Chapter 952 A Secret Date of Two Intimate Lovers
Chu Liuyue was invited somewhere soon after he entered the Palace.
It was Moyan who invited him. She was waiting for him behind the flower shrubs. When seeing Chu Liuyue coming over, she hurried forward, bowed, and motioned for Chu Liuyue to follow her.
Chu Liuyue hesitated for a moment and then left with her.
As Shao Yanru’s private princ.i.p.al maid, Moyan was responsible for delivering messages for her master and Chu Liuyue, so she was very sophisticated.
They made several turns and finally arrived at a remote courtyard.
With the name “palace”, it was nothing but a small courtyard where people in the Imperial Palace laid their sundries. It only had a few small rooms, among which the main room was open, and Shao Yanru was standing at its door. On catching sight of Chu Liuyue, she became so excited that she lifted her dress and rushed to him. Unfortunately, she tripped and almost fell off in front of him.
Chu Liuyue subconsciously reached out to hold her, and Shao Yanru fell into his arms. She raised her head, looked at him tearfully, and greeted with deep affection, “Your Highness!”
Shao Yanru’s jade-like face and red lips made the clothes on her look ordinary and old.
She wore an upper outer garment in light pink and a long jade-white dress with several beads hanging on the edge. The dress was made from cheap materials that were usually for ordinary palace servants, but the model’s charming appearance made it look even glorious.
The beauty was still in Chu Liuyue’s arms. He felt her fragrant and warm body and looked at her watery eyes filled with affection and pain.
He could see that Shao Yanru did not live a good life in the Palace. He couldn’t help feeling bad for her pointed chin. “She has lost a lot of weight!”
With his head lowered, Chu Liuyue looked at Shao Yanru in his arms and didn’t say anything. He didn’t let her go, either.
“Your Highness!” Shao Yanru looked at him eagerly, and tears fell along her cheeks before she could say anything more. Even a cold-hearted person would feel softhearted when seeing a sad and aggrieved beauty like her, let alone Chu Liuyue, who had feelings for Shao Yanru.
His eyes became soft.
“Your Highness!” Shao Yanru called him again and suddenly pushed him away. “Your Highness, I... I just want to see your face one more time. You will be in my heart forever even if we are separated into two worlds! I... I have no regrets in this life. If there is a second life, please marry me early!”
Shao Yanru cried as she spoke, shedding drops of tears, miserable.
Then she turned around, covered her face, and was about to run away.
Chu Liuyue reached out to catch her sleeve, and Shao Yanru involuntarily fell into his arms again.
Because of Chu Liuyue’s gentleness, she couldn’t help bursting into tears. She stared at him without any intention of looking away.
“Your Highness, I only hope that you can understand my feelings! I don’t care about any other people but you.”
She sounded more and more pathetic.
Chu Liuyue reached out to wipe the tears on her face and said slowly, “You don’t have to do this.”
“You are everything in my life, Your Highness. Other people mean nothing to me. It doesn’t matter to me anymore whether I will spend the rest of my life in the Palace. I... I think it might be a good end. At least no one will disturb me. I can make it even if I live a much more bitter life!”
Shao Yanru was so sorrowful that she shed more tears, and her eyes were full of affection.
She was willing to suffer a lonely life in the Palace for Chu Liuyue’s sake! She could do anything only for the sake of him! How could a man not be moved by such affection?
Chu Liuyue took the handkerchief in Shao Yanru’s hand, gently wiped her tears, and coaxed her in a gentle voice, “Well, don’t cry. I didn’t say that I would give you up!”
“Your Highness... Do you mean what you said, Your Highness? Are you going to take care of me?” Shao Yanru widened her eyes in surprise and caught Chu Liuyue’s hand, excitedly begging for an exact answer and totally ignoring that they were intimately touching.
“But you and Prince Zhou...” Chu Liuyue paused, and the atmosphere became cold.
“I... I have nothing to do with Prince Zhou! Please trust me, Your Highness. Although he once confessed his love to me, I only have feelings for you. I won’t... ” Shao Yanru’s crystal tears dropped on Chu Liuyue’s hand.
“He also likes you and wants to marry you, doesn’t he?” Chu Liuyue frowned. Shao Yanru had good status, but the Empress might not necessarily approve of her.
“Prince Zhou has never said that he wants to marry me, and I have never offered such advice to him. He only said that he had a good feeling for me. But I didn’t want to listen to him and left early!” Shao Yanru looked at Chu Liuyue and said.
Hearing her explanation, Chu Liuyue became less suspicious. Actually, he didn’t believe that Chu Liuzhou would insist on marrying Shao Yanru. “It is hard for Chu Liuzhou to persuade the Empress, even if he falls in deep love with Shao Yanru. He has little freedom in his own marriage than me!
“Of course, Chu Liuzhou likes Shao Yanru. That was why he rushed over and said those words to me that day. He was just jealous of me winning Shao Yanru’s heart.”
He had thought about what had happened that day, and Shao Yanru once sent him a letter to explain it. But Chu Liuyue just ignored her and kept a suspicion in his heart from then on. At this moment, he felt much better after hearing Shao Yanru explain it without hesitation. “If that is the case, Chu Liuzhou’s behavior makes sense now.”
After all, Chu Liuyue and Chu Liuzhou hated each other very much.
“What about my father?” After thinking for a while, Chu Liuyue asked again. That was another knife in his heart that hurt him very much.
“No! How could you suspect that I made up to the Emperor just after I confessed my love for you? I am not that kind of woman who will do such a thing to enter the Palace! Whether you believe it or not, I... I will only say it once. It’s the Empress... It’s the Empress!” Shao Yanru burst into tears again.
Chu Liuyue was stunned. He held Shao Yanru’s hand tightly and asked, “The Empress set you up?”
“Yes! She did it because of Prince Zhou...” Shao Yanru choked with sobs, and her beautiful face was a mess.
Chu Liuyue patted her gently on the back and showed an angry face. “I can’t believe that it was the Empress who set up Shao Yanru! To make Chu Liuzhou give up Shao Yanru, she trapped Shao Yanru into entering the Imperial Palace disgracefully. How vicious she is!”
Thinking of this, he felt more pity for Shao Yanru. After all, he still had feelings for her. “There is a reason why she ends up like this!”
She looked really piteous with eyes filled with tears, which aroused his tender affection.
“In such a case as this, you have no other options,” Chu Liuyue said.
“I swear I will be only absorbed in you, Your Highness, no matter how the Empress forces me...” Shao Yanru’s face was red. Shy as she was, she said her promise out loud.
How could Chu Liuyue not be moved by such a sincere confession of love from a beauty like Shao Yanru? He held her tighter, and his heart missed a beat when her delicate body in his arms touched his.
However, loving he was, Chu Liuyue was well aware that they were in the Palace now, a place unsuitable for them to do that. Therefore, he slowly let go of Shao Yanru.
“Your Highness!” Shao Yanru said. Her cheeks had a bloom and her lips were as red as cherries, which made her look even more charming.
Shao Yanru’s delicate and charming lips reminded Chu Liuyue of another beautiful face. “Such lips should match that enchanting face! Even Shao Yanru looks plain when compared with her! I prefer the peony among flowers.
“Even when she shows an indifferent expression, she still looks incomparably gorgeous in the moonlight.”
“Your Highness...” Seeing Chu Liuyue in a daze, Shao Yanru called softly with a red face.
Chu Liuyue showed a cold face and said, “You leave first, and don’t ask to meet me so often!”
“Yes, Your Highness. If... if you need to inquire about something, I can help you! Though I live in a remote corner, it is still in the Imperial Palace!” Shao Yanru said in an increasingly soft voice with her affectionate eyes fixed on Chu Liuyue. Anyone who saw Shao Yanru like this would feel that the girl had put Chu Liuyue in her heart and had undying affection for him.
And Chu Liuyue was very satisfied that Shao Yanru was mindful of him anytime. But he didn’t ask her to do anything but just comforted her. “Stay in the Palace and keep yourself safe. I will send anything you need, but I won’t do it so often in case other people notice us.”
“I don’t need you to send anything to me, Your Highness. I... I just want you to keep me in your heart. So I can survive the tough life and keep waiting for you!” Shao Yanru looked at Chu Liuyue and said, considering everything for him. With black hair as soft as clouds, she looked more beautiful now.
“Well, you have to go now. I will inform you if necessary!” Chu Liuyue said.
“Yes, Your Highness! I’m leaving now. If someone else finds me here, it’s not good for you!” Shao Yanru said softly. She knew it was time to leave now.
“Too much is as bad as too little.” Shao Yanru knew that it was the best time to stop. She felt relieved after bringing Chu Liuyue under control. “Chu Liuyue is the most useful person. How can I give him up? With his help, Grandma and Father will think highly of me, and I will get more resources!”
As for Shao Jie’er, no one would care about her.
She bowed deeply to Chu Liuyue, and she turned to look back repeatedly at almost every step when she left.
Shao Yanru didn’t stop until she turned around and couldn’t see Chu Liuyue. The affection in her eyes was gone. She looked around and turned in another direction.
It led to the Buddha Hall, where Pushan Nun lived in the Palace and dealt with the affairs of the Buddha Hall...