1.3

 

The imperial doctor knelt at the foot of the bed. 

 

“Your Majesty it is only a shallow wound. The Crown Prince will recover the full use of his hand.”

 

“A shallow wound?!” The Second Prince’s voice startled everyone. “How can it be a shallow wound? I saw bone and viscera!”

 

“Xiao’er…”

 

The voice who is speaking is unfamiliar. From inside the curtains drawn around his bed, Liu Yue was trying to stay still and pretend to be asleep. His hand had indeed healed at a somewhat accelerated rate. He was a low level demon after all. Luckily it had been bandaged now to avoid suspicion.

 

“Xiao’er, perhaps you should leave the Empress and Emperor alone with their son.”

 

This must be the Second Prince’s mother Consort Ming, Liu Yue thought. 

 

“Father Emperor, I heard that the woman that attacked me was not even Beauty Chai but a maid! There has to be something larger at work. I beg of you permission to investigate.”

 

The only reply from the Emperor was racking coughs.

 

“Second Prince, do you really think now is the time to stress your Father Emperor out in this manner? Don’t you know that he’s ill?” This was the Empress.

 

“Father Emperor, if you could just give me permission to question the girl-”

 

“Xiao’er!”

 

There was more violent coughing. Liu Yue sighed. He sat up and pulled open the curtains. “I’m fine Father Emperor, Mother Empress. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

 

It was the first time seeing the Emperor up close. Like this he really did look very ill. His eyes were sunken and his skin tone gray. He was probably only around fifty years old but bent over like he was eighty.

 

“Yue’er,” The Emperor sighed. He coughed again. The Empress supported him and said, “See, I told you you were worried for nothing.”

 

Liu Yue cleared his throat. “But I agree that there was something strange at work. Father Emperor, the sword that I was holding in my hand was pushing against me even though no one was there! I think…. It has been cursed.”

 

The Emperor reeled back. “Cu.. curse?!”

 

The Second Prince stared at him, his expression unreadable.

 

“Yue’er, do you really think it is the time to be distressing you father in this manner?!” The Empress demanded. Her face was red with fury.

 

“Can we summon a senior monk from Lingshan?” Liu Yue pushed. The Empress nearly jumped out of her skin. “No- no! That’s not necessary!”

 

Why, Liu Yue thought. Got a guilty conscience?

 

But the Second Prince also felt as though something was wrong. He looked between the Empress and Liu Yue. “Father,” He said slowly. “I… agree with older brother’s opinion. After all at least an opinion from a monk cannot hurt.”

 

“What do the monks from Lingshan know, bah!” The Empress was really at the end of her tether. 

 

“If it is not a monk the what about a divinator?” Liu Yue continued. “I have heard there is a powerful Celestial Master in the Empire called Master Xu Yuan. Have you heard of him?”

 

Master Xu Yuan was the name of the Celestial Master who had helped the Empress. Liu Yue knew if he didn’t bring him up the Empress would be too scared to, to avoid exposing a connection to him. But her eyes immediately brightened upon Liu Yue’s words.

“Yes… perhaps a Celestial Master would know more about curses than a monk.” The Empress agreed in what Liu Yue knew was a fake reluctant tone. “If you must then perhaps I can send people to contact this Master Xu Yuan…”

 

The Second Prince looked between them, frowning.

 

***

 

Of course Liu Yue was hoping that Master Xu Yuan was going to help him break his own curse! Unless the Empress summoned him, there was no way Master Xu Yuan would make an appearance. In the movie it was heavily implied, although not explicit, that Master Xu Yuan and the Empress were, or at least had once been, lovers.

 

After all the Empress is quite beautiful and she has a kind of evil allure, Liu Yue thought. He flopped down on his bed. The room was only lit by a few scattered paper lamps. I suppose that’s why the Emperor was so enamoured with her in the beginning and promoted her to Empress. 

 

But time and the fickle hearts of men are always prone to change. 

 

Even the Second Prince, once he becomes the Emperor, will he stay faithful to Song LingLing?

 

He didn’t know because of course the movie ended at the moment of their greatest happiness. Speaking of the female protagonist, right now the Second Prince should be visiting her secretly in her jail cell. Then he would arrange to break her out and have her taken to his manor under a different identity. 

 

There was a noise behind him. At first Liu Yue thought it was one of his maids, although he’d dismissed them all. But then he realized the step was heavier and- faintly familiar.

 

As if I needed any more confirmation that there was something wrong with me… it was as though his ears and nose were ten times stronger than normal. So that’s how he knew who it was.

 

Liu Yue called into the half darkness, “Is there something you wanted… brother?”

 

There was a shuffle and then a dark figure dropped into the doorway. The Second Prince has obviously come over the roof to avoid the guards.

 

As expected of a martial arts prodigy.

 

Wei YunXiao was wearing dark clothing as well as a mask. Liu Yue guessed he had just come from breaking Song LingLing out of jail. 

 

Liu Yue frowned at him. “You’re not supposed to be here.” There was no such scene in the movie.  

 

The Second Prince was holding a sheathed sword in his hand. After a breath he said, “Dressed like this… aren’t you frightened of me?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why?”

 

Because you’re the hero, duh. “Because you’re my brother.” Logically it sounded like it made sense but both of them knew it wasn’t. They were more like strangers than relatives.

 

“Does brother need something from me?” Liu Yue asked conversationally. He drew his knees up on the bed and gazed at Wei YunXiao in a guileless manner. He was dressed in a thin white sleeping robe and his long hair was unbound. From inside the half parted robe his smooth white skin could be seen, unblemished and as tender as a girl’s. Wei YunXiao looked away quickly. He removed his mask since his identity had already been revealed.

 

“I am surprised to find the Crown Prince alone. What happened to your eighteen concubines?” It was a joke in the Palace that the Crown Prince was fast catching up to the Emperor in terms of concubines, and he was only seventeen and didn’t even have an official wife yet!

 

Liu Yue laughed slightly in an embarrassed manner. Being a gay man he naturally found it very uncomfortable to be dealing with so many women and hence had the guard outside tell all of them that he didn’t want to see them. 

 

“I’m sleeping alone tonight and you haven’t answered my question.”

The Second Prince hesitated. But he had come this far and dressed like that, it wasn’t as though he was trying to avoid a confrontation. “I have rescued the maid who tried to kill me from the prison. As you suspect, she said the sword was cursed. It was not her intention to kill me.”

 

“Oh…?”

 

Liu Yue remembered their conversation from the movie. In addition to telling him this, the female lead had been forced to give up her secret - it was her price for the Second Prince to keep her by his side. “You’re so calm, I suppose you’ve guessed everything already. I can’t expect any less from Chang’s greatest hero, the Second Price. Then if I can surprise you… will you help me?”  This was an important scene in the movie, the first time the male and female leads appraised each other.

 

“The girl is the niece of Beauty Yu. She was one of father’s earlier concubines, she died mysteriously seventeen years ago and her family was killed the same night.”

 

Liu Yue’s head spun. He knew what Song LingLing had told Wei YunXiao but what he hadn’t expected was that Wei YunXiao would be here, relaying the conversation to him. That wasn’t supposed to happen! What was supposed to happen would be that he would be suspected and then the suspicions confirmed by the dead maid he was supposed to kill on the night of the full moon. 

 

“Her death was a large mystery, many people said that she had accidentally offended a demon and had been cursed since she was discovered without her heart. But the maid told me a different story. She told me that Beauty Yu saw something she shouldn’t have - a dead baby girl being buried in the Imperial Gardens. She said that the baby had a blood red dot on its forehead... the same as you.”

 

Indeed. It wasn’t until Song LingLing had seen the dot on his face during the banquet that the memory of that line in the blood letter that her aunt had written had any meaning for her. But still she wasn’t sure what it meant. It was Wei YunXiao who had started putting the dots together over time.

 

Why are you telling me all this?

 

Liu Yue pursed his lips, trying to think of appropriate words to say. “What are you trying to say, brother… are you saying that the dead baby and I are connected? But I don’t know anything about it.”

 

Wei YunXiao stared at him, chest moving shallowly. Liu Yue could guess his thoughts. The dead baby was the reason behind Beauty Yu’s death. The dead baby’s birthmark matched the Crown Prince’s, why? It was not a common place or color for a birthmark! Probably the two were connected. Even now he had already half guessed the truth; that the Empress had given birth to a girl and then deliberately scarred the boy to help cover it up maybe. 

 

His thoughts were muddled, chaotic. But it was starting to go in the right direction.

 

In actual fact the birthmark was made at the transfer during birth. As most of the doctors and midwives were highly professional and difficult to bribe (not to mention they were afraid of bringing calamity on their heads), the Empress had only bribed the midwife directly responsible for pulling the baby out of her stomach. Once the baby was out, she had activated a spell that the sorcerer had given her, wounding both the cat and the baby in the forehead and causing the cat to change into a human. The baby girl had been quickly and silently smothered a moment after the demon baby began to cry. That was how they both came to have the same scar.

 

The midwife was afterwards killed of course. Wei YunXiao would find that out soon enough.

 

Right now Wei YunXiao already suspected him of not being the Crown Prince, but definitely knew nothing about him being a demon. Liu Yue stared at him for a few moments, thinking quickly. Then he came to an abrupt decision.

 

“Your suspicions… they are correct.”

 

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