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"Your Highness... no, I should call you Your Majesty now." Li Danxin shook her head, then looked up at him again. "You've grown quite a bit taller, too."

"What good does being taller or more handsome do me now? Alas, when you married, my dear sister, I was still a mere stripling. Otherwise, no other man would have stood a chance. I would have brought you into the palace as my bride and made you Empress." He wrung his hands in regret and kept shaking his head.

Li Danxin raised her sleeve to hide her lips and laughed. "That tongue of yours hasn't changed a bit. Such nonsense."

"Nonsense? You don't believe me?" The moment he found himself doubted, he puffed out his lips, determined to prove his sincerity. "Fine, fine! I'll send the palace sedan that brought you here back at once. You'll stay in the palace, claimed by me, and never be allowed to leave! Attendants, prepare a palace for my first love. I'll spend tonight with her."

As he made these solemn vows, he took her hand and tried to draw her into his arms. "For you, my dear sister, even becoming a benighted ruler who steals his subject's lovely wife would be worth it."

The more Li Danxin listened, the more wrong his words sounded. She swallowed with difficulty and edged two steps backward, discreetly avoiding His Majesty's unruly dragon claws. "Your Majesty, please stop teasing this guilty woman. I..."

His fingers, left hanging above Li Danxin's shoulder, twitched awkwardly. He gazed at his empty hand, a faint disappointment in his voice. "It seems my love really was one-sided back then. I haven't even touched anything yet, and already you're dodging me like this. You truly wound my heart."

"But now that I am the Son