256: My bathhouse! Would you like to come a second time?

“Chat with me... for a bit?”

Su Chen's blood seemed to freeze at this very moment.

His brain buzzed and stopped working.

[Chat?]

[Chat about what?]

[In this mist-filled bathhouse, you, the Supreme Sovereign, are wearing a bathrobe that looks like it could slip off at any moment.]

[And I, a prisoner, am disheveled and covered in the dust from being sent flying by your palm strike.]

[Is this an atmosphere for chatting?!]

[You clearly want to stage a bathhouse horror scene, keeping me here to slowly torture me with a hundred and eight methods just to wash away the shame to your imperial dignity!]

In Su Chen's mind, images of Death by a thousand cuts, Burning at the stake, and being Torn apart by five horses flashed like a revolving lantern.

Even his calves were cramping.

“That... well...”

Su Chen forced a twisted smile onto his face, his muscles trembling.

“Hongxue, this situation... is quite inconvenient.”

“How about another day?”

“The Imperial Study, Qiankun Hall, anywhere is fine. I'll go after I've washed up!”

“At that time, I will definitely accompany you and chat about everything from poetry to the philosophy of life!”

As he finished speaking, his heels were already tensed, ready to turn into a phantom and vanish at any moment.

Ji Hongxue, however, extended a finger.

A finger as white as jade, with a translucent drop of water still clinging to its tip.

She lightly tapped it against Su Chen's chest.

Su Chen felt as if he had been hit by a Freezing Curse, instantly turning rigid.

“Inconvenient?”

Ji Hongxue's voice was soft, yet it carried a playful tone, like a predator examining its prey.

“The Divine Son treats the many Restrictions of my Great Xia Imperial Palace as if they were nothing, coming and going as he pleases.”

“What?”

“Now you find it inconvenient to chat with me for a few moments?”

Each of her words was like a small hammer, tapping neither too hard nor too light against Su Chen's mental defenses.

Su Chen's heart sank completely.

[As expected, she doesn't believe me.]

[The lie about a Divine Ability going out of control was never going to fool this deep-scheming Empress.]

[It's over; I'm done for today.]

As despair welled up in his heart, Su Chen actually calmed down.

So be it.

To die beneath a peony is to be a romantic ghost.

That rare, once-in-a-millennium beauty he just saw was enough for him to brag about for a lifetime.

At this thought, Su Chen completely let himself go.

He simply stopped acting and turned around, sprawling lazily onto a soft couch carved from a single piece of warm jade.

With his limbs stretched out and a calm expression, he adopted the posture of a salted fish, as if saying, 'Please, start your performance.'

“Fine.”

He waved his hand weakly.

“Since I've been caught by you, I admit defeat.”

“Whatever you want to talk about, let's talk.”

“Whether you want to kill me or skin me, just give it to me straight.”

Su Chen's 'dead pig unafraid of boiling water' rogue attitude caused the entire interrogation script Ji Hongxue had prepared to instantly stick in her throat.

Looking at this man lying on her private couch with a 'I've given up, do what you want' expression, she felt a surge of nameless anger rush to her head.

This bastard!

He knew exactly how to manipulate her like this!

Ji Hongxue closed her eyes, her chest heaving as she forced herself to calm her surging imperial rage.

When she opened her eyes again, words from the diary uncontrollably surfaced in her mind.

[What a lunatic! A complete and utter lunatic! Couldn't she think of a normal solution? Why must she resort to self-destruction?]

[No, if she dies like this, who will hold up the sky when it falls? Where else am I going to find such a useful shield?]

These words had once filled her with shame and indignation.

But now, they were like a hot spring, quietly melting the ice in her heart.

It turned out... beneath his cynical exterior, he knew everything.

He knew the heavy fate she carried.

He knew the destructive end she was heading toward.

That was why he used those absurd, seemingly humiliating methods to 'remind' her again and again, trying to pull her back from that path of no return.

He wasn't just watching a show.

He was saving her.

This realization made Ji Hongxue's heart soften completely at that moment.

Looking at Su Chen again, the shame of being offended and her imperial rage had long since vanished.

In their place was a softness and heartache that she hadn't even noticed herself.

This man bore the pain of knowing everything, yet he still had to pretend to be this uninhibited salted fish.

He must... be having a very hard time, right?

“Su Chen.”

Ji Hongxue spoke again, her voice no longer cold, but like water-soaked silk—smooth and warm.

“Hmm?”

Su Chen responded lazily, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Is my bathhouse beautiful?”

Ji Hongxue's Phoenix eyes gazed at him quietly as she uttered an earth-shattering question.

Su Chen sat up abruptly from the couch as if he'd been pricked by a needle, staring at her as if he'd seen a ghost.

[Is this woman crazy?!]

[What kind of provocative words are these?!]

[Shouldn't she just sentence me to death? Why is she asking for a review instead?]

[A new method of torture? Lingchi of the tongue? Or... is she trying to use a Honey trap to make me have a mental breakdown before physically 'transcending' me?!]

Su Chen's brain completely froze.

He looked at Ji Hongxue's face, so close and so beautiful it didn't seem Mortal, and at the misty, hazy light rippling in her deep Phoenix eyes; for a moment, he was completely speechless.

Say it's beautiful? That's seeking death.

Say it's not beautiful? Then I'll die even faster.

Just as Su Chen was caught in a desperate internal struggle.

Ji Hongxue laughed.

It was no longer imperial majesty, nor a calculating sneer.

It was a laugh unique to a woman, filled with seventy percent cunning and thirty percent charm.

“Since the Divine Son finds it beautiful.”

Her voice was extremely low, her breath like orchids, brushing against Su Chen's ear like a feather, making him tremble all over.

“Then why not...”

“...come often in the future?”

“I welcome you anytime.”