Chapter 42

Chapter 42

The group kept up a polite exchange of pleasantries for a while.

Zhou Lingsheng and Chi Yu only sensed that the atmosphere was subtly strained, but Wei Chengjun had the sharpest eye. Naturally, he saw the clues for what they were, and could not help glancing at Sheng Zhaoning.

She did have some ability.

His fingertips tapped the table out of habit as he said, “I came here today to discuss certain matters. Would the two of you mind allowing me to speak with my subordinate alone?”

Chi Yu glanced at Sheng Zhaoning. Seeing that she had no reaction, he hesitated briefly before rising to his feet, offering a salute, and withdrawing.

Zhou Lingsheng, seeing this, did not linger either and left with Chi Yu.

The room fell quiet for a few moments.

Sheng Zhaoning did not know why Wei Chengjun had asked her to stay behind alone, so she remained silent.

Wei Chengjun was in no hurry to speak either. After a short while, he said, “You like Wei Yi.”

Sheng Zhaoning’s pupils contracted sharply.

Her hands clenched tight, and she immediately lifted her eyes to look at him. Her gaze was filled with shock, as though she had never expected Wei Chengjun to say such a thing.

He was not surprised by her reaction.

Sheng Zhaoning had always thought she had hidden it well. She thought her feelings had rotted inside her, stopped at her lips, and that as long as she never spoke them aloud, no one would ever know.

But she did not understand that when someone truly liked another person, their eyes alone revealed everything.

“There is no need to deny it. I can tell,” Wei Chengjun said.

“Please forgive me, Your Highness.” Sheng Zhaoning knelt and kowtowed.

Wei Chengjun raised a brow. “It is only liking someone. What crime is there in that?”

Sheng Zhaoning pressed her lips together, not knowing how to answer.

Wei Chengjun had been young once too. He, too, had once loved someone so fiercely that he would have thrown caution to the wind.

Only after the years had settled did all that remained of such intense emotion become nostalgia. Now his heart was like a pool of stagnant water, so calm it could no longer stir even the faintest ripple.

Wei Chengjun asked, puzzled, “A one-sided love, yet you are willing to die for him. Is it worth it?”

The love he believed in had always been mutual, not one person pouring themselves endlessly into another without receiving the slightest response.

Sheng Zhaoning said each word clearly, her voice firm. “If I like him, then it is worth it.”

“You are not afraid your sincerity will be betrayed?” Wei Chengjun asked, turning his gaze toward her.

“No.”

For the first time, he truly studied Sheng Zhaoning.

This person was completely different from the Shadow Ten in his memory.

In his eyes, Sheng Zhaoning was cold, cruel, and heartless. No matter who she faced, she never acted on emotion. It was as if her heart truly were hard as iron.

And yet, it turned out she, too, had moments when her feelings were beyond her control, when she was willing to die for love.

“Do you think Wei Yi knows how you feel?”

It was a malicious question.

He knew the answer perfectly well, yet still asked despite knowing.

Sheng Zhaoning’s back went rigid.

She knelt on the ground, her fingertips unconsciously tightening.

Faced with that question, she hesitated.

Did Wei Yi like her? To the person she was now, that question seemed far too distant.

But if the question was whether Wei Yi knew she liked him, that was something she had never considered.

If he did not know, then all the sincerity she had entrusted to wind and moon was nothing but flowers in a mirror, the moon on water-a dream with no meaning. She would never receive his love.

If he did know, then he had watched coldly from the sidelines as she thought she was carefully hiding away all those secret feelings, never denying them and never responding. That made her seem even more like a joke.

Wei Chengjun chose that moment to wake her. “Or let me ask a different question. What about you? Do you know Chi Yu’s feelings?”

Sheng Zhaoning froze.

“It seems you do.” Wei Chengjun understood the answer just from seeing her reaction. “That makes sense. When someone likes you with such reckless devotion, how could you not know?”

So Wei Yi had known.

He had known she loved him. He had seen everything she had given. He simply had not cared.

Sheng Zhaoning felt that discussing “love” with Wei Chengjun was far too unreal.

An ambitious man who yearned for absolute power-she did not believe he could truly understand the tangled, unfathomably complex emotions of this world.

“I wonder what instructions Your Highness has, coming all this way to seek me out,” she said, cutting straight to the point.

Wei Chengjun looked at her for a while. Knowing she did not want to continue the subject, he did not press it. He withdrew his gaze and said, “It is nothing significant. I merely came to tell you that Chi Yu defied his father’s orders for your sake and was locked up. He refused food and drink and nearly lost his life. For the sake of his son, General Chi did not hesitate to set aside his pride and come begging to me. He wants to take you into the Chi Family and have Chi Yu marry you.”

Sheng Zhaoning’s heart gave a jolt, and Chi Yu’s pale, weakened face suddenly surfaced in her mind.

Despite herself, she thought again of that bottle of medicine.

Chi Yu had once traveled all the way to Mobei for her, braving life-and-death trials and countless hardships to bring that medicine back.

Yet she had not appreciated it.

And this time, if not for his medicine, she might not have survived.

Sheng Zhaoning was grateful to him, but gratitude was all it was.

“I have no romantic feelings for Young General Chi,” she said bluntly.

Wei Chengjun looked into her eyes. “But for you, he is willing to die.”

“For Your Highness the Heir, I am also willing to risk my life.”

Wei Chengjun suddenly laughed, and the smile came from the heart. “See? In a certain sense, you and Wei Yi are the same kind of person.”

The same coldness. The same selfishness.

Wei Yi could do nothing at all and accept Sheng Zhaoning’s love for him with a clear conscience, neither rejecting nor responding to it. He had grown used to having someone always following behind him, pouring out her heart and soul for him. He was too lazy to change such a relationship; it would be troublesome.

And Sheng Zhaoning, no matter how others treated her, had fixed her sights on Wei Yi alone. So no matter how good anyone else was, even if they loved her like a moth flying into the flame, just as she loved Wei Yi, they would never enter her eyes.

Cause and effect in this world answered one another in cycles.

What was gained and what was lost would be compensated again in another form.

Only, it was a pity that things never went as one wished.

What was given was not wanted.

What was lost could not be taken back.

“I can give you two choices.”

Wei Chengjun rose and walked up to her, looking down at her from above. “First, continue to fulfill your duties. Infiltrate the capital and serve as the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion’s informant within the imperial court. Second, marry Chi Yu. I will grant you your freedom and fulfill Chi Yu’s deep feelings for you.”

Sheng Zhaoning clenched her fists. A faint red welled in her eyes. “And if I do not want to choose either?”

“A Shadow Guard who defies orders-you know the price.”

……

Wei Chengjun likewise gave Sheng Zhaoning two days.

He still remembered asking Wei Yi back then whether he agreed to send Sheng Zhaoning into the capital. He had also given Wei Yi two days to consider it, yet Wei Yi had given him his answer the very next day.

That swift agreement had been something Wei Chengjun had not expected.

So this time, he was very much looking forward to Sheng Zhaoning’s answer as well.

After Chi Yu and Wei Chengjun left, Sheng Zhaoning sat alone quietly in the courtyard, staring blankly at the apricot tree. Only when the moon had climbed over the branches did Zhou Lingsheng appear behind her, carrying two jars of wine.

“Have a jar?”