"Jingbo Tower was nominally a place for my mother to retreat, but in reality it was a place of house arrest. After ascending this tower, she was never able to leave. I haven't seen her since I was seven years old, and the last time I heard about her was when she passed away."
Su Wei's voice remained calm.
He seemed to be able to say anything in any situation with this tone, so that no one could guess what he was feeling, or feel his sorrow or joy.
"Your Majesty, have you ever missed your mother?"
She asked subconsciously, and Su Wei's gaze turned to her face. His two dark pupils locked onto her eyes, as if he wanted to see into the depths of her soul.
"Is this your second question?"
She nodded, not avoiding the sudden eye contact.
"Yes. Your Majesty, if you don't want to answer, you don't have to."
Su Wei was quiet for a while, as if thinking about this question seriously, and it took him a long time to give an answer.
"Maybe at first, but later on I seldom thought about it."
How could that be?
Xiao Nanhui almost subconsciously didn't believe this answer.
How could anyone not miss their loved ones? Even an orphan like her would often fantasize about her parents whom she had never met.
She didn't believe it, and he saw it, but he didn't care.
"When I was young, I lived outside the palace, with little contact with people, yet I often dreamed. In my dreams, all kinds of people would swarm me like a tide, and my mother would protect me, chasing them away with a wave of her sleeve. At that time, I often couldn't distinguish between reality and dreams, and I thought my mother was still by my side. Until the day she died, I stopped dreaming, and gradually stopped remembering the scenes that appeared in my dreams, and naturally, I no longer missed her."
The cry of wild geese came from afar, and the sun, after the snow had cleared and the sky was clear, peeked out from behind the clouds, a little golden edge. The golden spot passed through the carved lintel under the brackets and fell into the gap between the two people, illuminating the man's face for a moment.
Xiao Nanhui stared blankly, not knowing whether he was attracted by the face or the light.
For some reason, she felt that his words were incredibly precious. So precious that they, along with the surrounding scenery, were imprinted deep within her mind. She wanted to hide them away, but she didn't know where to put them.
She had always felt that he was shrouded in an inexhaustible mist, like the perpetually shrouded snow-capped mountains on the Far North Plateau. Now the mist seemed to have lifted somewhat, and she suddenly realized: the mountain was right before her, so close that she felt timid and didn't dare to measure it.
"My mother's family's surname is Zhongli, but since my mother passed away, there are no more Zhongli people in this world. Do you know why?"
She shook her head blankly, then suddenly realized something.
The name Zhongli Jing seemed to be the name of his mother.
"Because on the day my father married my mother, he killed all of her clansmen, even the infants who were still in their swaddling clothes were not spared."
People only know that the emperor's biological mother was a beautiful but ominous lunatic, but no one has ever mentioned why she was crazy.
Unable to conceal her shock, she knocked over the medicine bottle at her elbow and then fumbled to pick it up again.
The man opposite her didn't move, just stared at her reaction, seeming to be asking questions or talking to himself.
"Tell me, with a mother like this, can she still truly love father?"
Of course not.
A voice blurted out in Xiao Nanhui's heart.
No one would fall in love with an enemy who slaughtered his relatives and siblings. This is common sense.
However, there is only one thing in this world that cannot be measured by so-called common sense, and that is human nature.
She thought of Bai Yun, who defected and killed the entire Xiao family. Even though there was a blood feud between them, Xiao Jun still couldn't bring himself to kill her.
She thought back to herself that day in the palace, feeling lost, humiliated, and tortured.
Yet he sat on the throne, knowing full well that the Xu family father and son were intent on sowing discord, yet he still exploited the situation and forced her into a desperate situation. Because of his command, she would never be able to hold a bow and arrow again in her lifetime.
Logically, she should hate him, despise him, and want to kill him the moment they meet.
But she didn't.
There was a complex mixture of emotions in her heart, just like the impression she had when she first met him, which was contradictory and intense and could not be calmed for a long time.
"Your Majesty still owes me one last question." She took a deep breath and lowered her head, her heartbeat still echoing in her ears. "Why did Your Majesty save me that day on the cliff face of the Tianmu River?"
The air was quiet for a moment, and he asked instead of answering.
"Why did you take the blame that day in the main hall of Jiaosong Palace?"
"That's because..."
That's because she couldn't just stand by and watch Xiao Jun die.
Even though she already knew that his heart was not with her, she could not bear to watch him being tortured and brought to the dust.
Her voice was stuck in her throat and she couldn't continue.
Even though many days had passed and the wound on her shoulder had scabbed over, she still couldn't face that emotion.
"You don't have to answer, just understand one thing."
His voice came closer, and his breath brushed against her eyelashes, as if something was floating down.
"Your answer is my answer."
In this sentence, he did not call himself an emperor.
This made his tone seem much lighter than before, but the profound meaning in his words seemed to be extremely heavy.
She seemed to see the mountain in front of her pressing down on her with a collapsing force. She had no way to avoid it or retreat, and would eventually be buried under the rapidly expanding shadow and merge into it, until thousands of years later when the sky collapsed and the earth broke apart and she would be free.
A gust of wind blew by, and the last bit of incense powder in the furnace burned out, but the green smoke did not stop, lingering between the two people like tangible thoughts.
Just when she was about to be unable to bear the tangled emotions in the air, he finally stood up.
"The time has come. Let's go somewhere."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
