Chapter 250: If I Can’t Have Her, You Can’t Either (1)
Everyone present took the confession differently, but the banquet had to proceed. A handful of suitable princes existed and even if they couldn’t be the Princess Consort, they could still be an Imperial Concubine.
What Gong Che had said was unsettling to Gong Jue. For just a moment, he wasn’t worried about heading back. Instead, he needed to think about what Gong Che meant.
He… professed his love for his Royal Sister, but was then rejected by her?
Gong Jue was panicking and couldn’t pay attention to anyone else as he continued drinking wine, one glass after the other. He was ill at ease.
He also recalled what Gong Che had last said to himー “She said that she didn’t accept incest. I can’t do this… and you can’t do this either!”
His heart turned frigid as he remembered.
How did the Royal Sister feel? She had already rejected Gong Che, but he had blood-ties with her as well. What about him?
His stone-cold heart grew heavier by the moment. Not only was he her brother, but deep within her heart, she had also considered him as a child she had raised. If Gong Che couldn’t, then how could he…?
Gong Jue couldn’t help but drink his worries away. During his stint of annoyance, he didn’t notice how unruly the banquet was becoming. Princes and noble ladies were speaking cautiously and filled the room with a turbulent wave of murmurs and hushed speech. They were cautious, but many were eager to be a bit more daring.
“Is everything okay?”
Someone had walked up to Gong Jue and he raised his head to see an extremely beautiful woman looking at him concerningly. She appeared gentle and welcoming at first sight.
But Gong Jue was the farthest thing from okay, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk. He lowered his head and continued to drink without saying so much as a word.
The woman didn’t say much either at the sight and instead seated herself behind him.
“I am the Qin Family’s daughter… paying respects to the Ninth Prince,” she said. Her gentle voice caressed his ears.
Upon mention of the Qin Family, Gong Jue immediately thought of Duke Yong. Could this be his daughter, Qin Ke’er?
Qin Ke’er slightly smiled. “Why are you acting so depressed?”
Gong Jue observed her with a scrutinizing gaze. “Please leave, Young Miss Qin.”
Qin Ke’er face turned pale at his disrespect, ashamed. She was originally going to leave but thought of something better and held in her anger.
“My father wants to talk to you, Ninth Prince. Please don’t reject him.”
She finished after saying this. After all, she was the most talented woman in the capital, so it was the first time someone had given her such a hard time.
It was a pity because Gong Jue would have happily agreed under normal circumstances. However, he wasn’t even listening right now.
In another room, dark and laden with despair, Gong Che laid in bed. His dark hair was messy, yet it somehow retained its enchanting allure. In contrast, his face was a pasty white. When he closed his eyes, one could mistake him for a celestial being, deep in sleep.
Someone walked in and kneeled by the front of the bed.
“Prince, it was a success!”
Upon hearing those words, Gong Che slowly opened his eyes. A glimmer of light flashed in his eyes but died just as quickly. He blinked for a while as he tried to focus his blurry sight. He laughed heartily.
“Did you see it yourself?”
The messenger lowered his head and said, “The Ninth Prince seemed disturbed, to say the least. He had a glass of wine without noticing anything.”
Gong Che smiled and closed his eyes again.
As he whispered to Gong Jue, he also reached over to drug his glass of wine. Gong Jue drank so much, yet somehow still retained consciousness. Gong Jue was troublesome in that he was always meticulously on guard, testing if there was poison for every glass of wine he drank from. But on that day, he was so distraught that he had finally dropped his defenses. He didn’t even notice.
Gong Che’s subordinate couldn’t understand why. Why did he go through so much trouble to spike a drink if he wasn’t even using poison?
But Gong Che laid on the bed, with his eyes glazed over. He seemed to still be laughing to himself, just barely audible to his underling.
So what if he was rejected by Gong Yimo? He still had a chance and there was no way that he would let Gong Jue rob him of it.
Meanwhile, Gong Jue had finally noticed that something was wrong after losing himself to his drinking.
His body grew hotter and hotter, as if he was given an aphrodisiac of the most extreme variety. He felt young and wild, the fierce sensation enveloping his body in lust and crippling his mind. If he was short even a fraction of his normal willpower, he would have most likely lost control in front of everyone.