Chapter 7: Entering the Palace

“Empress!” Xiao Yu-zi cried out instinctively. Fortunately, Mo Yan was composed and quick-witted, covering the boy's mouth first. The sound was muffled, so no one could make out what he had said, but Li Zhan and he knew exactly what he had called out.

Li Zhan clenched his hands into fists and bit his lower lip hard. Only when the pain surged did he believe this wasn't a dream. *Changge, is it you? But... no, Changge wouldn't be this cunning or have such a girlish temperament. Once my Changge grew up, she became strong and cold and elegant; she was an extraordinary woman in everyone's eyes, someone whose brilliance even he had to look up to from afar. That radiance was so dazzling... Later, they drifted apart, until she ended it all with her death...*

“Hahaha, look at the treasure I’ve picked up! Such a big beauty, tsk tsk tsk, she looks like a fairy from the nine heavens...” Lei Bao leered, extending his large palm as if to stroke the young girl's cheek—no, to be precise, Changge's face—but Changge stubbornly turned her head away to dodge him. For the thugs behind Lei Bao, this was the first time in their lives they had seen such a beautiful girl. Each of them wore a look of infatuation as they surrounded the petite beauty, trapping her in a circle.

Changge cast an imperceptible glance toward Li Zhan, who stood outside the circle looking as if he had lost his soul. She lowered her brows, putting on an expression of stubbornly resisting tears, her voice trembling, “You... what have you done to my foster father!”

A tender young girl being bullied by a group of thugs was a somewhat cliché scene, but with this face, Changge could easily achieve the effect she desired. Voices of condemnation against Lei Bao's behavior gradually rose from the surrounding crowd. This was especially true among the older women and some men; the latter mostly because they could not bear to see such a beautiful girl being bullied. However, Lei Bao was not someone easily offended; he had been a menace on the streets for years, and no one dared to truly oppose him.

“What’s all this noise? You lot of commoners, shut your mouths!” Lei Bao’s ferocious gaze swept over the crowd, intimidating the noisy people. He then looked at Changge with a wicked smile. “Little lady, that pauper of a father of yours couldn't take a beating; he's out of breath after just a few hits! But don't you worry, follow this master back to my manor. You're so beautiful, I'll spoil only you. Following me means endless wealth and honor!”

A flash of disgust crossed Changge's eyes, but she endured it. Her eyes reddened, and her voice finally broke with the intent to cry, “You beast! How could you? Give me back my foster father!” She cried sorrowfully, like a pear blossom in the rain, a figure so pitiable one could not help but feel compassion. For some reason, looking at the identical face but different aura, and that tear mole which made it easy to distinguish the two, Li Zhan's heart suddenly tightened, as if his Changge was being bullied by a villain, unable to fight back, crying in heartbreak.

Seeing that Lei Bao was about to use force to take Changge away, Li Zhan's feet moved; his body acted before his mind could. He lightly tapped his toes, leaping through the air to step over a man, and like a phantom, he caught Changge by her slender waist and whisked her away, not forgetting to instruct Mo Yan, “Mo Yan, send them to the Ministry of Justice and punish them severely!” Then, amidst the clamor of the crowd, he took Changge away.

Changge feigned being startled as she slumped into Li Zhan's arms, though her heart was a tempest of waves. For a moment, she even wanted to pull the hairpin from her head and stab this heartless, ungrateful man to death! The familiar scent of ambergris, the familiar warmth, yet the man holding her felt so much like a stranger. *Li Zhan, how can you repay what you owe me? How could you ever repay it!*

“Young... master, I beg you, please, take me to the Yuelai Inn, okay?” Li Zhan felt the slender waist in his grasp was so delicate it felt as if it could be broken with a single hand; he actually began to crave this feeling... The girl's voice, slightly choked from crying, drifted up from below, pulling his thoughts back. Even the voice wasn't Changge's...

“Fine.”

Upon arriving at the Yuelai Inn, Changge did not spare Li Zhan a single glance. Biting her lip, she lifted her skirt and ran straight for the second floor.

“No—ah—!” A moment later, a blood-curdling scream drifted down from the second floor. Li Zhan shuddered and rushed in without a second thought.

When he entered the room where Changge was, what he saw amidst the mess was the jade-like girl kneeling on the floor. Her long skirt spread across the ground, her face devoid of color, her eyes staring blankly at the old man lying in a pool of blood. She sat motionless like a fragile doll, so vulnerable she seemed ready to shatter.

He could hear the sound of her tears. The tears slid down her exquisite face like precious pearls, washing over that beautiful cinnabar tear mole. As if sensing her grief, the mole grew even more crimson. Gao Changge had always possessed peerless beauty, but in her past life, she had been too cold and aloof; a woman too strong would not invite a man's pity. But now, with this face and this display of weakness and misery, even a man as cold-hearted as Li Zhan could not help but feel compassion.

“Miss, please, restrain your grief...” He was certain she was not Changge, yet he could not help but gaze at this face. How should this face be? Should it be Changge's cold, elegant, noble, and untouchable beauty, or the lively and charming girl he had seen just now? It was undeniable that both were beautiful; Li Zhan even wondered how wonderful it would be if Changge could occasionally be this lively and cute. But this face should not be weeping; she should be smiling, not shedding tears.

Long, long after, whenever Li Zhan thought of this night—even though it had been a night of being schemed against—he would still clearly remember the unbearable sorrow on the girl's exquisite face. Every time he remembered it, his pain deepened.

“He was my only relative. If my foster father hadn't taken me in, I would have been snatched away by wolves in the snow long ago... *cough, cough, cough*... I didn't expect this face of mine to bring death upon my foster father. If I had known, I wouldn't have insisted on coming to the capital... It's all me, it's all me, my fault! Blame me... ahhh...” Changge held her head and cried hysterically. She wasn't acting now; she was thinking of her deceased father, her brothers, her child, and Yin Xue. It was her; it was her stupidity that had killed those around her...

Li Zhan felt a stabbing pain in a certain part of his heart. Frowning, he acted without thinking, reaching out with his large hand to pull the heart-broken girl into his embrace. Changge's body stiffened slightly, but she ultimately wrapped her arms around his waist and bit his shoulder fiercely, not letting go until she tasted the metallic tang of blood. Aside from a slight frown at the beginning, Li Zhan showed no other expression, allowing her to bite him while his large hand rhythmically and gently stroked her back to soothe her. He did not realize how tender the expression on his face was at that moment; it was a look Li Zhan rarely wore.

Suddenly, the weight on his shoulder shifted, and the person in his arms went still. Startled, Li Zhan looked down, only to see that the girl's tear tracks had not yet dried and her beautiful eyes were closed; she had actually fainted from crying.

By this time, Mo Yan had already dealt with Lei Bao and his gang of thugs. When he arrived with the shaken Xiao Yu-zi, what they saw was their master kneeling on the messy floor, holding the unconscious "Empress" in his arms.

After a long silence, Li Zhan stood up, carefully gathered the girl into his arms in a bridal carry, gazed at her face for a moment, then turned and looked at Mo Yan and Xiao Yu-zi, his thin lips parting slightly. “Return to the palace.”

“This... this, Your Majesty, are you going to take... her, back to the palace?” Xiao Yu-zi looked hesitantly at the girl who looked exactly like the Empress. However, this girl looked thinner and more frail than Her Majesty, was younger, and possessed a prominent tear mole that the Empress did not have. This... this wasn't the Empress, but she looked so much like her. Was His Majesty treating her as the Empress?

Li Zhan cast a slight glance at Xiao Yu-zi. “I am taking her into the palace. Is there a problem?”

Xiao Yu-zi fell silent. Who would dare?

At that moment, Changge, who was pretending to be unconscious, slightly curled the corner of her mouth where no one could see. *The Imperial Palace, I have returned.*

***

A note to the readers

Do you all think the name Fu Sheng sounds good?