Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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After Lu Huan finished his Buddhist prayers at Yong’an Temple, everything should have settled down. Next, he needed to handle some military affairs of the Zhenyuan Army, as well as communicate with Zhong Ganping about the more than one hundred farms throughout Yan Kingdom. He had just returned victorious, the people were grateful, and the emperor’s favoritism was obvious. Even if the other princes in the court wanted to vie for the throne, they could not act rashly for the time being. In other words, there were no major issues on his side at the moment.
The really bad thing was happening on Su Xi’s side.
She dared not stay at home anymore. As long as she stayed at home, she would think of the way Lu Huan looked at her these past few days, the things Lu Huan said, and some of Lu Huan’s subtle gestures…
…In the misty white fog, his dark, moist eyes lingered in her mind, making her feel like she was in a tangled mess, unable to calm down and unable to do any homework.
So, she took her summer homework, picked up her phone, and went to Gu Qin’s house to do it.
Lu Huan didn’t know where Gu Qin’s house was; it probably hadn’t been unlocked yet.
Gu Qin’s mother prepared watermelon and air conditioning, letting the two of them stay home to do their homework while she and Gu Qin’s father went to work. So, only Gu Qin and Su Xi were left at home, doing their homework and snacking for a while. Su Xi tried her best to put aside the inexplicable emotions that had been welling up inside her lately, and she did indeed happily watch some TV dramas with Gu Qin. But after most of the day had passed, she felt a sense of emptiness, as if she hadn’t seen anyone in a long time.
She ate potato chips absentmindedly, her hand even reaching into Gu Qin’s bag.
“What are you doing? You seem distracted.” Gu Qin removed her hand: “Eat by yourself.”
Su Xi suddenly sat up straight, looked at Gu Qin seriously, and said, “I want to ask you for some advice.”
Gu Qin chuckled and glanced at her: “Tell me, are you in a relationship?”
“No.” Su Xi pushed her away. “Be serious. It’s like this. I’m playing a game, an ancient game. Lately, it’s been strange. I suddenly don’t want to reach the final level. And when I realized that the game character wasn’t as dependent on me anymore, I felt really sad. Not only that, but when I see the game character getting closer to other game characters, I feel really uncomfortable… It wasn’t like this at the beginning. At the beginning, I was really looking forward to choosing a concubine for him…”
Gu Qin crunched the potato chips loudly and said, “That’s normal. Many people do that when they play games. It means you’ve fallen for a two-dimensional character.”
“Like him?! How could that be?!” Su Xi was startled and almost jumped up. After a while, she sat down cross-legged with her face flushed and muttered, “What if the game is the real world and not a two-dimensional character?”
“There’s no possessiveness between friends.” Gu Qin touched her forehead and said, “Xi Xi, you must have a fever.”
She looked at Su Xi with pity and said, “It’s only been a few days since the final exams, and you’ve already become obsessed with video games?”
Su Xi: “…”
“No way.” Su Xi was still fixated on the word “like” Gu Qin had used. Her heart was pounding, but staring down at the empty bag of potato chips, she couldn’t help but say, “At most, I just treated it like raising a child, like a friend…”
Besides, it was already amazing that people from two different worlds could meet through a screen; Su Xi didn’t even dare to think about anything else.
Even if she dared to think it, there was nothing she could do about it.
That world, once plagued by frost and displacement, gradually began to thaw with renewed life, experiencing a time of national jubilation. When people knelt in the northern borderlands and at the Yong’an Temple. Su Xi had seen the look in their eyes; they looked at Lu Huan with reverence, as if gazing upon a savior. According to the established game storyline, he was destined to become a ruler. Having finally achieved all this, his primary goal should have been to strive to realize his people’s ideal of peace and prosperity.
Going to another world with nothing was something she simply didn’t have the courage to do, so she didn’t have the courage to ask him to do it either.
Of course, these were just random thoughts swirling in Su Xi’s mind, and Gu Qin had no idea what she was talking about, nor could she discuss them with Gu Qin.
She sighed and sadly crumpled the empty bag of potato chips.
….
It was raining heavily on Lu Huan’s side. He stood under the eaves of the mansion, silently watching the raindrops fall in a continuous stream. The candlelight in the night was blown about by the wind, flickering on and off.
He looked at her hesitant expression towards her friend on the screen, and at the pop-up text— “At most, I just treated it like raising a child, like a friend…”
He pursed his lips, trying his best not to feel disappointed, but his heart still felt as if a stone had fallen heavily to the ground.
He stood under the eaves for a long time, his sleeves slightly damp. He slowly came back to his senses, lowered his eyes, pretended not to be so sad, put away the curtain, and went back inside.
….
Because Su Xi was in a state of turmoil, she didn’t log on until after dinner on this day, two days later.
When she logged on, she discovered that the lantern she had given to the cub had been hung in his bedroom in his new mansion, and the boxes she used to store trinkets like rouge had also been moved there. The cub kept taking her things with him wherever he went… She suddenly felt inexplicably guilty.
At this moment, Lu Huan had already finished court and taken off his court robes. He was now sitting behind his desk in his study, handling official business, dressed in ordinary robes.
Su Xi wasn’t sure if he had opened the curtain or if he could see her, so she sneaked in and stared at him for a while. For some reason, he seemed to have lost a lot of weight in just two days since she hadn’t been online. Did becoming a prince mean having so much official business? Su Xi immediately felt a pang of sympathy for her son. He had just regained his princely status; why was the emperor burdening him with so much work?
She watched for a while, and just as she was about to sneak away, Lu Huan suddenly looked up at the screen and said, “You’ve come.”
Su Xi was startled and quickly greeted him, “Oh, right, I’m here. I didn’t want to bother you since you were busy.”
She was afraid that Lu Huan would say something that would make her lose her mind, just like the last few times, but to her surprise, the little one didn’t say anything today. He just looked at her gently and said, “You haven’t come these past two days. Were you busy with your summer homework?”
Su Xi quickly replied, “Yes! There’s a ton of homework!”
Lu Huan smiled and said, “Shall I write it for you?”
Su Xi was amused by him, and her tense mood immediately eased a lot: “Kid, you should take care of your own military affairs first.”
Upon hearing her blurt out “zai” (kid), Lu Huan paused, his long, slender fingers gripping the brush. He remained silent, his eyes lowered, and although he tried his best not to show it, there was still a hint of melancholy in his expression.
Su Xi felt a pang of guilt and wished she could slap herself twice.
After a moment of silence, Su Xi tried her best to speak in a light tone, “I’ll go do my homework for a while and come find you tomorrow.”
Lu Huan looked at her, hesitant to speak.
Su Xi’s throat tightened, she thought he was about to say something, but he only pursed his lips, then curved his eyebrows and smiled, saying, “I haven’t seen you for five days. Could you come see me tonight instead of tomorrow?”
Su Xi breathed a sigh of relief and quickly agreed, “Okay, no problem.”
As she picked up the bowls and chopsticks and headed towards the kitchen to wash the dishes, she switched the interface to her son’s study. Just as she was about to log off, she suddenly saw two rows of eunuchs from the palace standing in the garden leading to the mansion, holding imperial edicts. The head eunuch was saying something to the Imperial Guards stationed at the Ninth Prince’s residence—
Judging from this situation, had something major happened in the capital that the emperor was about to entrust to her son to handle?
Su Xi was a little worried. She turned on the faucet with her left hand and switched the interface with her right.
Then the head eunuch said to the Imperial Guards, “Yesterday, the Empress suggested to the Emperor that the Ninth Prince is already seventeen years old, but he doesn’t even have a concubine to manage his household. It is managed by the steward all day long, and he doesn’t have a close confidant by his side. This is really not good. Therefore, today she sent me to deliver some portraits of noble ladies, hoping that the Ninth Prince can choose one.”
Empress?
Su Xi suddenly realized that the Empress was the Crown Prince’s person. Currently, both the Crown Prince and the Fifth Prince were targeting the cub, but they couldn’t act rashly for the time being. Sending a noble lady to the cub’s side was the easiest way to implement at the moment.
In other words— holy crap! Her previously hesitant selection of concubines has finally come to an end…?
But why did she suddenly feel a bit cold in her fingers?
Su Xi stared blankly as the Imperial Guards stepped aside after hearing what the eunuch said, and then the chief eunuch led his men into the hall to find Lu Huan.
“…”
Su Xi used to think that this scene should be very exciting for her, with so many beautiful women, Lu Huan would definitely be dazzled by the choices.
But when this actually happened, she stood in front of the sink, her limbs stiff, her mind blank, her head buzzing, and she couldn’t hear the sound of water.
Before she could react, her phone fell into the sink with a “plop”.
Su Xi was instantly terrified and hurriedly picked up her phone, frantically wiping the water off it with absorbent paper.
However, the phone screen was already black, and it wouldn’t turn on no matter what she pressed.
….
At the same time, Lu Huan frowned, as if he had a premonition and could sense that something was wrong.
He stopped writing, looked up, and gazed at the curtain that had always remained open.
Suddenly, the curtain flickered and then disappeared.
Just like that— disappeared?
Lu Huan’s face turned ashen, and he immediately stood up, trying to grasp the curtain in mid-air.
But there was no trace of the curtain in the air.
In his panic, he strode toward where the curtain had been.
But the table in front of him wobbled and fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.
He remained alone in the palace, in his own world.
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