Qi Junmu smiled—yet at the words "the Empress," his eyes held no warmth at all. He said: "I only spoke a bit too freely because I did not want you to feel uneasy. But here, it is just the two of us. Let us speak of no one else."
Strangely enough, if Shen Nian were a woman, Qi Junmu could simply make her a consort and favor her as a matter of course.
Then neither the court nor the rear palace would have any grounds to object—not even the Empress could do anything but accept it with grace.