N-M Chapter 140 The wolf cubs have grown up.
Chapter 140 The wolf cubs have grown up.
Xiao Chenyuan looked down at her, a faint smile appearing in his eyes.
"Have you made enough of a scene?" he asked.
"No." Su Yaoyao nestled back against his chest.
"Your Highness deliberately got injured, deliberately had to be carried back, deliberately made me cry like this—all to lower that fool's guard?"
Xiao Chenyuan didn't speak, he just looked at her.
Su Yaoyao continued her analysis: "Ling Feng's expression was off then, and I knew something was wrong. You clearly planned everything, yet you still had someone put on that show—weren't you afraid I'd actually be scared out of my wits?"
Xiao Chenyuan reached out and gently stroked the corner of her still slightly red and swollen eyes with his fingertips.
"I'm scared," he said.
"and you--"
“But if we don’t do it this way,” he interrupted her, “how will we let those people think we’ve succeeded?”
Su Yaoyao was stunned for a moment.
Xiao Chenyuan looked at her, his gaze as gentle as melting snow: "I had planned everything, except for this..."
He paused.
I didn't expect you to cry like this.
Su Yaoyao turned her face away, stubbornly saying, "Who cried? That was an act."
"An act?" Xiao Chenyuan chuckled, tapping the corner of her eye with his fingertip. "Then what is this?"
"..."
Su Yaoyao slapped his hand away, then snuggled back into his arms, and said in a muffled voice:
"Don't tell me that your self-inflicted injury was just to deal with that idiot."
Xiao Chenyuan raised his hand and flicked her nose.
"Didn't I say I was going to leave them for you to play with?" he said matter-of-factly. "I don't touch your toys."
Su Yaoyao's face flushed slightly.
"Who is your wife?"
"You," Xiao Chenyuan answered confidently, "sooner or later."
Su Yaoyao's heart skipped a beat, but she retorted sharply, "That's not necessarily true. What if I change my mind?"
Xiao Chenyuan's eyes darkened.
"Change your mind?" His voice lowered. "It's too late."
As soon as he finished speaking, he pulled her closer to him and kissed her.
This kiss was unlike the previous tenderness; it carried a punitive undertone, urgent and fierce. Su Yaoyao was breathless from the kiss, and tried to push him away with her hands against his chest, but couldn't budge him.
He didn't let go until she was almost suffocating.
"Are you still going to back out?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
Su Yaoyao leaned against him, panting, and it took her a while to catch her breath. She glared at him and said, "You...you're unreasonable."
Xiao Chenyuan smiled, a gentle smile, but his eyebrows and eyes relaxed.
"What's the point of reasoning with you?" he said. "I am reason itself."
Su Yaoyao was amused by his shameless behavior, so she lay on his chest and continued to poke his chest with her fingers.
"That idiot doesn't count," she said, tilting her head back. "So who are you going to deal with?"
Xiao Chenyuan remained silent for a moment.
"The person behind him," he said, "I know who it is."
Su Yaoyao's eyes lit up: "Are you from Liang? But Your Highness..."
She wanted to say that if He Qing really was his cousin, then the leader of Liang Kingdom was very likely Xiao Chenyuan's... maternal uncle.
"But besides the people of Liang," Xiao Chenyuan suddenly said, "there is another person."
Su Yaoyao raised an eyebrow: "Anything else?"
Xiao Chenyuan looked down at her, his gaze somewhat complicated.
"She's testing me. I also want to see how many more tricks she has up her sleeve."
Su Yaoyao was taken aback.
Is there anyone in this world that Xiao Chenyuan can't handle?
She had personally witnessed this man's ability to manipulate events at will; even the old foxes in the court would avoid him.
Xiao Chenyuan looked at her, something flashing in his eyes.
"Killing her is too easy," he said, his voice as indifferent as if he were commenting on the weather. "I will make her... pay the price for what she has done."
Su Yaoyao's heart skipped a beat.
These words were spoken calmly, but beneath that calm lay a chill colder than a blade.
That means this person has a special identity and cannot be easily dealt with?
"she?"
"Who is 'she'?"
Xiao Chenyuan looked down at her, his gaze deep and unfathomable.
After a long pause, he spoke, his voice very soft:
"Empress Dowager Zhao Su."
Su Yaoyao was stunned.
Empress Dowager?
That kind-faced empress dowager who spent years worshipping Buddha and almost never concerned herself with politics.
Her impression of the Empress Dowager was vague. She only knew that she was the emperor's legal mother, not his biological mother, and that she had left the capital three years ago to pray for blessings, spending most of her time worshipping Buddha and rarely concerning herself with state affairs.
In the original owner's memory, he had seen her several times at palace banquets. Each time, she sat far away, with a kind and benevolent face, like a Bodhisattva enshrined in a Buddhist temple.
"Her?" Su Yaoyao exclaimed incredulously, "The Empress Dowager?"
Seeing the shock on her face, Xiao Chenyuan didn't explain, but simply nodded.
Su Yaoyao's mind was a bit of a mess.
The Empress Dowager wants to kill Xiao Chenyuan?
Why?
Seeing her shocked expression, Xiao Chenyuan raised his hand and gently stroked her brow.
"Were you scared?"
Su Yaoyao shook her head, then nodded.
"It's not that I'm frightened," she frowned, "it's that I don't understand. Isn't the Empress Dowager... His Highness's grandmother?"
Xiao Chenyuan smiled.
The smile was faint, as faint as the winter sun, devoid of warmth.
"Grandmother?" he repeated the word, his tone as calm as if he were talking about someone else. "She isn't."
Su Yaoyao was stunned.
Xiao Chenyuan looked at her, his gaze as deep and unfathomable as ink.
A deathly silence fell over the tent.
The candlelight crackled and burst open, casting a flickering reflection on Xiao Chenyuan's face.
She reached out and gently took his hand.
Xiao Chenyuan looked down at the hand that was covering the back of his hand.
White, soft, and warm.
"Your Highness," Su Yaoyao looked at him, "whatever you want to do, I'll be with you."
Xiao Chenyuan's Adam's apple bobbed.
After a while, he took her hand in his own, and their fingers intertwined.
"it is good."
Outside the tent, the snow had stopped sometime earlier.
In the distance, the palace lights had long been extinguished.
The Empress Dowager, who "devoted herself to Buddhism and remained detached from worldly affairs," was sitting in the shadows, listening to the reports from her bodyguards.
"The Crown Prince is seriously injured?"
"Yes. He was carried back covered in blood."
The Empress Dowager remained silent for a moment, then a cryptic smile appeared on her lips.
"This child..." she said softly, "is still so good at pretending."
The guard lowered his head, not daring to reply.
The Empress Dowager looked up at the swirling snow outside the window.
"He is, after all, the son of a different race..." Her voice was so soft it sounded like a sigh.
"The wolf cub has grown up..."