The Command to Pamper the Husband - Chapter 192

Song Jin was stunned. “What if I can’t resist?”

She was shocked by her own words. Was whether she would take concubines really the main point?

The Crown Prince looked at Song Jin with a grieved expression. “Then I can only follow the example of all Empresses and have those concubines accidentally fall into a well.”

Seeing his resentful eyes, Song Jin couldn’t help but twitch her eyelids.

“Did you really see my father?” Song Jin still found it hard to accept.

The Crown Prince nodded. “With me protecting you here in the capital, that’s enough. Even if Song Dingzhong came, he couldn’t manage without my help. So why waste more manpower here? What needs to be solved is the matter of you and Shen Yue swapping bodies.”

“You mean, my father went to find an expert?” Song Jin asked.

The Crown Prince hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Yes.”

It was just a brief moment, but Song Jin caught it. The Crown Prince was hiding something from her.

“What is it?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?” The Crown Prince avoided her gaze.

“Why won’t you tell me?” Song Jin persisted.

The Crown Prince sighed. “He’s also looking for the antidote to the Thousand Mechanisms poison.”

Song Jin’s eyes widened.

Her father had gone to find these things. Indeed, they were important. Otherwise, even if she avenged herself, she wouldn’t survive.

She was the last bloodline of the late Emperor and Empress. She had to stay alive. That was Song Dingzhong’s belief and persistence.

But Song Jin clearly remembered that Master Deqing had said there was no cure for the Thousand Mechanisms Gu poison. There were only medicines to suppress the poison.

Moreover, anyone poisoned by the Gu couldn’t have children. The poison would be passed to her offspring and husband.

Thinking of a husband, Song Jin glanced at the Crown Prince for no reason.

The Crown Prince said softly, “Don’t worry, we will find everything.”

Song Jin forced a smile, said nothing, and put a small dried fish in her mouth.

After a long silence, Song Jin suddenly asked, “Did my father cooperate with you?”

The Crown Prince nodded.

“But why? My father chose Shen Yue before.”

The Crown Prince smiled. “That’s because Song Dingzhong didn’t know who I was.”

“Who are you?”

The Crown Prince smiled warmly at Song Jin. “Your Empress.”

Song Jin choked on the dried fish.

The Crown Prince raised his hand to wipe the crumbs from her mouth. “In the past, I didn’t know you were still alive. I didn’t know Song Dingzhong was the same man who served the late Empress. I thought all of you were gone in that massacre.”

When the Crown Prince mentioned the massacre, Song Jin’s expression became solemn.

“Your father killed my family.”

The Crown Prince’s warm fingers pressed against Song Jin’s lips.

“He is him, and I am me. Since Song Dingzhong chose to trust me, you should too, okay?”

“How do I know my father chose to trust you?”

The Crown Prince took out a jade pendant from his waist. “Here.”

Song Jin took it and looked.

The jade pendant was hers, the one she gave to Song Dingzhong before leaving Yuzhou.

“If Song Dingzhong didn’t trust me, why would he give me this?”

As he spoke, the Crown Prince took the jade pendant from Song Jin’s hand and carefully hung it back on his waist. “This is our token of love.”

Song Jin’s face twisted as she looked at the Crown Prince.

How could he twist everything into a romantic context?

“This is what I gave my father, in case of emergencies.”

And it turned out there really was an emergency.

The Crown Prince took out another jade pendant and handed it to Song Jin.

“This is mine. Now it belongs to you.”

Song Jin took it, puzzled.

The jade pendant was almost identical to hers, the only difference being that it was slightly smaller.

“What is this?”

The Crown Prince smiled. “A token of love.”

Song Jin was speechless.

The Crown Prince held Song Jin’s hand and said seriously, “It truly is a token of love. Back then, you weren’t born yet. My mother and your mother arranged this. If you were a girl, you’d marry me. If you were a boy, I’d support you to become a great Emperor.”

Song Jin looked at the jade pendant in her hand.

“So, you are not the Crown Prince.”

If he were truly the Emperor’s son, they would be cousins.

Cousins couldn’t be betrothed as childhood sweethearts!

The Crown Prince shook his head. “Who I am doesn’t matter. I only know that since I learned you are the owner of the pendant, I have been overjoyed. My mother made a good match for me back then.”

Song Jin tilted her head, looking at the Crown Prince.

“But who you are matters to me.”

“Does it?”

“You know who I am, but I don’t know who you are.”

Song Jin’s eyes were stubborn as she looked at the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince gazed back at her with unyielding tenderness, though his smile gradually faded. After a while, he sighed helplessly.

“Back then, the late Empress led her army, invincible in battle. By her side was always a deputy general named Zhou Qisheng. When Zhou Qisheng was ten, the Empress saved him from evil men. From then on, he entered the late Empress’s army camp. Grateful for his life-saving grace, he was fearless on the battlefield, incredibly brave. That year, the Empress was thirteen, but she became Zhou Qisheng’s only god.”

Song Jin found the name Zhou Qisheng unfamiliar, but an old dream surfaced in her mind.

Black-clad men stormed a mansion, slaughtering all the elderly, women, and children inside.

Recalling the dream, she vaguely remembered the mansion’s plaque: Zhou Residence.

“Are you Zhou Qisheng’s son?”

The Crown Prince nodded.

“My mother was the late Empress’s most favored maid. Many said the great general married my mother because he loved the late Empress and took my mother as a substitute. Others said the Emperor used this to humiliate the great general.”

A great general marrying the Empress’s maid, even if the maid was favored, still…

To the world, this explanation made sense.

“But my father only respected the late Empress without any romantic feelings. As for my mother, it was love at first sight.”

Speaking of his parents, the Crown Prince’s expression softened.

But then, his gentle expression was replaced by a fierce chill.

“I saw my parents fall in a pool of blood.”

Song Jin was silent.

She wanted to say that she, too, had seen her parents fall in a pool of blood.

“Then how did you become the Crown Prince?”

The Crown Prince was much older than her.

The Crown Prince smiled. “The Crown Prince back then was not favored because his mother’s status was low. So, he was sent to a manor to be raised. My father’s deputy general saved me at the cost of his life. They thought about it and sent me to that manor. Then, they burned the manor, and I became the Crown Prince who miraculously survived.”

Song Jin was speechless.

“Nobody suspected?”

The Crown Prince shook his head with a smile. “At that time, who would suspect? He couldn’t even secure his own throne. He had no time to question my identity. Moreover, everyone who had seen me was dead. When the new Emperor ascended the throne, he needed a son. At that time, I was his only choice.”