NOVEL NEXT I smiled and continued, “I was wandering on the surface of the lake as a ghost, but I felt like I was the one slowly drowning. There was a strong sense of desperation and it came from the perception that everything in this world has vaporized. But just as I was slowly coming to peace with the fact that I was dying, I heard a voice, telling me that Zhang shi’s life is too valuable to die like that and that I should go back up.”
I spoke slowly on purpose and paused here and there. When I finished those words, I noticed that Qi Sheng slowly closed his eyes.
“I refused to listen to that voice. I had died once. Why would I want to be that woman? I refused to return, and the voice wouldn’t allow me to continue my descend. In the end, the voice resorted to showing me the kaleidoscope of lives living in this world and it said that I would be able to see the world in the different light after I had a full picture of what the world truly looked like. This experience lasted for three days, and I felt like I had gone through the length of three lifetimes. I had experienced all kinds of human emotions and in the end, I came back to being Zhang shi.”
I paused and turned my head to Qi Sheng. I waited until he opened his eyes and then continued slowly, “You have conjured up all kinds of theories about my true identity, but you never thought that I could actually be that Zhang shi who you thought was too willful and capricious in the past. You have noticed the sudden change in her character, but what you didn’t know is that she had been so desperate that she had to reinvent herself into a complete different woman.”
Qi Sheng fell into a long silence.
I had determined to stick by my story no matter what and if I couldn’t spin this story anymore, I would try to think of something else, even if I had to say that I was an alien and made the whole thing looked like the plot of a science fiction.
I thought for a while and decided to add an emotional finale to this almost tragic-sounding story where the scheming supporting female character turned into the charismatic female protagonist.
I looked up to meet Qi Sheng’s gaze and said without any trace of emotion, “Zhang Pengpeng has never changed. She just turned into a different woman, one without the feelings of love, jealousy, sadness and anxiety.”
If Qi Sheng’s eyes had been a tranquil lake, now it had turned into a pond of pitch-black, stale water, not capable of reflecting any light. He simply stared at me, sending chills down my spine.
Silence has inundated the whole palace and I could hear his heavy breath clearly, along with my pounding heart and the cracking of the nearby fire.
The two of us were locked in the stalemate and Qi Sheng suddenly broke the silence, asking, “You want to tell me that I should apologize to Zhang shi, right?”
What he said was presented as a question, but the tone was very certain, like it didn’t actually require an answer.
I hesitated, trying to think of an answer. But he simply smiled. The smile seemed so lighthearted, like Qi Sheng had just heard a funny story.
It had only struck me that Qi Sheng looked so much like Bathroom Lord! But I should have realized this long ago, as they were blood brothers. How silly I had been to define them as two different men.
Qi Sheng subtly crooked up his lips and said calmly, “Even if I owe Zhang shi my apology, what does it have anything to do with you? You are not Zhang shi. No matter how you spin it, you are not her. You cannot fool me because I had known her for more than a decade.”
I was struck dumb by his words and at this point, all I could think of is that I would be an idiot if I continue to see Qi Sheng as a stupid man!
He squinted at me and slowly asked, “You didn’t answer my question. Are you a man or a woman?”
Not knowing how to answer it, I only looked at him in silence.
He watched me for a while, a trace of unknown emotion flashing across his eyes. Then, he smiled as he got up, looking like he was about to leave.
But I knew his leave meant that he had confirmed my identity as a man, and I would be facing certain death.
I was not afraid of death. I only feared that I might suffer before I died.
For a second, I very much wanted to grab him and beg him to give me a quick death on account of my past with him as man and wife.
With this thought in mind, I subconsciously grabbed his sleeve as he left.
He halted his steps and turned back to look at me, asking, “Man or woman?”
I dared not say “man”, but I was equally reluctant to say “woman”, and so I remained silent.
He stretched out his hand to unlock my grip on his sleeve, like what I used to do to him in the past, one finger at a time.
I exerted more force to my grip and asked him in a hoarse voice, “Are you going to kill me?”
Upon hearing this question, Qi Sheng paused. He tilted his head sideways to look at me with a visible smirk on his face, “I will not kill you. I will keep you as my Empress and make you stay in this palace forever.”
A wealthy life with need for nothing? Well, I could accept that. With this thought, I loosened my grip and let go of his sleeve.
However, Qi Sheng gritted his teeth and continued, “I will make you wish you have never been born.”
What? What I have done to deserve this?
I hurriedly grab his sleeve again and pleaded, “Don’t be so cruel. Let me go, or at least give me a quick death.”
Qi Sheng stared at me and asked, “Let you go?”
I nodded, “Let me go!”
Qi Sheng fixed his gaze on me and suddenly burst out laughing.
This sudden laughter surprised everyone outside the palace. Lv Li and Xie Yi scurried into the palace and just as they entered, Qi Sheng yelled out, “Get the hell out!”
Lv Li and Xie Yi were stunned by this and halted right where they were. Xie Yi was the first to sense the tension permeating the palace and she hurriedly pulled Lv Li out. Together, they backed out the palace the same way they entered.
Qi Sheng lowered his head and looked at me with a ashen face, “Let you go? Then who will let me go?”
Seeing that he was being so unreasonable, I waved my hand in a moment of fluster and yelled, “Go find the one responsible for your torment and stopping punishing me for your trauma!”
Qi Sheng was obviously very angry. He slid his hand out to grab my wrist and pulled me closer to him. Then he growled with obvious hatred in his voice, “Answer me! What are you? A man or a woman?”
Though I was infuriated beyond control, the basic instinct of survival prompted me to rip my clothes open as I snarled, “See for yourself! Does this look like a man’s body to you? Have we not slept together before? Did I not give birth to your daughter? Does any of this sound like the kind of things a man would do?”
As I was yelling frantically, a fit of sorrow suddenly overtook me and almost made me cry.
Surprisingly, Qi Sheng suddenly pulled me closer to him and asked again harshly, “Answer me. Man or woman?!”
The answer coming out of my mouth would seal my fate.
I was perfectly aware of the gravity of the situation, yet I still couldn’t bring myself to utter the word “woman”. To me, it was as if all the things I had done for the past twenty years would be wiped clean the minute I said this word. If I did this, then from now on, I would forever be just Zhang shi, an ordinary woman, the former princess and now the Empress. Even if I made the Dowager Empress, I would still be a woman, living under the whims of Qi Sheng like the rest of the women in his harem. I would go down in history as a nameless and insignificant woman!
In the past, I never thought twice about bending my principles to survive. Even when I woke up and found myself in Zhang shi’s body, it only took me half a day to digest that reality that I would spend the rest of my life trapped in this woman’s body.
It was all because deep down, I had always regarded myself as a man. Even though I didn’t have man’s private part and I was no longer able to feel anything when holding a woman, I nonetheless still thought that I was more of an upright man than Qi Sheng could ever be!
But at this moment, Qi Sheng was trying to mentally castrate me into acknowledging that I had always been a woman!
Qi Sheng stood straight with his stiffened body, his eyes burning with flaring fire. He kept his eyes fixed at me like a tiger looking at its prey.
I mustered up all the strength I had to spit out this difficult word, “Woman, I am a woman.”
Upon hearing that, Qi Sheng immediately loosened his grip.
As soon as he did that, I collapsed onto the floor uncontrollably and the long-suppressed tears began streaming down my cheeks. I didn’t want to cry in front of Qi Sheng, and so I wiped the tears off with the back of my hand. But even I used two hands, I still couldn’t be able to wipe my face clean.
I felt rather aggrieved as I wiped off my tears, but since I had acknowledged that I was a woman, I might as well behave like one. And thus I began howling like crazy.
However, crying was the easy part, and hardest part was to stop it. I felt like I had tons of grievances to let out and those grievances would only be appeased after I cried my heart out.
While I was crying on the floor, Qi Sheng stood quietly in front of me.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but when I realized that my throat had become hoarse from all the crying and that I had run out of tears, I saw the silhouette in front of me moving and the next thing I knew, Qi Sheng squatted down and spoke to me with our eyes aligned on the same level, “Do you know how much I want to kill you and be done with it?”
He crooked up his lips as he finished those words, with a self-mocking expression on his face. He walked past me and out of the palace.
I was still trying to digest the last line Qi Sheng said when Lv Li scurried in. When she noticed my condition, she felt into a stunned silence and then fell to her knees and kept kowtowing to me without uttering a word.
The heavy sound coming from her kowtows prompted me to pull her up from the floor. After noticing that her forehead was covered with blood, I felt so stunned and reprimanded her, “You silly girl. What did you do that for?!”