Night had fallen thick and black as ink.

Inside Prince Yu’s manor, red silk hung everywhere. It should have looked festive, full of wedding joy, yet the air was heavy with mockery that just would not clear.

“Have you heard? That living Yama of a prince is marrying a bride for warding off ill fate today, and they say she’s not right in the head!”

“Seriously? Prince Yu may be sickly, but surely he wouldn’t go so far as to marry a fool?”

“Isn’t that a perfect match then? A eunuch in all but name paired with a simpleton. The capital’s got a real show to watch now!”

The grand wedding that had all of the capital staring was, in truth, nothing more than a carefully staged joke.

And in the bridal chamber, it was colder still, like an ice cellar.

Seraphina Bloom sat alone at the edge of the bed in a heavy red wedding gown, its layers fussy and elaborate. Her clear eyes moved around the room with quiet curiosity.

So this was what a mortal wedding chamber looked like?

Compared to the Flower God Palace in the heavens, where blooms crowded in endless waves, this place was worlds apart.

The door creaked open.

A gust of chill air came in with a man.

He was tall and straight, carrying himself with effortless authority. His face was stunningly handsome, but pale in a way that spoke of lingering illness. In those dark eyes, there was not the slightest trace of joy for his wedding night, only a coldness so deep it seemed impossible to melt.

He was Marcus Whitfield, Prince Yu, a man whose power weighed heavily over the court.

And, by name at least, he was now her husband.

“Look over this medical record.”

Marcus casually flicked a folded sheet of xuan paper onto the table. He could not even be bothered to spare Seraphina an extra glance.

Seraphina caught it by reflex.

It was an imperial physician’s pulse record.

The black characters on it were stark and clear: essence exhausted, vitality severed, no offspring in this lifetime.

Seraphina blinked, pinching the paper between her fingers. Then she tilted her head on purpose and read it out softly, one word at a time, in a voice full of innocent confusion.

“Es…sence… ex…hausted?”

Of course she knew what it meant.

It was only mortal infertility.

But what she really wanted was to see what kind of expression this man would wear when he heard those words spoken aloud by her own mouth.

Sure enough, the moment Marcus heard her slow, foolish-sounding reading, irritation flashed through his eyes. A self-mocking curve touched the corner of his lips.

“It’s fine if you don’t understand. You only need to know one thing. I cannot give you children, and I cannot give you affection.”

His voice was cold, without a trace of warmth.

“If your birth chart were not perfectly suited to strengthen mine, did you think I would ever have married you for this so-called wedding of good fortune? Sign this agreement. Behave yourself as Prince Yu’s Consort and help silence outside gossip.”

“As compensation, the gold, silver, and jewels here are yours to use as you please.”

A few banknotes and a contract stamped with the prince’s seal were pushed in front of her.

Seraphina lowered her eyes and skimmed it. More or less, it was a mutual noninterference arrangement dressed up in polite language.

Marcus went on, “We stay out of each other’s affairs. All you need to do is play the part of a princess consort deeply devoted to me. Do you understand?”

Where no one could see, the corner of Seraphina’s lips lifted slightly. Deep in her eyes, something sly flickered past.

So there was a deal this good in the mortal world?

She liked that.

By the time Marcus looked at her again, that sharp gleam had already vanished. In its place was the same innocent, blank sweetness as before. She nodded obediently, took up the brush, and signed her name on the contract.

She had once been the most beloved little flower deity of the Flower God clan in the heavenly realm. She had only come down to the mortal world for a trial.

The original owner of this body had long since died, unwilling to marry for warding off ill fate, and that was how Seraphina had come to inhabit it.

As for a mere mortal condition of childlessness?

To a flower goddess like her, one who could make dead wood sprout and barren ground bloom, it was hardly worth mentioning.

She studied Marcus’s cold, untouchable face with growing interest, that handsome iceberg expression making the little abacus in her heart rattle nonstop.

This man, at least, was very much to her taste.

There was also a faint trace of dragon aura on him. Weak, yes, but enough to show that his fortune was extraordinary.

It was just that the dragon aura was currently wrapped tight in dense deathly energy, which was why his body had become so weak.

Helping him would be no trouble at all.

And she could earn merit from it too, which would only help complete her trial in the mortal world.

Seraphina pressed down the calculating smile threatening to rise to her lips. When she faced Marcus again, she was still all innocence, all harmless softness.

“All right. I’ll listen to Your Highness.”

Her meekness caught Marcus slightly off guard. Still, after one look at her bright, shining eyes, he only pressed his lips together and said nothing.

A moment later, he straightened his sleeve and rose.

“I’ll sleep in the study next door. If there’s nothing important, don’t come over.”

With that, he turned to leave.

“All right…”

Seraphina answered softly, while thinking to herself that she absolutely had to find out what was really going on with her husband’s body.

She immediately braced herself on the bed and stood up, pretending she meant to see him out. She had barely taken one step before she deliberately let her foot slip, covering her mouth as a string of weak little coughs escaped.

“Cough… cough… cough…”

Her slender body swayed forward just enough.

Hearing the sound, Marcus turned back in annoyance, only to meet the hand she had reached out as if trying to steady herself.

Seraphina’s fingertips landed squarely on the back of his hand.

At that instant, a thread of divine power slipped soundlessly from her fingers into his body.

It traveled quickly through his meridians. A glimmer flashed through Seraphina’s eyes, and in a breath she had seen everything inside him.

So that was it.

That weak dragon aura within him was being crushed under thick, heavy death energy.

It was not merely suppressing his life force. It was eating away at his vitality bit by bit.

This was no natural infertility at all.

Someone was trying to kill him.

Most likely, some vicious schemer had used dark sorcery to place a curse on him.

Just who had Marcus Whitfield offended, to end up under something this cruel?

Now this was more like it.

The mortal world was starting to get interesting.

The skin on the back of his hand seemed to burn with an odd warmth. Marcus jerked his hand back at once, as though he had been touched by something filthy.

Seraphina reacted immediately. She quickly pulled her hand back and tucked it behind her, then spoke in a small, aggrieved voice.

“I did not mean to, this concubine begs Your Highness’s pardon.”

Looking at her like that, Marcus swiftly forced down the strange feeling in his chest.

“Behave yourself.”

He dropped those three icy words and did not look back again, only strode out at once.

The door slammed shut, cutting off every last sound.

Seraphina stared at the space where he had disappeared. The innocence in her eyes faded away, and her competitive streak flared up on the spot.

This husband of hers?

She was keeping him, no matter what.

…

At dawn the next morning, when the sky had only just begun to lighten, a storm of gossip exploded across the capital.

“Did you hear? Prince Yu, Marcus Whitfield, has been diagnosed by the imperial physicians with exhausted essence. He’ll never have heirs!”

“The prince’s line is finished! That foolish daughter from the Bloom family married into the manor only to become a living widow. So this marriage was really just to cover up the shame!”

The contents of that pulse record, the one bearing the diagnosis, had somehow been copied and spread through the whole capital overnight. In the blink of an eye, Marcus Whitfield had fallen from a prince high above the masses to the laughingstock of the entire city.

Inside the manor, the pressure in the air was terrifying.

Marcus’s face was dark as still water as he listened to the shadow guard’s report.

Everything that had happened in the bridal chamber last night, including the detail of him taking out the medical record, had been leaked word for word.

Walls had ears.

There was without question a traitor inside the manor.