Chapter 3 Enjoy the Days Ahead
"What are you thinking?" Li Yuancheng held the medicinal soup and fed me.
I took a shallow sip. "I was wondering whether this child is a boy or a girl."
He answered, "Let it be as it will."
He had long known the child in my belly was a son.
There was a secret medicine in the palace for bearing sons. That was the medicine Li Yuancheng had made me take.
His birth mother had conceived him after taking it too.
I had drifted in the palace as a soul for ten years, and I still had not figured out what that medicine truly was.
I rested my face against Li Yuancheng's chest. "I hope it is a son, so that when he grows he may share Your Highness's burdens."
He was silent for a while. "That would be good too."
Soon Xu Liuyi arrived.
The first thing she did after entering the hall was look at Li Yuancheng, her eyes full of tenderness.
After she paid her respects to us, she came to my side and spoke words of congratulations.
Her gaze fell on my belly. In her eyes was a certainty I had not noticed in my last life, as if she already had this in the bag.
She smiled at me. "Elder Sister, you must enjoy the days ahead."
In my last life I had thought she meant I should nourish the pregnancy well.
Only later did I know my death was near, and she had been mocking me in secret.
I answered, "We are all sisters in the palace. Do not waste such good days yourself."
She did not seem to catch the meaning in my words. She looked slightly smug. "This concubine will remember."
I did not want her that pleased.
I wanted her to conceive a child soon as well.
As for the one in my belly, I still had to keep it for now.
Keep it so the two of them would lower their guard.
So I pretended to feel dizzy. Li Yuancheng immediately grew tense and summoned the imperial physicians.
Xu Liuyi's face changed, as I had expected.
She had seemed to think that once I was pregnant, Li Yuancheng would no longer care about me.
It was true that Li Yuancheng was that sort of man. But the child was his. If he did not care about me, he still had to care about the child.
Li Yuancheng was extremely cautious. In my last life he had stayed with me until the child was born, and only after confirming it was a boy did he favor Xu Liuyi.
Now I wanted Xu Liuyi jealous, wanted her to draw Li Yuancheng to her side herself.
But before Li Yuancheng slept with her, I had to find that medicine that made a woman bear a male child for certain.