Substitute Bride Phoenix, The Tyrant's Pampered Demon Empress

Liu Rushuang turned and unexpectedly met Nangong Ba’s gaze, his deep gaze filled with longing and overflowing tenderness.

A soft breeze gusted, and their hair slightly tangled.

“You’re really beautiful, Shuang’er.”

Nangong Ba suddenly said, as if sighing. There was a red flash in his eyes, and he spoke with a clear voice that was no different from the sounds of nature, “You don’t really love that tyrant, do you?”

In the instant that Liu Rushuang met his gaze, every vile thing that Han Moze had done to her appeared in her mind.

For example, the decree that prohibited her from leaving the palace, starving her as penance for insulting him, violently biting her in hopes that the pain would make her remember him, feigning sickness to keep her even when she was despairing, controlling her with poison after she left, kissing her until she almost suffocated just because she was looking at another man one too many times, and toiling her for half a day just because she threw a snowball at him…

That man was violent, unreasonable, and overbearing in every last one of those senses, leaving her disgusted.

Her lips twitched, intent on admitting that she did not love that tyrant.

Be that as it may, there was a sudden breeze that reached her eye, and she suddenly felt much more refreshed.

How could she have forgotten that man’s incomparable tenderness towards her?

He would feed her just so that she could feel being loved, kissing her on the forehead and telling her that he loved her from time to time, always bringing her gifts to curry her favor, stepping in front of her whenever there is danger, thinking about all the ways she could sweet-talk her whenever she was angry…

“No, I love him!”

Liu Rushuang replied with certainly, the red light in her eyes fading and becoming crystal clear as she looked back directly into Nangong Ba’s eyes.

“He does have a strong hold on women.”

Moments later, Nangong Ba spoke enigmatically, trying his best to smile.

Liu Rushuang turned, unwilling to nitpick on what just happened. Lowering herself to lay flat over the lake, she slowly closed her watery eyes as she smiled lightly, her breathing gradually becoming steady just then.

Nangong Ba stared at Liu Rushuang as she floated over the lake, his body remaining where he was stiffly, just as his eyes became dark and inscrutable.

Ultimately, he smiled bitterly and turned to look at the distant greenery. Taking a deep breath, he lay over the lake as well, just as an irremovable sense of loneliness lurked between his brows.

***

Meanwhile, Han Moze was throwing a huge tantrum at the imperial court of Beiming, and scolding the daylights out of several officials.

“Lord Ruan, Minister of Transport & Irrigation—I have been informed that you were jerrybuilding while restricting the workers’ food! Is that true?”

“I-It is… but there’s a reason for that! The workers kept postponing construction work because of the cold, which is why I set the regulation that they only get to eat after they completed their assigned task. As for jerrybuilding… I had to, because my eldest son got into a debt of several hundred thousand Liang in gambling! Sob… please show mercy, Your Majesty!”

Lord Ruan was dropped limply to the floor trembling as he spoke and kowtowing as much as he could, until his head started bleeding. The emperor’s temper was worsening by the day ever since the empress left. Even the current prime minister was scolded mercilessly and left wanting to crawl into a hole, let alone him?

“Insolence! At least you have the conscience to know that you shouldn’t have done that! Are your own children human while the children of others livestock? Guards! Take him away, and flog him thirty times! He is to be stripped of all duties, his family estate confiscated and every member exiled to the wastelands! He is not to return to the capital for the rest of his life!”

“Mercy… Your Majesty… I know that I’m wrong…”