Disarming the Princess consort.

-Zhen Liya-

The morning sun filtered in through the lattice windows, casting soft amber light across the room. I stirred before the servants could enter, already aware of the weight of his gaze. His Highness had not left my side all night. He sat upright in the corner, fully clothed, back straight, his expression unreadable.

I turned slightly, feigning grogginess. Our eyes met for just a heartbeat.

"Good morning, Your Highness," I said softly.

He did not answer. He stood wordlessly and left the room, his footsteps fading behind the wooden screen.

Yan'er slipped in just moments later, wide-eyed and breathless.

"He stayed the entire night?" she whispered.

I nodded slowly. "But he did not touch me."

She exhaled in relief. "Still, my lady, for him to stay the night without touching you… that means something."

"Or it means nothing."

I rose from the bed and stretched. The air felt charged. The scent of his presence still lingered on the silk bedding. Every movement from here on out would be under scrutiny.

"Prepare my morning robes," I said, voice calm.

Yan'er's eyes flickered with understanding. "Are we going to see the Princess Consort?"

"Yes. It's only proper."

Lady Ning Xiu's residence, the Celestial Pavilion, was quiet and serene, decorated in pale lavenders and soft cream tones, with vases of peonies and chrysanthemums arranged along each corridor. It smelled faintly of jasmine, elegance cloaked in subtle power.

Her maid greeted us and guided us to the inner chamber where Ning Xiu sat on a raised platform, her gown a soft lilac embroidered with white lotus flowers. Her long hair was adorned with a single golden phoenix hairpin.

She was the picture of grace…composed, gentle, dignified.

I bowed deeply. "Good morning, Your Highness. I hope I did not disturb your rest."

She tilted her head and gave a faint smile. "Lady Zhen, it is your right to visit me. Come, sit."

I knelt on the cushion she gestured to and kept my gaze respectfully low. I let the silence stretch just long enough to make her curious.

"I wanted to thank you, Your Highness," I began, voice timid. "Last night… His Highness came, but only to fulfill the law. He did not… he did not lay with me."

I peeked up at her beneath my lashes, and she was already studying me.

"I understand my place, Big Sister," I said, shyly. "And I know that His Highness's heart belongs only to you."

Her expression softened. She smiled with demure affection, but I caught the flicker in her gaze…the twitch of muscle near her jaw.

"Stupid girl," she said sweetly, "you better know your place, or I'll deal with you myself." But of course, she didn't say it aloud. It was all in her eyes.

She stood and reached out, lifting me gently by the arm.

"As long as His Highness likes you," she said with a sigh, "then it is your duty to bear him heirs. I am not a jealous wife, little sister."

I bowed again, perfectly. "Even still, I will follow your lead, Sister."

She smiled like a benevolent deity. "You are obedient. That is good."

She waved her hand. "You may leave. Get some rest."

Yan'er helped me to my feet and we bowed once more before exiting.

As we stepped out into the corridor, I caught a final glimpse of Lady Ning Xiu's reflection in a bronze mirror.

Composed. Serene.

But beneath it, I saw the storm.

The door slammed shut the moment we were gone.

The porcelain teacup she had been holding shattered against the ground.

"That wretch!" she hissed.

She stood in a whirlwind of her own fury, her hands shaking. "She even had the gall to tell me she slept in His Highness's arms!"

Maidservants dropped to their knees, heads bowed in silence.

"Calm yourself, Your Highness," Mei Hua, her chief handmaiden, said gently. "She's testing you. She wants you to make a mistake."

"She wants me to lose control? To act out like some insecure wife?" Ning Xiu seethed. "No. No, I won't give her that pleasure."

"She's clever, that one," Mei Hua said. "Too clever. If you leave her alone, she'll become a threat."

Ning Xiu paced furiously. "He never stayed the night with any of us. He hasn't stayed the night with me in over a year."

"She's fresh," Mei Hua replied. "New. Mysterious. But she's not yet favored."

"But she will be," Ning Xiu muttered, then kicked the broken vase on the floor. "If I let her."

Mei Hua knelt beside her and reached for her hand.

"Then don't let her. Strike first."

Ning Xiu's expression twisted for a moment, then calmed. "Not yet. She is too new. If I act now, it will make me look petty."

"Then undermine her slowly. Plant whispers. Turn the other concubines against her. Make the Emperor see that she is unstable. Or better, let the Dowager Empress doubt her bloodline."

A slow smile crept across Lady Ning Xiu's lips.

"Yes…" she whispered. "Let her play innocent. I will drag her through fire by the hem of that crimson robe before she ever bears him an heir."

She picked up another vase.

And this time, she didn't throw it.

She admired her own reflection in the polished surface, eyes gleaming.

"Let's see how long her little act lasts."

Back in the South Pavilion, I stood before the bronze mirror, slowly removing the gold hairpins from my hair. Yan'er busied herself folding robes behind me.

"She's suspicious," I said quietly.

"Of course, she is," Yan'er replied. "You played your part too well."

"That's the point."

I placed the final pin back in the velvet case and smiled at my own reflection. Calm. Obedient. Fragile.

"But the difference between us," I whispered, "is that I'm not pretending to be sweet."

I turned away from the mirror.

"I'm pretending to be harmless."

-His Highness's POV(Xuan Zhi)-

The morning was quiet, the kind of stillness that spoke not of peace, but of uncertainty.

I had left the South Pavilion long before the palace stirred. My guards fell into formation behind me like shadows, silent and invisible. No one asked why I had stayed the night..though the servants would surely whisper.

Let them.

Zhen Liya.

The name had haunted me ever since I read it on the marriage scroll.

I remembered the irritation I felt when I was told the legitimate daughter, Rouya, had fallen mysteriously ill just before the ceremonial rites. It was too convenient. And her family had offered up the concubine's child instead, barely sixteen.

It was supposed to be a formality. A gesture.

And yet, from the moment I saw her in red, standing before the ancestral altar with downcast eyes and trembling hands, I knew something about her wasn't ordinary.

She was not beautiful in the way most concubines were…painted, perfected, predictable. Her beauty was fragile. Like a blade concealed in silk.

Last night, I had stayed because I wanted to see how deep the act went.

I expected fear. Deference. Perhaps ambition.

But I did not expect pain.

She had cried in her sleep.

Not loudly. Not messily. Not the kind of sobbing meant to be heard.

She had cried like someone used to hiding pain…like it leaked from her in the moments her body betrayed her.

I watched her long after the candles burned low, long after the moon cast cold shadows across the silk canopy.

Her eyes fluttered. Her fingers twitched. A whisper left her lips in the middle of the night, a name I didn't recognize.

And I found my hand reaching toward her before I could stop myself.

I hadn't touched her,but I had wanted to.

Not to claim her,to comfort her.

That was the part I could not explain.

I was not a man moved by softness. Women had cried before me, begged before me, even loved me…and it had never mattered.

But there was something in her silence that unsettled me more than any war council or betrayal.

I had dismissed it when I left, but the image of her..curled into herself, the pillow damp beneath her cheek..had followed me like a shadow.

She was not what she seemed.

In the Imperial study, I sat with a brush in hand, the morning petitions laid before me. Pages of grievances, tax disputes, border surveillance reports. None of it held my attention.

My two most trusted aides stood nearby…Jun Yu, ever composed, and Lin Wei, sharper in tongue but no less loyal.

"Should I delay the council meeting?" Jun Yu asked, noticing my absent stare.

"No. Proceed as planned."

Lin Wei glanced at the untouched ink beside me. "Did something happen last night?"

I didn't answer right away.

Jun Yu shifted slightly. "Was Lady Zhen unsatisfactory?"

My eyes lifted slowly.

"No," I said. "She was… careful."

Lin Wei frowned. "Careful?"

"She did nothing inappropriate. No advances. No seduction."

"Then why the mood?"

"She cried."

Jun Yu blinked. "Cried? Did you speak harshly to her?"

"She cried in her sleep."

The room was silent.

Lin Wei crossed his arms, thoughtful. "A woman who cries silently is either broken or brilliant."

"Or both," I said.

Jun Yu exchanged a look with him, but neither pressed further.

"She's not what I expected." I finally said.

"You mean, not like Lady Rouya?" Lin Wei asked.

I nodded. "No. Rouya was bold. Entitled. This one... she hides things behind her eyes."

Jun Yu straightened. "Then she is dangerous."

I said nothing.

Was she?

Or was she merely surviving?

I remembered how she knelt, how she spoke with such humility. But there had been precision in her pauses, in the way her lashes lowered at the exact right moment, in the slight tremble in her voice that felt too perfect.

But no one could fake tears in their sleep.

No one could fake the way she clutched at the pillow like it was the only comfort left in her world.

"She's playing a part," I said.

"But she's not just playing it for me."

Jun Yu was quiet. "She is the lowest in rank, and all eyes are on her. She has no choice but to act."

"She'll need to do more than act if she wants to survive the Consort's wrath," Lin Wei muttered.

I stood.

"I know."

I walked toward the open veranda. Below, the pavilions stretched out like painted scrolls, women in soft pastels moving like clouds across marble courtyards.

She was among them now.

And none of them would accept her.

Not Ning Xiu.

Not the six concubines.

Not the Emperor,Not the Empress Dowager.

No one would protect her,except me,If I chose to.

Later that afternoon, I received word that she had gone to greet the Princess Consort.

She had told her, quite innocently, that I hadn't touched her.

That she knew her place.

That my heart belonged to the Princess.

That she would obey and follow her lead.

It was clever,very clever.

She wasn't challenging Ning Xiu.

She was disarming her.

I couldn't help but laugh, quietly.

Jun Yu raised a brow. "Something amusing, Your Majesty?"

"Tell the court artist I want a painting commissioned."

"Of what subject?"

"Zhen Liya. In the garden. With the first camellia bloom of the season."

Lin Wei blinked. "That will draw attention."

"I know."

"People will talk."

"I want them to."

Because attention was power.

And if Zhen Liya knew how to wield it, she was more than just a consort by mistake.

She was a threat Or a weapon.

And I intended to find out which.