His Majesty And I ✔️

Should Be There

Chapter 78

Bai Shen Hong
Yuwen Hong
Emperor Huizhong

The sun shone despite the showers of rain, light pushing through the dark clouds and catching the falling droplets, and forming a misty shimmering curtain of untouchable vapour. Yuwen Hong shivered from the muddy ground he knelt on and coughed, his body still a servant to the remnants of the cold disease.

"Your Majesty, please let your servants do that for you," Court Lady Nam begged from behind. They knelt just like him because standing while he was on the ground would be imposing seniority on him, a taboo.

Yuwen Hong felt his heart constrict and stomach dip to the familiar pain. It was too much for him as always, to think of his helpless and alone Li Lian, being molested, lying at the bottom of the cliff, animals feeding on her. It was unimaginable, unreal and so absurd. So very, very unfair.

Of all the people, why his Li Lian? Why the woman he cared for the most and the one who was the definition of his happiness?

For a while, just for a while he had begun to let go of his father's death and decided to truly live, but reality slapped him in the face, reminding him why unlucky people like him were fated to be alone, bitter and vengeful. It was the only thing they could live on, feeding on hatred and getting strength from seeing the suffering of others, just so they wouldn't be mindful of their own.

He lifted the heavy brown flower pot and started to deal with it. "Did you look for more lotus flower seedlings as I ordered?"

"Answering to His Majesty. The man who is known for growing all types of flowers in all seasons said he no longer has any, after someone placed an emergency order for all the lotus flowers he had."

"Very well, go to the buyer and buy them back."

"Apparently, the buyer concealed his identity, we could not track him."

He pruned off the messy leaves in the pot. "My love, I guess you will have to wait for your favorite flowers when they are in season, instead of only having one like this." His hands patted the wall of the tomb. "I will also bring lavender flowers to scent your resting place, next time."

He tipped the clay pot to empty the dirty water and then refilled it with the clean water he came with. Lotus flowers did not survive in frosty weather, so hopefully they wouldn't experience extreme temperatures during this winter for the big pot of lotus flowers to survive.

Yuwen Hong pushed back the heavy clay pot to the tomb's entrance and stood up, which had his entourage doing the same and Court Lady Nam running to wipe off the mud on his black cloak.

He sadly looked at the tomb's entrance, dejected. So badly, he wanted to move Li Lian so that she would lie in his grand royal tomb they built for him already, a prominent place filled with all kinds of treasures and as wealthy as the dragon palace.

Li Lian deserved the best. However, the court would not allow him, enforcing that only an empress could lie in his tomb and that the South Wing had just fallen from Glory, abandoning the court and deciding to migrate from Nevoria. That made it even harder for Yuwen Hong to defend his woman, who was a South Wing clanswoman.

Yuwen Hong trembled as he stared at the cheap tomb with make-do patterns of clouds on it. Quite the obvious, she didn't deserve to be in such a place.

"Get ready for departure," he instructed his entourage, heartbroken that he wasn't able to speak his heart to Li Lian.

What could he tell her? When she was alive, he hadn't valued her, and now the same happened even in death. No wonder she died... Her soul sought for happiness, what he couldn't give her.