Ye Shu was so frightened that he almost fell straight off the bed.

It was a good thing that imperial physician Feng was close to him and gave him a hand in the nick of time.

Jin Wang quickly approached and held up Ye Shu. “Careful. Are you alright ba?”

“……alright,” Ye Shu shivered guiltily for a moment and then grasped Jin Wang’s clothes. “Why did Your Majesty come back so early today?”

“There was nothing of great consequence at the court session today, so Gu left a bit earlier.” Jin Wang idly stroked Ye Shu’s hair and added, “Recently you keep saying that you’re bored just lying in bed these days, so Gu thought Gu should come back early to keep you company.”

……Who would have thought that as soon as he arrived, he would hear this man asking another person to hide something from him.

Jin Wang had been the ruler for many years. He knew that the most taboo secrets were the ones that must not be divulged, especially when they came from this man’s mouth.

It was definitely nothing good.

These thoughts ran through Jin Wang’s mind as he softly asked, “What were you and Imperial Physician Feng talking about?”

Ye Shu, “……”

“Gu seems to have heard you say to the Imperial Physician that something must not be made known to Gu?” Jin Wang’s eyes narrowed slightly, his voice calm and gentle, “What secrets do you and the Imperial Physician have that you want to hide from Gu?”

Ye Shu didn’t dare to respond. Jin Wang tilted his head to look at the physician by the side. “Maybe Imperial Physician Feng can tell?”

Physician Feng glanced at Ye Shu in Jin Wang’s arms, and he didn’t dare to speak either.

Jin Wang calmly said, “Do you know what the punishment is for tricking the monarch?”

Physician Feng fell to his knees. “Your Majesty, calm your anger!”

“It was all my idea. Don’t take it out on him.” Ye Shu grabbed Jin Wang’s wrist.

It had been a long time since Jin Wang had spoken in such a tone in his presence, and when he did, it proved that he was angry.

And angry as hell he was.

Jin Wang paid no heed to him, and continued to question physician Feng, “Say it.”

A layer of cold sweat rose on physician Feng’s back. He gazed at the attendants standing not far away and said in a low voice, “Can Your Majesty please dismiss the attendants?”

“No,” Jin Wang sneered. “What shameful matter is it that you cannot even say it in front of others?”

Jin Wang’s tone allowed no refutation. “Just say it.”

“This…” Physician Feng looked utterly hesitant.

Concubine An is pregnant with someone else’s child. How can such a thing be said in the presence of so many people?

Wouldn’t His Majesty lose face if he spoke this out loud?

No way would he say it at present.

The atmosphere in the hall momentarily came to a standstill.

Physician Feng didn’t answer for a long time. Jin Wang ran out of patience and ordered insipidly, “Drag him out and punish him with a caning of fifty strokes. We’ll put off this discussion until after the punishment.”

“Stop!” Ye Shu suddenly spoke. “It was me who wanted the imperial physician to help me make the medicine!”

Jin Wang lowered his head and asked, “What medicine?”

Feeling his gaze cast down upon him, Ye Shu gulped and said with difficulty, “This medicine is……is for Your Majesty.”

Jin Wang, “?”

Physician Feng, “???”

All eyes in the hall immediately focused on Ye Shu, who summoned up his courage and said, “Your Majesty…hasn’t touched me…for quite some time now… It’s too much for my heart to bear, so I could only come up with this solution…”

“……”

Jin Wang was stumped.

All the attendants who had followed him back to the bedchamber were even more stupefied.

They heard that His Majesty summoned the noble consort to serve him every day and that Yangxin Hall was full of song and dance every night, so how come His Majesty had not touched the other? It was at a point where he even needed to take medicine for treatment?

Could it be that…His Majesty actually had an……unmentionable venereal disease in that area?

Was arranging for the noble consort to live in Yangxin Hall actually to keep the matter from spreading out?

Physician Feng’s expression was blank.

Did… Did it have to be explained in such a way?

Indeed, worthy of his reputation as Minister Ye.

After a moment of silence, Jin Wang was the first to come back to his senses.

The Kunjun would be in great demand after pregnancy, and he had not really been intimate with this man for the past two months. This man restrained himself day and night until he finally couldn’t help but seek help from the physician.

Physician Feng, under Jin Wang’s orders, didn’t dare to speak about the pregnancy, so he had to barely conceal it and let things be understood like this.

He couldn’t be blamed.

Jin Wang lowered his head to look at Ye Shu.

The latter was clutching his clothes gingerly, with a trace of grievance in his eyes, looking slightly frightened by him.

With this look, Jin Wang’s heart immediately became soft, and he blurted out in a trance, “…have wronged you.”

Ye Shu, “…”

Physician Feng, “……”

The attendants, “?????”

Having said that, Jin Wang felt that something was not quite right. “……”

Jin Wang pressed the space between his brows and in a deep voice, ordered, “All of you, get out.”

The crowd promptly withdrew from Yangxin Hall, and physician Feng, lingering at the end, couldn’t help but take one last glance at Ye Shu.

His Majesty sat down on the bedside and gently held the other in his embrace. 

As expected of Minister Ye.

This way, it wouldn’t be problematic to conceal the abortion from Concubine An and it could be done in complete secrecy.

Physician Feng hadn’t returned to himself even when he was out of the hall. Even when someone asked him something, he just casually nodded his head without hearing what was said. Then, as if closely guarding a secret, he turned around and slowly left Yangxin Hall.

Hiding merits.

In the hall, Jin Wang took a cushion, placed it beneath Ye Shu’s lower back, and helped him to lie down.

Ye Shu grabbed the quilt to wrap himself up, his eyes fixed on Jin Wang, not uttering a word. He had spent the past few days in bed recuperating, and his complexion was much better than before, and his face had also rounded up a bit.

Too cute to look at.

The two looked at each other in silence.

The atmosphere was momentarily somewhat electric.

Jin Wang coughed lightly and stroked his hair. “Gu has wronged you all this time.”

“But that was for a reason.”

“It’s not… It’s not what you think it is.”

Ye Shu, hid the abortion pill in his arms and pretended to be wronged. “Then why? Is Your Majesty not interested in me anymore?”

Jin Wang immediately replied, “Of course not.”

Ye Shu felt the bottle through his clothes.

I advise you to think it over before you speak.

Ye Shu thought expressionlessly.

Jin Wang lowered his eyes to look at him and said earnestly, “A-Shu, the way Gu has treated you so far was never due to a whim.”

Ye Shu’s eyes twitched slightly.

“It is all because of the way I treated you in the past that you can’t even trust me now,” He brushed the hair on Ye Shu’s temples and sighed, “A-Shu, no matter what misunderstandings there are between us, I would never lie to you.”

Ye Shu turned his head and looked away, then asked in a low voice, “Then… Then do you have something not telling me?”

Jin Wang looked at him fixedly, in a rare moment of transparency, “Yes.”

Ye Shu subconsciously grasped the quilt on his body, with some inexplicable tension. “What is it?”

Jin Wang fell silent.

He took longer to think this time than before, and after a moment, he replied, “I can’t talk about it right now.”

Ye Shu’s heart instantly flared up. “When will you be ready to talk about it then?”

Could it be that he was planning on tricking him into giving birth to the child first?

“A-Shu, I don’t want to avoid talking to you about it any more, just that this is really not the time to talk about it,” Jin Wang said. “The Great Yan’s envoy will arrive in the capital tomorrow. I hope you can give me some more time.”

Recently, Jin Wang had been considering whether to reveal it all to Ye Shu, but he couldn’t make up his mind nor could he find the opportunity.

It also happened that the foreign envoy was scheduled to arrive in the capital. 

The situation in the capital was at its most chaotic when foreign officials were coming to the court. He couldn’t afford for anything to happen to this man right now.

Jin Wang closed his eyes and said in a low voice, “Give me a few more days, I will definitely tell you everything. I will let you be at your discretion then. Whatever you decide, I will not object.”

He gazed fixedly into Ye Shu’s eyes with a rare serious expression, his facial features looking more handsome than usual against the black and gold of his court clothes.

Ye Shu didn’t want to push him any more. With a sigh, he compromised, “Alright ba, I’ll give you seven more days then.”

This little brat had been with him for so long, it wouldn’t hurt to keep him for another seven days.

If you don’t spill the truth after seven days, then you can kiss goodbye to your pup.

Jin Wang nodded. “Okay, just seven days.”

There was still time before lunch. Ye Shu stretched his body and was about to take another nap, but saw Jin Wang still sitting on the bedside, gazing at him.

Ye Shu asked, “Your Majesty’s not busy today? What are you still doing here gazing at me instead of attending to your affairs?”

Jin Wang smiled and pinched the side of Ye Shu’s face. “If Gu leaves now, what should you do?”

Ye Shu, “?”

Jin Wang lifted the quilt from Ye Shu’s body, leaned down and embraced him, dropping a kiss on the side of his ear. “Gu hasn’t touched you these few days with you being in bed rest, and you were thinking so much about it?”

“……”

Ye Shu stiffened and reached out to push him. “N…No…”

“Why are you still bashful in front of Gu? If you don’t want to, why did you ask the Imperial Physician for it?”

As Jin Wang spoke, his fingers slowly swept across the side of Ye Shu’s waist.

Ye Shu shuddered all over, his waist softened in a split second. He had been so sensitive recently that he couldn’t endure being touched by this man. 

Ye Shu relieved his strength, yielded to but feigning to be willy-nilly, and was soon pressed into the bed.

Jin Wang was about to untie his clothes when he came across a hard object.

His hand reached into Ye Shu’s arms and drew out a jade bottle. “What’s this?”

Ye Shu was feeling quite pleased being thrown into deliriousness by Jin Wang when he heard the latter, opening his eyes in a daze, and instantly sobered up, “!!!”

He subconsciously reached out to grab it, but Jin Wang sharply dodged. He could only grit his teeth and say, “It’s… It’s from the Imperial Physician.”

“From the Imperial Physician?” Jin Wang nodded in recognition. “This is the medicine you wanted to give to Gu?”

Ye Shu, “……”

Jin Wang wasn’t angry at all, but on the contrary, he thought Ye Shu was really cute.

Gu hadn’t touched him for barely a few days, and he already couldn’t help but give Gu this drug.

This little fool.

Jin Wang poured out the brown pill and fiddled with it in his fingers, tilting his head and asking him, “Do you want Gu to take it?”

So long as Ye Shu nodded, he would immediately take it.

Ye Shu, “……”

Take it if you dare. If you don’t, it’s A-Wang.

Ye Shu looked at him expressionlessly. Jin Wang merely put the pill back and tossed the jade bottle onto the bed.

“Little fool, Gu doesn’t need it.”

Jin Wang pressed him back onto the bed and spoke softly in his ear, “You know inside your heart whether I’m capable or not, don’t you?”

“If Gu really takes this pill, the one who won’t be able to stand it will be you.”