Beneath the wisteria trellis, the Crown Prince knelt.
He clutched the hem of his subject's wife's skirt, the corners of his eyes red and his voice hoarse.
“I've held back for a year.”
Wen Shuci looked down at him, her moon-white noblewoman's robes immaculate.
“Your Highness, please show some restraint. I am a married woman.”
He laughed, tears shining in his eyes.
“Your husband never touches you. I've watched for a year. I'm going mad.”
He kissed her, shattering every boundary between ruler and subject.
She pushed him away, then delivered the most scandalous line the world had ever heard.
“If Your Highness craves a moment's pleasure, then be my kept man.”
“When I call, you come. When I don't, you kneel in the shadows and wait.”
The Crown Prince, heir to the throne, knelt among the flower shadows and rasped,
“Very well. I agree. I'll be your kept man for the rest of my life.”
From then on, in court, he treated her husband with the utmost courtesy.
Late at night, he climbed through the window into her back garden and knelt, begging her to look down at him.
When the Noble Consort investigated his affair, she searched the entire Eastern Palace and couldn't find the woman.
Who would have guessed that the one being kept hidden was the Crown Prince himself?
When other people keep mistresses, men hide women away.
When she keeps a lover, she hides the heir to the throne, a man above countless others.
She once slapped him, and he smiled as he kissed her with blood at the corner of his mouth.
He once took a blade for her, and, covered in blood, still asked, “Are you hurt?”
When the ministers pressured him to name an empress, he cut his palm with a dagger and swore in blood,
“I won't be emperor. I'll be yours alone, your kept man.”
Two endings, and both are absolutely wild...
