The Prince Consort's Beloved

The first New Year's Eve that Li Yuanrou and Xiao Luobai were together was not filled with the joy of a family reunion nor the warmth of staying up all night. There was no laughter or joy, and they did not get together with the secret guards and maids to eat and drink as they had agreed upon.

Xiao Luobai had thought before that after the family dinner he would come back and set off some firecrackers to scare Li Yuanrou. He liked to see her jump up in fright and cry and run into his arms. Her tearful look, needing his protection, was really adorable.

If Li Yuanrou is angry, give her a big red envelope as New Year's money, which will definitely make her happy.

Then I have to stay up all night with her. If she feels sleepy or dozes off, I will carry her to bed and tease her.

None of the beautiful things that they had imagined about the two of them spending the New Year together happened.

Li Yuanrou was in a coma.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the streets are crowded again, with people busy paying New Year's greetings.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, married women bring their husbands back home, and the streets are bustling with people.

On the third day of the Lunar New Year, some shops have already opened, and the streets are even more crowded with people and traffic.

The fourth day of the Lunar New Year...

It seemed as if everyone in the entire Shangjing City was immersed in the joy of the beginning of the new year. Only the Shanyang Princess's Mansion was filled with a dull atmosphere, as bleak as the decayed tree in the Qingmei Garden, bare and without a trace of color, and no one sat on the swing under the tree.

I thought Li Yuanrou was just having a simple illness. This situation had happened a long time ago. Princess Shanyang fainted and fell into a coma due to excessive fright or other uncontrollable factors. There was no need for any intervention and she would wake up on her own in a few days. When she woke up, she would forget the things that frightened her.

The last time Princess Shanyang was in a coma was when Li Yuanrou came. She had been in a coma for several months, and when she woke up, nothing happened to her.

So at first no one was that worried, and everyone thought she would wake up in a few days, until the fifth day when Li Yuanrou suddenly developed a high fever.

The high fever wouldn't go away, and the bitter medicine Xiao Luobai tried his best to force her to drink had no effect at all.

Xiao Luobai was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. He lost a lot of weight and looked much more haggard. He stayed with her without taking off his clothes and refused to leave no matter how much people tried to persuade him.

Li Yuanrou lay quietly on the bed and seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but Xiao Luobai was tortured by the long and endless days and nights and was emaciated.

During this period, the eldest princess came twice, and even Li Yuanqi came out of the palace secretly once. After returning to the palace, several ministers advised the emperor earnestly that he should not leave the palace rashly and what to do if he encountered danger. Then they advised the emperor earnestly to establish a queen and concubines as soon as possible to have children. Li Yuanqi was so angry that he smashed two tea bowls again.

When Li Yuanqi came, he brought several imperial doctors with him. The doctors were helpless, so Xiao Luobai asked Qingfeng to go to the village to pick up his master.

Without delay, his master Zhuge Hongzhan arrived the next day. He felt Li Yuanrou's pulse and examined him, then shook his head, indicating that they had to wait.

Xiao Luobai's eyes were bloodshot, and he grabbed his master's clothes excitedly and begged: "Master, where is your elixir that can bring the dead back to life? Give her one."

Zhuge Hongzhan shook his head: "It's useless. It would be a waste if she took the medicine."

Xiao Luobai refused to give in and insisted on giving her one.

Zhuge Hongzhan had no choice but to feed Li Yuanrou a pill. "I left that medicine for you, thinking you might need it when you go to Beiluo Country in the future. Now she has taken one pill, and there is only one left. I am afraid I won't be able to make it again in the future."

He stuffed the last remaining pill into Xiao Luobai's pocket.

Xiao Luobai begged his master to make some more fever-reducing pills.

Li Yuanrou suffered from pain from the Chinese medicine, so after Zhuge Hongzhan came, she changed to taking pills.

During this period, Xiao Luobai asked his master to make a lot of tonic medicines. He thought that Li Yuanrou might need medicines in the future, so he asked Zhuge Hongzhan to make some of them.

Two days later, Li Yuanrou's fever finally subsided, but she was still in a coma.

Xiao Luobai hadn't slept for several days. The exhaustion from taking care of the patient and the fear that accompanied him all day long made him look shaky and he had lost his former brilliance.

He had no choice but to be knocked unconscious by Qingfeng and Kunpeng and carried away, and only then was he able to get some sleep.

He did not sleep well that night. He dreamed that after marrying Li Yuanrou, Li Yuanrou woke up and was still Princess Shanyang.

Because his master calculated that Princess Shanyang was about to die, he later used the hair of the two when they were young to perform some magic and promised that his little Rouer would come back when they woke up.

He was waiting happily for the person to wake up, but what he got was that Princess Shanyang stabbed him with a sword. He returned to the Prince Consort's Mansion in despair.

Xiao Luobai woke up from his dream and sat up. Without even having time to put on his cloak, he ran to find Zhuge Hongzhan.

In his hand he held a brocade box, which was their hair knot.

He handed the brocade box to Zhuge Hongzhan, and pleaded in a low voice: "Master, the hair is here, please do it again and let her come back."

Zhuge Hongzhan replied: "She is lying there. Shanyang is gone. If I want hair, I can just pull it from her head. Why do I need this from you? Just wait patiently. She is just a little unstable now. It will be fine when she wakes up."

Xiao Luobai grabbed his hand excitedly, his eyes reddened: "You said the same thing last time, and it wasn't her when she woke up last time."

Zhuge Hongzhan shook off his hand and said with some regret: "She came just two days after you woke up last time! Look at you now, you have lost all your human qualities. All these years of teaching you have been in vain. Since you were eleven years old, you have only had Li Yuanrou in your mind. No wonder your aunt dislikes her. She has seduced you and didn't do anything that should be done. Did Cuizhu from the Zhao Mansion return the dragon-shaped jade pendant of the Helian royal family to you..."

Zhuge Hongzhan ignored him and walked out to fiddle with his medicine stove, complaining as he walked: "It's been so long and you didn't even come back to the village to take a look. You really have forgotten your mother after getting a wife..."

Xiao Luobai guarded Li Yuanrou day and night, and was knocked unconscious again by Kunpeng Qingfeng and others because he refused to leave.

Several people were injured during the fight, and in the end, Xiao Luobai was defeated because he had not slept all night and had not eaten or drunk anything and was exhausted.

After Xiao Luobai woke up, he got very angry, and Zhuge Hongzhan was so angry that he slapped him twice.

A month passed and Li Yuanrou still hadn't woken up. He was hanging on to his life by the pills made by Zhuge Hongzhan all day long.

Xiao Luobai's despair became more and more intense, as if his soul had been stripped away by ghosts. He no longer cared about the eldest princess's affairs. He became extremely depressed, and everyone who saw this was extremely distressed.

Qingfeng and his companions no longer tried to knock him out, and he was sensible enough to sleep for a while every two days, and eat something when he felt exhausted.

He didn't allow anyone to enter the room. He lay down beside Li Yuanrou with his clothes on and grabbed one of her hands, intertwining their fingers.

It was as if this had grabbed hold of her and she couldn't leave him.

But I still couldn't sleep well and would wake up after two hours at most.

She was not in the dream, she was by his side, but Xiao Luobai felt like he had lost her.

He suddenly remembered Li Yuanrou on the lantern street on New Year's Eve. She smiled and said to him, "Even if you are right next to me, I still miss you. Do you know that feeling?"

He knows now...

That day, she said to him with a smile on her face: "From now on, among the thousands of lights in the house, there will also be one for us..."

She said: "Xiao Luobai, I miss you..."

She said: "Xiao Luobai, you are so nice..."

All the beautiful things about yesterday were compressed into memories and burst out. They were like ghosts, hiding in the darkness and tearing Xiao Luobai's heart into pieces.

Two lines of clear tears fell from his eyes, winding into two endless rivers, as if something was torn away from his heart, and the pain was excruciating.

He is good at both literature and martial arts, but there are still things he cannot do and people he cannot keep. He feels that even if he pierces through the chest, he cannot catch the relic on the tip of his heart.

I was originally a person who would never return home, but I fell in love with the world because of my love.

Deep affection gives rise to obsession, and countless longings eventually turn into demons.

Li Yuanrou, that was the person dearest to his heart...