Chapter 357: Zhao Mingyan, What Do You Take Me For?
She didn’t know who the woman in the painting was, but she could sense how much Emperor Wu Su treasured it.
Ji Qingwu couldn’t bear to look at the painting any longer.
Instead, she lowered her gaze to their hands, but the sight only made her grow more agitated.
So many brushstrokes had been devoted to this woman; even each strand of her hair was delicately outlined.
A pang of jealousy shot through Ji Qingwu’s heart, and her eyes began to sting.
She tried to pull her hand away, but he sensed her movement and gripped it even tighter, continuing to guide it across the paper.
He warned in her ear, "Don’t fidget. It’ll be over in a moment."
Ji Qingwu blinked back the sting in her eyes and shifted her gaze to the incense burner, where smoke curled gracefully into the air.
Her hand was not her own, and her heart was in turmoil, but at least her eyes still obeyed her.
After some time, Emperor Wu Su let out a contented sigh by her ear, seemingly very pleased with the painting.
But he didn’t release her hand. Instead, his left arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her back until she was pressed firmly against his chest.
He asked, "Are you satisfied?"
’Satisfied? I’m the opposite of satisfied. I feel like I’ve just shot myself in the foot. Why did I have to insist on a token? I should have just said a few words and left.’
She replied, "May I ask Your Majesty, how is this ’common’?"
Zhao Mingyan was still admiring the wax paper before him. "Transcendent and peerless," he said unhurriedly. "Utterly beyond the mundane."
It was a completely different meaning of "common" than the one she had in mind.
Ji Qingwu said nothing. Suddenly, he cupped her chin and gently turned her face toward him.
When he saw her expression clearly, Zhao Mingyan stared in surprise at the red rims of her eyes.
"Are you unhappy?"
Ji Qingwu said through her reddened eyes, "No."
Zhao Mingyan’s gaze shifted from the back of the kneeling girl in the painting to the defiant face of the woman in his arms, and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Since they were face to face, Ji Qingwu could easily follow the path of his gaze.
He asked gently, "Is it that I painted it poorly?"
Ji Qingwu bit her lower lip, released it, then bit it again. She repeated this several times until her lips were a more vivid red than the deepest cherry.
She forced two words out from between her teeth.
"It’s perfect."
Her insincerity was so obvious. Zhao Mingyan gave her waist a light squeeze, his gaze deepening. "Don’t say things you don’t mean. Tell me the truth."
In this awkward position, Ji Qingwu’s heart felt just as contorted.
She pushed his hand from her chin and turned her head back to look at the woman on the wax paper.
From the back alone, it was clear that, just as Emperor Wu Su had said, she was a transcendent woman.
Ji Qingwu’s lips trembled. Her voice, no longer as gentle as usual, asked, "What do you take me for, Your Majesty?"
She could hear the heartbeat of the man at her back, and the frantic, chaotic rhythm pounding within her own chest.
They were polar opposites.
His was utterly steady, beat by beat.
An embarrassing silence fell over the Diligent Governance Hall.
Ji Qingwu’s fingers, pressed against the edge of the desk, tightened until her pink nail beds turned white.
She waited, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even offer a teasing remark.
Ji Qingwu’s heart plummeted as if she’d been cast into a bottomless, icy abyss.
She slowly closed her eyes, and her world plunged into darkness.
She couldn’t hold back any longer. All the fear and anxiety of the past days, all the emotions she had fought so hard to suppress, came rushing to the forefront of her mind.
"Zhao Mingyan, what do you take me for?!"
The man holding her stiffened the moment the accusation left her lips.
She easily pushed Emperor Wu Su’s arms away, shoving him back.
With the sudden loss of his warmth, Ji Qingwu shivered.
She had thought the question would be impossible to ask. Some things, she’d believed, could be buried deep in her heart, left to resolve or fade away with time.
But once she had started, the rest of her words came tumbling out like pearls from a broken string.
"If you truly see me as the mother of Yuan Heng and Jiu Jiu, then you should remember how they came to be."
Back then, neither of us was willing.
Ji Qingwu took a deep breath and continued, "If I’d had any other choice, I never would have gotten involved with you. My actions may have been bold, but you got your heirs."
"When your True Qi was in a chaotic frenzy, I helped you with my body. That debt should be paid in full."
’So she was talking about that time in the military camp,’ he thought, ’and that night in Zhaoyang Hall.’
’In her mind, it was all just a transaction. A repayment.’
Zhao Mingyan’s breathing grew ragged, and his gaze fell upon her slender back with crushing weight.
Ji Qingwu said, "But just when I wanted to live the rest of my life in peace, you appeared again. You made me remember so many things from the past, and...and..."
She struggled to keep her voice steady, desperate to preserve some shred of her dignity.
Her voice dropped. "...and you made me have unrealistic fantasies."
Ji Qingwu remembered what she had declared so confidently to Mrs. Qiao when the Empress Dowager had summoned her to help with the Longevity Festival.
’She would try to win the emperor’s heart.’
And what had she won?
She had gotten his deliberate distance. She had gotten him leaving to perform ancestral rites, only to be assassinated while saving Princess Consort Wei, returning to the palace gravely injured, his life hanging by a thread.
Thinking back on everything that happened afterward, Ji Qingwu didn’t even have the strength for a bitter smile.
It started on her wedding night with Wei Ting, when Emperor Wu Su had appeared before her.
From that moment, Ji Qingwu had told herself that nothing was more important than his life—than him staying alive.
Even if he was grievously wounded saving Wei Liru, even if his heart belonged to someone else.
She had lowered her standards again and again. One more step back, and she would fall into an abyss from which there was no return.
She opened her eyes and turned to face him. At some point, her lashes had become damp, and a few tears trembled free, falling onto her pink skirt and leaving dark, wet marks.
Emperor Wu Su’s eyes were pure black as he frowned at her face.
’Since he won’t speak, I’ll say everything. I don’t care about something as hollow as dignity anymore.’
Ji Qingwu said, "Do you think I’m the kind of woman who depends entirely on a man for her existence?"
When she returned to Lin’an, she had planned to marry early simply so she could be free to do as she pleased.
Only a life without love could be free of burdens, but right now, she felt anything but free. In the end, it was all because of the man standing before her.
Ji Qingwu stared straight at him, her eyes glistening with tears.
"Do you think what I’m afraid of is losing my freedom by becoming a concubine in the palace?"
Doubt flickered in Zhao Mingyan’s eyes, quickly followed by a flash of understanding.
Ji Qingwu’s lips parted. "That’s never been what I’m afraid of."
"If the heart is free, it doesn’t matter where you are. But you... you wove a great net, and once you had snared my heart, you simply cast it aside."
Ji Qingwu refused to pretend any longer. She would treat this as her final confession.
"After I returned to Lin’an, you were the one who appeared before me, again and again. Why did you have to treat me so differently?"
"Why should my heart be thrown into chaos by your every word and deed?"
But Ji Qingwu wasn’t as strong as she’d hoped. By the end, her voice was trembling so much she could barely form the words.
She covered her face, only then realizing it was wet. Tears streamed from between her fingers.
"Why did you make me become less and less like myself?"
"Why is it always you...?"