Detective Ghost Empress

"Xinyi? Are you talking about the one who was in the cradle when I went to play with you?" Zhai Tianyu asked as he popped his head out of the wooden screen behind which he was changing clothes. He would not have done it but it was in fact too shocking for him to stay calm. He was not old but he was definitely much older than Ji Xinyi. "Isn't she like twelve or thirteen?"

She was yet to turn fifteen and he was already going to be twenty years old very soon.

"Yes and Yes she is thirteen," Ji Yu replied causing Zhai Tianyu to crash on the ground. Almost. He changed his clothes and stepped out of the wooden divider before walking to his bed and saying, "Why did you not stop her? Xinyi is too young to be thrown in the mess of harem." More importantly, it would be weird for him to share a bed chamber with a thirteen-year-old girl.

It would be even more weird than Liu Hui Ying who was sixteen when they got married and then turned seventeen a month later. Though she looked rather underdeveloped when she married him, Liu Hui Ying was getting better and looked more womanly rather than a girl. But that was because she was turning eighteen soon!

Ji Xinyi was too young for him!

"Why did you not stop her?" He could not help but blame Ji Yu who rolled her eyes and then stretched her legs. She then said,

"How can I stop her? Do you think that she would listen to me just because I asked her to stop? My aunt is obsessed with the idea of getting the throne.

She wants someone with the blood of Ji's to occupy the throne even if it means throwing Xinyi who is the only legitimate daughter in the harem," Ji Yu also felt nauseated when she thought of how her aunt and father were obsessed with the idea of getting hold of the throne.

They seemed to have lost all sense of propriety for the sake of power. Sometimes Ji Yu even blamed herself, if she had not lost the ability to become a mother then her aunt and father would not have set their eyes on Ji Xinyi. That poor and naive girl whose life was going to be ruined.

Ji Yu raised her head and looked at Zhai Tianyu before asking tentatively, "Your majesty, if Xinyi——"

"No," Zhai Tianyu knew what Ji Yu was going to ask him but he still ruthlessly refused her. "I will give her a chance to live the kind of life she wants with someone else. If she agrees then I will take the responsibility of sending her and the man she wants to live with away but I will not take her as my wife and you know why."

The day he was crowned as the Emperor, his mother had revolted against the harem. She had marched down the courtyards with her small army and then killed each and every heir to the throne even the young women and girls were not allowed to live.

Only Zhai Heng was allowed to live because he was Zhai Tianyu's biological brother and Zhai Tianyu had begged in front of his mother to let his big brother off. On top of it, Zhai Heng had sworn that he would never fight for the throne, if not even Zhai Heng would have been killed off like the rest of his half-siblings.

That night left a scar on Zhai Tianyu's heart. Because of this, he swore that he would only have children with just one woman who touched his heart. He didn't want to have children with several women creating a feud between the women in the harem.

Once he took control of the Ji and the Liu family, he would make sure that the concubines who could not get close to him would be married off to someone else where they would live a better life.

Of course, if they refused to leave then he could not do anything. He would give them the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do and even if they wanted to make the top of his head a prairie, he would not say anything as long as they did not ask him to give the right to throne to those children.

Ji Yu smiled sadly. She knew that Zhai Tianyu would refuse. He looked like he was easy going but he had his own stubbornness. Because of the revolt that Empress Dowager did, he refused to have his children scattered all over the place.

"I understand," Ji Yu nodded. She wanted to say something more but before she could say another word the sound of Eunuch Li came from outside their room.

"Your majesty," Eunuch Li sounded hesitant as he did not know what was happening inside the bedchambers of Zhai Tianyu and thought that he was disturbing Ji Yu and Zhai Tianyu. "It..Its——"

"It's me, come out your majesty. Something happened to the Empress," Zhai Heng spoke up when he saw that Eunuch Li was taking his sweet time to announce his arrival.

Ji Yu saw the change in Zhai Tianyu's eyes, even though he still seemed casual, his eyes were sharper and his muscles were taut as he pulled the robe that was lying on the wooden divider and draped it on his shoulders.

Ji Yu did not rush after him at once, instead, she opened her hair and ruffled her clothes to make it look like they did something before rushing after Zhai Tianyu who slid the door open and looked at Zhai Heng before demanding, "What happened to the Empress?"

Zhai Heng noticed the nervousness in Zhai Tianyu's eyes and the anger in his heart lessened. At least he did not make a mistake by pulling himself away from Liu Hui Ying. He looked at his brother and then said, "The Empress was attacked by assassins."