"How about it? It's not as if I'm the sort of person who would casually get together with just anyone."
"Let's forget it. I'm afraid that if you stay by my side, I'll end up just like Emperor Dai." Xu Ran shook his head. He felt that Empress Zhu was no pushover.
"Do you think you can't handle me? As long as you're strong enough, I won't fall in love with anyone else. If that really doesn't work, you can just make me wear that and keep me under control." Zhu Liya seemed determined to say something shocking.
This? An empress?
Why did she seem like a veteran of some club?
Good grief.
The contrast between her status as empress and her actual personality was rather stark.
Still, Xu Ran did not find it completely incomprehensible.
In a stifling place like the imperial palace, almost everyone's personality would become warped. In his previous life, historians had studied far too many emperors with strange quirks.
That went even more for an empress, whose life was more stifling than the emperor's. Shut away in the harem all year round, surrounded by palace maids, unable to see even a single man-being repressed for so long really could twist someone, so seeking those thrills was normal enough.
"Are you trying to goad me?" Xu Ran curled his lip. Empress Zhu certainly understood men's temperaments.
"Don't tell me you can't? You dared to take liberties with me before, so why are you turning your nose up at me now?" Zhu Liya demanded, a hint of sourness in her voice.
"Ahem."
Xu Ran rubbed his nose.
"I'm not asking you to take responsibility. If I'm not afraid, what are you afraid of? You've kept all those women around you perfectly obedient, and you're afraid of me?