei is dying in my womb.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Did you expect anything less from him? I’m astonished he allowed you to serve him in bed to begin with.”
Lie Xi’s eyes gleamed with resentment and hate. “I expected my womb to matter. I expected a reward for loyalty. For sacrifice. But no—only that I wear my sister’s shadow like a wedding veil.”
“Perhaps you should have played the grieving sister longer rather than sneaking into Father’s bed,” he said, then laughed—cold and pleased. “No,” he said as he knelt beside her. “I think it’s destiny.”
A silence bloomed. Then he said, “There’s another option.”
She blinked, eyes going wide as she and her loyal servant exchanged glances. “Another what?”
“A child. Ruilin’s. A perfect little prince, all pink and soft.” Feng Ming’s words settled like poisoned wine.
“Yi Nuo,” he said, drawing out the name like a spell. “Mortal—Hidden—Pregnant, Yi Nuo.”
Lie Xi’s pupils shrank, and she sneered, “That’s a rumor. A baseless scandal. Ruilin is a clumsy virgin awaiting his wedding night—even though I sent him that fake message in Princess Changying’s hand, canceling their marriage promise. That boy is hopeless. The future emperor is hanging around the Skylord like a lapdog. He is a disgrace.”
“Meanwhile, your own child is dying,” Feng Ming yawned into his hand. “You are mistress of the inner palace, yet know nothing.” He grinned. “The mortal carries the Crown Prince’s heir. Strong. Unclaimed. Undocumented. Ripe for the… picking.”
Her breath hitched—but it wasn’t dread anymore. It was a dark hope, twisted into a devious opportunity. An opportunity of a lifetime. “You’re suggesting I take her child?”
He shrugged, eyes glinting. “The palace expects your baby. No one knows Yi Nuo is pregnant. Must I spell everything out for you, Mother?”
Lie Xi rose—unsteadily at first—then stood tall, regal. The silk sleeves of her gown rustled like wings folding to strike. “If we do this, Feng Ming, there’s no turning back.”
He met her eyes, and the gleam in his made her shiver. “There’s never been a path back for us. Only forward. Only through fire, so naturally, we know how to smile while we burn.”
Distrust narrowed her gaze. “You’re not doing this for me. Tell me, my cunning son—what do you want in return for stealing Ruilin’s child?”
Feng Ming’s smirk turned slow. Dark. “I want her.”
Lie Xi blinked and scoffed in disbelief. “The mortal? Yi Nuo?”
“She’s a mortal living in a palace of gods,” he said, voice low, arrogant and ravenous. “Ruilin may guard her body, but not her mind. Once her child is gone, she’ll have nothing left.”
What a twist. One she never saw coming. Lie Xi stared at him, rouged lips curling. “You want to possess her and steal what is Ruilin’s.”
“I want her emptied, then made mine.” Casually, Feng Ming reached toward the flower arrangement nearby, caught a little yellow butterfly resting atop a chrysanthemum, and tore off its wings.
The room stilled. Even the coals in the brazier crackled once—and fell silent.
A thin, merciless smile formed on Lie Xi’s mouth. “Then we’ll take her child, and when she screams, we’ll remind her—mortals were born to serve. Or better yet… if she happens to suffer a mishap or die with her child, what a sorrowful end. But we all know mortals are fragile.”
“Mother, sometimes you are so very crude and cruel,” Feng Ming said, with mock solemnity. “We are deities. We must show benevolence and compassion. We’ll separate her from Lue Lue and everyone else. She will give birth alone. And when she awakes… she will wake up with a dead child in her arms and no one to blame but herself.”
Though she would never speak it aloud, Lie Xi knew her son was a monster. A true deviant. His smile always showed too many teeth—too wide, too eager—stretching disturbingly as he spoke of stealing a mortal’s child and replacing it with the corpse of his own unborn sister, as casually as one might recount a midday snack. Revolting, yes—but familiar. Feng Meng was the apple that hadn’t merely fallen near the tree—he had burrowed into its roots and fed off its rot.
The world did not turn on virtue alone. No. It needed men like him—ruthless, amoral, immune to conscience. Psychopaths made excellent tools, and even better scapegoats. That was their beauty. You could aim them like arrows and still pretend your hands were clean.
Feng Meng was damaged beyond repair, a blade forged crooked. But the child within that mortal womb—Ruilin’s son—would carry gentler blood. Steadier. Obedient. Royal. And it would be her arms that raised him.
There was a delicious symmetry in it: using Ruilin’s own son to take the throne from his father. A quiet irony the realm would never know.
Outside, the rain kept falling. Inside, a dangerous plan had been born—and the storm had only just begun.