"Your Highness, Empress, please drink your tonic. It has been a week since, and you haven't drunk the tonic. Your Highness, your health keeps on deteriorating. I'm so scared of your health," a woman in a plain grey dress sat on the floor while she watched her empress refused to eat anything that could replenish his health.

Yunyu opened his eyes. He looked around and saw that he was in a shabby courtyard without any heating. He was currently sitting on a small seat with not so proper food in front of him. While the maid sat in front of her on the floor.

Everything was dim since the lighting in this small courtyard was almost nonexistent except few candles that flickered out whenever a cold wind swept in from the shabby windows with many holes. 

Yunyu could feel that he got attacked so suddenly by the cold from outside. His body shivered as he also had a difficulty of breathing. 

[Brrrr…. Pupa, what is this? Why am I like this? Give me an explanation quickly, or we're breaking up!]

Pupa appeared from a portal, invisible as always from other people except for Yunyu. It stared at Yunyu for a while without any answer. Which made Yunyu annoyed.

[Pupa! Answer me now! What took you so long, brrrrr…. It's so cold!]

[Pupa: You said you'll break up with me if I don't answer quickly.]

[Do you really want to break up with me? After all, we've been through as husband and wife with five children?! H—How could you do this to your wife! Oh, poor me.]

[Pupa:… your imagination is as overactive as always. Besides, why would I want to have five kids with a spicy chicken host like you?!]

[Pupa: Anyway, you're in Ancient China right now. You're Bai Yunyu, Empress of China under Huang Dynasty. Your title is Empress Xiuying, which means beautiful flower, a title directly given by the Emperor and your husband, Emperor Xianliang, or by his real name, Huang Shu.]

[Pupa: The country is now prosperous, thanks to Huang Shu's excellent governmental and military capability. This country is now in its golden era, with many scholars and artists flourishing and writing the tale of Emperor Xianliang, the greatest Emperor of them all.]

[Pupa: But everybody despised their Empress, Empress Xiuying. Because not only he is a Ger male empress, he is also an infertile Ger, meaning that he cannot give birth to an heir. Male empress has been a subject of ridicule for ages in this era, and the fact that you can't even give Emperor Xianliang an heir…]

[Okay, I get it. But why am I here? Surely, this Empire is prosperous, but why am I so shabby, in this cold shabby place?]

[Pupa: Because you've been banished to the cold palace, of course. It's actually been almost two years since you had been banished.]

…

…

[HUANG SHU BANISHED ME?! AFTER I GAVE HIM MY FIRST TIME AS JAMES GRIND?!]

[Pupa: More or less, yes. You've been banished and ostracized by the whole Imperial Palace, including your own husband, Emperor Xianliang or Huang Shu.]

[Did he… did he cheat on me with someone like Long Zhen before?]

[Pupa: Someone? You mean, a harem filled with almost 100 women?]

[WHAAATTTT?!]

[Pupa: You've made a grave mistake of fighting against the Empress Dowager. And you've been schemed by the women in the harem. They accused you of planning to kill the Crown Prince because you're jealous, since Concubine Xi, Crown Prince's mother, had risen up in rank after she gave birth to the first son of Emperor Xianliang.]

[Pupa: So you got accused, schemed, and was about to get executed. But Huang Shu pitied you enough that he had spared you from the death penalty. So, he banished you to the cold palace and only visited you once in a month or so.]

[… how cruel… all I did is just because I cannot conceive a baby for him…]

[Pupa: You cannot really blame him. You're a male empress without a son. It is already hard for the harem member to survive, but you're unfavored by everyone, and you don't have a strong backing either.]

[Pupa: This is the Ancient world, where the traditional custom has been heavily persevered, not a modern world where everything is more flexible.]

[Sigh… did I die just now?]

[Pupa: Yes, your body is weakening every single day since you've been suffering from malnutrition. You also refused to drink any medicine, so you just passed away peacefully in this cold palace.]

[Pupa: Until I transmigrated your body here, of course.]

[How could Huang Shu do this to me… after all his sweet words in the tenth world…]

Yunyu looked at the window that creaked. The cold wind of late autumn-early winter went in and hit Yunyu's body again. With his low, hoarse voice, he asked Meilan, the name that he gave to his forever loyal servant, to close the window.

"Meilan… close the window for me…" Yunyu said.

Meilan hurriedly closed the window and used a piece of wood to lock the window since the window had been too rusty to hold on its own. 

Meilan returned to Empress Xiuying and sat on the cold floor again, "Your Highness, your body is deteriorating every single day. I cannot see you like this forever. You need to drink this tonic while it's still warm!" 

Meilan took the soup from the table in front of Yunyu, and stretched her hand, "Please, I beg you, Your Highness, you need to drink this!"

Yunyu stared at Meilan. He took Meilan when she was just at the tender age of ten. Her dad died in a war, and her mother was just a farmer lady who died with an illness. Nobody wanted to take care of her, and she became a child beggar on the street. 

Yunyu met Meilan when she was ten years old, eating leftover food thrown by a passerby in the busy main street. He felt pity, and at that age, he was still seventeen years old and was the son of the city's prosperous merchant. 

So he took her in as his servant and named her, Meilan.

Yunyu smiled at Meilan and then shook his head. He put the tonic down and said, "Meilan, you should drink the tonic, not me. You've been working hard serving me alone in this cold palace for two years, and you've followed me since you're ten."

"It's been ten years, right?" 

Meilan looked hopeless. She was trying her best to keep her master healthy. But her master, Empress Xiuying or what Meilan called before as Young Master Bai, didn't even want to drink a simple tonic soup.

Meilan put down the tonic and nodded, "Yes, Your Highness, Empress Xiuying. It's been ten years, and I regret nothing of serving you."

"That's very loyal of you, Meilan," Yunyu chuckled softly. He didn't seem to be wanting to touch the food at all. "But don't call me Empress Xiuying anymore. Call me Master Bai instead."

"But you're the Empress of China! You're the Empress of Huang Dynasty!" Meilan insisted. 

"I've been banished, out of my position, so please, call me Master Bai instead."

"… Master Bai…" Meilan lowered her head. She was about to cry by how much pain that her master went through. "I… I'm sorry to say this, Master Bai. But His Majesty is blind. He doesn't deserve you at all!"

"Neither do I deserve him, Meilan. We don't deserve each other," Yunyu said with a thin smile on his face. "But it's okay. Times have changed. There are good times, and there are also arduous times. All you need to do is to persevere."

"But, I really don't get why His Majesty can be so cruel and ruthless to you! He said to you once that he only loved you! His love is cheap!"

"Silence, Meilan!" Yunyu raised his voice finally. It was hoarse, creaky, like an old hag. Because he had been sick for so long. "I don't want someone else to hear your slander to Your Majesty. If someone heard you, you might get executed!"

"But…" Meilan pouted. "Nobody ever come here, Master Bai. Even the guards don't even bother to patrol around your palace. Because you're…"

"Unimportant?" Yunyu guessed what Meilan was about to say.

…

"It's okay, Meilan. I also wonder about Your Majesty, the last time he visited me is three months ago, is it not?"

"Yes…" Meilan said depressingly. She hesitated for a moment, then she finally showed something in her pocket that she had hidden for a while. She didn't want her master to know, but it seems that her master still hadn't forgotten about that bastard Emperor.

"This is a letter from His Majesty, Master Bai. He said that he will come tonight. At first, I don't want to show it to you because he often skipped about visiting you every month. I don't want to give you hope…"

Yunyu took the letter from Meilan's hand and read it. He nodded and said, "He said he'll come tonight. Well, I don't know if he will come or not, but let him come if he wants."

"Master Bai, do you want me to prepare a scented bath for you?" 

Bai Yunyu chuckled, "What for? Do you think he'll appreciate me if I take a scented bath and take care of my appearance?"

Yunyu smiled thin. There was a lingering sadness on his face, "There is no use of it, Meilan. You know that he had banished me here for two years. The apple that we've eaten together once had been rotten now. He loves me no more, so best to just let him see what's actually happening to me right now," Bai Yunyu said. 

He folded the letter from Huang Shu, kissed it, and threw it to the trash pot near him.

**Please read the author note, thank you**