“Peony.” Jin Siyu lay down beside her, pulling half of the quilt over himself. After a bit, seemingly still lost in thought, he said “I know you are unwilling to dug deeper regarding me, I know you are unwilling to be with me. It might be said that it is meaningless for me to force you to stay now that we have gotten to this point. I may not be the brightest of the bunch, but I haven’t gotten to the point of demanding someone’s heart against their will. But towards you, just this once, allow me to be shameless— you remember this, no matter what, I will make you stay.”
Feng Zhi Wei was silent for a bit before letting out a low laugh, “Your Highness, you said that through such gritted teeth. It didn’t sound so much like a confession of love, but more like a declaration of intention to kill.”
“If I want to kill, then it is to kill your heart.” Jin Siyu remained unmoved. His usually gentle features, bath in the soft sunlight, somehow appeared firm and resolute now, “If you were just Shaoyao, a naive girl who was in love with someone else, then no matter how reluctant I was, I might not have insisted on trapping you. If a person’s heart doesn’t belong to me, then what’s the point of keeping them? But you are Wei Zhi. And since Wei Shi is Shaoyao, then I have no reason to let go.”
“Oh?” Feng Zhi Wei tilted her head to look at him, a hint of amusement in her eyes.
“The only heir of the Prince Regent was frightened, that was your doing before pinning it on me, right?” Jin Siyu suddenly changed the subject, a faint mocking smile on his lip. “Shaoyao Er, you are just an envoy from Tiansheng, alone in Xiliang. Yet, you had the audacity to wade into the conflict between three empires. What are you after?”
“For the everlasting power of Tiansheng throne, and the peace and stability of its people, of course.” Feng Zhi Wei replied smoothly, without denying.
Letting out a cold sneer, Jin Siyu shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You talk all about loyalty to the emperor and love for the empire, always preaching righteousness and morality every time you open your mouth. You look like the most orthodox and loyal subject. But anyone who truly knows you knows that, what you truly care about has never been other people’s throne or their empire. So what if Xiliang is restless? So what if Changning clan harbors other intentions? So what if Dayue and Xiliang formed an alliance? I dare say even though you knew about the alliance among the three powers, but you had never planned to report the full picture back to the imperial court. You kept it to yourself, but meddled on your own. What is it you are really planning?”
“It seems these words should be asked of me by my own ruler.” Feng Zhi Wei smiled faintly, “Or Your Highness can write to my emperor and ask him to interrogate me.”
“You see, that tone of yours. You have the nerve to say you are loyal and patriotic to your empire.” Jin Siyu laughed heartily, “Peony, we are back to the previous point. Even though I haven’t figured out your true intention of framing me, but I am certain you are more than an ordinary court official. What you want is to dominate the world and control Tiansheng, isn’t that right?”
Feng Zhi Wei slowly raised her eyes to look at him and let out a noncommittal smile, “Oh?”
“You appear to be neutral, a trusted confidant of the emperor, but anyone with a discerning eye can see that you are secretly colluding with that immensely powerful Prince Chu of Tiansheng. Without your assistance, be it intentional or not, he has been happily killing off his brothers one after another. Yet, not only has his reputation remained intact, but he has been praised universally for it. Ning Yi, that’s one who is determined to seize the throne. In my opinion, if anything happens to the old emperor, there would be no one in the imperial court who would be a match against him. And you, as his most capable ally, will undoubtedly rise above all, second only to him.” Jin Siyu smiled, lifted her chin, and looked deeply into her eyes, “Wei Zhi, Shaoyao Er, did Ning Yi promise to give you power over the world?” (While “world” is the correct translation here, but it means all the land a particular emperor controls, since one particular emperor obviously doesn’t have power over the whole world…as much as they would very much like that to be true.)
Feng Zhi Wei looked at him with a smile. Inwardly, she was feeling a bit of admiration. Despite being in a far distant country, with just a scattering of information, he was able to make deductions that were nearly spot on. More accurate than many of those who were the very players themselves.
But, the key point is that…he still guessed wrong…
Still, given his standpoint, it was only natural that he would reach such a conclusion.
Jin Siyu stood up, his long sleeves cascading down, forming a slender, tall silhouette in the backlight. Such a gentle man, yet, from the side, he looked striking and resolute. In the dim light, he turned back to look at Feng Zhi Wei, his gaze calm yet fierce.
“One of you. One of Ning Yi. One is like a wolf and the other is like a tiger. If such a pair of ruler and minister is formed, how can there be room for anyone else to sleep peacefully by? When that time comes, will Dayue ever see peace again?”
“Your Highness speaks as if Tiansheng is already ours, and Dayue is yours.” Feng Zhi Wei chuckled softly.
“Whether I am just sprouting arrogant nonsense or whether it is a future that will surely come to pass, I think you know the answer clearly in your heart.” Now that they are discussing geopolitics, Jin Siyu naturally showed the toughness and arrogance of an imperial prince who has troops under his leadership.
“So you want to keep me here? To clip Ning Yi’s wings and eliminate a potential future threat to Dayue?”
“I actually would rather that you are like what you said to me that year in Puyuan’s study– that one should not be bound by loyalty to a single country or person. A true national scholar is a national scholar no matter which nation he serves. I would rather, it be me who grants you power over the world.” Jin Siyu’s expression distant, with a hint of yearning but then immediately shook his head with a bitter smile, refuting his own thoughts. His expression turned cold, “By this point, even if you were to say such words again, I wouldn’t dare to believe you. So I will tell you in the most straightforward way— you value Ning Yi greatly, isn’t that right? Then, lets make a wager. What do you say.”
Feng Zhi Wei was noncommittal regarding her valuing Ning Yi. Sitting cross-legged, she replied once again with her casual indifference of “Oh?”
Her attitude of not caring about anything made Jin Siyu sigh again and again in his heart— If only she truly didn’t care about anything. But what’s more likely is that she had already gone over every detail in her mind countless times.
Thinking of how she had not denied his statement regarding her valuing Ning Yi, his gaze darkened for a moment, but quickly returned to normal and said, “I might possible do something to Ning Yi. Do you dare to stay by my side in order to protect him?”
Feng Zhi Wei let out a chuckle, “You are joking, right? If you attack Ning Yi, wouldn’t he protect himself? You going after Ning Yi, why would I stay by your side?”
“Aren’t you exceptionally intelligent? Aren’t you an expert at reading people’s heart? Only by staying by my side, will you know what I want to do, isn’t that right?” Jin Siyu smiled, as if everything was within his control, “What better way is there to control everything and to defeat me than to stay by my side?”
“Your Highness is actually using yourself as bait?” Feng Zhi Wei smiled.
Jin Siyu smiled without replying, his gaze deep and penetrating.
But Feng Zhi Wei said nothing more. Putting her hands behind her head, she lay down and stared at the ceiling, and said slowly, “Your Highness, you have spoken at great length today, taken many twists and detours to explain why you are keeping me here. You then proposed this wager. It all sounds reasonable, but in actuality, you are not trying to convince me, you are trying to convince yourself.”
Jin Siyu was silent for a bit. He turned his head away, the sunlight casting a soft golden glow on his thick eyelashes.
“I reject your wager.” Feng Zhi Wei said.
Jin Siyu immediately turned to look at her.
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
ps. Sorry if the picture I chose for this week got any of your hope up about seeing Ning Yi. Hopefully you guys have figured out this book is actually all about our heroine…and the hero is just a lovely dessert on the side. Anyhow, I figured the picture was appropriate since Jin Siyu was thinking there must be something romantic going on between our two leads…which he is not wrong, but the truth is quite a bit more complicated than that.
Si, ilusión aparte del reencuentro entre
Feng Zhi Wei y Ning Yi. Quiero dar las gracias a usted por su trabajo para que leamos la versión original. Ya perdi la cuenta y el año desde que leo su traducción…gracias miles por su trabajo! Ahora puedo entender porqué el público chino, perdió el interés y estaba molesto con la serie. Han cambiado el final, han cambiado la historia, destruyendo una novela que ha tenido súper trama, intriga, acciones, romances….espero que otros actores un día vuelvan hacer la obra y los guionistas se ajusten al original y los artistas seleccionados sean más románticos en las escenas que lo lleva. Estoy esperando la trama de ellos en el bote, cuando Feng Zhi Wei domina a Ning Yi y ella decide tener sexo…saludos Ninja mucha salud para ustedes y la comunidad que espera sus escritos!