Ugly Man

"Then what do you plan to do?" Empress Shui smiled after she had a slight yawn while her eyes watered up.

One of Tang Tian's eyes twitched as he saw her kept on yawning. "If you're sleepy, go back and rest."

"Ahaha. Emperor, you do know I am almost always sleeping. I'm yawning because it's boring here and I can't sleep yet." She laughed out loud.

He sighed again, "What could I do but to ask for his opinion."

"Ahh...so you are going to respectfully ask." As Empress Shui finished her sentence, she laughed again with a smirk on her face.

-----

"My appearance?" Zhu Xiao Wan asked as she looked a bit impatient at Song Hui Yao.

He chuckled and said, "Dress yourself up first, I need to change my clothes." After that, he summoned the servants to bring in boxes of garments, accessories, and adornments before he turned and left the room.

Zhu Xiao Wan looked at the clothes and rummaged through the box with the help of a few servant girls. Ruminating the yellow dress, she shook her head inwardly. It was the emperor's birthday so she should avoid wearing anything golden-ish even though this dress wasn't dyed gold.

The next one the servant girls pulled out of the chest was an ostentatious vermillion dress. Zhu Xiao Wan's eyebrows jerked vaguely. Was it that the people in Prince Shen's Manor liked to show off or were they just lack the sense of perceiving the circumstance?

If she was to don on that vermillion dress, she would surely outshine the empress. She didn't want to make people displeased with her for some ridiculous reason.

Zhu Xiao Wan then recalled that Song Hui Yao usually wore light colour garments. Once again, she scrutinizing the clothes in the chest and found a soft and delicate dress that was white. The dress was not too plain nor was it too gaudy and extravagant. From the hem to somewhere midway was finely embroidered with violet chrysanthemums.

After putting the dress on, Zhu Xiao Wan turned to look for a pair of shoes and some adornments. She didn't place pins in her hair because she didn't like having things on her head except for hats and hairbands. When she completed dressing herself up, Zhu Xiao Wan waited for Song Hui Yao to come back.

A while later, Song Hui Yao asked if he could go in before opening the door. Seeing the little girl that had dolled up nicely, he slightly raised his brows. Approaching her, he squatted down in front of Zhu Xiao Wan. He lifted his head to gaze at her beautiful face then the glossy silver hair.

From afar, one would think that there was something between the two. A beautiful girl and a handsome young man, it was satisfying to fantasy about the lovely relationship between the couple.

However, fantasies were nothing but fiction and imagination. Zhu Xiao Wan and Song Hui Yao were in fact, staring at each other's attractive countenances. Their eyes though were indifferent; they did not care about what the person in front of them looked like, even if the person was to look like a beauteous deity.

Running his fingers through her hair, the silverness of her hair gradually turned darker. When his fingers slipped out of her hair, it was no longer silver but a cascade that was completely black.

His hand then covered her eyes and after he removed his hand, her purple eyes were now black; Song Hui Yao also modified her facial features a bit.

"You can look at the mirror now," he said.

Zhu Xiao Wan stared at herself in the mirror and felt flabbergasted. "How?"

He smiled and tilted his head to look outside. "Countenance Altering. At a certain stage, one can adjust others' features, too."

Her eyes shone faintly but the unnoticeable glint quickly disappeared. Then out of the blue, she examined Song Hui Yao from head to toes intensely.

Sensing her suspicious inspecting gaze, Song Hui Yao burst out laughing as soon as he realized what she was thinking. "Haha, I did not alter myself to look handsome."

What was in her head? Did she think that he was an ugly man that was fat and gross? That he used the Countenance Altering to make himself handsome? He absolutely didn't want to deliberately lure leeches onto himself.