The Vicious Supporting Villainess’s Chronicle of Serving Pleasure (Historical 1v1, H) - Chapter 15

The half cup of almond dew at her side was hardly enough to satisfy. Shen Chiying’s fine brows knit; she hesitated over whether to have a few more cups brought.

After the sweet drink, cool freshness ran down Huan Jin’s throat; rare for him, he spoke first. “I hear from your people that you have urgent business to discuss with me?”

Shen Chiying started—then remembered why. Her red lips jutted in a little pout. “Your Majesty~” The call wound and turned a hundred times, hanging in the rafters. “You must stand up for me!”

Fresh from her bath and toilette, a faint flush warmed her cheeks. She wore a sheer gauze dress, thin as a cicada’s wing; in the soft wash of candlelight, milk-white skin and a full, graceful figure showed in tantalizing glimpses.

A maiden’s sweet scent wound under his nose. Huan Jin’s eyes dimmed a shade; with a quiet “Mm” he signaled her to go on.

Shen Chiying looked at him all aggrieved, eyes shimmering with tears. “Your Majesty didn’t attend the banquet at Fragrant Islet Pavilion today—you don’t know how vile Shen Yilin was! He not only blocked my path and insulted me, he spoke grossly again and again, even slandering my late mother…”

Before a man she could lean on, the grievance she’d felt at three parts swelled to ten; even her eyes reddened.

“I’ve heard you already ordered him thirty slaps,” Huan Jin said, sitting on the edge of the couch, face unreadable. “If that’s not enough, how would you have me punish him?”

Shen Chiying’s gaze flickered—so it was true: not a breath of wind around her escaped him.

“I had them use real force. Thirty slaps will teach him well enough. There’s something else I ask…” She slipped into the breadth of his chest, eyes bright with pleading light.

“My mother has been gone eight years and still has no posthumous rank. Her death day is near—Your Majesty, please grant my family a patent for her.”

Huan Jin’s sword brows tilted; his hand slipped around her waist. “Since the empress asks, you must already have a plan?”

“I want to ask a First-Rank State Lady for my mother,” Shen Chiying said carefully. “It isn’t greed—I only hope her posthumous rank will suppress the Marquis of Wuxing, so father and son will no longer dare to belittle her.”

Huan Jin considered. The Duke Protector had just taken the field; large-scale promotions were ill-timed. “When the fighting eases, I’ll order the Ministry of Rites to handle it.”

Shen Chiying’s eyes lit—and she pushed a little further. “Then, in ten days, on my mother’s death day, may I go to Mount Jingfa to worship?”

Seeing his expression shift, she nuzzled in his arms in a hurry. “I’ll travel light, Your Majesty. I won’t alarm anyone.”

At the words “Mount Jingfa,” something complicated passed through the darkness of his eyes.

After a silent moment, he nodded. “Granted. I’ll have Qi Yan arrange shadow guards to accompany you.”

“Thank you for Your Majesty’s grace!” Unable to help herself, Shen Chiying looped her arms around his neck; her cherry lips pressed up to his. The beaded step-shake at her temple swayed with the motion.

She hadn’t expected the bayberry juice staining her lips to leave a blush on the hard lines of Huan Jin’s jaw.

Shen Chiying’s heart gave a jump. Without thinking, she flicked out her little clove tongue and gently licked that suggestive red mark away.

A faint shiver unfurled from his jaw; Huan Jin’s breath hitched, the tips of his ears flushing visibly pink as the veins at his neck rose faintly.

Though ice basins ringed the hall, summer heat still hummed in the air. His Adam’s apple bobbed; fire burned in his belly.

Shen Chiying realized what she’d done; her whole body went still.

Silence held the hall for several breaths—you could have heard a pin drop.

Huan Jin suddenly swept her up across his arms and, steps steady, carried her straight to the golden-nanmu canopy bed.

He lowered both her and the gauze curtain at once, then leaned in over her, urgently, expertly stripping away her clothes. With callused palms he kneaded and stroked her snow-white, lush body at will.

“Your Majesty!” Shen Chiying panted under his hands, cheeks burning. She pushed at him a few perfunctory times—no real force—teasing refusal. “There’s… another matter I haven’t said yet…”

“What is it?” Huan Jin’s gaze pinned her; in his hands he was still rolling and kneading her full, sleek buttocks.

“I saw Elder Sister at the banquet today…” Shen Chiying traced a fingertip idly round his belt, voice soft. “It reminded me of the heir of the Chu fief who came to court not long ago.”

In the chapbook he didn’t occupy many lines, but he was one of the many men who secretly admired Shen Wanhua—a man who spent years stationed in Chu and seldom entered the capital.

“The two of them standing side by side—truly a match of beauty and talent, a pair fated by heaven…”

She hadn’t finished when Huan Jin’s face went dark; between the tide of desire in his eyes a hint of scrutiny surged.

“I have already promised Princess Duanhui I won’t arrange a marriage for her,” he said, mouth tilting—though the smile never reached his eyes. “The empress need not raise it again.”

A hard tremor went through Shen Chiying’s heart; the joy of having won a patent for her late mother drained away in a breath.

Back then, through the perils of the succession struggle, Huan Jin had emerged from the bl00d and wind with her help—Shen Wanhua’s planning and maneuvering.

The bond between them, the tacit understanding, was not something she—who had climbed to the empress’s seat by stealing a life-saving merit—could ever reach.

At the chapbook’s end, on a night of pouring rain, Huan Jin stood alone outside a mountain temple, waiting bitterly for Shen Wanhua to come back to him.

Though what followed was not written, the meaning was clear: Huan Jin would set Shen Wanhua up again as empress; together they would share this land of ten thousand li, and grow old side by side.

At the thought, Shen Chiying lowered her eyes and pressed down the sourness in her chest.

By then the man had already forced her legs apart. His thick, hard c0ck nudged in, slow and strong, rubbing along the tender seam between her thighs.

“Mm…” Shen Chiying dragged her thoughts back and let coyness bloom across her face. She hummed as she moved to meet him. “I’m going to give Your Majesty a child—so many, many children…”

With children at her side, she cared nothing for love.