Just a Wet Nurse, Just a Plaything? Everyone Wept After My Death - Chapter 79
Chapter 79
Late at night, the Forbidden City resembled a sleeping beast, its stillness steeped in a grim, oppressive solemnity.
The candles in the Imperial Study had just been extinguished. Xiao Jingheng had finished reviewing the last memorial, yet he felt no desire to sleep.
He dismissed his imperial palanquin and, accompanied only by his personal chief eunuch, Eunuch Li, wandered aimlessly through the snowy night of the inner palace.
The three thousand beauties of his harem were, at that moment, nothing more than a succession of painted faces in his mind, each indistinguishable from the last.
He was tired of their hollow flattery and carefully orchestrated chance encounters.
Before he knew it, he had reached the most remote northwestern corner of the palace.
Weeds grew unchecked here, the palace walls were mottled with age, and even patrolling guards were rarely seen.
“Your Majesty, the Northern Compound lies ahead. It’s… the Ninth Prince’s residence. The place has a heavy, ominous air. Perhaps we should turn back?” Eunuch Li suggested cautiously, lantern in hand.
“The Northern Compound…”
Xiao Jingheng paused. He had only the faintest impression of his ninth son, the child said to have “brought about his mother’s death.” All he remembered was a sickly boy with gloomy eyes.
“It’s fine. We are merely taking a walk.”
He waved for Eunuch Li to remain where he was, then clasped his hands behind his back and walked toward the lonely palace residence alone.
The Northern Compound was deathly quiet, save for the wind moaning through bare branches.
Just as Xiao Jingheng was about to turn back, however, the faint sound of singing suddenly drifted to his ears on the frigid wind.
“The moon shines bright, the wind falls still, and leaves veil the window lattice…”
It was the most ordinary of folk lullabies.
Yet here, deep within a palace filled with schemes and power struggles, the song felt so out of place and so… pure.
The voice was not loud. In fact, it carried a slight huskiness from being deliberately lowered, but it was as gentle as a hand soothing away the irritation and exhaustion that had plagued Xiao Jingheng all day.
As if under a spell, he followed the voice until he reached the East Warm Pavilion of the main hall.
Its window was in terrible disrepair. Though someone had painstakingly patched the paper with straw, several gaps remained, spilling dim yellow light into the night.
Xiao Jingheng stopped and peered through one of the cracks.
At that single glance, the emperor, who had seen every kind of beauty beneath the heavens, seemed rooted to the spot. For a long while, he could not tear his gaze away.
The room was furnished with almost nothing. Only a small clay brazier gave off a faint red glow, and there was clearly no proper underfloor heating to keep out the cold.
In the wavering amber light, a woman dressed in plain clothes sat sideways on the edge of the bed.
Her hair was not arranged in any elaborate style. It spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall, casually veiling half her profile and revealing only the long, graceful curve of her neck, startlingly pale in the gloom.
The child in her arms appeared to be shivering from the cold and illness, soft whimpers of discomfort escaping him.
“Don’t cry, Ze’er. You won’t be cold anymore… Your wet nurse is holding you, so you won’t be cold…”
The woman murmured soothingly, her voice brimming with tenderness.
Then she did something that made Xiao Jingheng’s breath catch.
She untied her outer robe and opened its wide lapels, wrapping the ice-cold child tightly in her embrace and pressing him against the warmth of her inner garment, using her own body heat to warm his small, trembling form.
As she moved, the collar of her thin inner garment slipped slightly open, revealing the delicate edge of her collarbone and a tantalizing glimpse of snow-white skin beneath the lamplight.
She lowered her head and gently rested her chin against the child’s forehead. Patting his back, she continued humming the lullaby.
The boundless tenderness on her face stood in stark contrast to the dilapidated, freezing room around her.
Outside the window, Xiao Jingheng watched, his Adam’s apple bobbing involuntarily.
He was accustomed to seeing the imperial consorts dressed in splendid robes, posturing before him as they competed for his favor.
But he had never seen a woman like this.
Amid such poverty and cold, her robes were half undone and her hair disheveled, not to win his favor, but for the sake of an unloved child.
She possessed a singular allure, one that combined maternal radiance with feminine sensuality.
Her rounded shoulder beneath the amber light, the curves revealed as she held the child close, the beguiling way her loose hair brushed across her cheek…
She was like a pearl born among ruins, covered in dust yet unable to conceal her brilliance.
A strange restlessness, unlike anything Xiao Jingheng had ever experienced, rose from his lower abdomen.
It was more than a man’s desire for a woman.
It was an overwhelming urge to tear through this veil of tranquility, draw close to that warmth, and discover exactly who this woman was.
“…Who’s there?”
Shen Yingyue seemed to sense something amiss in the wind outside. She abruptly raised her head, pulled her robe closed, and fixed the window with a razor-sharp stare.
Xiao Jingheng snapped back to his senses.
He was the emperor, yet here he was, peeping at a palace servant like some common lecher. If word got out, what would become of his dignity?
He drew a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the strange heat in his chest. Before Shen Yingyue could see him clearly, he swiftly stepped sideways into the shadows.
“Your Majesty?”
Seeing the Emperor hurry back with a peculiar expression, Eunuch Li hastened forward to meet him.
“We’re leaving.”
Xiao Jingheng’s voice was low, and his steps were unusually hurried.
After taking several steps, he suddenly stopped and looked back, his gaze lingering on the broken window glowing faintly in the darkness.
“Li Dequan.”
“I am here.”
“The wet nurse serving in the Northern Compound… What is her name?”
Eunuch Li paused. After thinking for a moment, he replied, “Your Majesty, I believe she is Lady Shen, sent here from the General’s Manor in Yanzhou a few days ago.”
“Yanzhou… the General’s Manor…”
Xiao Jingheng savored the words, a hint of intrigue and unfathomable calculation flickering in his eyes.
A woman sent by Huo Xiao?
Interesting.
“Tomorrow, have some Silver Frost charcoal delivered to the Northern Compound.”
Xiao Jingheng turned and strode into the wind and snow, the faintest curve touching his lips.
“That window lets in a draft. We find it… displeasing to the eye.”
