Chapter 61 Back then, no one was protecting you, but...
Lou Xueying sat expressionlessly in the carriage, while Li Pan beside her lifted a corner of the curtain and peered out.
They had already left the city and were heading towards Qishan. There were carriages of other high-ranking officials and nobles all around them. Li Pan looked around and turned to Lou Xueying, saying, "There are so many people."
Lou Xueying: "Families can also come, so of course there are more people."
Li Pan admired the scenery along the way for a while and said, "The grass and trees on both sides of the road are now half green and half yellow, which is quite beautiful."
Lou Xueying frowned: "How come you still have the leisure to look at these things?"
"Then what should we do?" Li Pan said half-jokingly. "I can't exactly sit upright the whole way, constantly on guard against a stray arrow that might come from nowhere, can I?"
Seeing Lou Xueying's troubled expression, he patted her head and said, "It's precisely at times like these that you must not lose your composure. Even if you don't like His Majesty, when you get out of the carriage later, in front of everyone, don't show this expression. What will others think is wrong between us?"
Lou Xueying felt wronged and couldn't help but lean against Li Pan's chest, saying, "Don't you feel uncomfortable?"
Li Pan: "What's bothering you?"
Lou Xueying: "You haven't done anything wrong, yet he keeps targeting you like this, and all you can do is pretend to be stupid and do nothing... You even have to send him a divine stone and boast about his achievements if you want to return to the capital..."
Li Pan let out a long sigh.
It would be a lie to say I'm not upset. The ever-deepening sense of powerlessness is also real.
He kept trying to figure out what to do, but no matter what he tried, the words he had said to Lou Xueying seemed to be directed at himself as well—none of them could solve the problem.
Li Pan lowered his head, pressed his forehead against hers, and whispered, "As long as he is still the emperor and I am still his subject, I have to endure this suffering. At most, I can do something to make him suffer along with me, but there is absolutely no way that he will be the only one suffering while I am comfortable."
Lou Xueying trembled slightly.
Li Pan: "Unless..."
Lou Xueying: "Unless what?"
Li Pan whispered in her ear, "Unless he is no longer the emperor."
Lou Xueying was shocked and immediately sat up straight, instinctively pressing down on the carriage curtain that was fluttering slightly in the wind, afraid that the secret would be revealed.
After a long while, she gradually calmed down, leaned back against Li Pan, looked at him fearfully, and mouthed, "...Do you want to rebel?"
Li Pan: "...Not entirely."
What do you mean by "not entirely"? How can something be completely or incompletely like this?
Seeing Lou Xueying's wide eyes, Li Pan leaned close to her ear and whispered, "What do you think of the Crown Prince?"
Lou Xueying: "..."
She understood that Li Pan, seeing the infighting between the emperor's father and son, had decided to support the crown prince to ascend the throne.
Li Pan's thinking was understandable; after all, in the eyes of the officials, His Highness the Crown Prince was an excellent heir apparent. The Emperor's desire to kill the Crown Prince suggested either possession by evil spirits or hysteria. The Emperor was a common enemy of both themselves and the Crown Prince; helping the Crown Prince was helping themselves.
But in Lou Xueying's view, Li Pan's move was simply jumping from one fire pit to another.
"Don't even think about it!" Lou Xueying said urgently.
Li Pan asked in surprise, "Isn't he good?"
Lou Xueying spat out the words through gritted teeth: "Whether he's good or bad, what does it have to do with you! This kind of thing can be fatal if you're not careful, so don't meddle! Besides, aren't we going back to the Northwest? You can't interfere in what happens in the capital!"
Li Pan said, "His Majesty's thoughts are unpredictable. Who knows if we can return to the Northwest smoothly? I'm just looking for a way out for myself. It's not like I'm definitely going to do it."
Lou Xueying: "You can't look for a way out like this! You're asking a tiger for its skin!"
Li Pan: "Yes, this road is indeed too dangerous. This is just my worst-case scenario plan."
Lou Xueying was sweating profusely, and grabbed Li Pan, saying, "You absolutely must not associate with the Crown Prince."
In particular, she didn't think the Crown Prince could win.
Emperor Jinghui has the upper hand in every way, but now he is stuck on the fact that the Crown Prince has not made any mistakes. However, no one is perfect. Given time, he will surely find fault with the Crown Prince or devise a perfect accident. At that time, the Crown Prince will be doomed.
Li Pan: "Okay, I promise you, I won't associate with him."
Lou Xueying pursed her lips tightly.
She felt she had put Li Pan in a difficult position.
They forced him to the opposite side of the emperor, and forbade him to form an alliance with the crown prince, leaving him no choice but to protect himself. But in this world, how easy is it to protect oneself?
Should she... tell Li Pan the whole truth? Only by letting Li Pan know the whole truth can he find the most suitable solution.
However, Li Pan hadn't blamed her for her association with Emperor Jinghui, perhaps because their correspondence was limited to letters and lacked any real physical relationship. But if Li Pan knew that she had actually served both him and his son, would he still have been so magnanimous towards her?
As before, she still couldn't fully trust Li Pan.
At the same time, she was also wavering, doubting whether she should continue to persist.
She couldn't help but think that Li Pan was ultimately different from other men, and he had emphasized this to her so many times, asking her to trust him. Should she also put aside her prejudices and try to trust him once?
He's already made such a solemn vow, what kind of actions would she have to take before she would dare to tell him everything?
Or is it that no matter what Li Pan does, she will never reveal this secret?
She herself didn't know.
Li Pan looked down at Lou Xueying and, seeing that her face was slightly pale, couldn't help but ask, "What are you thinking about?"
Lou Xueying took a deep breath and looked up: "My lord, may I...can I ask you a question?"
"What?"
“If, I mean if…” she whispered, “if the day you left the capital, His Majesty summoned me alone, and I was in a room with him, but I didn’t refuse him, what… what would you think…”
"What do you mean?" Li Pan immediately stiffened, grabbed Lou Xueying's shoulders, forced her to sit up straight, and said with a serious face, "What do you mean by not rejecting him? You...you were really humiliated by him that day?"
"No! No!" Lou Xueying hurriedly explained, "I was just asking, if...if!"
Li Pan, however, felt she wouldn't ask such a question without reason. He lowered his voice and said, enunciating each word clearly, "Don't be afraid. Tell the truth. If it's true, it's true; if it's not, it's not. What's this 'what if' nonsense? If he really did—"
His throat bobbed, and suddenly he couldn't continue.
If Emperor Jinghui really did something to her, what should he do? Can he continue to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and act as if nothing happened?
Lou Xueying hurriedly pressed him down: "Really, no! Don't overthink it!" She bit her lip before continuing with difficulty, "You once said that you also like me, but I just want to know... As the saying goes, husband and wife are like birds in the same forest; when disaster strikes, they fly away separately. Just how far can your liking... tolerate me?"
She knew that if she asked that question, Li Pan's suspicion of her would immediately intensify.
But if he can't even accept this, then there's no need to tell him the truth anymore. As for how to end it, as long as she insists that she was just throwing a tantrum, even if Li Pan investigates, he won't be able to find out about her past life, so he can only give up.
Li Pan looked at her with suspicion. After a long while, he said, "Susu, you said that when disaster strikes, everyone flees for their lives... but why did you cite the example of someone not refusing His Majesty? Why didn't you ask if I could help you save people if your Lou family committed a capital crime? Why didn't you ask if I would pay off your debts if you used the Marquis's money to gamble? You have so many 'difficulties' to mention and so many 'mistakes' to ask, but why do your assumptions always revolve around matters of men and women? You didn't even ask me what I would do if you had an affair and found someone else, but instead asked me what I would do if you didn't refuse His Majesty."
Lou Xueying was stunned.
Li Pan: "Susu, don't be afraid. You're the one who's been bullied. How could I blame you? Even if you didn't refuse him, it's not your fault. He's the emperor; even I can't easily defy him. You, a weak woman, submitting to him is understandable." He paused, then his tone became more serious. "But if he really did something to you, you can't hide it from me. The reason I feel I can't break ties with His Majesty is precisely because he only frightened and wronged you, but didn't really harm you. As a subject, I can't use that as an excuse to disobey my superior. But if he really harmed you, that's another matter, and I will never swallow my anger."
"No, no, no, His Majesty didn't hurt me!" Lou Xueying came to her senses and explained incoherently, "I... I used him as an example only because we were just talking about him..."
Li Pan's eyes were deep and unfathomable: "He didn't hurt you, but what about the others? Has anyone else hurt you?"
He began to realize that his wife seemed to value so-called chastity exceptionally much. He had never mentioned it, but she was always testing his attitude and repeatedly emphasizing her innocence.
People generally only care about something the more they lack it.
But she was clearly a virgin when she married him. If Emperor Jinghui hadn't done something to her after their marriage, why was she so sensitive about matters between men and women?
Li Pan recalled the mystery that lingered in his mind—who was the man who would appear at her bedside in the middle of the night, who had a grudge against her, and who made her beg for mercy?
"No, no..." Lou Xueying answered subconsciously.
“Susu, I’ll say it again, if you’ve been wronged, you must tell me. I’m your husband. If I only had you, but you loved someone else and were having an affair with another man behind my back, I would indeed be angry with you, resentful, and even disgusted with you. But if all of this wasn’t from your own heart, but because you were coerced, then it’s not your fault, but that person’s fault, or even my fault—because as your husband, I failed to protect you.” He stared at her. “And if someone wronged you before we got married, you can still tell me. Back then, no one protected you, but now someone does.”
Lou Xueying stared blankly at Li Pan, her lips moving slightly.
Li Pan reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, saying gently, "It's alright. It's best if there's nothing to it. Just pretend what I just said was nonsense. But if there really is something, you can tell me when you're willing to. But if you don't want to pursue it, I can't force you to. Let bygones be bygones, that's fine too."
A tear fell from Lou Xueying's eye and landed in Li Pan's palm.
She finally understood why Li Pan always emphasized to her that she should trust him; it turned out that he had long harbored suspicions, and not just about Emperor Jinghui.
Perhaps it was the night she had a fever and mistook him for someone else, saying or doing something else that made him guess that there was such a person before the marriage, or perhaps she had given herself away somewhere that aroused his suspicion. In any case, her methods of concealment were always clumsy, while his ability to read people was always so good, so it was not surprising that he could guess this.
He clearly knew that she might have had affairs with more than just Emperor Jinghui, yet he never pressured her, always waiting for her to tell him herself. He hinted and suggested it so many times, but she never took it seriously.
Lou Xueying slowly gripped his collar, her knuckles turning white from the force. She pressed her forehead heavily against his chest, tears streaming down her face like a burst dam.
Li Pan watched her silently.
She cried very restrainedly, afraid that outsiders would hear her, and apart from the occasional sob, she made almost no other sound.
But she huddled in front of him, trembling so violently that her tears soaked his clothes, and he could feel it clearly.
It took her a long time to recover before she looked up at him, somewhat dazed.
Li Pan lowered his eyes and gently kissed the corner of her lips.
Salty.
"My lord...why don't you despise me?" Her voice was hoarse and fragmented.
Li Pan didn't answer directly, but thought for a moment and said, "Why do you think I kissed you just now?"
Lou Xueying paused for a moment, then stammered, "I...I don't know."
“You seem very afraid that I will abandon you,” Li Pan said softly. “I don’t know how to prove to you that I won’t abandon you. Just saying it probably won’t convince you. I’m afraid that if I try to reason with you, you’ll think that I’m trying to keep my distance from you. So I can only use this method to make you feel safe—in your heart, this means ‘I don’t mind,’ right?”
Lou Xueying was stunned.
That's exactly what she thought.
The day Li Pan returned to the capital, he talked to her at length. She was touched by his honesty, but when she discovered that he thought she didn't like him, and therefore treated her with extra "respect"—to the point of wanting to sleep in separate beds—she panicked. She didn't want such a gentlemanly husband; it was too hurtful and bad for their future.
Fortunately, Li Pan still kissed her later. She realized that she was still attractive to Li Pan, and that Li Pan did not stop touching her because of her affair with Emperor Jinghui. She felt much relieved.
This was a thought that even she herself was unaware of, but Li Pan noticed it.
Li Pan said, "Sometimes I wonder if I was too unrestrained with you in the first few days after we got married, which led to some misunderstandings between us. So when I stopped doing that, you were afraid that I was going to give up on you."
Lou Xueying pursed her lips.
Li Pan: "Going back to your question, why don't I dislike you? To be honest, I don't know why I would dislike you. If I liked you at first, but later found out that you had actually been bullied, and then I stopped liking you, wouldn't my liking be a bit too strange? That's not liking a person, that's liking a clean-cut human skin, isn't it?"
Lou Xueying: "..."
Li Pan: "I don't know why you're always so hung up on this. If you went to the Northwest, you'd know that the people there are much tougher than those in the capital. It's a vast, sparsely populated place, and crops aren't easy to grow. War requires a lot of manpower, and people might not even have enough to eat. If the enemy attacks, they might not survive. Who has time to care about your innocence? Enjoying life and having children is the only right thing to do. There are women caught cheating and cursing their husbands for being incompetent. There are also young women whose husbands have just died and are immediately taken away by other families… What's this compared to that? People in the capital live too comfortably, they're so full they have time to think about these unseen and intangible things."
Lou Xueying: "..."
Seemingly afraid that she might misunderstand, Li Pan added two more sentences: "I'm not saying you're being silly. You grew up in the capital, so naturally you have the same ideas as the people around you. But I'm not from the capital, so you don't need to use the perspectives of people from the capital to judge me."
Lou Xueying blinked slowly, then lowered her head again.
She nestled in Li Pan's arms, her eyes red, and remained silent.
The carriage suddenly started shaking violently. Li Pan lifted the curtain and glanced inside, saying, "We're going up the mountain."
With the smooth main road gone, only winding mountain paths remained, and the carriage naturally began to bump and jolt.
Lou Xueying suddenly called out softly, "My Lord."
Li Pan: "What's wrong?"
Lou Xueying's tone was evasive: "There are bears in the hunting grounds on the mountain. Do you think anyone will be able to hunt them?"
Li Pan: "It should be possible, right? Even if one person can't do it, there's always a chance if several people work together."
I said no.
Why not?
"There is no reason why. Without the Marquis, there is no one to hunt."
Li Pan asked curiously, "How can you be so sure I can hunt bears? How do you know others can't?"
“I just know,” Lou Xueying said softly. “If you don’t believe me, Lord Marquis, we can make a bet.”
Although Li Pan didn't understand why she suddenly changed the topic, since she didn't want to continue the previous topic, he let it go and continued to talk about her current topic.
So Li Pan patted her head and smiled, saying, "Alright, let's make a bet."
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