••••••

The Royal Physician came as soon as he was called.

I lie in bed pretending to be weak and exhausted as planned where Zian sat on the edge and has yet to let go of my hand. His eyes of concern never left me out of his sight and I feared the tighter he squeezed my hand, he would cut off my blood circulation and pull my hand right from its socket.

The Royal Physician practiced his usual routine; checked my pulse, checked my temperature, and asked questions. Of course, he found it odd I fainted because of the heat when the air has been getting a lot colder almost close to winter, and ruled out my condition as lack of proper nutrients and a common issue with pregnancy. Before he left, the Physician prescribed some herbs for me to take for 2 weeks along with rest and better meals.

Zian's the most relieved out of all who knew it was a sham.

Once finding out my condition wasn't as severe, he began nagging me to eat well and rest more and threatened Yan Ran to do a better job or she will be replaced. Softening his eyes down at me, "It's the purpose of you being here, Peizhi. To focus on your wellbeing and our child's. If you begin neglecting your health while also putting yourself in danger, then — " He pulled back with a soft sigh while rubbing his brows. "I just want you to do better and not worry me so much."

"I know, Zian. And I will," I told him. I refused to meet his gaze knowing Zhao Ji stood behind him with a disapproving nod at my tactic which succeeded. "And I have been. Sorry for making you worry." My bottom lip pulled in between my teeth.

No one can make me feel bad for faking my faint and sudden weakness to have Zian all to myself. Especially if it was cutting in the time Princess Fan Xing had with him. As before and always, I don't like her at all. And it's safe to say that I might hate her even. She tried to fool me with pitting lies of togetherment when she was trying to blind me from the real reason she chose to approach me — by killing my child and me in the process and taking everything for herself.

"Are you tired?" He responded to my soft yawn.

I nodded. And began to turn over in bed.

I wasn't tired, but I figured if I pretended to be so, it would force him to stay and be with me a bit longer. He might even want to lie with me for a moment longer while I sleep peacefully under his watch. Just like before.

"I want to be alone with my wife. Everyone out."

Even after everyone left and it was just Zian and I, I still pretended to drift off to sleep, failing to contain my smile while scooting — effortlessly and tiresomely — over to allow him some space for when he chooses to join me.

However, he was taking a lot longer to get in bed when it's a simple step. I was as close as to opening my eyes to see where he currently stood before his voice was heard through the silent air. "I know you're not sleepy." I could hear the smirk in his tone. And so I opened my eyes, facing him with an innocent-like smile, though I keep in my laying position since it was more comfortable. "And I know you are feeling just fine. As you've had before you came to visit me at the stables."

I closed my eyes.

Counting sheeps to fall asleep faster and dream about flying pigs and tall vibrant flowers chasing after me through the warm forest of the summer beating down my back, anything to avoid this conversation since I've been caught.

When feeling his weight tip the bed indicating he was getting into bed with me — as planned — his warm finger brushed along my cheek before it rims above my ear to push back a strand that wasn't caught in my braid. I finally opened my eyes, meeting his warm gaze viewing me as the only woman in his heart, but not in his world. "You don't have to pretend to be unwell to get my attention. When you call for me, I will come." He whispered. "Always."

And I knew that. But little of his time can be spared before he's off with whatever and whomever else. And he knew that too.

"It's a bit hard to do that when you're entertaining someone else."

Zian knew exactly who I referred to and made it clear this was a conversation he wasn't interested in having and peeled back his finger from my hair. "Peizhi," while sitting up. "We talked about this." His tone pressing me to not continue forward.

But I don't listen.

"I know we did b — "

"Then why is it bothering you now?"

My head jerked at his response. Why has this —  another woman, a princess from across the sea, who I was not aware of when first marrying Zian, who turns out to be his betrothed since birth — been bothering me now? I could no longer play the innocent docile anymore and glared at him with disgust. Is this even a question he should be asking me right now? For a man who's quite observant of even the littlest detail, he tends to shut off that ability when it serves him no purpose.

"It has always bothered me, Zian!" I expressed angrily after I sat up so that we were leveled. Zian knew he shouldn't have said what he did but it was already too late to take back his word. "You assumed I was okay with this when I never was. I'm not okay with this and I don't like her. And I don't like you forcing us to become common buddies because you envision a harmonious illusion outside of the one I have been pleading you to see the day I've arrived. Are you choosing to ignore my feelings?"

"No, I'm not ignoring your feelings."

"Then why do I feel like you are?"

The room suddenly fell to silence. I could feel my heart thudding in my ears by how angry and annoyed I am with him and about this situation I had no control of.

While running a stressful hand through his hair, Zian finally faced me with a softer look in his eyes. More pleading and desperate for a solution to be found. "Then what shall I do? Tell me what you want me to do." He asked me. "She is already here, our wedding day has been set in place, the numbers of support in this wedding has grown — it is already out of my hands. But tell me, what can I do."

I want him to do anything to get out of this marriage, any effort to assure my voice has been heard, but it seems like he wasn't putting up a fight to begin with. And the more I continued to think of a plan...I had nothing. Maybe there wasn't much he could do. Or maybe it was my fault that I haven't acquired the knowledge to seek out loopholes to destroy this marriage before it proceeds. And maybe Zian knew of those loopholes, yet it's clear he doesn't want to put in the effort it took to finish the job.

Yet again, I felt useless.

"I wish you weren't the Emperor."

There was the slightest look in his eyes that wished the same as I did, yet he appeared more hurt at my choice of words than regret for the reason I chose to say them.

"Can you leave? I'm tired."

He frowned. "I don't like fighting with you and it pains me to see you this way," The weight of his body lifted from my bed when I spun over to face my back to him, containing myself of angry tears burning to rain down. "But if you wish to remain alone, then I will give you your space. I'm sorry...I'm sorry that I keep disappointing you when you have been nothing but loyal to me. You don't deserve it."

And he was right. I don't deserve any of this. And the fact he has given me more than I deserved while putting me in undeserving situations had me thinking in that moment.

A thought that was said out my mouth before it had fully formed in my head. "Why did you marry me?" His footsteps faltered as the question slipped my lips. Since it was already too late, I kept talking. "You knew you were the Crowned Prince before you met me, and that you were going to become the Emperor soon. You knew the 4th Princess of Zhendao was to be your Empress someday soon, yet, through all that knowledge and a future that was set in stone, you decided to marry me. Why?"

"I've told you before, my parents — "

"Your parents were pushing you to marry, of course."

He turned to face my questioning expression. "But I began to fall more in love with you every day as it continues to grow now." A beat passed. "Where is this coming from?" Intensively, he watched me as if I was hiding something under my sleeve when it was only a simple question out of curiosity.

"Nowhere. I can't ask you a question?" With a careless shrug, I began to pick at his words.

"You can always ask me a question, but it was a sudden question out of nowhere. As if you had thought otherwise for my genuine reason for marrying you in the first place."

"Should I have a reason to think otherwise?"

I was now touching a hot pot by provoking him even more with my 'sudden' questioning, but I chose to no longer care about holding my filter. There was no one here but him and I so I won't embarrass him and I won't be called out for speaking out of my role, but why is he acting as if there was an audience present? He was very much out of character and the tone he used made it seem as if he suspected I knew something I shouldn't have known and he was trying to poke it out of me with questions of his own, watching me closely, subtly interrogating me, and it forced me to become doubtful of his answer though I knew his love for me was strong.

After a short silence we both shared, he backed away from interrogating me when he found nothing to discover and forced himself to smile. "Of course not. You should know that the love I have for you can never be broken, even the heavens itself cannot come in between what I feel for you." He renounced his devotion for me before he remembered. "Space. You wanted space so I will leave you be."

I watched him as he left my room, as he glanced over his shoulder not expecting I was watching him and smiled. Yet, this time it was different. Forceful. But genuine too. And anxious. But loving. It was a smile I couldn't read, yet it was the same smile he has always given me. Capturing his attention for too long, I smiled too.

A silent knock was heard against the wall within my room while I lay in bed secretly reading a new poem I had been working on with Sister Mei Ye before I moved back to Fortune of Youth palace. I quickly rolled up the scroll as perfectly as I could and hid it beneath my pillow before I spun to see who decided to bother me this late at night.

Slowly, I begin to lower my lantern as the person — a woman — was seen already holding a candle at their chest. I pressed my lips into a thin line, relieved it wasn't Zian. "Jingfei, why are you here so late at night? What's wrong?" I asked after placing my lantern on the nearby table stand.

Jingfei revealed herself wearing a thin white gown, long to her ankles which were similar to mine beside the collar cuffing comfortably around her neck. The candle lights her long black hair pinned in the front while the rest hung free down her back.

"Because I knew you would be awake."

With only a small 'scoot over', she forces me to make space for her to sit down after placing her lit candle next to my lantern. She didn't seem interested in what I was doing before she arrived, or she knew and didn't care enough to question it.

"Did Yan Ran let you in?"

With furrowed brows, "Who?"

"My attendant."

"Oh, I'm not sure. I might have snuck in when no one was looking." She said with a light shrug before scooting closer to me with her legs crossed. "But I have come to bore you with my thoughts, and to also nag you for not taking better care of yourself when you are with child. I heard you fainted for not taking proper care of yourself? You must like me taking care of you instead."

I smiled warmly upon her request. "I do. I appreciate it more than anything and will be looking forward to your presence." I told her.

Jingfei was so tiny I didn't realize there was more space in bed with her than there was with Zian though she sat with her legs crossed. But I also noticed the frown in her eyes and the dramatic huff she released so that I may ask why. And while I already had more than enough to deal with on my plate, I would rather distract myself with someone else's problems than my own.

Pushing back my hair over my shoulder, "What is on your mind?" Her eyes lit when I finally asked the question she had been waiting for.

"This political marriage my brother has bestowed is taking a toll on me and my daily activities."

"What?"

She gave me a stare before she realized why I hadn't kept up with the daily gossip going around as everyone did. "I forget you are so far from court, gossip would take hours to a day before it has reached you, but my brother asked to meet him privately and introduced the idea of me marrying a well-known and respected Commander. In return, he gains his trust, grants him a prestigious title in the eyes of the heavens, and uses his army and knowledge to grow his numbers in men." She explained. "He did so without my consent and without my opinion. Of course, I knew a day would come where I would have to marry without love and for the country, but that was long before when my father was alive. But now that it's come, I hate the idea of it. I assumed my brother would give me the will of choice, but I have placed too much faith in someone I don't know. And now, I am stuck with no idea of what I should do."

"Zian told me nothing of this, I'm sorry I wasn't aware."

She shrugged off the feeling which hurts her most. "It's okay. At least, I heard he was handsome despite his older age." She tried to think positively.

"When does he come?"

"Anytime soon. I am to be married before the royal wedding between my brother and the 4th Princess of Zhendao." Jingfei found space for her to lie down next to me with her hands together under her head as she stared up at me with eyes like her brother. Another thought seemed to circle her brain. "But I was hoping... since he favors you most and would listen to you over me, if you could convince him out of this decision? Paint an idea to enable growth by settling me outside of the palace in a most trusted place I have been before..."

"You mean back in MeiHua?" Disgust hidden beneath my words, Jingfei heard as well.

"It's shameful I know, but it is the only home I can recognize. The only which feels like a home than a home I tried to make here." She explained herself knowing our experiences at MeiHua were different, but I try to keep an open mind. "I waited my whole life to come home — wished nothing more than to see the flowers bloom in the garden, the golden scriptures carved in the walls of the throne room, to see with my eyes the words in stories the people spoke of. But after arriving...seeing what I've heard, hearing what I've seen, it was better as a hopeful dream than reality."

I narrowed my gaze, encircled with the same emotions Jingfei thought of this place. While it was nice to have nice things, to be showered in gifts, to never go hungry, to look elegant at every hour of the day, the Forbidden City will never feel like a home to me. I felt like the most ungrateful woman in the world knowing there were millions of women who would kill to be in my spot. But when you're raised to enjoy life as it is, with no expectations of reaching this far in life in wealth and marriage, none of it begins to matter over time.

But for now, I give my focus to Jingfei who has made herself even more comfortable in my bed indicating she will sleep here tonight. I don't mind since I can use some company tonight. "I will see what I can do about your marriage and speak with my husband first thing tomorrow." Or...later on tomorrow or after a day or two. Zian and I were on bad terms and I wasn't in the mood to speak with him too soon, but there was no time to waste. Especially when Zian has always been set on his plans.

Her eyes lit at my words. "Thank you, truly. And I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not having your back in MeiHua when I should have done better. I feel at fault for your treatment and if I could go back in time, I would have done everything differently. And frankly speaking, you are the only sibling who's made an effort to know me and I should cherish our relationship more."

Her response caught me off guard. A touchy subject that could have been anyone's fault including mine. "There wasn't much you could do and we were all looking out for ourselves, so I blame you for nothing." I offered her a comforting smile to help ease her guilt. "It's in the past now. Let's look forward to the future. Soon, you will be where you want to be and I will support you along the way!"

"I do hope so."

•••••••