The Princess Consort Wants to Rebel Every Day - Chapter 5

Later that day, Jiang Yuhe and I held a celebration in advance of our coming victory. We booked out the pleasure house and drank ourselves senseless with a crowd of large-bosomed beauties.

By the time the sky was too dark to make out the moon, Zhou Ting’an arrived.

He kicked open the locked doors with a troop of bruised, swollen-faced guards. They surrounded us at once. His two-meter blade pointed straight at Jiang Yuhe, who had been urging me to embrace one of the women.

All color drained from her face. “Re… Re… Re…”

The beauty who had spent the previous night with Jiang Yuhe had, in that brief time, formed a deep attachment to her. While the other women backed away and crouched in a corner with their hands over their heads, she bravely rushed in front of Jiang Yuhe.

“W-w-who are you? What gives you the right to point a sword at her? Just because her man died doesn’t mean you can bully her! Is there no law at all here beneath the Emperor’s nose?”

At the words “her man died,” confusion flickered across Zhou Ting’an’s dark face. Then, expressionless, he brought his sword up to the beauty as well.

She and Jiang Yuhe clung to each other, both shaking. Jiang Yuhe had lost every trace of her earlier merriment. She kept shielding her chest and, to be safe, burrowed into the beauty’s arms with her head against the woman’s waist, trembling in a steady rhythm from head to toe.

I was drunk too. I grinned at Zhou Ting’an’s grim face and lunged at him with a wine jug in hand.

He caught me with one arm, his eyes still murderous as they rested on Jiang Yuhe.

“Who is he? Hic! He’s Jiang Yuhe’s late fiancé—and the husband I married yesterday…”

The beauty turned pale. Jiang Yuhe dived under the bed again, shaking it from end to end. “No! No! I don’t have a husband! I made it up! Don’t cut off my breasts…”

Zhou Ting’an was a petty man. The mention of a dead fiancé made even his sword tremble with rage.

“Well, if Miss Jiang is so devoted to her departed fiancé, I’ll honor that devotion tonight and send you down to join him!”

“No!”

Jiang Yuhe shrieked and bowed frantically from beneath the bed, like a little dog begging for mercy.

I’d had enough entertainment. I hooked an arm around Zhou Ting’an’s neck and leaned further into him.

“Your Highness, I’m drunk. I want to sleep…”

Given Zhou Ting’an’s usual lack of decency, I expected him to mock me and shove me to the floor just to humiliate me.

Instead, he merely glanced down, murmured a gentle “Mm,” sheathed his sword, and lifted me into his arms. To Jiang Yuhe he said, “I’ll take your miserable life another day.”

Then he swept out with his men and took me back to the residence.

…

“You enjoy going to brothels? What’s so appealing about those women? Gaudy, vulgar, reeking of powder so strongly it makes me sick.”

Zhou Ting’an set me firmly on the bed. Still scolding me, he dampened a cloth and wiped my face and hands.

“It doesn’t smell bad. It smells lovely…” I mumbled. I tried to raise a hand, but he pressed it down.

“Keep still. You smell of wine. I’ll clean you up.”

After the previous night, Zhou Ting’an had learned how to undo my clothes. Soon he had stripped me bare.

In the dim lamplight, his gaze rested on me without the least attempt to hide it. He moved the cloth over me inch by inch, with the care one might give a priceless treasure.

He was so strange. For all his arrogance and impatience, he was willing to do something as gentle as washing a woman.

“Zhou Ting’an…”

“Mm.”

“Did you look at the Longnan deployment map? Can you really… take the place?”

His cloth had reached my waist. His voice was noticeably husky. “Mm.”

Hope leapt in me. “You really can?”

“Mm.”

My waist tickled, and I twisted without thinking. His expression darkened further.

“Stop squirming. You can do that later.”

As if I planned to squirm later. I couldn’t help giggling at the thought of Longnan soon falling, of seeing its lord suffer worse than death.

Zhou Ting’an watched me steadily. “Jiang Qingye, are you asking for trouble?”

Still smiling, I turned away, hugged the brocade quilt, and prepared to sleep. A sudden weight pressed down behind me. The next moment, he lifted me and drew me onto him.

“I want to sleep…”

Zhou Ting’an pulled at his own clothes and kissed me, urgent and fierce.

I suddenly remembered the night Jiang Yuhe drugged him. For the first half, we really had fought. Later, he became distracted.

Even as we exchanged blows, he tried to negotiate. “Jiang Qingye, could we fight on the bed?”

I had refused in no uncertain terms. My martial arts were formidable. How was I supposed to use them in a cramped little bed? What a ridiculous idea.

Zhou Ting’an had tried patiently to persuade me. “The courtyard gives us more room, but fighting in bed has pleasures of its own.”

As if I would believe that. I struck harder, aiming every blow at a vital point.

Looking back, I had been a fool that night. I hadn’t understood what he meant at all.

His kisses left me hot and restless. I felt like a dry cake of tea lowered into boiling water, floating slowly, unfurling slowly.

The damp, lingering touch rose and fell like a tide. In time with our breathing it washed over the sand, seeping in little by little until every dry grain carried the scent of the sea.

Outside, the quiet night swayed into ink-thick darkness.