When We Meet, Spring Blooms - Chapter 1

My name was Li Wanyin. I had come into this world seventeen years ago and grown up in Great Zhao. I had been married into the palace for three years.

Back then, I was fourteen. The young emperor was thirteen.

My parents asked whether I thought the match was suitable.

I gave them a thumbs-up. “Criminally good. Really. You two deserve a sentence.”

The young emperor was the late emperor’s youngest son. Compared with his brothers, he was just a carefree little wastrel.

Who could have guessed that the multiple-choice question of the succession would be solved by elimination? Everyone else died, leaving him to be shoved onto the throne.

So if you can’t have a lucky life, a long one will do.

With a child on the throne, the empress dowager governed from behind the curtain. This infuriated my father, a staunch imperial loyalist.

I told him not to be sexist.

Black cat, white cat—if it catches mice, it’s a good cat.

Man, woman—if they don’t kill you, they’re a good emperor.

And so I went from lying in bed all day to lying in bed all day recovering from my injuries.

Father continued coming home from court and sighing. “I have failed the late emperor, blah blah blah… I have let His Majesty down, blah blah blah…”

Before long, several loyalists were doing the blah-blah-blah together.

What I never imagined was that all their blah-blah-blah would end with them sending me into the palace as a spy. Sorry, empress.

What was this? Three masterminds combining to make one complete fool?

Father, just because I can drive you to an early grave doesn’t mean I can do the same to the empress dowager. Please manage your expectations.

On the day I entered the palace, Mother wiped away her tears and hesitated. “My dear, I think… I think I finally understand your guilt toward the late emperor.”

Mother, I think you’re being rude.

The truth was, I didn’t remember much about the wedding anymore.

If it weren’t for the contraceptive brew I had to drink every day, I might even have forgotten how I’d fooled the young emperor back then.

An imperial wedding might be complicated, but when you thought about it, there was only one essential part. Something only adults should do: consummate the marriage.

The problem was, I was fourteen and he was thirteen.

In the modern world, I would have been in eighth grade and he in seventh. Neither of us could have solved an analytic geometry problem.

Great Zhao followed the custom of the bride concealing her face with a fan. Only when I lowered my gauze fan did I see the young emperor for the first time.

At thirteen, he was shorter than me, with rosy baby fat in his cheeks, long, thick lashes, and sparkling eyes. Utterly clueless about girls.

His first words to me were, “Your face powder is falling off. Do you want to go and wash your face?”

I immediately felt at home with him. He was just as rude as my mother.

After I washed and changed, he put on a set of pale aqua nightclothes. The satin shimmered in the candlelight like a clear, flowing stream. Exquisite.

Then I saw the lively creatures embroidered on each sleeve.

Enormous lobsters.

Perhaps I was staring too hard. He proudly raised both arms for me. “Aren’t they mighty?”

He even explained patiently, “These are called dragon shrimp. They’re from the Western Regions. I hear every household there is very fond of them.”

I had nothing to say. Fond of them was right. Who didn’t love spicy crayfish in summer?

“But dragon shrimp are difficult to keep alive. Otherwise, I’d insist on seeing one myself.” He sounded deeply regretful.

They certainly were difficult to keep alive. Steamed, stir-fried, with garlic, hot and spicy… There were far too many excellent ways for them to die.

This was the first person I’d met who liked them alive.

“Your Majesty, do you like them because you think they’re… mighty?” I asked sincerely.

He shook his head, enunciating every word. “Of course not!

“The chair I sit on is the dragon throne. The clothes I wear are dragon robes…

“And they’re born dragon shrimp. Doesn’t the name tell you they’re my shrimp?”

I stared at him. So young, and already capable of producing a perfectly circular argument to make nonsense sound like truth.

Wonderful. A born emperor.

Good thing no one had caught a king crab yet.

He would have known at once that it was his crab.