Chapter 5: The Queen’s Banquet

Under the moonlight—

Shan Xiu once again brought over a bowl of medicine for Lin Xiaoque to drink.

“This one is for before bed, Master,” he said softly. “Drink it, rinse your mouth, then go to sleep.”

Lin Xiaoque truly did not want to drink it. This batch of medicine was not only bitter, but had an especially strange taste. Just smelling it made him want to vomit.

He frowned and asked, “Did they add some weird ingredients this time?”

Shan Xiu replied that they had not. Seeing Lin Xiaoque’s disbelief, he lifted the bowl and drank a mouthful himself.

“It isn’t bitter. And it doesn’t taste strange.”

Lin Xiaoque stared at him.

Shan Xiu was clearly treating him like a fool. He had already drunk the medicine earlier that day—how could he not know whether it was bitter or strange?

When Shan Xiu made as if to continue drinking the medicine himself, Lin Xiaoque hurriedly stopped him.

He wasn’t even truly sick. Why should Shan Xiu drink random medicine? Fine—he would drink it himself.

Watching his master obediently finish the medicine, Shan Xiu’s heart melted into a soft mess. Even his bones seemed to dissolve into warm spring water, happiness blooming wildly inside him.

His master was always so considerate toward servants.

Sometimes Shan Xiu even wished Lin Xiaoque could be a little crueler. Better that than being too gentle and getting bullied by others.

Lin Xiaoque set down the empty bowl with a faint frown. Shan Xiu immediately handed him rinse tea. After he rinsed his mouth, Shan Xiu removed the spittoon, brought warm water, and carefully wiped Lin Xiaoque’s hands clean.

Lin Xiaoque wanted to bathe, but Shan Xiu quickly dissuaded him.

“You mustn’t, Master. If you catch more wind and your illness worsens, you’ll never finish drinking medicine.”

But the sweat clinging to his body made him uncomfortable.

After hesitating a moment, Shan Xiu said, “Then… how about this servant wipes you down instead?”

Lin Xiaoque agreed.

Shan Xiu deftly cleaned his body, then used practiced massage techniques to ease the tension from Lin Xiaoque’s muscles and bones.

By the time Shan Xiu finished, Lin Xiaoque had already fallen asleep.

Shan Xiu tucked the blanket around him properly and crouched beside the bed, quietly gazing at his sleeping master.

Lin Xiaoque’s face was flushed red. Shan Xiu’s massage strength had not been light, and the pressure had brought color to his pale skin, like rouge brushed onto a beauty’s cheeks—moist and vivid.

Even when his legs went numb from crouching too long, Shan Xiu did not want to stand.

It was strange.

The word “happiness” had nothing to do with eunuchs. Yet at this moment, the emotion Shan Xiu felt resembled happiness so closely.

He liked taking care of Lin Xiaoque—caring for him in every little detail.

Lin Xiaoque’s frail body gave Shan Xiu the chance to look after him meticulously, and that made him feel happy.

Eunuchs were people without roots. And people without roots were not supposed to have desires.

But Shan Xiu knew he still longed for things. He had faith, persistence, dreams—just like everyone else.

Secretly, selfishly, he thought of himself and his master as family.

Ridiculous as it sounded, that was how he felt.

His master’s weakness deepened his dependence on him, and within that dependence Shan Xiu found his own value.

To be needed. To be acknowledged.

Shan Xiu refused to think about how many servants his master had—how easily he himself could be replaced.

Instead, he willingly imagined that he was his master’s one and only servant.

Ever since that day at Lotus Lake, when he had saved Lin Xiaoque, he had become different from the other servants.

He had begun to possess his own face, his own voice.

People listened to him now. They noticed him.

And so he felt happy.

Selfishly, he wished this happiness could continue forever.

That was why he personally handled anything related to serving his master whenever possible. Any young eunuch who tried to stand out or get close to Lin Xiaoque would be quietly transferred away to somewhere the master could not see—sent off to clean courtyards instead of constantly trying to draw attention.

Looking at Lin Xiaoque, Shan Xiu curved his lips faintly.

His master was so adorable.

Sometimes he was cold and elegant like a jade statue.

Other times he behaved like a child.

He was afraid of bitter medicine. Afraid of boredom. He liked listening to stories.

Sometimes when Shan Xiu told ghost stories, the master would even become frightened.

At night he would not allow the candles to be extinguished, insisting the hall stay brightly lit, otherwise he would imagine ghosts emerging from the darkness.

Shan Xiu had once teased him:

“Master, you haven’t done anything wrong. Even if ghosts came, there’d be nothing to fear.”

Even 233 comforted him:

【Host, don’t be scared. This isn’t a supernatural world. There are no ghosts here.】

That only made Lin Xiaoque more afraid.

【Does that mean I’ll have to go to worlds with ghosts in the future…? I don’t want to.】

233 secretly laughed, though it pretended to remain serious.

【No, Host must be brave. You’ll experience many worlds in the future. Don’t worry about that now. Hurry and sleep—it’s already very late.】

Lin Xiaoque hid beneath the blanket, revealing only a pair of eyes.

Worried he might suffocate himself, Shan Xiu hurriedly reassured him:

“This servant won’t extinguish the candles. I’ll stay with Master. Don’t be afraid.”

He reached over to pull the blanket down, but Lin Xiaoque resisted.

“You’re not allowed to tell ghost stories anymore. I don’t like them.”

Shan Xiu looked innocent.

“But during the day, Master listened with great interest. You even refused to eat until I finished telling the story.”

Lin Xiaoque flushed with embarrassment.

In the moment, he usually wasn’t scared.

But afterward, the lingering fear stretched endlessly.

He always felt there was something strange lurking where the light could not reach—something gloomy and eerie tugging at his heart, making him unable to stop being afraid.

“I don’t care. It’s all Shan Xiu’s fault anyway.”

Embarrassed after being exposed, Lin Xiaoque hid under the blanket again and ignored him.

Shan Xiu quietly laughed for a while before quickly pressing the blanket down.

“You won’t be able to breathe, Master. How about this servant stays with you tonight? It was my fault. I know I was wrong. I won’t leave tonight.”

Only then did Lin Xiaoque crawl out from under the blanket.

It had become terribly hot beneath it. His hair was messy, and his cheeks were red.

Shan Xiu gently helped smooth his hair back into place.

Lin Xiaoque had already grown used to Shan Xiu’s care, so these occasional touches no longer startled him.

Shan Xiu slept on the footstool beside the bed.

Lin Xiaoque asked him to sleep on the bed instead, but Shan Xiu refused.

If the other eunuchs found out and rumors spread, losing his position would be the least of his problems. Angering the Crown Prince and getting transferred away would be far worse.

Seeing this, Lin Xiaoque stopped insisting he stay.

Shan Xiu knew his master simply cared about him and did not want him sleeping poorly.

But sleeping beside his master’s bed was hardly a hardship.

Before serving Lin Xiaoque, the abuse from older eunuchs had been true suffering.

Slaps came without warning.

He was cursed at constantly.

They beat him with broomsticks until his legs nearly broke. Even while drenched in sweat from pain, he still had to apologize and say the elder eunuchs had disciplined him well.

Compared to that, he had actually been lucky. At least nobody withheld food from him.

Some unfortunate little eunuchs who failed to please others could not even eat properly, starving until they were nothing but skin and bones.

Life now was much better.

His master was his heaven.

Sleeping beside a heaven that answered him filled Shan Xiu with joy. How could he possibly feel wronged?

But seeing that Lin Xiaoque truly did not want him sleeping there, Shan Xiu began telling another story instead.

This time it was a warm, comforting tale.

As he spoke, the master gradually drifted off to sleep.

At the time, Shan Xiu had looked at his sleeping master and felt happiness swelling inside him until it nearly overflowed.

Very much like now.

Eventually Shan Xiu’s numb legs hurt so badly he could barely stand.

After resting for quite a while, he finally lowered the bed curtains and extinguished most of the candles.

Deep into the night, most people in the palace had already fallen asleep.

But in the prison dungeon, Xie Zhichi was in too much pain to sleep.

His whole body trembled from cold.

Though it was summer, he felt as though he had been stripped naked and thrown into an icy wilderness.

The chill of blood loss seeped into his marrow, freezing even his skin stiff.

His hands and feet were chained. A chain circled his neck as well.

Unable to stand, he could only curl up in the corner like livestock.

The stench filled his nose completely.

Even the moonlight pooled in his palms disappeared behind dark clouds, vanishing entirely.

Xie Zhichi tried to stand, but the slightest movement made the chains tear at his wounds like blades.

It hurt too much.

So much that he began hallucinating.

It felt as though he had gone home.

Brother Yun was waiting for him.

Brother Yun said his clothes were torn and needed mending. He replied that there was no need anymore—he had become a jinshi scholar now, he had money. Brother Yun would no longer need to survive by selling embroidery.

Then the memories drifted even farther back.

His father was still alive then.

His father held him and softly soothed him:

“Don’t cry, don’t cry. There are no demons or monsters. Father already chased them away.”

He wasn’t hurt.

It didn’t hurt.

These were all hallucinations.

His father held him while quietly humming nursery songs.

In those songs there was springtime, flowers blooming everywhere.

His father had once said that on a Third Day of the Third Month long ago, his own father had gathered a huge bouquet of flowers for him.

Whenever his father spoke of it, his face would carry a light, gentle smile.

And somehow, Xie Zhichi forgot the pain.

Father was there.

Brother Yun was there.

His other father was there too.

Their whole family was reunited together.

He finally understood why it was so cold.

It must be because the Lantern Festival had arrived.

The Lantern Festival was for reunion.

Once Father lit the fire, he could help cook tangyuan. Then it would no longer be cold.

He would get to eat sweet tangyuan.

Brother Yun would not go hungry anymore.

No matter how much they ate, the food would never run out.

But instead—

The night stretched endlessly cold.

Xie Zhichi forbade himself from crying.

He would not cry.

Closing his wet, blurry eyes tightly, he pressed himself against the dusty wall and forced himself to sleep.

Sleep.

Sleep.

There was no dawn that could never be reached.

Morning came.

Lin Xiaoque was still asleep when Shan Xiu woke him to drink medicine again.

Half-asleep, Lin Xiaoque pushed the bowl away.

“Master,” Shan Xiu coaxed softly, “drink it before going back to sleep. The imperial physician said three doses a day—morning, noon, and night. None can be skipped.”

Lin Xiaoque burrowed deeper into the blanket, too dizzy and sleepy to listen.

Setting down the medicine, Shan Xiu gently threatened him:

“Master should hurry and drink it. If Master refuses, this servant will keep talking and talking until Master can’t sleep at all.”

Weakly, Lin Xiaoque punched the blanket once.

Forced to crawl out, he drank the medicine in one go.

“Shan Xiu is so annoying. Stop talking.”

Shan Xiu handed him rinse tea.

Even after rinsing, the bitterness remained.

Frowning with eyes closed, Lin Xiaoque pushed at Shan Xiu resentfully. This was all Shan Xiu’s fault.

Shan Xiu lifted his chin and brushed his teeth for him, only then easing the bitter taste. After carefully wiping his face clean, Shan Xiu finally tucked him back under the blanket.

“Sleep now, sleep. Master mustn’t run around in the rain anymore. Being sick means you can’t even sleep properly.”

Clutching the blanket, Lin Xiaoque drowsily fell asleep again, only waking when the sun was already high.

And the moment he woke—

It was time to drink medicine again.

Sitting on the bed hugging his knees, Lin Xiaoque turned his face away, refusing to look at Shan Xiu.

233 tried persuading him:

【Host, you have to drink medicine for your body to recover. If you don’t, your illness will worsen. You’ll keep coughing and coughing—maybe even cough blood. It’ll be very painful.】

Lin Xiaoque stubbornly replied:

【Anyway, I’m someone destined to commit suicide eventually. Whether my body gets better or not doesn’t matter.】

233 corrected him:

【That’s not true. There’s still a very long time before Host dies. You’ll suffer for a very, very long time.】

Lin Xiaoque thought about it for a moment.

His grumpy mood upon waking gradually faded, and he reluctantly admitted 233 was right.

After he finally drank the medicine, Shan Xiu offered sweets.

“Too sweet. Don’t want them.”

He offered thin porridge.

“Too bland. Don’t want it.”

He offered pastries.

“Are you trying to choke me to death? Don’t want them.”

Helpless, Shan Xiu sighed.

“Master, at least eat a little. Her Majesty the Empress invited you to dine tonight. His Majesty and the Crown Prince will both attend. If you don’t eat now and end up wolfing food down later, people will laugh at you.”

Lin Xiaoque replied, “Do you think I’m some crying child? I still know how to behave appropriately.”

The moment he said it, he realized his earlier behavior really had resembled a child throwing a tantrum.

Immediately embarrassed, he grabbed a pastry and stuffed it into his mouth, pretending nothing had happened.

He absolutely had not been sulking.

“Shan Xiu, you said the Empress invited me to a banquet?”

Shan Xiu repeated himself.

This time, Lin Xiaoque truly listened.

He was not afraid of the Empress or the Crown Prince.

But he was somewhat afraid of the Emperor.

In front of the Empress and the Crown Prince, Lin Xiaoque could feel that they genuinely treated him as someone cherished.

Even after the Empress later distanced himself from him, that sense of relative equality had never changed.

But before the Emperor, Lin Xiaoque always felt that the Emperor looked at him the way one looked at a decorative object.

Not just him.

The Emperor likely looked at everyone other than his heir that way.

Either as beautiful ornaments—

Or slaves beneath his feet.

The Emperor’s cold cruelty, his refusal to regard people as human beings, made Lin Xiaoque uneasy.

Emperor Xiao Juan was the supreme ruler of this world.

Power rested entirely in his hands. Countless people’s fates depended on a single thought from him.

And whether the ornament in his eyes would be treasured or smashed apart for amusement…

Whether a s*ave would continue serving or simply be beheaded…

Perhaps all of it depended only on his whims.

By evening—

Palace lanterns had already been lit in the Empress’s residence.

The Crown Prince, Xiao Futu, had arrived earlier than Lin Xiaoque and was chatting casually with the Empress.

When Lin Xiaoque entered, the Crown Prince continued speaking lightheartedly to entertain his mother, yet all his attention had already shifted toward Lin Xiaoque.

Empress Chu Cizhao lightly gripped a silk handkerchief, smiling faintly as he listened to the Crown Prince speak.

But his thoughts had long since wandered elsewhere as well.

Lin Xiaoque bowed politely.

“Greetings, Your Majesty. Greetings, Your Highness.”

Chu Cizhao smiled.

“There’s no need to be so formal. This is a family dinner.”

Lin Xiaoque answered softly, “Alright,” before taking his seat.

For some reason, tonight’s banquet was unusually small—

Only a single table with four chairs.

Just as the Empress had said, it truly resembled a family dinner.

Chu Cizhao lowered his gaze slightly, tightening his hold on the handkerchief.

He could not reveal anything strange.

Even though lifting his eyes would let him see Lin Xiaoque immediately, he could not allow himself to look.

Listening to the Crown Prince’s concerned words toward Lin Xiaoque, Chu Cizhao thought to himself that asking a few caring questions would not seem suspicious.

After all, tonight’s dinner had originally been meant to show the Emperor and Crown Prince that he no longer minded the past, and that he would continue caring for Qie Yunu as he had when Qie Yunu was younger.

Back then, Chu Cizhao had truly doted on him like a child.

But at some point, Qie Yunu had grown up.

He had captured the Crown Prince’s heart—

And stirred emotions within Chu Cizhao himself that he could no longer ignore.

To avoid suspicion, Chu Cizhao had reasonably distanced himself under the excuse of the Crown Prince’s feelings. No one could criticize him for it.

But when he accused Qie Yunu of seducing the Crown Prince…

Was it actually because he himself had already been seduced?

Even he could no longer tell.

He was simply afraid.

Afraid someone would discover the abnormal feelings in his heart.

At that point, not only would he himself be affected—so would the Crown Prince and Qie Yunu.

He could not allow that to happen.

After all, he had married the Emperor.

No matter how many consorts or favored lovers the Emperor possessed, no matter whether the Emperor treated him well or poorly—

He was still the Emperor’s “wife-s*ave.”

The Emperor’s possession.

Sometimes Chu Cizhao wondered whether Xiao Juan preferred male omegas over women because omegas occupied the lowest position of all.

A woman who married into the palace became a wife and possessed the rights of a wife.

But an omega who married in became only a wife-s*ave.

Both wife and servant.

As Xiao Juan’s Empress, and as the one who had borne the Crown Prince, Chu Cizhao understood him at least somewhat, even if he possessed little romantic affection toward him.

And he thought—

There was probably no one in the world more arrogant than Xiao Juan.

Xiao Juan had been the late Emperor’s only son, born in his old age.

The late Emperor had treasured him beyond reason—afraid he would break if held too tightly, afraid he would melt if held too loosely.

Before Xiao Juan, the late Emperor lacked even the dignity of an emperor, almost seeming to flatter his own son instead.

Back then, during a palace banquet, Xiao Juan had merely praised Chu Cizhao once in an ambiguous tone.

The late Emperor had immediately issued an imperial decree.

He had even wanted to send every omega and daughter from the Chu family into Xiao Juan’s harem.

Seated high above everyone, Xiao Juan had looked down at Chu Cizhao with half-lidded eyes.

“I’m not a collector of trash. Him, then.”

After marriage, Xiao Juan spent nearly every night in Chu Cizhao’s palace.

Yet Chu Cizhao never sensed much passion from him.

Perhaps Xiao Juan merely wanted an heir, unwilling to end up like his own father, who had only gained a son in old age.

After the Crown Prince was born, Xiao Juan showed little joy.

To him, it seemed no different from completing another task.

The late Emperor, meanwhile, had been delighted enough to practically die from happiness.

During Chu Cizhao’s pregnancy, Xiao Juan took on a favored concubine.

That omega was obedient and seductive, exceptionally skilled at pleasing Xiao Juan, almost treating himself like a pleasure s*ave in the way he served him.

Once, Chu Cizhao had brought pastries to visit Xiao Juan.

There he saw a naked servant kneeling at Xiao Juan’s feet, body toyed with by various instruments, while Xiao Juan calmly handled government affairs as though nothing unusual was happening, allowing the servant to drown helplessly in pleasure he could never fully attain.

The sight shocked Chu Cizhao.

Looking more carefully, he realized it was not a servant at all—

It was the favored concubine.

The fright disturbed the Empress’s pregnancy.

Xiao Juan merely ordered the concubine executed in an indifferent tone.

“He disrespected the Empress. Drag him away.”

Chu Cizhao pleaded for mercy, but Xiao Juan only glanced at him.

“Empress, return and focus on your pregnancy.”

Under that gaze, Chu Cizhao fell silent.

Only later did he learn that the concubine had not been the child of some noble family, but merely an untouched prostitute from a male brothel.

If a noble family’s omega committed wrongdoing, execution would rarely follow. Most were simply cast into the cold palace.

But that prostitute had not even been granted the chance to enter the cold palace.

He was killed outright.

In Xiao Juan’s eyes, hierarchy was absolute.

Everyone beneath him was a s*ave.

Yet even among slaves, some were given a little dignity—

While others were trampled into the mud until they rotted there.

Chu Cizhao’s thoughts gradually returned to the present.

The words of concern he wished to say to Lin Xiaoque were swallowed back down.

He still had not decided what phrasing would sound natural enough—

Natural enough that no one would suspect anything.

And while lost in those thoughts—

Emperor Xiao Juan arrived.

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