That day, during the grand banquet held by the new emperor, where all ministers paid their respects, Su Baiyue sat in an unnamed palace, silently stuffing another fruit into her mouth amidst the bustling sounds outside.

For some reason, Su Baiyue always felt a haunting fear lingering around her…

“Oh God, it’s terrible, they’re fighting outside!” A young palace maid, tasked with guarding the palace, stumbled in, crawling and shouting in panic.

“What’s the panic! What could possibly happen within the inner palace!” The old nanny in charge of the young maids came out, her presence formidable, and she gave the young maid a stern pinch.

The young maid, tearful and stammering with snot bubbles, exclaimed, “The imperial guards outside have all been killed, it’s all corpses… The palace gates are sealed, no one can get out…” Having said this, the young maid staggered to her knees, clearly exhausted and terrified to the point of weakness.

The old nanny’s expression changed dramatically, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted on the spot. The young maid cried even louder, then scurried away with her butt poked up.

Su Baiyue remained seated upright on the stone stool, thinking to herself, can’t she even have a full meal when she dies?

“Your Majesty, this way!” Suddenly, the palace erupted into chaos. Su Baiyue turned to look, only to see a beautifully dressed palace beauty appearing at the wide-open palace door.

Seeing an enemy brings extra rage; the current Empress, formerly known as the Mistress Yang Shi, stared in astonishment at Su Baiyue, who sat gracefully in white in the courtyard.

Su Baiyue, forced into being the other woman, gazed back with moist eyes and silently nibbled another fruit.

“Liu Ling, you!” The Empress, her face flushed with anger, couldn’t believe that the Emperor had been grinning idiotically for days and occasionally disappearing; it turned out he had been hiding a concubine right under her nose! Had she not discovered this secret passage while fleeing for her life today, she would still be unaware of the Emperor’s daily deceits.

“Seize her!” the Empress commanded through gritted teeth.

Su Baiyue sat there with a cold expression, watching the old nannies following the Empress approach with ferocious faces. Although she appeared calm, inside, she was in utter panic.

If she were really tied up like a big rice dumpling, her carefully maintained image over the years would be completely destroyed, sob sob.

“Your Majesty, we should leave quickly and not waste time on these irrelevant people,” someone advised. “With the current chaos outside, those rebels are seizing any good-looking ones to handle right there under the eaves. A beauty like the Mistress Lingyun is naturally to be thoroughly enjoyed.”

Spurred by the old nanny’s words, Su Baiyue gripped her delicate, pale hands tightly.

She couldn’t be sure if the people outside were the male lead’s. But even if they were, seeing those love letters the Emperor wrote to her, they would probably think she came to the Imperial City for wealth and status, right? As a woman who abandoned her humble husband for vanity, the male lead would be kind not to tear her into pieces and feed her to the dogs!

Su Baiyue suddenly felt that falling into the hands of the Empress might be slightly better.

However, apparently swayed by the old nanny’s words, the Empress no longer thought of dealing with Su Baiyue but just gave her a peculiar smile and hurriedly fled.

Sitting on pins and needles, Su Baiyue felt she couldn’t just wait for death. But just as she stood up, she saw another person coming out of the palace door, clearly having followed the Empress through the secret passage.

The man, dressed in a dark robe and holding a sharp sword, had a handsome and peerless face and stood there tall and majestic like a pine. The blood-soaked man looked as if he had stepped right out of hell, each of his steps heavy with the stench of blood.

The man slightly lifted his eyelids, and upon seeing the pale-faced beauty not far away, he oddly curved a smile, tightening his grip on the sharp sword in his hand. The sword seemed to sense its master’s aura, excitedly emitting a humming sound.

Swallowing hard, Su Baiyue met the man’s dark, somber eyes, which were as dark and oppressive as a night without stars, enveloping her in a suffocating embrace.

“Found you.” The man rasped out these three words. Before Su Baiyue could even take a couple of steps away, her neck was ensnared by the flat of the sword.

The sharp blade was perilously close; Su Baiyue dared not move. Her pristine white dress was splattered with bright red blood, hot and pungent, yet not as scorching as the man’s body heat behind her.

“You’ve been dirtied.” A drop of blood had splashed on Su Baiyue’s cheek at some point. The man reached out, his rough fingers brushing across her face. He wasn’t rough, but the calluses on his fingertips chafed her skin painfully.

Su Baiyue’s clean face was now smeared with blood by the man.

Choking up, Su Baiyue clutched the feather duster in her wide sleeve tightly.

See this feather duster? It’s long, are you scared I’ll poke you?

Lu Gan, of course, wasn’t scared, so he simply hoisted Su Baiyue over his shoulder and walked out, looking every bit the bandit leader who had captured the chieftain’s wife.

Su Baiyue was uncomfortably pinched by the man’s muscular arm, managing to utter an unclear phrase, “Knowledge is power, don’t just fight and kill all day…” Sob sob, mercy, Your Highness!

Lu Gan didn’t quite catch what Su Baiyue was muttering. He only felt that the woman on his shoulder was unnervingly light, the bit of flesh he had painstakingly fattened up on her was gone again, lacking that round, full feel.

Naughty girl.

Lu Gan had actually hoped not to find Su Baiyue in the Imperial Palace, but reality was undeniable. Did she really want that throne so much?

Carried all the way to the hall, Su Baiyue saw the newly enthroned emperor, who hadn’t even had time to show off, being forcefully held down by her big brother.

“A man can be killed but not insulted. Even if you put a knife to my neck, I won’t sign!” The emperor declared defiantly.

Su Baiyue guessed that what needed to be signed was probably something like an abdication document.

Liu Chen wasted no time. With a “swoosh,” he drew his great sword, brandishing it fiercely at the emperor’s neck.

As the emperor stiffened his neck, just when Su Baiyue was admiring his courage, she heard him say, “Bring the pen.”

Su Baiyue: …I don’t believe you one bit!

The situation was resolved quickly and efficiently. Lu Gan, in the name of purging the court, dealt with the emperor and his associates, securing the palace as tightly as a drum. The emperor’s grand banquet, which had invited lords from all directions, merely facilitated Lu Gan’s sweeping action.

Initially, Su Baiyue was puzzled by where Lu Gan had garnered such tremendous force, boldly seizing the throne. Later, she heard from Liu Chen that since returning to Weinan a year ago, Lu Gan had secretly intensified interactions with Wei An Wangfu and other princely states, and had stealthily mined another cinnabar mine, quietly amassing troops, culminating in today’s achievements.

Su Baiyue suddenly had an epiphany. Back when she told him she wanted the world, he had appeared unresponsive, yet he had been scheming from the start.

Indeed, a male lead is destined to achieve great things.

…

With the situation still unstable, Lu Gan ascended the throne, overwhelmed with affairs. Additionally, many lords, especially Xingyuan Wang, who had fortunately escaped from the Imperial City, began to raise troops in rebellion, determined to fight to the end.

Lu Gan didn’t take Xingyuan Wang’s feeble attempts seriously, simply dispatching Liu Chen to quell the rebellion.

The King and Queen of Weinan were still in Weinan, unsure if they had received the news of the change of rulers in the palace.

But what truly infuriated Su Baiyue was that the male lead had locked her in a “dark room”!

The so-called dark room wasn’t literally a dark room. This dark room was more like an indestructible cage of golden threads, filled with Liu Ling’s favorite white silks, overwhelmingly white. Except for Lu Gan, only Jing Wen, a personal maid, attended to her daily.

“Mistress, please eat something. These were personally made by His Majesty,” Jing Wen pleaded earnestly.

Su Baiyue lay askew on the couch, recalling that in the original book, Jing Wen eventually ended up in the male lead’s harem.

Thinking of this, Su Baiyue’s gaze towards Jing Wen changed.

Jing Wen, feeling strange under Su Baiyue’s stare, persisted in persuading her. Just then, the tightly closed palace door opened, and a man in a bright yellow dragon robe stepped in, immediately noticing the untouched food, his eyebrows slightly furrowing, then waved Jing Wen away.

The already rebellious Jing Wen bowed and exited.

Now only Su Baiyue and Lu Gan were left in the hall.

Su Baiyue felt a bit nervous, clutching the feather duster in her arms, wondering how even seeking death was so difficult in these times.

“My wife is too fragile to take care of herself; let me do it for you.”

The man lifted the hem of his long robe, sat down on the couch, then picked up the clear porridge, scooped a spoonful, and brought it to Su Baiyue’s lips.

The fragrance of the porridge nearly made Su Baiyue open her mouth, but her diligent professional spirit made her hold back.

Seeing that Su Baiyue wasn’t eating, Lu Gan didn’t force her, merely bending slightly to pick up a white paper from the floor in front of the couch and looking at it. After seeing the scribbles on it, he leisurely turned to face Su Baiyue, “Thirty-three love poems, and my dear wife hasn’t finished even one. How long will it take to leave here?”

The man’s voice was husky, not at all threatening, even somewhat gentle, but Su Baiyue’s scalp tingled nonetheless.

She was locked up here because this neurotic male lead wanted her to write him thirty-three love letters.

Su Baiyue felt this male lead must be dumb.

Meeting Su Baiyue’s “are you dumb?” gaze, Lu Gan very contentedly took out a stack of evidence of Su Baiyue’s “affair” with the emperor from his wide sleeve, slowly placing it on the desk.

Su Baiyue glanced at it, silently counting.

Thirty-three letters, not one less.

Surely, this male lead must be broken? Why not find the official female lead and expand the harem, instead of fixating on her, a mere cannon fodder moonlight?

“That man, thriving like livestock, nothing grows where he treads, what exactly do you like about him?” The man suddenly tilted his head, seemingly very puzzled.

Su Baiyue had every reason to believe that if she said she liked the former emperor’s long arms and legs, the next day she might see a limbless man stuffed into a jar. Fortunately, she didn’t like anything about the former emperor, who was short in both arms and legs.

But male lead, you can’t use such a landslide of an idiom just because you’re good-looking, can you?

“Never mind, whatever my wife likes, I can learn.” The man, who had been stern and serious, suddenly broke into a smile, then abruptly pushed Su Baiyue down on the couch, his head eagerly nudging forward like a puppy.

Su Baiyue, going with the flow, began to curl up.