The Emperor's words brought Lei Xing's mind back to reality. He lightly squeezed her hands and continued on, "Whenever she and my father would have a falling out...She would poison and use my illness as an excuse to mend the broken bridge..."

The Emperor sighed as he remembered what life with his parents was like, "My mother, the Empress dowager is and has always been a complicated person, a troubled one...A pitiful one...and my father was a..." He knit his brows as he struggled for words to describe his father and finally settled, "...a calculated person."

Lei Xing knit her brows, unsure how to respond to the new sensitive topic. She thought for a bit, and then lightly squeezed his hands and asked, "Did your father know?..."

The Emperor was quiet for a bit before responding with a frown, "He knew...He should have known. But perhaps, he didn't care to know..."

"Or maybe he believed that she would never actually kill me...After all, I was important to her - No, what I represented was important...It may sound stupid, but I believed this as well...until I was shown otherwise."

The Emperor let out a tired breath, he felt drained just talking about this. But since he had begun, he would continue, "She was different that day...or maybe I just saw her for the first time, I truly saw how deeply broken she was...She was hysterical...much like she was the day she strangled you..." The Emperor looked up at Lei Xing and she blankly stared at him, holding his stare and her breath.

Lei Xing felt as if he was looking past her, that her eyes had simply become a mirror to the past. She did not know why, but she got the feeling that she should not move as if the illusion would shatter if she did and take him along with it. And so she stayed still for him.

After a bit, the Emperor finally looked back down at their hands and continued, "I was never trapped there with her, I could have left at any time...I should have left after being warned the first time. Even if I did not know what was in it, I knew it came with pain..."

"... Even when I was warned...I still drank it because I believed she would never kill me because she needed me. The pain would be temporary, it was a necessary means to the end she wanted, the end we both wanted. Therefore, I could endure."

"But then that day, when I was told I would die... I couldn't bring myself to drink it...I was scared, I didn't want to die. Like a coward." The Emperor said with a little mocking laugh.

Lei Xing frowned and defended him, "Fear is a natural response...You were right to be scared, you had reason to be. People who lack fear are just brave idiots and they usually don't live long. You need to live long...and you need fear to be successful at that." Lei Xing awkwardly comforted.

The Emperor smiled up at her and then looked away and continued, "She forced it down my throat all the while ranting about how this was necessary, a way for me to be useful. Because I was nothing but a tool meant to be used... if I couldn't be useful, then I meant nothing...And perhaps I still mean nothing now, even when I've achieved so much."

Lei Xing frowned and because she could not think of any words, she hugged him tight and then managed to scramble for some words together, "You mean a lot more than she does...You said it yourself, she's irrelevant and you're not. Irrelevant people should remain irrelevant."

The Emperor smiled and pat Lei Xing's head and hugged her back, feeling warmth enveloping his heart, "The strangest thing happened that day...It might sound crazy, you did call it crazy..." The Emperor said with a light chuckle as he remembered one of his earliest conversations with Lei Xing.

Lei Xing knit her brows as she tried to recall what he was talking about, but nothing came to mind. The Emperor continued, "A voice saved my life..."

Lei Xing immediately sat up and looked at him wide-eyed, "What?"

The Emperor smiled at her stunned expression, he had expected a reaction like this. After all, she had called the very notion of it crazy and he knew her to be quite the skeptic. He pat her head and with a smile he continued, "As crazy as it sounds, it really happened. An unseen voice entity urged me to escape and guided me to the main hall, to salvation. Without that help...I would have probably withered there in the cold palace surrounded by the sounds of my mother's hysterical laughter..."

Lei Xing finally recovered from her shock and she asked, "Um, I'm sorry...you said you heard a voice...in your head?" She asked for confirmation.

The Emperor nodded, "Like you, I thought it impossible. I disregarded it as my imagination and forgot about it. But then a few years later it happened again when I joined the war. This time it tried to warn me about a trap?laid for me. Again, I disregarded it and the consequences were quite severe. I almost died again...It did not come often, but whenever it did, I made sure to listen to it after that incident..."

Lei Xing knit her brows in thought and looked down.

{...Well, it's definitely not crazy anymore...He hears a voice too? No, I hear a bracelet - No, I hear that quack soo...O_O)...It wouldn't be that old quack, would it? Could it?... I smell a freaking dead old rat (?_? )...}

The Emepror looked at Lei Xing's face and hesitated, but then he carefully said, "Actually, it...it was the reason I chose you that day after you failed the selection..."

Lei Xing went wide-eyed again and this time her mouth hung open. She was completely taken aback. The Emperor looked at her expression and quickly clarified, "My feelings for you are completely real and have nothing to do with it. I just w-"

"Forget feelings, what do you mean it was the reason?" Lei Xing interjected with a frown.

The Emperor knit his brows, a bit offended but he could understand her reaction. "Well...It told me to stop you from leaving or that I would come to regret it. And so I stopped you..."

Lei Xing looked at him, wide-eyed, open her mouth and then closed it. Then she removed her hands from his and covered her face.

{...What the- ?! It's definitely that crazy quack now, it has to be...Ohh, so it's a long-running joke, huh?... What the hell am I supposed to do with this piece of information?! What the hell is wrong with today?! >_

The Emperor panicked seeing Lei Xing like this, he held her arms and quickly continued to explain his stance, "Xing er', at that time, I was confused as to what you could possibly do to make me regret letting you leave the palace. But now I understand, I would truly regret not having you in my life...Please don't be upset..." He finished as he gently rubbed her arms.

Lei Xing took a deep breath and removed her hands from her face. The Emperor was relieved to see that she was not crying and was ready to change the subject since it upset her. But then contrary to his expectations, Lei Xing pursued it by asking,?"What did it sound like? Describe it."

The Emperor knit his brows, "Well...Now that I'm thinking about it, it sounds like...I can't say. I don't remember...No, I don't think I ever knew. I know when I hear it and can identify it when I do, but then thinking about what it sounds like, there's nothing...It is quite odd, but the entire thing is odd, as you put it, crazy."

Lei Xing knit her brows and glared at the bracelet on her wrist. It was the same with the bracelet. After Doctor Lou outed himself today, she had felt incredibly foolish. But after thinking about it, she had to conclude that it was not really her fault.

No matter how she thought about it, she did not remember the bracelet sounding like Doctor Lou ever. This fact she was certain of. It did not even sound like him when he talked through it right across from her.

She had initially suspected that he did something to mask his voice to make it "more fun" but then it had been that way since she picked it up. So she decided it must be something close to a network or wiring issue with the bracelet.

But now that the Emperor also said all this and to her, it really could not be this coincidental.

{...And I'm not even shocked anymore -_-)'...}

It was quite convenient that the Emperor could not remember what his voice sounded like. If he did and it was Doctor Lou, then the Emperor would have come to realize this when they met. Lei Xing narrowed her eyes at the Emperor and tried a different angle, "Did h- IT ask you to make me Empress by any chance?"

"No." The Emperor swiftly responded with knit eyebrows and then worried that Lei Xing would doubt him, he expounded, "It had no interest in that. I confirmed it. I had thought that it put the thought of asking to be Empress in my head during the competition, but it denied it and said it did not care about it at all...Making you Empress was my decision and mine alone. Xing er', this voice has absolutely nothing to do with my feelings for you. Th-.."

"I get that part..." Lei Xing dismissively waved away his profession of love and continued her inquiry, "What did h- IT say it wants me here for then?"

The Emperor smiled and a little blush crept into his cheeks, "A companion, mine...It said we were the perfect pair. It knows things and so must have known we were perfect for each other even before we did..." The Emperor said gently taking her hands and caressing them.

Lei Xing gave a quiet sarcastic laugh and looked off to the side, completely unamused.

{...Oh, it's because you don't know what I know...because if you knew what I knew, you would be thinking that we were being played with by a bored old man who apparently chose me as his entertainment project of the year the moment I walked into his shop! >_

Lei Xing frowned.

{...Wait...but that doesn't really make sense...}

The Emperor had just told her that he had been hearing a voice since he was a child and it had saved his life numerous times. The Emperor's voice also stated it did not care about her being Empress. Moreover,?the Emperor did not have any objects that he carried or wore on his person all the time.?If he did, she would definitely know about it.

{...There's no necklace, definitely no bracelet, no ring, no earrings, no ankle bracelet....and definitely no piercings anywhere...And the whole Empress thing too was all that quack seemed to want...sooo maybe not?...Then, is it really just a coincidence...No, it can't be...}

Lei Xing's frown deepened as she stared at her wrist where the bracelet rested.

{...I'm really starting to feel more and more like the butt of some stupid ass joke -_-)'...}