Translated by: Tinker
T/N: Forgive me if the details of my translation are too much…I’m under the emotional roller coaster of what Zhao Nanyu is feeling. It makes my heart feel down and terrible. They’re both suffering and it really really hurts me…
After a year, winter had arrived and it snowed heavily for several days in the capital.
Sitting outside the hall, eunuch Liu watched the emperor cough and sighed heavily. He bowed slightly and opened his mouth. “Your highness, the medicine will be cold if you don’t drink it.”
The emperor often gets typhoid fever in winter, but he never likes to drink medicine. The medicine that was made for him was always thrown away.
Even eunuch Liu, who was waiting on the emperor’s side, couldn’t understand the emperor clearly and couldn’t guess his thoughts.
As the beloved youngest son of the late emperor, acquiring the throne was simple. Many people knew that the emperor had been married to the princess of the previous dynasty for nearly four years.
Eunuch Liu was very clear about the old story. The emperor killed the princess of the previous dynasty with his own hands. He also never let anyone mention her name.
However, the first thing he did when he ascended the throne was to confer a posthumous title to the princess of the previous dynasty as queen and to move her remains to the imperial mausoleum.
The remains of the princess of the previous dynasty had long been gone. What laid in the imperial mausoleum was nothing but her ashes.
Everyone thought that the new emperor was pretending, for fear that he would be scolded for a hundred years by the citizens, and that he would have a bad reputation for killing his wife.
However, eunuch Liu felt that the cold-hearted emperor seemed to have some true feelings for the little princess.
In the year that the southwest king had just won the throne and the southwest prince had just become the crown prince, eunuch Liu had seen him cry with his own eyes.
However, he would keep this secret to his grave.
Eunuch Liu still remembered that day the emperor looked at the red plum tree and suddenly vomited blood.
He looked for a doctor to see the emperor’s condition, but when he came back, the emperor was gone.
When the eunuch came to the princess’ hall, he heard a slight sound, like a low sob, more like a cry of regret and sorrow.
The eunuch felt that he had become crazy and his ears had started to hear weird things. How could the emperor cry? To the point that he was really in pain?
He couldn’t help but walk over slightly and opened a crack in the door and looked in.
He saw the noble and cold emperor half kneeling on the ground, holding a pile of books in his hand. The emperor’s eyes were at a loss as if his soul had taken away from him.
It was the first time that the eunuch Liu saw the emperor’s grievance face. The emperor’s tears couldn’t stop falling from his eyes. He seemed to be unable to stand upright then he slowly bent down, sobbing.
He was horrified and backed a few steps, not daring to look any further as he secretly left the princess’ hall.
Later, eunuch Liu learned that the books were written by the emperor and the princess when they were husband and wife.
The eunuch sympathized with the little princess in his heart, but ah, the cruelest fate was the emperor.
He walked the bloody path.
And had discarded his love.
Eunuch Liu stayed for a whole night until the sound of coughs in the hall gradually stopped at dawn.
He brought hot water into the room to wait for the new emperor to wash and change his clothes. Yu Guang glimpsed the medicine bowl at the head of the bed. The bowl full of medicine was not passive.
He brought hot water into the room and waited for the emperor to wash and change his clothes. The eunuch caught a glimpse of the medicine bowl at the bedside. It had never been touched.
The emperor was pale and haggard.
The snow hadn’t stopped outside.
Looking at the snow, the emperor said, “It’s snowing again.”
Eunuch Liu said with a smile, “Yes, it had snowed all night and hasn’t stopped yet. The pure color of the snow is so beautiful.”
“She loves snowy days.”
Eunuch Liu didn’t know who the “she” in the emperor’s mouth was, so he pretended to be stupid and said, “You can make a snowman in the snow.”
“Yes.”
The emperor was silent again.
She not only likes snowy days but also likes building a snowman. She likes to run barefoot in the snow while laughing as she shouts his name.
She would never give up until he left the room.
His heart was dead.
He had already died after he killed the little princess himself.
The emperor was in a rare mood to go out for a walk. There was no red plum in the palace for a long time and there were no flowers in his sight that time/
He stood by the pond for a moment when he suddenly heard the sound of weeping from behind the rockery.
The emperor stood with his hands on his back, frowned, and said coldly to the eunuch behind him, “Go and see what’s going on.”
“Yes.”
After eunuch Liu took a look, he saw a girl curled up on the ground with red eyes.
Eunuch Liu’s eyes were sharp. He could see what kind of plant the girl was playing with. He sighed, “Who are you? How can you be here?”
The little girl stood up. “I came out of the Empress Dowager’s palace. The snow was so heavy that I was trapped here. I hope you can help me.”
Eunuch Liu didn’t want to talk nonsense with her so he said, “Lady, you’d better go back.”
The emperor hates seeing naive and coquettish girls.
And the lady in front of him is extremely fake
The girl didn’t give up. She passed eunuch Liu, got out of the rockery, and saw a man who was like the wind and the moon.
Her face turned red, and before she opened her mouth, she heard the man in front of her said coldly, “Eunuch Liu, send this person out of the palace, and also, find out who sent her. “
“Yes.”
The lady’s face turned white as she heard this sentence.
Eunuch Liu didn’t even sympathize with her. The emperor was able to deal with his wife who he shared the same bed. He would not be soft-hearted to others.
***
The emperor had not been back to the princess’s hall for a long time. It had been preserved as it was. He had never set foot once in these years.
He always dreamt of the little princess. He dreamed that she was smiling happily as she called his name.
Then he would wake up with tears.
He knew that he could never forget her.
In these four years of marriage, he had a very happy life. He stayed with her, even if he didn’t do anything special, he was very happy.
He destroyed it with his own hands.
He got up from the bed and lifted his hand to wipe the tears from his cheek.
He really couldn’t stand it. It seemed that he was not as happy as he imagined he would be after having acquired the throne. It was boring.
He didn’t even have time to put on his shoes when he went outside to the princess’s hall. He could even remember the interior layout with his eyes closed.
He didn’t care even when there was dust on the bed as he laid on it and covered himself with a quilt.
There was a letter under the quilt, he pulled the letter out, and saw the familiar handwriting.
The little princess’s handwriting was not good. He taught her for several years before she could correct her mistakes.
The little princess’s handwriting was somewhat like his, but hers was more beautiful.
He tremblingly opened the envelope. The paper inside already had a yellowish hue.
After reading the letter, tears welled up in his eyes while he sobbed.
He laughed like crazy as the moonlight poured into the room. He swept the sword on the desk, got up from the ground, and moved forward.
He held the hilt of the sword–his pale face could be reflected from how smooth the blade was.
The man knelt on the ground as he stabbed the sword into his heart. It was painful. The pain was as if his heart was being torn.
A huge amount of blood trickled from his chest while his body fell in a blink of an eye.
He, himself, destroyed his happiness.
He killed the person he loves the most.
He couldn’t blame anyone.
It was him who was vicious.
It would be nice if there was the next life.
The man’s sour eyes could no longer shed tears and his neat clothes were already covered by his blood.
The man slowly closed his eyes, his head filled with her smiling face.
He wanted…
He wanted to reach out and touch her.
He really wanted to.
***
The emperor didn’t die. Even if the sword exhausted his whole strength, even if the sword stabbed straightly into his heart, he still did not die.
He couldn’t die.
***
When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in the bedroom of the imperial palace. He could not even find any traces of wounds in his body.
“How did I get back?”
Eunuch Liu knelt and said, “Your highness, you went out alone?!”
The emperor seemed to be drained of all his strength at once.
He couldn’t die even if he wanted to.
From this day on, every night the emperor would dream of the past–the smile of the little princess and the words she had said.
In the dream, they would still be husband and wife, those events had not happened.
But when he opened his eyes, he would return to reality.
Cold palace, cold people.
People believed he didn’t love his wife.
Yes, deep love couldn’t be determined easily by the naked eye.
She had become an indispensable part of his life.
She was the only star in his dark world.
He thought of her every day, and every time he remembered, he would be torturing himself.
As for what was written in that letter?
It was probably a letter written by her a long time ago. He lied to her by saying he had to go back to the Southwest to visit his grandmother, but in fact, he went back to the Southwest to deploy troops and prepare for rebellion.
It took months.
She didn’t complain. Even though she had written a letter, she didn’t send it to him.
The silly little princess said in the letter, “Ah Yu, I miss you.”
The merciless person was fatally moved.
Death would be a luxury for him.
His heart was already bloody.
When the little princess died, she had probably felt pain more than him.
