It was a beautiful, gentle morning, perfect for morning exercise. His lips moved from bottom to top, then top to bottom, finally joining the beasts and thoroughly touching me. When I was dizzy and feverish, he whispered in my ear: “Don’t see him again.”
“Who?”
“Yan Huo.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “Who is Yan Huo?”
He was stunned, then laughed like a cat that had stolen cream, covering me with countless kisses and adding several more red marks on my neck.
Of course, I knew the Emperor of Xiliang, Yan Huo, was the “merchant” Zheng Huo who had once sparked a small flame with me. However, playing dumb at the right moment was indeed effective, even my clever husband would fall for it.
Clearly, my husband was well aware of my past with Yan Huo, and while I maintained a calm exterior, I was secretly delighted: during those three years after his failed proposal, he must have been constantly paying attention to my every move…
The Three Kingdoms’ competition was about to begin. To prevent any favoritism, all qualifiers would compete anonymously, only receiving their position markers on the day of the competition. My elder brother had been through multiple screenings and finally qualified.
He had originally wanted to enter cuju, but when I mentioned how muddy cuju could be, far less glamorous than horse hunting, he changed his mind.
The competition judges were from the Eastern Palace of Qi Kingdom, the Second Princess of Nan Rui, and the Emperor of Xiliang. Despite the slogans of fairness, justice, openness, and eliminating unfair competition, I still felt something was amiss, especially after hearing that Song Daren’s playboy son and the superficial scholar Feng Yuxi had also qualified. I suspected they were likely passed through hidden rules by the Eastern Palace.
In the long-standing Three Kingdoms competition, whenever a family member entered the contest, the women of the family would embroider a red silk scarf and tie it to the right arm of the participant, with either a name or a picture embroidered on it. Miaoyin secretly embroidered one and asked me to give it to my elder brother, with both their names on it.
