The jade bed was eerily silent.
Luo Luo didn’t regret speaking the blunt truth—right was right, wrong was wrong. It wasn’t as if she had thrown herself at him. The Divine Sovereign was the one who had crawled into her bed to sleep.
In any case, she wasn’t the one at fault. Even if he killed her, she’d still be a ghost with a clear conscience.
"You seduced me," he accused coldly, his expression unreadable.
Luo Luo: "I didn’t—"
He cut her off sharply, voice dangerous: "Dare to deny it? Where are your hands right now?"
Luo Luo froze, belatedly realizing she was tangled around him, pressed flush against his chest.
Just like what she had done to Li Zhaoye in her dreams.
Her arms were looped around his lean waist, her face nuzzled against his half-open robes, separated only by a thin layer of fabric. The blood-red seals etched into his skin—usually intimidating—were now smudged with suspicious damp patches, making the whole scene absurd.
Definitely tears, Luo Luo thought despairingly. Not drool. Absolutely not.
He let out a low, humorless chuckle.
Cold breath brushed the crown of her head as his chest vibrated faintly with a deep, resonant sound.
Luo Luo forced herself to stay calm and tried to pull away.
She retreated—or tried to.
She couldn’t move.
His large hands held her firmly in place. One arm wrapped around her waist, fingers digging into her side, while the other pressed against her back, locking her against him. His grip was unyielding, fingers like iron against her shoulder.
He didn’t seem to realize he was the one refusing to let go.
Luo Luo’s legs were equally trapped beneath the covers. She could only hope they’d gone numb from sleep.
…And not because they were tangled with his.
Her warm, sweet scent mingled with his sharp, domineering aura, blending with the faint remnants of Yu Fusheng’s lingering fragrance into something intoxicating.
Luo Luo hastily raised her hands to push him away, but their bodies were too close. After fumbling, she finally found purchase—against his firm, sculpted chest.
Lean, but muscular. Probably from crawling around this palace in the past.
She didn’t dwell on it. Planting her palms against him, she tried to wrench herself backward like pulling a stubborn radish from the ground.
After several futile attempts, Luo Luo grew slowly, helplessly frustrated.
With perfect timing, she threw his own words back at him: "You’re the one seducing me—where are your hands right now?!"
His eyes narrowed dangerously, the faintest flicker of amusement in their depths. "Copycat," he sneered.
Luo Luo: "…"
She opened her mouth, then shut it. He had a point.
She was an honest person. When she had no ground to stand on, she faltered.
Struck dumb, she stared at him, wide-eyed.
Seeing her speechless, his lips curved slightly, as if he’d won some long-awaited victory.
Luo Luo had the strangest feeling.
That lazy, triumphant look—it seemed like he’d been waiting forever to say that to her.
Weird.
Suddenly, he leaned in.
Luo Luo instinctively held her breath, frozen, expecting him to reach past her for something behind.
Li Zhaoye used to do that all the time.
One sudden move, and her heart would leap into her throat.
But the Divine Sovereign didn’t reach past her. Instead, he stopped with his face inches from hers—that exquisitely carved, devilishly handsome mask of a face hovering near her ear.
His voice was low. "What’s that scent on you?"
A normal enough question. Then he added, flatly, "Makes me want to fck you." (A certain plant.)
Luo Luo: "…"
She turned her head slightly. His expression was detached, eyes cold and devoid of desire.
He was merely stating a fact.
Just like how Li Zhaoye had once discussed an aphrodisiac with the same tone one might use for roasted chicken.
Luo Luo matched his clinical tone: "Yu Fusheng. The drug is why you hear those… inappropriate thoughts in my head. It’s all because of that."
Definitely not because she’d secretly read forbidden texts once and somehow memorized every scandalous word—jade, burning, spring, pleasure, passion, beasts’ cries—no, she remembered nothing at all.
He gave her a deadpan look and tapped her forehead. "I told you to restrain yourself, not double down."
Luo Luo: "…"
Excuse him? He was the one who barged into her bed and then claimed her scent made him want to—no, no, Luo Luo, stop thinking.
Abruptly, the world tilted.
Before she could react, he hauled her off the bed and tossed her out of the chamber. "Go. Do your job."
Luo Luo: "…"
Who in their right mind started working the second they got out of bed? Oh. Right. Her.
As the doors slammed shut behind her, she scrambled to ask, "How do I deal with the people in the Divine Palace?"
How was she supposed to know the taboos? What could or couldn’t be said?
"Doesn’t matter." His voice floated through the doors, smug and effortless. "You’re mine. Be as arrogant as you want."
Then he was gone.
Luo Luo blinked slowly. "…Oh."
Luo Luo stood atop the towering black steps, gazing down.
The Divine Palace had always been a realm shrouded in mystery, barely mentioned even in forbidden texts.
Take that one book—"Palace of Depths: That Beastly Divine Sovereign, Stay Away!"—which depicted the palace as a gilded den of decadence, dripping with luxury and sin.
Reality was nothing like that.
Her eyes swept over the sprawling complex—black halls, black towers, black training grounds. Everywhere, the cold glint of sealing arrays pulsed in layers upon layers, an endless prison meant to cage "Him."
The guards hid within those arrays.
She descended the steps—ninety-three in total, though she couldn’t fathom their significance.
Glancing back at the sealed palace doors, she sighed. He wasn’t coming out anytime soon.
Time to explore alone.
At the base of the steps lay a vast black stone courtyard.
Eighteen towering pillars upheld a massive Tai Chi seal suspended midair like wrought iron, clearly meant to prevent "Him" from escaping skyward.
Sunlight filtered through the seal, casting a bleak, oppressive glow.
Oddly, Luo Luo didn’t mind.
Faced with the utterly unfamiliar, her mind was too occupied to dwell on sorrow—she was just that simple.
A sudden blur.
A stunningly beautiful girl in flowing white robes blocked her path, sleeves fluttering elegantly in the wind.
The white-clad girl spoke tonelessly: "Where are you going?"
Luo Luo nearly answered honestly, then remembered her role as the favored, domineering consort.
After a deliberate pause, she drawled, "Are you worthy of addressing me? Fetch someone in charge."
The girl’s lips twitched.
Luo Luo racked her brain, then delivered her lines with utmost sincerity: "A mere maidservant dares stand in my way? You’re unqualified."
The white-robed maiden sighed, "I am Holy Maiden Wu Xie. We met at the Tai Xuan Sect."
She wiped her face with a hand, transforming into an aged, wrinkled appearance.
The loose, flowing white dress she wore turned out to be an old woman's robe.
Luo Luo: "..."
Fresh out of the gate, already defeated. She really wasn’t cut out for arrogance and domineering.
She had never been this humiliated in her life.
It was all that beastly Godlord’s fault.
:)
Luo Luo followed Holy Maiden Wu Xie to the rear palace.
Wu Xie said expressionlessly, "All those who have served the Godlord in the past and are still alive reside here."
Luo Luo asked, "Aren’t you curious why the Godlord has regained his sanity?"
Wu Xie replied, "Aren’t you here to find the answer yourself?"
Luo Luo: "..."
Smart people were so annoying.
Luo Luo lowered her head and stepped into the rear palace.
The place looked exactly like the cold, abandoned palaces described in storybooks.
She hadn’t walked far before encountering a group of deranged women.
Attended by wooden puppets, stone puppets, and crane puppets, the women were kept clean and tidy.
Luo Luo tried to speak to them but found they were incapable of coherent conversation—
either mad or witless.
She turned to Holy Maiden Wu Xie. "Which one is the current Godlord’s mother?"
Wu Xie stared at her silently for a long moment.
The older maiden’s pupils were pitch-black and unnervingly large, unsettling when fixed on someone.
"She’s already dead," Wu Xie murmured.
Luo Luo: "Oh."
Wu Xie added, "The Godlord tore open her belly to crawl out. She died then."
Luo Luo: "...Oh."
Leaving the rear palace, they walked in silence.
When they reached the corridor where the two had first met, Wu Xie stopped at the edge of the vast training grounds, refusing to go further.
Likely out of fear of that one.
Luo Luo took a few steps before suddenly turning back. "Holy Maiden Elder."
Wu Xie clasped her hands over her abdomen, eyelids flickering as she waited.
Luo Luo asked, "Did past Godlords also have only puppets around them, like these women in the rear palace?"
Wu Xie’s eyes widened slightly, nearly revealing a flash of sharp insight.
Before she could answer, Luo Luo had already turned away, as if the question were casual.
Waving as she walked, she called out, "Holy Maiden Elder, have the puppets deliver two roasted beggar’s chickens to the bedchamber tomorrow. No lotus leaves for wrapping. Best if they’re slow-roasted overnight."
Wu Xie watched her retreating figure and replied steadily, "Understood."
Then she turned, her gaze flickering uncertainly.
She wasn’t sure—this seemingly slow, dim-witted Luo Luo who always spoke a beat too late—had she actually realized that thing?
From birth, the Godlord had effectively been fatherless and motherless.
An infant raised by mindless, speechless puppets—fed but never taught—what kind of being would "He" grow into?
Luo Luo climbed the black steps and knocked on the door.
She thought in shock, "Godlord, how tragic!"
Locked in a cage since birth, raised like a beast, drugged with Yu Fusheng to breed heirs, then left to die.
Even stud horses had it better.
Now that she knew this secret, leaving this place would be near impossible.
She knocked harder.
Creak—
The towering, intricately carved black stone doors finally groaned open.
The stench of blood rushed out.
Luo Luo looked up to see the unlucky Godlord leaning against the door, pale but smug.
He reached out and yanked her inside.
The doors slammed shut behind her.
"What happened to you?" Luo Luo asked with concern.
She realized their fates might already be tied together.
The blood was his—his black robes hid the stains.
"Nothing," he waved it off. "Just picked at the seals."
Luo Luo: "..."
This Godlord sure had a way with words.
Those seals were embedded deep in his flesh, suppressing and restraining him. She understood his urge to remove them, but… picked at them?
She sighed quietly and reported her findings. "If the person you’re looking for is your mother… she’s already passed."
When he didn’t react, she glanced up.
He sat by the window couch, gazing absently into the distance.
"Not her," he drawled. "But your recklessness gives me a clue. The one I seek is probably overly proper."
The kind of proper person he’d have to hide his claws around, lest he scare her off.
Luo Luo fumed. "Oh."
Since when was she improper? He was the one who climbed into her bed and then blamed her!
Night fell.
He sat by the window, tearing at the seal below his collarbone.
The metallic tang of blood thickened the air when suddenly—a sweet, light breeze brushed past.
He narrowed his eyes and turned to find her standing barefoot before him, eyes closed, face solemn.
"I’ll have roasted chicken tomorrow. Care to join me?"
He: "..."
Fragments of last night flickered in his mind—
her stumbling into his arms, clinging and weeping, drowsily coaxing him into her bed.
The crimson mark under his eye twitched.
He burst out laughing.
Still claiming she hadn’t seduced him? Yesterday, she’d been half-asleep—he’d fallen for her tricks.
But today—
Luo Luo waited, then grew sad when no answer came.
She knew he wasn’t here, but in her dreams, she longed to share a meal with him.
"Tch."
"Crying again?" he snapped. "Won’t let a man sleep, will you?"
He shoved the table aside, hauled her into his arms, and shrewdly deposited her onto his window couch.
Pinning her down, he jabbed a finger at her nose.
"Sleep!"
