Chapter 32#

Well — still intact.

In fact, he seemed sharper than me, if anything.

From that day on, we played Go every day for a month, and I won every single game.

But winning by exactly one stone each time, and being repeatedly praised for my “profound skill” — I couldn’t decide whether he thought I was an idiot, or whether he was mocking me.

This was a man who’d been CEO for two entire lifetimes. The mind of an emperor was simply beyond reading.

After serving as his study companion for over half a year, though, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about my conclusion that he’d been reborn.

Because Chu Ruiyuan’s mother, the Empress — the dynasty’s soon-to-be Empress Dowager — died in childbirth delivering his younger brother.

In the last life, Chu Ruiyuan had clearly saved the Empress. By the time I died, his little brother had already been made Crown Prince.

So how had the Empress simply… died this time?

I observed Chu Ruiyuan carefully for three days and concluded that his grief was genuine.

In the days that followed, once the Grand Tutor’s lessons were done, he no longer kept me back to keep him company. Instead he went to keep vigil at his mother’s spirit hall and copied out sutras to pray for the two lives lost.

It left me thoroughly confused. I still couldn’t work out whether he’d been reborn or not.

But whatever the case — with the Empress, that final boss, gone from the board, I felt a great deal of weight lift from my chest.

After all, dying the first time had been a tangled accident, a case of the Fate-Binding curse dragging me down at the wrong moment. But the second time, the Empress had deliberately had me fed poisoned wine. That was murder. And if she’d managed it once, there was every reason to think she’d try again.

Still, I kept my expression carefully calibrated to “solemnly mourning the passing of the Empress” every time I saw Chu Ruiyuan, wearing the face of someone offering condolences to a bereaved family.

That had nothing to do with imperial dignity, really. If an ordinary classmate had just lost someone at home, and you showed up every day acting cheerful and carefree — you’d deserve whatever you got.

The Empress lay in state for seven days before being buried in the Empress’s mausoleum. She had been a second wife, not the original consort, and was not entitled to rest in the imperial tomb and await burial alongside the Emperor.

When I came to the palace the day after the burial rites, I saw Chu Ruiyuan’s face still clouded with gloom, and felt a genuine pang.

I’d been looking at this face for two lifetimes. I even had a slightly more extravagantly handsome young man as a point of comparison. But setting all of that aside — by any honest measure, Chu Ruiyuan was devastatingly good-looking.

I had a weakness for beautiful faces, and seeing his unhappy was just something I couldn’t quite ignore.

It was the same logic behind a woman who already has a wardrobe stuffed with beautiful clothes but still can’t resist a new style when she sees it.

A full wardrobe never stopped anyone from buying more. Aesthetic fatigue was no match for a devoted admirer of beauty.

Besides, for whatever reason, Chu Ruiyuan had been genuinely good to me over the past half-year. So good, in fact, that I sometimes got the odd illusion of being a cherished youngest grandchild — the apple of a doting grandparent’s eye.

No, I’m not calling myself anyone’s grandchild. Or acting like one.

I’m just using a vivid analogy to describe how it felt.

So, whether it was his face or simple human feeling — I decided I ought to show some concern.

When the Grand Tutor’s lesson ended that day, before Chu Ruiyuan could rise to return to the Eastern Palace, I stepped forward and stopped him. “Your Highness… there is a saying: cherish what the fates bring, and release what the fates take away. When a candle is extinguished, it is extinguished. Please accept this loss and take care of yourself.”

Chu Ruiyuan stared at me for a long moment — long enough that I began turning my words over in my head, wondering if I’d misspoken somewhere. Then he pulled me into an embrace and said quietly: “Cherish what the fates bring, and release what the fates take away… and yet how many can truly live by those words.”

He held the silence for a little while after that, and when he spoke again his expression had returned to its usual state.

Warm, genial — the kind that reminded me of my grandfather.

Then His Highness, the grandfather, kept me in the palace to keep him company again. This time, overnight.

Generally speaking, men from outside were not permitted to stay the night in the imperial palace — my circumstances in the previous two lives being rather exceptional, of course — but for one thing, the body I currently occupied had only just turned eleven and barely counted as a man yet. For another, the Emperor presumably felt some pity for his only son losing his mother, and so gave permission for me to spend the night in the Eastern Palace.

Across two lifetimes, Chu Ruiyuan and I had been together for nearly twenty years. If we hadn’t shared a bed a thousand nights, it was certainly several hundred. But before things had developed between us — particularly when we’d both been young boys — we had never actually spent a night sharing a bed.

So looking at that fresh and absurdly handsome young face, I felt a flutter of something.

Excitement. Not the other kind of excitement.

First of all, I was in no condition for that.

Second, I did not have a thing for children. No matter how old the soul inside, the exterior was currently that of a boy not yet ten.

Chu Ruiyuan talked with me for half the night, only stopping when I genuinely couldn’t hold my eyes open any longer. I fell asleep quickly after that.

It wasn’t the most restful sleep. I kept dreaming.

I dreamed of my death — from one life or the other — of Chu Ruiyuan holding me, crying, calling my name over and over. Mingzhi. Mingzhi. Like he was trying to call my soul back.

I was exhausted and longing for deeper sleep, but the calling in the dream just wouldn’t stop. I finally let out a vague “mm” to let it know I’d heard.

The voice paused — then continued. Only when I murmured “I’m here” did it finally go quiet.

After that, though the arms around me tightened considerably — like being wrapped in a constrictor — the dream at last grew calm enough to let me sink into a deeper sleep.

When I woke the next morning and opened my eyes, Chu Ruiyuan was already watching me, that devastatingly lovely face wearing a faint, quiet smile.

When he saw me stir he didn’t look away. He just asked, in a soft voice: “It’s a rest day today. Would Mingzhi like to come out of the palace with me for a while?”

I was still half-asleep and couldn’t stop myself from yawning into my hand. Then I nodded. “Sure — whatever Your Highness would like to do.”

He smiled and began telling me which parts of the capital he had in mind for us to visit.

I listened to two or three suggestions, and then something slowly dawned on me.

Chu Ruiyuan had just — seemingly — apparently — definitely — called me Mingzhi.

Mingzhi. The courtesy name he had given me on my twentieth birthday coming-of-age ceremony.

Which was nine years away from now.

Oh no.

Oh, no.

“Jun’an just woke up and isn’t quite thinking straight,” I said quickly, doing my best impression of baffled innocence. “Your Highness seemed to call Jun’an something like Mingzhi or Minzhi — what did you mean by that?”

The Crown Prince — who was absolutely, certainly reborn — smiled. His tone was light with something like quiet pleasure. “If not Mingzhi… then what about Qingqing, darling?”

I went briefly blank. I had no idea what expression to put on my face.

Chu Ruiyuan was still smiling. He reached out and tapped my forehead lightly with one finger — half a reproach, half something unmistakably fond.

“My Mingzhi really is a little liar. You almost had me fooled.”

Then he called his personal eunuch in to help him dress, and left me sitting alone on the bed, clutching the blankets, completely at a loss for words.