The next day, Duan Changchuan had a slight cold. He didn’t have a fever, but his nose was a little stuffy. In the quiet imperial study in the afternoon, the young man’s small breathing could be heard clearly.

d

The rain hadn’t stopped, and the rain fell on the flowers and plants outside the courtyard, making pitter-patter sounds. The water vapor rushed in through the window, bringing with it the smell of soil.

Duan Changchuan sat at the table, reading memorials. As he read, his eyelids began to droop. He yawned one after another, his head nodding.

“Are you sleepy? Yusheng said that some of the ingredients in the medicine can induce sleep. Why don’t you go back to your room and sleep?” The woman beside him spoke softly, her fingers gently landing on the top of his head.

The young man couldn’t even open his eyes, and his mind was a mess, but he still remembered his work.

After another big yawn, he shook his head in a daze, “I still have many memorials to read, and many things to deal with …”

“Then you sleep first, I’ll pick out some important memorials. You can read them when you wake up, and the rest of the unimportant ones can be read tomorrow, okay? You’re sick, so you need to sleep more to recover faster.”

Duan Changchuan waved his hand, “Mm, no … there are still memorials for tomorrow.”

As he waved his hand, he couldn’t support himself, and his head fell on the table, “I’m not sleeping, I’m just closing my eyes for a while.”

“I’ll open them in a while …” He mumbled to himself with a lisp.

He heard a light laugh in his ear, “Okay, this concubine will call Your Majesty when the time comes.”

She covered his back with a warm coat. The fragrance of peony wrapped him up in an instant …

–

It was a dream. Duan Changchuan knew it was a dream.

He was wearing a set of strange clothes that he had never seen before, and he stood in a large bedroom. Outside, the curtain of night had closed. But the light above his head was as bright as day.

[Where is this? Why am I here?]

He was full of doubts. But he also felt that this scene was exceptionally familiar.

Not long after, he heard another person’s voice in the room. Following the voice, he saw a familiar face.

Pure white robes, and jet-black hair. She was wearing slippers, walking towards him step by step. In her long and beautiful eyes, there was an aggression that he had never seen before.

“Why aren’t you on the bed?” The woman asked.

She was in front of him in an instant. She pinched his chin between her index and thumb and rubbed her fingertips lightly on his lips.

“Nervous?”

He subconsciously shook his head and spoke in an excessively low and hoarse voice, “No …”

But his feet involuntarily retreated. Not long after, he was forced to the edge of the bed …

The woman leaned over and laughed, “You’re so nervous. Looks like I have to be gentler.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he soared into the air. By the time he came back to his senses, he had already been gently placed on the soft bed.

The person in front of him was kneeling on one knee between his legs. Her long hair fell on her chest.

His nostrils were filled with her scent.

“Duan Changchuan, do you have someone you like?” She leaned over and rubbed the tip of her nose against his jaw and asked.

“No … no …” he said.

His voice was tight, like a mute who had not spoken for a few days.

“What a coincidence, neither do I.”

As the woman spoke, her fingertips landed on his shirt buttons. It only took him a moment to unlock the most crucial one.

“Then I’ll mark till the end?” Duan Changchuan didn’t know what it meant to be marked till the end, but this body didn’t seem to be under his control.

He could sense his emotions and the changes in his body, but he couldn’t control his actions. Therefore, before he understood what the so-called “marked till the end” meant, he had already answered.

“Okay.” He heard himself say in his dream.

And then … it was something he had never experienced in his eighteen years of life, nor had he ever seen in his sketchbook, and had only heard the nanny’s narration … He was immersed in the appreciation of movements.

Passionate and happy.

He was hugged and kissed …

Everything was so natural, until …

He watched as the woman in front of him lifted his leg and revealed something that shouldn’t be there …???

And … and pressed against him?!

Duan Changchuan in his dream: !!!

[What kind of dirty thing is this!]

[Help, let me out!]

He desperately shouted in his heart.

But the dream didn’t change at all. He could only watch everything continue.

And at this moment, in his dream … He was good for nothing!

–

“Let me go! Wu … let me go …”

“I want to go back …”

“Bai … Su … Wu …”

When Duan Changchuan woke up, he was still repeating Bai Su’s name. He was sweating profusely.

He opened his eyes and looked around. When he saw the familiar study room, he heaved a long sigh of relief.

“What did you dream of?”

A nightmarish voice rang in his ears.

He turned his head in fear and trepidation, only to see a face that was exactly the same as in his dream!

That’s right, it was Bai Su! In his dream, the woman who did this and that to him was Bai Su!

This was no longer a nightmare. This was a ghost story!

[No, I have to appear indifferent. I must not let Bai Su know about this dream.]

He said to himself in his heart.

With great difficulty, he adjusted his mentality and prepared to say “It’s nothing”. His mind was still rapidly flashing with the image of how he should appear to be as calm as possible.

In the end, as soon as the word “It’s” came out of his mouth, he heard the other party ask in confusion, “Why did I hear Your Majesty calling my name? Did you dream of me?”

Boom …!

He heard the sound of the sky falling.

He quickly covered it up, “How … how is this possible? You heard wrong!”

“I’m talking about … Bai Xiang^[1]Prime Minister Bai; Prime Minister in Chinese is 丞相 Cheng2 Xiang4. People usually call them by their family name plus 相 Xiang4! Prime Minister Bai and the Regent. They’re targeting me!”

As he spoke, he picked up a brush in a panic, randomly picked up a memorial, and began to “annotate” it.

When he put down the brush, he realized that the ink at the tip of the brush had already coagulated and was as hard as a rock.

“Your Majesty, the ink is here.” The woman pushed the inkstone to his hand at the right time.

“… I know. I was just about to dip it in the ink.”

“Thank you for your hard work, ha-ha-ha.”

The last three extremely perfunctory laughs rang in the study room where a pin drop could be heard …

It became even more awkward.

–

He originally thought that it was just a bizarre dream and would forget about it in two days. But four or five days had passed, and Duan Changchuan would still think about it from time to time.

That was still fine …

But, for four nights, he dreamed of this dream two nights in a row.

One of the times, he was very clear-headed and clearly knew, oh, it’s this dream again.

But there was also one time when he was very unconscious and even strongly sympathized with himself in the dream.

When he woke up, he thought, why, it’s this dream again!

It even developed to the point that as long as he saw Bai Su, he would have this dream!

Occasionally, he would fantasize that he was being hugged by her …

It was until the morning of the sixth day. Once again, the young man was frightened awake by this dream. With a pair of large dark circles under his eyes, he went to the Imperial Astronomical Bureau.

He sat opposite Yun Xie in a small courtyard full of blooming peonies, his face haggard.

“I remember that there is a thing called black magic among the folklore. Help me take a look and see if I’ve been cursed.”

When Yun Xie heard the question, he was stunned for a moment and waved his hand, “That’s just something from the folklore. There’s no such thing. If there really is such a thing, we can just give one to the Regent and Minister Bai. What’s the point of fighting?”

Duan Changchuan, “Then what about the mountain spirits and the likes? Why do you have so many peonies here?”

Yun Xie, “…”

He rolled his eyes at him, “You’ve been planting peonies for more than ten years and you only remembered it today? Tell me, what’s going on? One moment it’s cursed, and the next moment it’s mountain spirit. You’ve never believed in this kind of thing before.”

The young man’s fingers unconsciously played with the whorled umbrella plant in his hand and whispered, “Isn’t this because it was too outrageous recently …”

Then he looked around …

Seeing that no one was following him, he crooked his finger and whispered, “I think there’s a big problem with Bai Su.”

“The Empress? What’s wrong with her?”

Duan Changchuan, “There’s a fragrance on her body. I told you before that it has an aphrodisiac effect after smelling it. I suspect that there’s a problem with her fragrance … You probably heard some time ago that I sleepwalked to her palace at night … It wasn’t just that day. Later on, I slept in separate beds from her in the palace many times and woke up in her bed the next day. I also often dream of her. Uh, very intimate.”

After he finished speaking mysteriously, he sat back down calmly. With a wave of his long sleeve, he covered the hand that had been playing with the grass.

As a result, the shoulders of the person opposite him couldn’t help but loosen. In the end, he simply laughed out loud.

Duan Changchuan:?

“What are you laughing at?”

The young man wiped the corners of his eyes, “How can this be a kind of curse? You clearly fell head first into it, my emperor … You often dream of her, don’t tell me you’re having erotic dreams. Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed so loudly, hahaha … Empress is such a great beauty, I can understand. Cough, cough, it’s normal for you to be a little vigor, really. Listen to me, you should sleep with her tonight. I promise you won’t have this kind of dream in the future.”

With his teasing, Duan Changchuan used all his strength to suppress his shyness, but he suddenly couldn’t suppress it anymore. His face was as red as a hot potato in a short time.

“I’m being serious with you, what are you talking about?”

“I, haha, cough … I’m also being serious with Your Majesty. You fell in love with her at first sight, and then you were deeply in love with her. Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve kissed each other several times in front of the servants.”

Duan Changchuan:!

Just throwing the whorled umbrella plant was no longer enough to satisfy him, so he directly picked up the pot.

“Hey, don’t, don’t! If the pot breaks, Auntie will scold you!”

Duan Changchuan, “Really?”

The youth immediately surrendered, “She will scold me, scold me, okay?!”

Only then did he put down the pot of ill-fated whorled umbrella plant.

But he was still angry.

Yun Xie got up and went out. After a while, he came back with a red brocade box.

He pushed it in front of him, “Since you think she’s the incarnation of some demon, try wearing this.”

The young emperor opened it suspiciously and saw a string of wooden beads in the red satin.

The color was lustrous, and each bead was plump. The moment it was opened, it was suffused with a faint woody fragrance.

The youth opened his folding fan with a snap and said, “Agarwood, it has the effect of warding off evil spirits. Wear it for seven days. After seven days, if it’s still the same, then you can only go and pray to Yue Lao^[2]God of marriage and love in Chinese mythology.”

Duan Changchuan picked up the bracelet and put it on his wrist, asking, “Pray to Yue Lao for what?”

“Ask him to cut the Red String of Marriage for you. Didn’t you don’t want it?”

“…”

Silently, he raised the pot again.

“Hey, I was wrong. Your Majesty, please forgive me and this pot of grass! We’re very innocent, hahaha!”

“Heh … I don’t think the two of you are innocent. You can be a pair of fugitive mandarin ducks.”

“Auntie! Auntie, save me! Your whorled umbrella plant and your martial nephew are going to be gone!”

“Auntie Feng Yao will not care about you.”

“How can you be so honest? I’ll be sad.”

“Oh, then cry.”

“…”