Chapter 74

Chapter 74: [Extra] Baili Ying and Wen Junzhi

When Baili Ying was five years old, her aunt Baili Xin took her to the palace, supposedly to get a good education with the princes. She had her own home; what good could come from living in someone else’s?

But Baili Ying couldn’t fight back, and neither could her mother Baili Jiao. The scholar was good, but he gave too much homework. Baili Ying didn’t want to shame her mother, and she hated the idea that girls were worse than boys, so she studied hard and did her assignments well.

Then, the scholar praised her. Once, twice, three times…

Before she could lift her head proudly while living under someone else’s roof, her finished homework disappeared. It seemed like the start of small troubles, or maybe the beginning of everything going bad.

Her completed homework vanished, her books got stained with ink and grease, and pastry crumbs covered her brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone. She told the scholar she had done the work, the books weren’t her fault, and she didn’t know where the crumbs came from.

The palace servants who served her smiled and apologized to the scholar, saying she hadn’t done the homework because she was playing in secret, the books got dirty while she ate and dozed off, and the pastry crumbs were definitely from her snacks.

Baili Ying didn’t know if the scholar believed them. Because after a few days, the school got new teachers.

Her homework, which she hid close and didn’t lose, never got praised again, even though she peeked at the princes’ work and thought their dog-brained writing was much worse than hers.

The books she memorized well were never asked for recitation, while those dog-brained boys stumbled through just a bit and got praised over and over.

She refused to accept it. She rushed to recite before the boys, fluently and fast, but the teacher cut her off, telling her not to be rude and interrupt.

Back then, young Baili Ying didn’t understand that some people didn’t deserve to be called teachers.

Just like she didn’t understand why trying harder only made things worse.

Mud on her desk, something rotten on her chair, and lying servants bringing salty food that needed rice to eat but no rice…

Baili Ying got fed up and complained to her aunt. Her aunt just smiled and said, "You’re just a kid, it’s fine to be lazy and forget homework, but lying is bad." Then she took Baili Ying to see clean desks and chairs, tasted the normal food that day, and her smile turned strict. Baili Ying didn’t get fairness—she got punishment copying.

After half a year, Baili Ying finally saw her mother come to the palace. But her mother couldn’t protect her; she just cried and told Baili Ying to be dumber, even dumber, and more obedient, even more obedient.

Not handing in homework or reciting books didn’t make the meanness go away. Since those in power allowed it, bending her weak back didn’t stop it.

The mud on her desk never washed off, and strange animal corpses rotted on her chair day after day. At night, the doors and windows of her room in the Empress’s palace, locked tight, would open quietly. Summer brought flies and mosquitoes, winter brought cold, and slowly, bugs and rodents "sneaking through cracks" came…

Baili Ying tried to adapt from age five to seven. Just when she was almost ignoring the pointless meanness, new things started.

"Kind and weak" palace servants, "fair-minded" study mates, wives of ministers who visited the Empress’s palace with "motherly" feelings… Gentle kindness touched young Baili Ying, then turned into demon laughs when she trusted them.

Unlike the fake, surface-level bad things clearly done by the dog-brained, these later tricks cut deep with real knives.

Even a young child, tricked too much, grows a new brain.

That day, Baili Ying didn’t want to go. It was her old study mate who "shared her interests" and "spoke up for her," but ended up laughing at her uselessness and gullibility with the dog-brained.

Even though they had fallen out completely, when the little mate rolled up her sleeves to show bruises and begged to meet quietly in a garden, Baili Ying softened.

But in that quiet garden, she didn’t find her mate. Instead, she saw a strange palace servant lying in the weeds by the lake, seeming lifeless. Then she felt the pain of lake water flooding in.

That was Baili Ying’s first time so close to death. After over two years of unfairness and repeated betrayals, as she gasped and swallowed mouthfuls of water, she even… thought dying might be okay.

Many years later, when Baili Ying tasted wine for the first time, her tongue loosened by drunkenness. Between tears and laughter, she confessed to the Deposed Crown Prince Jiang Wu of the neighboring kingdom: "Have you ever seen the brightest light in utter darkness? Truly… truly astonishing! That feeling when death seems certain, your soul ready to flee—only for someone to snatch it back, pressing it firmly into your body. At that moment, I thought: even if this were another deception, I’d accept it. Let them deceive me—for a lifetime, or just that instant—then let me die right after."

Baili Ying didn’t perish in that secluded lake. Instead, Wen Junzhi, who dove in to save her with a grievous head wound, nearly lost her life.

Initially, Baili Xin refused to believe Baili Ying had truly regressed to childlike simplicity and kept her in the palace for two more years.

Those two years became Baili Ying’s happiest.

Wen Junzhi—the palace attendant she’d schemed and acted foolish to keep beside her—treated her with incomparable kindness. Yet Baili Ying, scarred by past betrayals, couldn’t fathom herself deserving such warmth…

Two years later, Baili Xin released her from the palace. She took Wen Junzhi with her.

Outside, Wen Junzhi no longer needed to storm the imperial kitchens to secure her good meals, chase off cruel attendants with dead branches, or intercept meddlers before they reached the emperor to shield her from their schemes.

Back at Baili Jiao’s residence, though Baili Ying continued feigning simplicity, their lives improved.

Well, for Wen Junzhi, at least.

Baili Ying preferred their days when they depended on each other in the palace—after leaving, pretending by day meant studying through secret tunnels at night, no longer able to cling to Wen Junzhi as they slept.

The safe warmth of Wen Junzhi’s embrace, the books patiently read aloud even when she pretended not to understand, those odd lullabies… all remained vividly etched in Baili Ying’s memory long after she grew up.

If it was deceit, Baili Ying wished it endless.

If salvation, she’d never let it end.

When Du Yinsui appeared, Baili Ying confessed every hidden truth over the years—except her feelings. Fearful, she couldn’t voice that affection aloud.

She knew Du Yinsui would tell Wen Junzhi.

But… unsaid, it couldn’t be rejected.

A futile evasion, Baili Ying hoped to hide until she was older—sixteen, perhaps?

Wen Junzhi was furious yet still overthrew Baili Xin as planned, elevating mother and daughter to power.

Though devoted to her mother, Baili Ying knew true strength was needed to protect loved ones. After a quiet midnight talk, it was she who ascended the throne.

Yet the one she wished to shield seemed determined to slip away.

At sixteen, Baili Ying could evade no longer. At a banquet, she drank half a jar of wine, hoping liquor might steady her tongue whenever it tangled on this subject.

But she hadn’t expected…

The wine drunk.

Her mind fogged.

The outcome?

A beating.

Her first from Wen Junzhi.

Not when she’d feigned idiocy through extremes, not after deceiving Wen Junzhi for eight years—yet now, merely drunk? Hazily, she recalled not even confessing! But the next dawn, sobering, Wen Junzhi pinned her across knees and… spanked her.

Honestly—wasn’t that… rather intimate?～

Thus, Jin Kingdom’s Empress Baili Ying suffered two swift beatings within a year of her reign.

First: after drunken revelry at the Chancellor’s manor, Chancellor Wen hauled her up at dawn for discipline.

Second: that same noon.

Du Yinsui burst into Wen Manor, eyes red, slamming letters onto the table. She demanded the Empress repeat every drunken word spilled to Zhao Kingdom’s Deposed Crown Prince Jiang Wu the prior night.

Provoked by Baili Ying’s ramblings, Jiang Wu had slipped away to seek glory and "power." So, with her backside still stinging, Empress Baili Ying found herself locked in Wen Junzhi’s quarters—spanked once more.

Years later, the Empress’s journal reflected:

"Twice in one day… really, wasn’t that… far too intimate?～～"