After I Faked My Death, the Dog Emperor Completely Lost His Mind - Chapter 28

Not having seen him for a while, Shen Yun looked haggard. To track Xiao Qi’s movements after his escape, he hadn’t slept soundly in a long time; the faint blue veins beneath his sharp eyes betrayed his exhaustion. The soldiers and lieutenants behind him were no different; having clashed with Xiao Qi’s private troops several times the previous night, they still carried the lingering scent of frost and iron.

Standing among them in his soft white mink-fur jacket, Shen Yuheng felt somewhat out of place. Before they could exchange more than a few words, Yun’s expression suddenly darkened, and his cold gaze swept the room.

“Yue Feng.” His voice was low, laced with suppressed anger. “Go back to the barracks and fetch my Cloud-Patterned Green Iron Sword.”

Yue Feng raised an eyebrow. “The Cloud-Patterned sword? That’s not at the barracks. You gifted it to a subordinate a while ago. Did General Shen forget?”

“Fine.” Yun’s face darkened further. “Then fetch my Chengni Inkstone.”

“The Chengni Inkstone?” Yue Feng’s smirk widened; he caught on to Yun’s deliberate attempt to get rid of him. We warriors use an inkstone how many times a year? Was it worth a special trip?

Yue Lin, sensing Yun’s foul mood, glared at his brother. “If he told you to go, go. Stop talking nonsense.”

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” Yue Feng grumbled. He didn’t know why Yun had suddenly flared up, but military discipline was absolute.

Once Yue Feng was out of earshot, Yun let out a long sigh. He turned to Shen Yuheng. “Xiao Qi has a significant force. If open war breaks out, the area around Wangyun Temple will not be safe. Did His Majesty say when you would return to the palace?”

Shen Yuheng nodded. This morning, Eunuch Fang had reported that Xiao Huai’s condition had finally improved. Once the sacrifices were completed tomorrow morning, they would depart for the capital.

Yun still couldn’t set his mind at ease. Returning to the palace was merely moving from one dangerous place to another. In just a few months, the palace had become a vortex of treachery princes dying, consorts going mad. There were no natural disasters, only man-made tragedies. Xiao Qi was once the favored candidate for Crown Prince; now he was a criminal lurking in the wild, ready to rebel.

When the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken.

“Think carefully about what I told you,” Yun reminded him. “I won’t be in the capital for long, Xiao Yu. If you want to leave, you cannot delay.”

Shen Yuheng nodded, but his heart lacked conviction. As long as he was alive, Xiao Jin wouldn’t let him go. Did it really matter if he wanted to leave or not?

When Shen Yuheng returned to the temple, the monks’ chanting had ceased. In the deep courtyard, only the tolling of a bell echoed, ethereal and distant. Several young princes and princesses ran out from the yard, and upon seeing him, they swarmed him with excitement.

“Male Lady, come here!” The Sixteenth Princess grabbed his hand, hopping and skipping as she tried to pull him into the garden.

Shen Yuheng caught her flailing hand and knelt down. “What is it?”

The princess looked up innocently. “Male Lady, Imperial Father has come out, but I’m afraid to play with him.”

Shen Yuheng froze. Looking where she pointed, he saw Xiao Huai beneath a Bodhi tree. He wore a moon-white Taoist robe, the fabric fluttering in the sunlight as if it were transparent, looking almost as if he were merging with the light itself.

“He looks so lonely,” the princess whispered. “Will you play with him?”

Play with him? Shen Yuheng’s smile went rigid. The princess was too young to know that adults aren’t omnipotent… I’m afraid to ‘play’ with him too! Is that something I can say?!

Escaping was shameful but useful; Shen Yuheng really wanted to turn back to his room and pretend he hadn’t seen a thing.

“Male Lady?” He looked down into the princess’s expectant eyes.

He persuaded himself: Xiao Huai had just recovered from a major illness; it was only right to pay his respects. Pushing down his fear, he approached until he could see the Emperor’s face clearly. He froze again.

Xiao Huai’s skin was a bloodless, cold white. Standing in the sunlight, he looked as if he might dissolve into the radiance. The oppressive aura he usually carried had shifted; now, he looked like a stone Buddha, standing still beneath the ancient tree, bearing the fragile, pious faith of mortals.

The tremor in Shen Yuheng’s heart unexpectedly stilled. Xiao Huai looked up, saw him, and slowly curled his lips.

“Yuheng, come here.”

It was the first time Xiao Huai had called him by his name. He raised a thin, withered hand, beckoning with a finger. The purple-blue veins on his knuckles were clearly visible. His voice held a trace of exhaustion.

Shen Yuheng stood still, his gaze lowered. After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped forward. Xiao Huai slowly raised his hand to tilt Shen Yuheng’s chin up; the cold finger felt like a dead object. He studied Shen Yuheng’s face inch by inch, a disturbing sense of satisfaction appearing on his features.

“What I love most,” he whispered, his voice an airy, condescending murmur, “is looking at you young, beautiful faces.”

Shen Yuheng’s lip trembled, but he said nothing. He saw in Xiao Huai a trace of deathly ash.

Wangyun Temple, Next Morning

The delayed national sacrifices and blessings finally began. Shen Yuheng rose early to follow Xiao Huai to the main hall, led by the temple’s high monks. Shen Yun, who was to escort them back to the palace, was also invited.

As they bowed before the gods under the hazy incense and lotus lamps, their robes dragon silk, iron armor, and soft mink were all stained with the scent of ash. Looking at the Bodhisattva on the lotus, Xiao Huai waved a hand. Eunuch Fang stepped forward with an exquisite box and presented it to Shen Yuheng.

Shen Yuheng thanked him and opened the box. Inside was a gold hairpin shaped like a lotus. The petals were rounded and lifelike, and a pearl was set in the center, shimmering with a soft glow that made it look as if one could almost smell the fragrance of the flower.

“My gift to you,” Xiao Huai said. “Wear it.”

Shen Yuheng had to accept. But as he tried to slide the hairpin into his hair, he was clumsy; he couldn’t get it to stay. Although he had the original owner’s memories, fine motor skills requiring muscle memory were still difficult.

Xiao Huai let out a low chuckle. “Spoiled children always struggle with such things.”

With that, Xiao Huai took the hairpin from his hand. He motioned for Shen Yuheng to kneel before him and personally smoothed the hair back from his temples. The cold tail of the pin brushed against his scalp; Shen Yuheng shivered, instinctively wanting to shrink away, but with the Emperor behind him, there was no escape.

Nearby, Yun watched the intimate scene and awkwardly looked away. Shen Yuheng was even more frantic. He had always feared Xiao Huai, yet in this moment, every movement of the most terrifying man he knew was unexpectedly tender. He held his breath and slowly relaxed into the gesture. The tension vanished, and his complex emotions toward the Emperor condensed into a sliver of subtle warmth. It was thin, but for the current Shen Yuheng, it was a comfort.

He closed his eyes. However, a woman’s voice rang out nearby.

“…His Majesty is truly good to Consort Shen.”

Shen Yuheng froze. It took him a while to realize it was Consort Yi. It was the first time he’d heard her speak in days. She was Xiao Qi’s mother. Now that Xiao Qi was a rebel, Xiao Huai had brought her to the temple almost as if to taunt her.

“Since Your Majesty loves young and beautiful faces so much, why don’t you think of your own son, who is also still young?”

Everyone froze, looking at the tear-stricken Consort Yi. After days of silence, she suddenly crashed to her knees beside Xiao Huai, grabbing his robes and wailing for mercy for Xiao Qi. “Qi’er is your son after all! How can you be so heartless?!”

In the golden hall, her cries grew increasingly shrill.

[Tsk tsk, now she knows how to cry,] the System muttered, feeling a mix of pity and frustration. [Xiao Qi is his son, sure, but what he did wasn’t something a normal person does!]

Shen Yuheng’s sympathy cooled. In the book, Consort Yi was the power behind Xiao Qi, using her family’s influence to cover for his atrocities against other princes and Xiao Jin’s mother. When the knife wasn’t in her own heart, she hadn’t felt the pain.

Xiao Huai ignored her, continuing his task. He held Shen Yuheng’s black hair as if he were holding a strand of his own lifespan. Consort Yi’s wailing weakened, but just as they thought she had given up, she suddenly pulled a blade from her sleeve and lunged at Shen Yuheng.

A flash of cold steel.

[Host, watch out! She has a knife!]

Shen Yuheng scrambled back. Yun realized the danger and threw himself in front of his brother, but a sharp shing sounded from his waist

Xiao Huai had drawn Yun’s sword.

In the next second, a drop of scalding liquid splashed onto Shen Yuheng’s face. The knife fell from Consort Yi’s hand with a clang. Her face froze in a mask of agonizing shock as the long sword pierced her heart. Blood sprayed out like a scarlet flower, staining Shen Yuheng’s white mink shawl. The damp heat soaked through the fabric into his trembling skin.

Xiao Huai pulled the sword out, his expression calm, as if everything was as it should be. He watched Consort Yi’s features twist in her final tremors until her life faded. She slumped over Shen Yuheng’s knees, her blood-stained cheek still carrying the warmth of the living.

Drenched in blood, Xiao Huai casually tossed the sword aside. He wiped his hands on his golden dragon robes, picked up the lotus hairpin again, and finished arranging Shen Yuheng’s hair.

Shen Yuheng’s breathing was frantic. He curled into Xiao Huai’s shadow, shaking violently, unable to speak. Consort Yi’s face gradually grew cold as she slid from his lap, her eyes still open. He didn’t remember when the Emperor finally left; he only felt a suffocating chill in the air. Later, Yun called his name repeatedly, but Shen Yuheng’s brain felt like it was filled with cement.

That night, they returned to the palace. He spent the night in a high fever.

Outside the bedchamber, Jiaobai arrived with an ice basin. “How is the Consort?”

“The same,” Yundou sighed. “Physician Xu says it’s a fever brought on by shock; he won’t recover quickly…”

The heat of the fever tortured every inch of his body. In his delirium, Shen Yuheng heard many voices and saw many shadows, but he couldn’t open his eyes. He felt as if he were sinking into a red swamp.

Suddenly, a sliver of coolness touched his face. He instinctively followed the sensation, pressing his cheek against it like a drowning man clutching a piece of wood.

Inside the room, Xiao Jin whose hand was being held thinned his lips, his brow furrowing. The scalding heat of Shen Yuheng’s skin made him feel a visceral disgust. He wanted to see Shen Yuheng suffer, but the terror and unease radiating from the man were now entirely painted in Xiao Huai’s colors. The seeds of fear he had planted in Shen Yuheng were being overwritten by the Emperor’s marks.

He angrily pulled his hand away. Shen Yuheng immediately lost the coolness and reached out to grab him again.

“…Don’t go.”

Xiao Jin’s footsteps stopped. He looked at Shen Yuheng’s face, which was flushed with fever and stained with old tear tracks. The man was gasping for air, clutching Xiao Jin’s sleeve as if it were his last hope.

Xiao Jin’s throat bobbed. He hesitated, then suddenly threw the man’s hand off and backed away. Shen Yuheng’s arm fell pathetically to the bed. He could vaguely see the figure was Xiao Jin; he wanted to ask for help, but he only saw a heartless retreating back.

Of course.

Shen Yuheng closed his eyes, but suddenly his hand was caught again. The other person’s hand was abnormally cold, as if it possessed no natural warmth.

“…Mother Consort.” The youth’s voice was a seductive, low murmur.

Shen Yuheng felt a strange familiarity. His heart trembled for a moment. He gripped the hand back and asked weakly:

“The one… who comes every night… is it you…?”

“No.” Xiao Jin’s eye flickered, but his voice remained flat. “However, I have seen Imperial Father come here at night…”