Chapter 36: The Obsessive, Lustful Hostage Prince and the Doted, Haughty Princess (36)
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Shu Yao listened perfunctorily. Only after Chu Yuan finished the last of his tea did she lazily stop him.
“Imperial Brother, are you finished?”
Chu Yuan leaned forward excitedly. “I am. What do you think, Imperial Sister?”
“I think Imperial Brother is indulging in—wishful thinking.”
The smile at the corner of Chu Yuan’s lips stiffened, and his expression changed.
“What do you mean by that?”
Shu Yao caressed her teacup, her voice calm and indifferent.
“I mean that Imperial Brother is just as foolish as ever.”
Chu Yuan could not understand why she had suddenly turned hostile. Then he saw Shu Yao’s expression grow cold.
“How does it feel to have been drugged?”
Chu Yuan’s eyes widened. He abruptly lowered his head to stare at the empty teacup in his hand.
“How did you know...?”
Shu Yao gave a soft laugh. “You have only yourself to blame for being so stupid. Drugging me on the eve of our meeting—wasn’t that practically an open confession that you were behind it?”
As the drug began to take effect, Chu Yuan shook his head and demanded, “When did you start suspecting me?”
“Very early on.”
She had suspected everyone before finally setting her sights on Chu Yuan.
He and Noble Consort Li were the two people most opposed to her going through with the political marriage.
The original owner and Chu Lanqing belonged to the same faction. If the original owner went abroad to marry, Chu Lanqing would benefit the most. He would never do something that harmed both others and himself.
Only Chu Yuan had both the motive and the ability to drug her.
Once her chastity was lost, the political marriage would naturally be called off.
His sudden visit today had indirectly confirmed it as well.
He had grown anxious.
Chu Yuan panted heavily and demanded, “What did you give me?”
Shu Yao shrugged, unconcerned. “Something that will make Imperial Brother feel as though he is in paradise and hell at once.”
Chu Yuan’s eyes widened. At the same time, an excruciating itch rose from his lower abdomen.
The drug coiled around his spine like a venomous snake. Every inch of his skin yearned for contact.
His entire body burned as though engulfed in flames, and his vision grew blurred.
He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes locking onto Shu Yao.
Shu Yao took two steps back. “Wan Tao.”
The palace doors opened at once, and the thick scent of rouge and powder instantly filled the hall.
Behind Wan Tao followed more than a dozen young women summoned from the pleasure quarters.
When they first heard that Princess Jianing wished to see them, they had been terrified, fearing that going there might cost them their lives.
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Yet Wan Tao had been so generous with her payment that, despite their fear, they had all come.
Shu Yao lifted her chin. “Go on. Take good care of my imperial brother.”
The woman at the head of the group widened her eyes. She had never imagined that Princess Jianing had summoned them for such a purpose...
The man on the couch was her imperial brother, which meant he was a prince.
The women came from humble backgrounds. None of them had ever seen a prince in person, much less dared guess what Princess Jianing intended.
Seeing them standing timidly, Wan Tao rebuked them coldly. “What are you waiting for? Go and serve His Highness the First Prince properly.”
The women came to their senses, lifted Chu Yuan between them, and carried him toward the abandoned side hall.
Shu Yao and Wan Tao waited outside, listening to the erotic spectacle within.
Wan Tao clenched her teeth, her cheeks puffed into hard little curves. Shu Yao found the sight amusing.
Ever since she had learned that Chu Yuan was the one who had drugged her, the young girl had worn an expression of righteous indignation.
She was even angrier than the victim herself.
After hearing Shu Yao’s outrageous plan, Wan Tao had not only failed to dissuade her but had supported it wholeheartedly.
She was fiercely protective of her mistress—and never let the slightest offense go unanswered.
The sounds from within the hall grew louder. It seemed Chu Yuan was nearly at his limit.
Only then did Shu Yao feel avenged. Suppressing the urge to vomit, she left with Wan Tao.
The commotion continued until dawn the following day. Chu Yuan rolled his eyes back and fainted on the couch, frightening the women into shrieking.
They held a hand beneath his nose to check his breathing. Fortunately, he was still alive—merely unconscious for the moment.
After collecting their payment from Wan Tao, the women hurriedly fled the palace.
Ding! Congratulations, Host. Plot Point Four—Foot Licking—has been completed.
—
The matron assigned to clean the abandoned hall pushed open the doors and instantly froze in place.
The stench inside was overpowering. Clothes lay scattered everywhere, and the scene was indescribably debauched.
She immediately cried out at the top of her voice, “Someone come quickly!”
The patrolling guards rushed over at once. Casting a sidelong glance at the matron’s deathly pale face, one of them asked coldly, “What happened?”
The matron’s voice trembled violently.
“There... there are people committing adultery.”
Within the palace, this was a capital offense. The Emperor was least tolerant of illicit relations between maids and eunuchs; in serious cases, even nine branches of a family could be executed.
The guards immediately shoved open the hall doors and charged inside. With a sharp ring, one drew the saber from his waist and pointed it at the naked man on the couch.
“How dare you!”
When the man did not move, the guard strode over viciously, seized him by the shoulder, and rolled him over.
The instant he saw the man’s face, the guard’s pupils contracted.
“His... His Highness the First Prince?!”
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Chu Yuan was sent back wrapped in blankets.
Imperial Physician Zhang was highly skilled. With one examination, he knew that Chu Yuan had been poisoned with a powerful aphrodisiac. The night’s ordeal had caused permanent damage.
In other words, Chu Yuan was finished.
Finished? Ruined! Completely ruined?!
No one was happier than the faction supporting the Third Prince. Their smiles were impossible to conceal, and even Empress Xiaode seemed to have grown ten years younger.
Everyone in the palace knew that the First Prince had been set up. But so what? The fact could no longer be changed.
He had been ruined by a group of women, yet he could not reveal who had drugged him.
If he accused Jianing, given her vengeful nature, she would certainly expose the fact that he had drugged her as well.
By then, no one could say whom the Emperor would punish.
What he valued most was Jianing’s spotless chastity. If he learned what had happened, Chu Yuan would certainly suffer terribly.
After weighing every consideration, Chu Yuan decided to swallow the bitter pill and bury the matter forever.
With the position of Crown Prince vacant and both the First and Fifth Princes having met with disaster, the Third Prince became the most likely candidate.
Furthermore, Princess Anle’s marriage to Li Li’an, son of Grand Commandant Li, had already been arranged. Almost everyone believed that the Third Prince’s elevation to Crown Prince was a foregone conclusion.
Even Chu Lanqing himself thought so.
When Noble Consort Li learned that her only son—Chu Yuan, the one with the greatest hope of inheriting the throne—had been ruined by women and rendered impotent, her blood surged violently. She fell ill and never rose from her bed again.
The Emperor, Chu An, was so concerned about her condition that he did not attend court for three days.
Shu Yao was delighted to see events unfold this way. Every night, she enjoyed Shen Jingmu washing her feet.
She had discovered that the man seemed to possess a masochistic streak. No matter how she humiliated him, he always wore an expression of utter enjoyment.
It was the same when she slapped him, the same when he washed her feet, and even the same when she punished him with a whip.
He was disturbingly perverse. Shu Yao seriously suspected that this world had nothing to do with political intrigue and everything to do with erotic indulgence.
Watching the plot gradually veer off course, the system chose not to comment.
Empress Xiaode began preparing Princess Anle’s dowry. As a princess of the empire, Anle’s dowry naturally could not be treated casually.
According to the customs of the Chu Kingdom, Shu Yao was also expected to contribute a ceremonial gift—and it had to be lavish, never modest.
The Emperor, Chu An, had bestowed countless treasures upon her. Any one of them would have been more than sufficient, but Wan Tao feared that others might seize upon the opportunity to criticize her and still urged Shu Yao to add another item.
Shu Yao knew that the people Wan Tao feared would gossip were not the palace maids and eunuchs.
Anle and Jianing were bound together by their interests. Their outward show of propriety had to be maintained.
The palace servants would not openly say that the gift was too meager, but Anle might still resent it in her heart.
Her imperial brother was the future Son of Heaven. If the princess ever suffered indignities in a foreign land, he might be able to offer some assistance and make her life a little easier.
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