Chapter Thirty-Six Worst Mistake

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

WORST MISTAKE

Although Qin Zheng played as big a part in the pregnancy scheme as Yizhi, I somehow don’t hate him as much for it. It’s hard to be disappointed in someone you never trusted.

That makes it easier to stomach climbing into bed just a pane of glass apart from him again for the sake of training.

“I would not be too distressed at the recent revelations.” In a dream-spun, candlelit tavern, Qin Zheng sips from an antique-style goblet, the kind with three legs and bestial patterns sculpted into its surface. Unlike the tarnished teal artifacts displayed around Gao Qiu’s estate, Qin Zheng’s goblet gleams with the rich luster such objects originally had in his time. He often brings me two centuries in the past in his manifestations, teaching me things like horseback riding and taking me to long-gone restaurants and hawker stands to taste food from his memories. He claims it’s to make me experience “the ways of a time that produced stronger pilots,” but I think he just misses being in a world he understands.

He raises his goblet in a toasting gesture. “It is always a blessing to see the true nature of those around you.”

“Like yours?” I sneer, kneeling opposite him at a low table typical of his time, refusing to touch the wine he conjured for me.

“Since when have I hidden my true nature from you? Has this honestly changed your opinion of me?”

I roll my eyes.

He tsk s, slamming down his goblet. “Do not roll your eyes at me.”

“Or what?”

His eyes narrow. But then a devious smile lifts one corner of his mouth. He leans forward. “Or I might kiss you again. It seems you will only be a good girl when I have you moaning beneath me.”

I snatch my goblet and hurl my wine at him. It splashes over his face and drips from the strings fastened under his jaw, which secure his tall headpiece. When he blinks his eyes open with a wider smirk and licks his glistening lips, regret chases my impulse. I’ve let him know he can rattle me by saying these rancid things. This will just encourage him to keep doing it.

Though not if I throw him off guard as well.

I spring onto the table on all fours and pull him in by the crossover collar of his old-style robes. When his mouth pops open in surprise, I seal it with my own. After the first second of shock, he kisses me back at the ready, hand going to my cheek.

Just when he’s most distracted, I bite down hard on his bottom lip.

A muffled cry lurches in his throat. He jerks up, thighs hitting the low table, sending our goblets clattering to the ground. His hand grasps my hair near my temple. Fury flashes in his eyes when we break apart. Pain shoots through my scalp as he tries to yank me off the table, but I wrestle against him, seizing his chin.

“Was that enough to quench your thirst?” I peer down at him with a look fit for the sack of garbage that he is. “Because if you want to waste time fooling around instead of training for our all-important, nearly impossible god-slaying mission—now, that would change my opinion of you.”

There’s a beat before he loosens his hold on my hair. I let his chin go with a hard shove, keeping my face stiff as stone as I shuffle backwards off the table.

He watches me, touching his bleeding lip, before he recovers his smug expression.

“You and Secretary Zhang never made sense as a pair.” Qin Zheng wipes the blood and wine off his chin. “He only had eyes for you because you were a prime target for his heroic fantasies.”

Pain spears through my chest. “Why are you bringing him up?”

“Because you are moodier than usual, and that is an inconvenience. As I was saying, there is no need to mourn the loss of a facade. I am quite familiar with types like Secretary Zhang. They would come into the brothel heavy with tender sentiment, thinking themselves so refined and enlightened for asking a girl’s name instead of prying her legs open the moment they were alone.” Qin Zheng touches his chest, voice slow as syrup. “But beneath those kind, righteous exteriors, these boys possessed one common core: they were more enamored with the idea of being a savior than with the women they sought to save. Thus, here we are. He gets to feel like he made the ultimate sacrifice for your sake, while you must deal with the raw, open wound of betrayal.”

My entire dream form throbs with feverish sickness. I clench down the urge to douse him with wine again.

“Such is the nature of those who grew up with excess.” Qin Zheng picks his goblet up from the ground and gazes into its emptiness. “They never had to worry about survival, so their pretty little minds search desperately for deeper meaning to their lives. This makes Secretary Zhang an excellent campaigner against the corrupt elite he grew up among—do not get me wrong, I appreciate profitizer class traitors; some of my best comrades were class traitors. But as a lover? He will never understand those of us who grew up preoccupied with simply surviving each new day after the last.”

“?‘Us?’?” I spit out. “You’re not making this an ‘us’ thing, are you? As if you didn’t provide the vital material that made the baby possible?”

“I was thinking about you when I did it. Does that make you feel better?”

“ No! ”

His stifled laugh tells me I have once again given the exact reaction he wanted. I need to stop letting him mess with me. But, skies, is every conversation with him going to be like this from now on?

“Anyhow,” he says, “it was Secretary Zhang who insisted on keeping the endeavor secret to spare you pain. I had no qualms about informing you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me, huh?”

“Because I knew I would have to deal with this .” He gestures at me. “I was in no hurry to make my life more difficult.”

“You could’ve avoided this for good if you simply told me the gods had gotten serious about forcing you to have a kid. I’m not incapable of compromising. I proposed faking the pregnancy, didn’t I?”

A trace of what might be remorse crosses his face, but maybe I’m just giving him too much credit because I can’t shut him out like Yizhi.

“What’s done is done,” he says. “I shall give you some time to get over your emotions, but remember: we have grander matters to worry about than childish notions of romance.”

“Oh, you’re calling me childish again? I sure wasn’t childish when you fantasized about having me in your bed. Or are you more messed up in the head than I thought?”

He grimaces. “Don’t be disgusting.” His gaze slides down my body, wrapped tightly in the spiraling robe style of his time. “No child has curves like yours.”

I push up and storm away through the dark tavern. A burst of his laughter echoes behind me. I bristle. I’ve never heard him laugh out loud before. It’s an unexpectedly boyish sound. But of course, he’s the childish one. I don’t care if my reaction amuses him anymore; I am not staying another second with him.

Dream logic works in surreal ways. There always seem to be other tavern guests at the edges of my vision, yet whenever I look directly at one, they’re no longer there. I shove through the front doors and onto a nighttime street, where more hazy people stream through pools of light cast by traditional lanterns. I haven’t mastered the art of getting out of these dream realms by will. It’s especially hard in manifestations based on real memory. But this has to end somewhere.

Qin Zheng’s waning chuckle approaches behind me.

“I jest, I jest—” He pulls at me by my wrist.

“Don’t touch me.” I thrash against his grip. “I am done with these pointless dream scenarios that are nothing but excuses for you to relive the long-dead past. From now on, I am not doing anything with you that isn’t explicitly training. Next time you feel sad and lonely, you can cope by yourself.”

Releasing me, he frowns in the soft, fluttering glow of a lantern. Then he sighs. “Empress, do you know why I won my wars of conquest despite the odds being one against six?”

“I swear, if this is leading to a joke about your ‘giant dragon’—”

He holds up a hand. “I’m delighted you think my dragon is of a commendable size, but even with it, my enemies could have crushed me if they had banded together. The Yellow Dragon cannot be everywhere at once or operated indefinitely. Yet my enemies were too caught up in old grudges and internal bickering to ally effectively against me. Huaxia’s existence is as much their failure as my victory. Let us not repeat their mistake, empress. If we wish to defeat the gods, we must not destroy each other before we destroy them.”

“So it’s of utmost importance that I stand here and take your perverted quips, or we’ll lose to the gods?”

Qin Zheng looks away with a faint grin. “My apologies. I shall try to be less aggravating. It’s just that I have so few avenues of amusement in my life. Certainly no one else to make perverted quips to, you know. Though perhaps that adorable assistant of yours…” He taps his lips. “She has great respect for me on an ideological level, does she not?”

“That doesn’t mean she wants to sleep with you! Don’t you dare go after her.”

“Oh? Jealous, are we? You can fool around with two men at once, but I can’t flirt with another woman?”

The urge to slap him shoots down my arm, but, judging by the anticipation on his face, he might enjoy that. I will not satisfy that kind of depravity. I simply stare at him, blinking blankly, before uttering, “You are the worst mistake I’ve made in my entire life.”

“ So far .” He points a finger. “The worst mistake so far . Though considering we will most likely not make it back from our assault on the gods, I sincerely hope you make no further life-shattering mistakes in the next seven months.”

My vivid fantasy of lacerating his skin screeches to a halt. “Seven months?”

All traces of mirth vanish from his face. “I did not agree to producing a child with you solely to obey the gods. It presents an invaluable opportunity. The gods will never expect us to move against them before its birth, so that is exactly what we shall do. About a month before the baby’s due date, on a day when the Heavenly Court passes over Chang’an shortly before dusk, we strike.”

My mouth hangs open.

Qin Zheng continues, “I have confidence that we can root out the main counter-revolutionary forces before then so we can leave while assured of the revolution’s survival. If we don’t, we can delay the plan, but otherwise, I truly believe we have no better chance than this.”

I shake my head like I’m malfunctioning, fingers going to my temples. “Seven months…That’s—that’s so soon.”

“The longer we wait, the more likely the gods will discover our intentions. It is also clear my days are numbered.” Qin Zheng studies his hands. “I do not belong in your time, empress. My home was…here.” He spreads his arms, indicating the wood and brick buildings lit by flickering lanterns. “I am making my best effort at righting the wrongs of your world, but there is only so much I can do when I cannot even step outside without worrying about the pathogens in the air. A living man can never live up to a dead man’s legend. I must go while my name can still rally the people to continue the revolution, the way the existence of Huaxia survived my first demise.”

I should have no heart in my dream form, yet I can feel every heavy beat of my pulse inside me. Blurry figures pass in slow motion around us on this street spun from his memories. Bittersweet sentiment flows freely from him like blood from an open wound, so tender that, for once, I don’t doubt his sincerity. Not when it comes to this , the mission he values above all else. The mission that will free Shimin along with Huaxia.

“You’re less aggravating when you’re saying sensible things,” I mumble.

A shine gleams in his eyes. “Dying makes you see things clearer than ever. Coming back from the dead makes you see even more. I will not let myself waste away from disease a second time. That is not the kind of death I desire. If there is one thing I was brought back to do, it is to liberate this world from the gods.” He holds a hand out to me. “How about it, empress? Seven months to transform the world.”

Sighing, I squeeze his hand with both of mine, which feels more substantial than if I had simply placed my hand in his, in the same way a shared secret can mean more than a shared kiss.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate your perverted nonsense,” I warn.

He laughs, clear as a bell. “I never expected you to.”