Chapter 5: It Was Deep in the Night When Ji Jia Was Summoned to the Hall of Blessed Tranquility

Emperor Changle reclined against a soft couch, a bamboo scroll in hand, reading it with narrowed eyes. The moment Ji Jia arrived, he waved off the formal salutations.

“Someone, give him a seat.”

Xu Chunming hurried to carry out the order, and a palace attendant brought over a footstool, seating Ji Jia at the edge of it. Drawing a pulse pillow from the small case he always carried, he invited the Emperor to rest his wrist on the table beside the couch.

Though Ji Jia kept his gaze lowered and his mind composed, his movements still allowed him glimpses of the wounds on Emperor Changle’s face. Bits of new flesh had sprouted across the injuries, and the shallower scratches had already scabbed over, though any careless movement could still pull at the scars.

Half a month ago, the Palace of Blessed Tranquility had summoned people in the dead of night.

Heaven only knew what manner of beast had clawed the Emperor’s face half to ruin.

Emperor Changle had held no grand court audiences these past days. Even for matters of consequence, he summoned only a handful of ministers to discuss affairs within the palace. No one in the palace dared provoke the Emperor’s temper at a time like this, so all kept perfectly obedient.

After a long while, Ji Jia withdrew his hand, an expression of pleasant surprise on his face. “Your Majesty’s health has much improved. Only half a month more of medicine and…”

Before he could finish, Emperor Changle waved a hand.

Ji Jia could only press on, helpless. “Your Majesty, even once recovered, you ought still to rest and nourish yourself.” It was a slightly presumptuous thing to say, overstepping his station, but the Emperor merely chuckled.

“I know my own body well enough.” Emperor Changle had always shied away from physicians, taking medicine only when there was no other choice. “Some medicinal cuisine will serve.”

Ji Jia, resigned, amended it to medicinal cuisine.

But even medicinal cuisine required a prescription.

The prescription had to pass under the eyes of every physician on duty at the Imperial Medical Academy before it could be entered into the case records, and only then would someone fetch and brew the ingredients.

Ji Jia withdrew to the side, where brush and ink had already been prepared for him.

Once he finished the prescription and submitted it for the Emperor’s review, Emperor Changle nodded and dismissed him.

As Ji Jia stepped out of the hall, he caught the scent of something growing sweetly cloying in the air.

The Hall of Blessed Tranquility had lit its Water-Born Incense once more.

When Emperor Changle later came to the Palace of Blossoming Sun, the Imperial Noble Consort caught that familiar sweetness on him, and her smile deepened all the more.

“Your Majesty, it’s cold outside. I’ve had hot water prepared so you might soak your feet.” She directed the palace attendants, then added, “That plum wine Your Majesty and I buried together last year, it’s time to dig it up this year. Would you care to taste it?”

With his feet steeping in warm water and the heated wine warming his belly, Emperor Changle’s heart filled with nothing but ease and contentment. Even the shadow that had hung over him lately melted away without a trace.

That was precisely why he loved coming to the Palace of Blossoming Sun.

The Imperial Noble Consort understood him best of anyone. She always saw to his comfort so thoroughly that he forgot every trouble waiting beyond these walls.

Without her needing to say a word, Emperor Changle naturally thought of his equally considerate eldest son. “These days, has Zhang’er been well?”

The Imperial Noble Consort answered in a soft, gentle voice. “Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. His health is better than before, and lately he has been training diligently at horsemanship and archery.”

Emperor Changle patted her hand and said soothingly, “I know the Crown Prince is reckless. I have already reprimanded him. Later I’ll make him go apologize to Zhang’er.”

The Imperial Noble Consort sighed, saying only, “The Eastern Palace is exalted above all. How could Your Majesty make His Highness apologize to Zhang’er? It was only that Zhang’er is clumsy with words, and let His Highness misunderstand his meaning…”

“Hmph. Exalted or not, he is still nothing more than the Crown Prince. A mere Crown Prince…” Emperor Changle’s voice carried a gloomy resentment, and beneath it, a faint, unspeakable regret. He stopped himself there and turned to other matters. “Zhang’er has reached the proper age. It is time he left the palace and established his own residence.”

The Imperial Noble Consort blinked in mild surprise, her expression hovering between astonishment and delight, though a rare touch of reproach crept into her voice. “Your Majesty mustn’t tease me with such things just to please me.”

“Where is that coming from? Besides Zhang’er, the older ones among the rest are due to be sent out as well.” Emperor Changle wrapped an arm around her, chuckling. “Tomorrow, we will settle the matter.”

In a corner of the Palace of Blossoming Sun, a faint incense burned as well.

Not quite the same as the Water-Born Incense. This one was subtler, far less likely to draw the eye.

“Ha-choo!”

The cat gave a tiny sneeze and moved disdainfully away from the newly arrived human. The man smelled stinky. It made Rendong’s paws go stiff with the urge to throw a few punches.

Nie Jiang had no idea why he had earned the little pet’s displeasure. The moment he caught sight of Yu Zeming, his still-quite-animated expression sharpened into seriousness. “At today’s court assembly, His Majesty ultimately suppressed the memorial from the elders of the Grand Secretariat and their allies.”

Though a Grand Secretariat existed, it had only been elevated by the Emperor to assist with confidential affairs, holding little real power. Nie Jiang’s phrasing was mere courtesy.

Those at court who supported the Crown Prince belonged mostly to the purist faction, defending not only the standing of the Eastern Palace but the Confucian orthodoxy of moral order itself. The Crown Prince was the Empress’s own son. So long as he committed no grave transgression against ethics, people would come forward one after another to vindicate the Eastern Palace.

The recent memorials petitioning the Emperor to grant the Crown Prince a marriage had come from exactly this.

And Emperor Changle, clearly, was unwilling.

Yu Zeming wore a look of quiet sorrow, sighing his way through the conversation with Nie Jiang, every word a lament on the Crown Prince’s behalf.

They also spoke of the Emperor’s decree ordering the imperial princes out of the palace to establish their own households. The mansions had in fact been prepared years ago. The moment Emperor Changle’s decree went out, the Directorate of Astronomy delivered an auspicious date: the ninth day of the twelfth month.

A matter of mere days.

The eyes of the entire palace had settled on the affair. The Imperial Noble Consort was personally overseeing everything, run off her feet with the bustle.

Over there, the princes’ departure was a lively affair. Over here, the Crown Prince remained confined, and by contrast the silence felt all the more desolate.

The cat sprawled lightly atop the altar table, rolling about, its long, slender tail sweeping past the incense candles before settling gracefully against its hind legs.

Fake people. Fake conversation.

Rendong wanted out of this stinky, fake place. With a single catlike bound it leapt down from the altar table and shot into the side chamber like a tiny cannonball.

That little whirlwind stopped both Yu Zeming and Nie Jiang mid-sentence.

Nie Jiang’s face filled with astonishment. “This cat, so brazen?”

Everyone who served at the Crown Prince’s side knew their master’s temper. Such wanton behavior from a mere pet had never once been tolerated.

Yu Zeming deftly drew Nie Jiang’s attention away from Rendong. “It’s freezing out there. We’re merely sheltering the little beast for now. Come, tell me more about what you said. Has His Majesty been frequenting the Palace of Blossoming Sun lately?”

Their conversation never breached the single wall to the side chamber, not because the walls of the Hall of Peace and Ease were thick, but because Yu Zeming and Nie Jiang habitually lowered their voices when speaking, unwilling to let gossip disturb the Crown Prince.

Inside the side chamber, however, lay a scene beyond either man’s imagination.

After darting inside, the cat did not, as they imagined, slink off to hide in awe of Tantai Tian. Even ordinary animals often cowered before the Crown Prince’s ever-deepening aura of authority. Instead, Rendong strutted straight onto the bed, leaving a few faint plum-blossom prints across the covers.

Dirty cats weren’t allowed on the bed, but Rendong wasn’t dirty at all~

The cat sat proudly beside Tantai Tian.

One big human. One tiny cat.

Hateful. Next to the human, Rendong looked even smaller!

It was never like this around other humans!

Man and cat sat closer together than before.

So close that Tantai Tian could almost feel the fluff brushing against the back of his hand.

An illusion.

Tantai Tian knew that, and yet a faint, flickering warmth seemed to pass between them. In the frozen depths of winter, Rendong was like a little furnace that stoked itself, full of heat.

Every morning, Tantai Tian woke beneath a heap of fluff.

No matter what measures he took, even shutting the cat outside the door, nothing could stop it from flowing back into the side chamber to curl against his chest as it slept.

Perhaps it moved like a ghost. Or perhaps the cat, too, feared the cold.

After all, this winter was cold enough to make living nearly impossible.

The exhausted charcoal, the temperatures that bred frostbite sores, the freezing side chamber, the dark snowy days, the restless window frames leaking icy drafts… all of it gnawed away at every corner of the Hall of Peace and Ease.

But everything was proceeding according to plan.

Tantai Tian lowered his eyes, fingers drifting over the Buddhist scripture in his hands. Abruptly, his fingers twitched and clenched tight around the corner of a page. He shut his eyes, the veins at his temple standing out as though he were suppressing something.

Chattering, murmuring whispers, fine as mosquito gnats, had at some point seeped into the roar of the wind and snow. The instant Tantai Tian noticed them, the sleep ravings warped into a hoarse, twisted shriek, like a blizzard gone mad with fury.

The harder he tried to crush those shrill ravings, the more savagely a bloodthirsty urge came surging up, stripping his sharply chiseled, handsome face ever colder and paler, until it resembled the blanched snow beyond the window.

Rendong, squatting beside Tantai Tian, lifted his head, little nose twitching and sniffing.

Bitter smell. It was hitting people!

Was the human sick again?

A cool, damp little nose came nudging up and gently touched the outer edge of Tantai Tian’s palm. He paused, then opened his eyes and looked down at Rendong, who had timidly sidled over.

A cat’s nose.

Apart from his nightly bed-warming duty, Rendong rarely approached Tantai Tian of his own accord. Even on the bed, he sprawled in every direction but his.

This was not an affectionate cat.

Though Tantai Tian had kept the cat, had even named it, he treated it no differently from any other lifeless object scattered about the Hall of Peace and Ease. He never reached out to touch it.

And yet. Perhaps it was the cat’s relentless bed-climbing, which left a small warmth in his chest each time he woke. Or perhaps it was today’s curious, icy little nuzzle. Or perhaps it was simply that this was the last stretch of deep night before dawn, and Tantai Tian, who still had to endure all that long, long time, allowed himself a single moment of distraction.

Even if it was all false.

Tantai Tian forced his hand open, releasing the crumpled scripture, and let the ravings hammer at his skull like chisels, like storms. Within this familiar pain he went blank, his hollow gaze coming to rest on Rendong.

Rendong knew perfectly well that Tantai Tian was looking at the cat.

But a human looking at a cat, how normal was that? What was there to be shy about?

The cat was proud.

He magnanimously allowed himself to be admired, meowing to the System in his heart.

“Those visitors from another world… the transmigrators. Who were they?

“Human, are you sick again?”

These past days, the cat had lived in the Hall of Peace and Ease, and he knew exactly how wretched the place was.

Only a little better than when Rendong had been a stray.

Just now, Rendong had touched Tantai Tian’s hand with his nose. So cold. The chill had made the little kitten shiver.

It wasn’t like modern times with central heating. This weather came with snow, and there was barely any charcoal fire either. These people were simply lucky they hadn’t frozen to death. Every night, Rendong had lain anxiously on Tantai Tian’s chest, warming him, terrified that come morning the human would simply be gone.

It took everything to suppress a cat’s nocturnal instincts like this.

Rendong had endured almost to the breaking point!

Who was the villain here? The cat was going to bite their butt!

The biggest difference between a kitten Host and a human Host was that a human Host would have clung to the System on day one and asked every last question, while the cat had only remembered today.

But could that really be the cat’s fault?

Rendong had to patrol the Imperial Palace every day, train his claws, defend the human he was raising. He was very, very busy!

Forgetting was simply natural cat behavior.

【Following emergency spacetime repairs, all otherworld visitors have returned to their original worlds. However, lingering consequences remain, and the original plotline has deviated substantially. The lives of those dwelling within it will also change.】

The little fuzzy face grew grave.

Looks like Rendong wouldn’t get to bite the bad guy’s butt.

But the Fat Emperor was definitely a bad guy too, making the whole world turn bad!

After all, he was so fat!

But Tantai Tian was just one skinny stick of a person!

Skinny meant he definitely wasn’t eating his fill.

“You still haven’t told the cat whether the human is sick.” The cat remembered this even mid-rage, meowing away in protest.

The System poured out a lengthy passage of academic jargon after scanning Tantai Tian’s physical signs, ultimately concluding that the current Tantai Tian was indeed suffering a certain degree of pain. As for the cause of that pain… the System begged forgiveness, as it was not a Great Medical System and could not probe deeply. Tantai Tian was, after all, currently shielded by True Dragon Qi, unless the System had a great deal more energy at its disposal.

Rendong: What a useless System.

Tantai Tian, still observing Rendong, watched the cat flail his paws about first, scratching wildly at the covers, though being so small, he looked more like two little meatballs batting the air.

Then, as though dueling some invisible enemy, he brandished his claws viciously, twice.

Hardly fierce at all. Adorable, if anything.

Having finished venting, Rendong padded over on little paws, buried his head against Tantai Tian’s hand, and licked his fingers. As attentive as when grooming his own fur, Rendong licked Tantai Tian with great seriousness.

Rendong didn’t know where the human hurt. But maybe, with enough licking, the hurting person would feel a little better? Back when Rendong had eaten something bad, he had licked his belly just like this, and then again, and then he’d licked himself right to sleep~

The tiny cat was reflected in Tantai Tian’s eyes.

A fine, prickling itch spread outward from every licked spot. Rendong licked with utter devotion, his little head bobbing and nuzzling.

The dampness quickly turned cool, and yet beneath the repeated licking, that small patch of skin stayed warm.

Cat.

His, cat.

His.

The word was like some formless Bewitchment.

Tantai Tian raised his hand, stiff and unpracticed, lowering his palm slowly. First he gave Rendong’s little cat head an awkward rub, then stroked down along the cat’s spine.

A very thin cat. Very soft fur.

A single palm of Tantai Tian’s could cover Rendong entirely.

A few strokes later, stray hairs clung between his fingers, just like the ones he had found this morning on his chest, on the covers, among the bedding.

A… warm feeling.

Almost scalding.

So this was how warm another creature’s body could be.

Tantai Tian’s eyes were deep and dark, betraying nothing.

Only his hand, clumsy at first, turned practiced within the span of a few moments.

Rendong, so abruptly petted, went still for a beat. Then instinct got the better of him and he dissolved into sweet, mewing delight.

Wow, the human’s hand was so big!

You like touching fur?

The cat lets you touch!

Squeeze the ears too, and knead the tail, and rub the chin!

Purrr, purrr, purrr~~

Tantai Tian suddenly realized that the small puddle of cat melting beneath his hand had, at some point, begun to hum and buzz without pause.

What was this supposed to mean?