In the winter, the Emperor had already fallen gravely ill.
Yu Wenrui, wrapped in a thick cloak, had a palace attendant by his side holding an umbrella for him.
His heart disease had never improved.
Yun Chuqing was sent back to the Yun Family after the spring hunt, and a woman who had been scolded by the Emperor obviously couldn’t rejoin the Imperial Family, not even as a Concubine.
Even families of some status were unwilling to have a daughter-in-law who had been scolded by the Emperor and almost became the Crown Prince’s Side Consort.
She eventually remarried a Juren who had repeatedly failed the imperial examinations.
Yu Wenrui returned to the Prince’s Mansion.
Although he was already the Crown Prince, he spent most of his time in his own Prince Xian’s Mansion, or rather, in the small courtyard where she had once lived.
In fact, he found his own actions utterly self-indulgent.
She was someone he had pushed away with his own hands, and now that she had truly left, he indulged in the pretense of a lovelorn fool.
He stood in the middle of the courtyard with his eyes closed, tilting his head as if listening for a sound: she used to love sitting in this spot playing the guqin.
Behaving this way, he imagined in his heart that she was still here.
Then, an abrupt and overwhelming pain seized him, and he fainted.
"Your Highness, this heart disease... I’m helpless to cure it..." In a daze, he heard such a conversation.
Then came the resentful curses of his personal attendants at the Imperial Physician’s incompetence.
Later, he dozed off again in a fog of confusion, and when he woke up, he found everyone around him wearing worried expressions.
"What’s wrong?" He had a vague feeling that it was related to him.
His personal attendant was pale as death: "The Imperial Physician says your heart disease is unlike any he has seen, and I’m afraid..." it’s incurable.
Yu Wenrui, however, smiled: "Life and death are decreed by fate, there’s no need to force it."
The Emperor, long lost in pleasures, suddenly felt a surge of fatherly affection for this son, who had always been a source of comfort.
He personally visited this sick son and even offered a hefty reward, proclaiming to all under heaven that whoever could cure the Crown Prince’s illness would be richly rewarded.
Alas, wave after wave of "Divine Doctors" came and went, but the Crown Prince’s health continued to decline day by day.
Until one day, an old Divine Doctor with a white beard and flowing sleeves entered the Prince’s Mansion.
"Crown Prince, is this... a heartache caused by love?" After pondering for a while, the white-bearded elder spoke.
Yu Wenrui’s expression changed slightly, and he coughed softly: "Divine Doctor jests."
The white-bearded Divine Doctor, seeing that he didn’t acknowledge, didn’t make an issue of it and slowly said: "Your Highness’s condition cannot be cured by ordinary means."
Does that mean there’s a way?
The attendant serving Yu Wenrui brightened, asking respectfully, "Does the Divine Doctor have a method?"
The white-bearded old man shook his head and, just as people were losing hope, said: "This humble physician is powerless, however, I once came upon an incomplete medical text, which happens to have a record of a treatment for such a heart disease."
"One must find a Flower King that has lived for over ten thousand years and take its essence to brew into a medicinal decoction, to ultimately cure the ailment."
However, whether such a ten-thousand-year-old Flower King could be found anywhere under heaven was uncertain.
After the white-bearded old man left, there was no point in staying since he couldn’t cure the disease.
The attendant couldn’t help but complain: "I don’t know where that old man comes from, babbling about gods and spirits, what ten-thousand-year flower essence? Never heard of such a thing."
Yu Wenrui, however, thought of a certain figure.
He chuckled to himself; in this lifetime, he feared he would never meet her again.