Chapter 27#

Yes. Irritated.

I don’t even know why—just irritated. Extremely irritated.

In the blink of an eye, three years passed.

On the surface, the relationship between me and the CEO of our dynasty only grew more inseparable and tender.

Perhaps on Chu Ruiyuan’s side the feelings truly deepened. On my side, however, it was my acting skills that improved.

Yes. My affection toward Chu Ruiyuan has mostly been an act.

I can’t help it.

The longer we spend together and the better he treats me, the more annoyed I feel.

At first I was irritated just thinking about him. Now even seeing that handsome face irritates me. If he weren’t so exceptionally endowed and skilled, I might even find our time in bed irritating.

I analyzed this with my friends Guan Mingyue and Doctor Jiang.

Of course, I didn’t specify whom I was irritated with—though I suspect they both knew perfectly well.

The conclusion the three of us reached was that it’s probably the aftereffect of that pill I took.

If it didn’t alter one’s feelings of love and attachment, how could it break a love-gu? How could it be called “Broken Fate”?

Now I’m stuck in a dilemma.

If I tell Chu Ruiyuan the truth—that I’ve only ever regarded him as a well-endowed, highly skilled bedmate, and that with “Broken Fate” in my system, unless he wipes out my entire family, I will probably never truly love him in this lifetime…

Tell me—after hearing that, is he more likely to choose “love means letting go,” or to blacken completely and make my life a living hell?

But if I don’t tell him the truth, setting aside the morality of deceiving someone’s feelings for years, at this rate, a few more years down the line my acting may no longer be convincing…

And when the truth comes out then—will he kill me? Kill me? Or kill me?

My heart feels chaotic, irritated.

And I feel a little scummy.

But not entirely.

After all, this ill-fated entanglement began with him deceiving me into being my brother’s substitute, and that “Broken Fate” pill was also given to me by him.

No zuo no die—why does the CEO always try?

But these past few days I haven’t just been a little chaotic or irritated—I’ve been extremely so.

Because after being fooled for three years, the civil and military officials of the court have finally caught on.

So they’ve begun memorializing again, requesting that Chu Ruiyuan establish an empress.

The two leading candidates from three years ago are now nineteen and long since married off.

This time, the ministers are unusually unified. They jointly proposed a candidate: the eldest granddaughter of the Minister of Works—who happens to be the niece of my outrageously gossip-loving childhood friend.

She’s fifteen, beautiful, gentle in temperament, talented and skilled—and exceptionally kind.

I practically watched her grow up. If I were to continue as her husband’s lover, I truly would have no face left.

So a few days ago, when I went to the palace and slept with Chu Ruiyuan, I gave a two-hundred-percent acting performance, complete with tears, and said to him:

“Your Majesty is ruler of the realm. Marriage and heirs are matters of state. They cannot be neglected for private affection. Your Majesty is already twenty-three. You ought to establish an empress and produce an heir. You should not continue like this with Mingzhi… in error.”

My bedmate still refused to part. Holding me—no, thrusting into me—he spent the entire night reassuring me that he had his own plans.

And now I know what those plans were.

At court this morning, before all the civil and military officials, he issued an edict naming his fourteen-year-old full-blooded younger brother as Crown Prince.

The ministers exploded. They no longer had the energy to argue about an empress.

I exploded a little too.

He’s clearly prepared to accompany me to the ends of time—without wife or children.

By all logic, if a sovereign ruler can go this far, this should be a story of “the ruler’s grace as deep as the sea, the beloved’s devotion as heavy as mountains.”

But the reality is:

“His grace may be deep as the sea—but is my devotion truly heavy as mountains?”

I feel even more irritated. Even our time in bed irritates me now.

So much so that I don’t even want to see his face while we’re together.

So I told the CEO that I preferred being taken from behind—deeper, more intense.

Yes, although I had ulterior motives in saying so, it truly is deeper and more intense.

And so for more than half a year, we continued in that fashion.

A few times Chu Ruiyuan tried to turn me to face him, but I coaxed him back each time.

He’s well-endowed, skilled, and creative enough that things never became monotonous.

Even so, I started to feel I couldn’t endure it.

Not because sleeping with someone who irritates you is exhausting—his ability ensures my body is satisfied.

It’s my conscience that’s uneasy.

One day, somehow, we ended up talking about children. Though he said having his younger brother as heir was enough and he didn’t need children of his own, there was a trace of sadness in his expression.

My heart jolted.

I’m scum. How can I be this scummy?

I’ve caused a sovereign ruler to forgo wife and children, and from beginning to end my feelings have been false.

With “Broken Fate” in me, I cannot control my emotions—but I can control whether I continue deceiving him.

I’m not going to confess everything.

At this point, if I laid it all bare, a single stab would be the mildest outcome.

I’m going to fake my death.

That day I suddenly remembered the fake-death pill “Return” that Doctor Jiang had given me long ago. It felt like a sudden turn of fortune.

Regarding my plan to fake my death and escape, I told only my sister-in-law.

My parents and brother are not good at acting. If they knew the truth, who knows what might happen. I can only entrust her to manage things for a few years, until the CEO embarks on the broad road of marriage and heirs.

I didn’t want her to think Chu Ruiyuan had forced me to “die,” so I told her almost everything about the past few years—except the part where she once let slip that Chu Ruiyuan had kissed my brother, and that he originally loved my brother.

My sister-in-law is extremely perceptive. She had long guessed there was something between me and Chu Ruiyuan, but she hadn’t expected the “Broken Fate” twist, and had assumed our feelings were genuine.

In the end, she sighed. “Truly an ill-fated bond. Had I known, I would have stopped you two from the beginning… But now, faking your death and leaving is indeed the best course. Spend these next few days at home with your parents. I’ll prepare your travel funds and papers. Then you can go.”

She’s efficient and decisive. We spoke on the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month. By the twenty-eighth, she had arranged everything.

I’d thought about staying through Mid-Autumn before leaving, but she said after Mid-Autumn comes Double Ninth, then the New Year… better to leave sooner. Delay invites change.

Thus, in the ninth year of Chenghe, on the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month—

The dissolute second young master of the Prime Minister’s residence “succumbed to sudden illness,” aged twenty-five.

When the effects of “Return” wore off, it was the eighth day of the eighth month—an especially auspicious and festive date.

I awoke from my feigned death.

But the first person I saw upon opening my eyes was not Guan Mingyue as arranged, but a bright-eyed girl of about sixteen, white-skinned and radiant.

“You’re awake, Jun’an?!” she smiled. “My name is Fang Xueying. I’m Junior Sister to Senior Brothers Jiang and Guan. I finally completed my training and came down the mountain a few days ago. Since I had nothing better to do, I dug you out for them.”

Their master had indeed taken on a clever little apprentice seven years ago. I’d heard her surname was Fang. I immediately clasped my hands. “Many thanks, Miss Fang. Jun’an is deeply grateful and will repay you in the future.”

She waved her hand. “If you truly wish to repay me, there’s no need to wait. From today onward, travel this magnificent world with me.”

She’s straightforward. If this were modern times, I’d accept at once. But this is the ancient world; customs differ. I shouldn’t compromise her reputation.

“I have no objection,” I said, “but a lone man and woman traveling together might damage Miss Fang’s good name.”

Fang Xueying sighed. “I’d love to find myself a little garlic-peeling sister instead—but where would I find one?”