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"Well, she's one of the Six Ministries of the Eastern Order, so you can just keep treating her like a man. Anyway, let's start the meeting as usual. Longyang, my dear official, you've been inhaling that puff of smoke for quite a while now. Is it really okay if you don't exhale it yet?"

"Cough, cough, cough--" Longyang's coughs slipped into Zhu Bafu's ears, and she let out an inner snort of laughter. This guy was definitely dumbfounded by her women's attire, but the Holy Emperor's next sentence made Zhu Bafu unable to keep snickering.

"Xiaojing, is the tea cup in your hand that pretty? You've held it for so long without taking a single sip?"

Clang.

The crisp sound of colliding porcelain made her involuntarily raise her head. A face she hadn't seen in days broke into her field of vision in an instant. Eyebrows, eyes, nose, and lips were all utterly familiar, and intimate scenes from the past flooded into her mind. The hot current surging from her chest to her fingertips dyed her pupils with heat as well. He was looking at her too. The tea cup he had raised was clearly about to reach his lips, yet it stopped at an awkward, halfway-up, neither-too-near-nor-too-far height, remaining completely motionless. His eyelashes didn't flicker for a single second, and his lips parted slightly as if he had something to say. Suddenly remembering that there were still several unhealed granulation pink scars on her face, she lowered her head and stiffly avoided his gaze. When she stole another peek, those two thin lips had already slowly closed and silenced themselves.

"Lord Zhu truly deserves to have cockroach-like regenerative powers. I thought this face of yours was completely ruined, but seeing it today, it's not too bad." What shocked Long