Masquerade in Bridal Attire and Marry the Prince

121. The Secret

Translator: asassin

Yuxing Tianrui walked towards Du Chuxuan slowly, wanting to say something, yet he was timid after all, so he stopped when there were still three steps between them, then he opened his mouth, “Something is better left unknown. Besides, I really can’t tell you about it, so I didn’t. But I think,” he paused for a split second, “clever as you are, you should have noticed something isn’t right but you never speak about it.”

If one watched closely, one could find his hands trembling slightly inside his sleeves. Had he not feigned calmness, one could tell he was nervous.

“The world knows me for my knowledge of the past and present, but it forgets that I was only a kid when I became the crown prince. Don’t you think it strange that my father should make a child who could grow up into anything the crown prince?”

There was a bitter laughter from him. He shook his head, resigned, as if he just recalled something. “Everyone says my father treats me well. Not only has he abolished the harem for my mother’s sake, but he also made me the crown prince. According to the line of succession, there’s the first prince ahead of me.”

Du Chuxuan watched Yuxing Tianrui’s lips move. Intuition told him that he shouldn’t listen to what was going to be said, yet he couldn’t help himself, like he was rooted to the spot.

“Listen, what if I tell you, all that is fake?” Yuxing Tianrui’s face became a bit twisted. He turned to look at Du Chuxuan as if he was worried he had scared him. He was paralyzed. “Ah Xuan, I shouldn’t have been the crown prince.”

That last sentence was spoke in such a light tone that it fell in Du Chuxuan’s ears like a feather. It pained him to see Yuxing Tianrui in such a vulnerable state. Why does Yuxing Tianrui show this side of himself, knowing that his heart will ache for him?

Intuitively, he put his arms around Yuxing Tianrui. “Don’t be a fool. If you aren’t the crown prince, who else will it be?” He took Yuxing Tianrui’s hands out of his sleeves and comforted him with the greatest patience.

However, Yuxing Tianrui seemed agitated by his response. “Ah Xuan, stop believing your own lies. Of all the children grew up in the palace, why am I the only one who has such a large sect? No matter how intelligent I am, I couldn’t have managed to build such a big organization when I was just a kid.”

“I know you’ve thought about it.” He shook his head as he said that, which made Du Chuxuan felt sorrier for him.

“Don’t be silly. You are the best. You can achieve whatever you want to do.” He hugged him tighter, in fear that he would go into hysterics because of overexcitement.

“No!” Yuxing Tianrui couldn’t hold it inside himself anymore. “If he is indeed my father, why did he agree to let the crown prince marry a merchant’s daughter? Has he ever loved me, or has he never cared about me at all?”

He almost cried the words out, like a cornered beast wailing entirely at a loss. All he needed now was to vent out his frustration. The man behind him kept him in tight arms, as if he was his last haven.

Du Chuxuan was surprised, he had a rough guess of what Yuxing Tianrui was going to say. At once, he didn’t want him to continue anymore. It was the same as rubbing salt into the wound. However, at this point, Yuxing Tianrui couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

He turned around to Du Chuxuan, with a stubbornness in his eyes, which made Du Chuxuan’s heart ache for him. “Ah Xuan, I’m not their kid, not father’s, nor mother’s. They aren’t my real parents.”

It almost took all his strength to say it. If someone else heard that, they might accuse him of being disloyal and unfilial. Yet nobody knew that the emperor was kind to him simply because the throne shouldn’t have been his.

Du Chuxuan’s arms circled around him carefully. He soothed him for a good while like he was a baby, until Yuxing Tianrui finally calmed down as Du Chuxuan listened to the whole story.

Yuxing Tianrui was born to the imperial family, but not to the emperor. Instead, he was the son of the emperor’s elder brother. When the late emperor passed away, the throne was passed to the current emperor’s elder brother – Yuxing Tianrui’s blood father. However, good times didn’t last long. Soon, his father died of serious illness.

Since his mother passed away long before that, he became an orphan. Yuxing Tianrui’s father, on his deathbed, told the current emperor that as long as he was willing to bring Yuxing Tianrui up and make him the crown prince, he could declare that the late emperor passed the throne to him.

It was a good deal. After all, a spoiled kid would barely have a happy ending. Even if he was a good one, he wouldn’t be as steady as other princes if he was made the crown prince at a young age.

Therefore, the current emperor agreed, then made Yuxing Tianrui the crown prince as soon as his coronation. However, in fear that the current emperor would go back on his promise, Yuxing Tianrui’s father left him Sect Luo, where he had secured the late emperor’s dying words.

The current emperor only learned about that after Yuxing Tianrui’s father passed away. He had sent out numerous groups of men in search of it to no avail.

Those who took part in the search were sentenced to death. In case of further problems, he claimed the empress was his one and only love, then put her under house arrest and made her live in the story he made up.

That was why, after Du Chuxuan entered the palace, the empress treated Yuxing Tianrui like her own, for she thought Yuxing Tianrui was the kid she carried in her womb for ten months. How could she not love him?

“You fool.” Du Chuxuan hugged Yuxing Tianrui tighter. “It doesn’t matter that they aren’t your real parents. You always have me.”