A breeze came in through the window, stirring the hem of his white sleeve. Jing Jiu looked down at her and said, "You're very clever."
Empress Dowager Hu lowered her head and said nothing.
Jing Jiu sat down in a chair, glanced at the distance between it and the Soft Couch, and raised his brows slightly. "Yes, killing you would be the simplest solution, but I won't do that, because His Majesty asked something of me before he left."
Empress Dowager Hu could no longer hold back. She raised her head to look at him, her face bewildered. "What do you mean by that? Could it be... you're saying His Majesty decided before he left that I... wouldn't remain faithful? That in his eyes, I was certain to defile the palace... and that's why he begged you to spare my life?"
The more she thought about it, the more upset she became. With tears in her eyes, she said, "I may be a fox spirit, but I'm not that kind of person! How could His Majesty think that of me?"
Jing Jiu was silent for a while, then said, "Yes, you're not that kind of person, so that wasn't what he meant either."
Empress Dowager Hu opened her large, uncomprehending eyes wide and asked, "Then why did His Majesty ask this of you in advance?"
"Fox demons love deeply and passionately. His Majesty was worried that after his death, you would be too grief-stricken to move on, and might even follow him..."
Jing Jiu looked at her and said calmly, "That wasn't what he wanted to see. He wanted you to live happily."
Empress Dowager Hu stared blankly at him, not understanding what he meant.
More than a hundred years ago, on the day His Majesty the Divine Emperor left