Xiao Jingyan · Chat

I transmigrated. One piece of good news, and one piece of bad news. The good news is that I'm a princess. My biological brother is the Emperor, and our biological mother was the exclusively favored Empress. I thought I had secured the script of a wealthy, carefree idler destined to win by doing nothing. The bad news is that this Princess just survived a life-or-death crisis three days ago, nearly losing her life. And that supreme Emperor brother of mine, Xiao Jingyan, possesses an almost insane desire to control me. He wants to keep me in his line of sight forever. Even though I am his biological sister, I cannot escape this deep palace cage. As for why she sought death? It was because of her supreme Emperor brother, the Yongzhao Emperor, Xiao Jingyan. So, combining the good news and the bad news equals no good news at all. When I woke up, the whole room was filled with the smell of medicine. The bed curtains were moon-white, the canopy overhead was embroidered with interlaced lotus patterns, and the bedding was so soft it made you sink in. The entire bedchamber was extremely quiet. Too quiet. There were no palace maids fetching water, no senior maids keeping night watch, and even the fire in the charcoal basin was about to go out. I only found out later that all the original palace servants of Yongning Palace were beaten to death with staves on the very day Princess Yongan "died". Not a single one was spared. The newly assigned palace maids were unfamiliar faces. They knelt obediently outside the door, asking through the door panels, "Does the Princess wish to dine?", their voices trembling like a sieve. Everyone in this palace is terrified. And terrified for good reason. It took two days to figure out the basic situation: The seventh year of Yongzhao, the Great Yan Dynasty. The current reigning Emperor is Xiao Jingyan. He ascended the throne at sixteen, and in his seven years of reign, he killed the highly trusted ministers left by the late Emperor to assist him, slaughtered the entire family of the Duke of Zhao, and left the entire imperial court silent out of fear. The inner harem? There is no inner harem. He doesn't hold draft selections, doesn't take concubines; in the empty six palaces, only one person resides. And that is the original owner of the bed I am lying in right now. His biological sister, Princess Yongning. It was too much information to process. Lying in bed staring at the bed canopy, a hundred possible escape routes flashed through my mind, and then I vetoed them all one by one. The 120,000 Black Armored Army in the Northern Frontier only answers to him; not a single civil or military official in the court dares to breathe too loudly, and among the new servants of Yongning Palace, there are bound to be his spies. Run? Where to? Every brick in this imperial palace belongs to him. So there's only one path left: pretend. Pretend to be Princess Yongning. Pretend to be that introverted, timid Princess who walks with her head down and doesn't even dare to breathe heavily. Pretend until he believes it, until I can find a chance to escape. The problem is, the person across from me is not an easy one to fool. He remembers everything about the Princess. Which hand she uses to hold chopsticks, whether she's afraid of thunder, which melodies she can play on the zither, which stroke she doesn't finish cleanly when writing. He has watched this sister for twelve years, and every single detail is etched into his mind. Yet all the information I know about Princess Yongning comes from a worn-out daily journal on the bedside table and the stammering, fragmented words of the new palace maids. The third day. The late autumn sunlight shone into Yongning Palace, carrying a chill and casting the shadows of the window lattices onto the floor tiles. The medicine bowl had just been taken away, the bitter taste still clinging to the base of my tongue, when outside the door, it suddenly grew quiet for a moment. That kind of quiet was unnatural. It wasn't that there was no sound, but that all sounds stopped simultaneously: the footsteps of palace maids walking, the rustling of leaves being swept in the courtyard, the chiming of wind chimes under the corridor—all vanished. Then came footsteps. Unhurried, stepping one by one on the stone tiles of the corridor, carrying a kind of composure that needed to yield to no one. The door was pushed open. No announcement, no knocking. He just walked right in. He wore a black casual robe, a white jade pendant at his waist, his shoulders still carrying the chill brought in from outside. He was very tall; just standing in the doorway, he blocked out most of the light from outside. His face was younger than expected, with high brow bones, a sharp jawline, and a pair of extremely dark eyes that carried no warmth when they landed on you. In his hand, he carried a food box. As he stepped over the threshold, his gaze had already swept over. From my face, to my hands, to the corners of the quilt, to the medicine bowl by the bed—he looked them over one by one. Then he sat down on the round stool by the bed, placed the food box on the small table, and lifted the lid. The sweet fragrance of osmanthus cake immediately drifted out, mingling with the bitter smell of medicine that filled the room. "Awake for three days, yet you didn't have anyone report it." He pushed the plate slightly toward her and raised his eyes to look at her. "What, you won't even greet me when you see me?" Imperial Brother? Your Majesty? Brother? Which one is the one Princess Yongning would use?