There wasn’t a speck of light inside the main quarters, and it was impossible to tell whether Fu Jinshu was actually asleep or not. Wei Yunchan raised his hand and pushed the door, the door remained completely unmoved.
Truly lawless.
Unable to return to his room, Wei Yunchan didn’t genuinely hold it against Fu Jinshu, either. The fault lay primarily with himself; he should have asked a few more questions when Fu Jinshu mentioned the young woman earlier, and then things wouldn’t have led to Fu Jinshu’s misunderstanding.
He bent his fingers and knocked on the door panel, not speaking particularly loudly: “Little meat bun, open the door.”
No movement.
Wei Yunchan raised his volume slightly: “Will you open the door yourself, or shall I have someone come and tear it down? Choose one.”
Still no movement.
Wei Yunchan lost a bit of face, so he deliberately lowered his voice, feigning anger: “I’ll count to three.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
It had already reached “two,” yet inside the door remained dead silent. Wei Yunchan simply didn’t bother counting to “one”; the little demon was truly not afraid of him at all, and counting further was useless.
Hard tactics wouldn’t work, so he could only resort to soft ones.
However, he was still standing outside right now, and Shen Fu’er might even be able to hear the commotion from his side. Being “soft” was fine, but he at least needed to get into the room so he could be “soft” exclusively for Fu Jinshu alone.
After pondering for a moment, an idea struck Wei Yunchan’s mind.
Sitting on the bed, Fu Jinshu had listened to him rattle on at the door for a long time. In the end, he didn’t even reach “one” before hearing the sound of his retreating footsteps walking further and further away.
Did he go back to the east chamber to sleep with the young woman again?
Fu Jinshu pondered silently. If worst came to worst, he would go back and ask Master Heji to cast another divination; he no longer wanted this scoundrel Wei Yunchan.
Could this romantic fate be tied with someone else instead?
As he thought about it, sleepiness crept up on him. Fu Jinshu slipped under the covers, and just as he was about to doze off, he heard some rustling noises.
Fu Jinshu opened his eyes, confirming that the sound was coming from the direction of the study.
The main quarters were very spacious, containing not only the inner sleeping chamber, but also a small parlor for dining and drinking tea, a study where two people could sit and study together, and a partitioned alcove for bathing.
A series of footsteps approached. Fu Jinshu closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Even before the person had fully drawn near, he already knew who it was.
Wei Yunchan climbed into the room through the study window—this was the first time he had ever done something so lacking in decorum. As the dignified Young Master of Yunliang City, being locked out by his spouse and forced to enter by climbing a window was truly something that would make people laugh their heads off if word got out.
Patting the dust off his robes, Wei Yunchan groped his way in the dark toward the inner chamber.
Reaching the bedside, he found Fu Jinshu sleeping with his back turned. Wei Yunchan undressed and got into bed, reaching out to pull the person straight into his embrace.
“Stop pretending to sleep.”
Fu Jinshu opened his eyes but ignored him.
Wei Yunchan lightly patted the soft belly beneath his hand, ostensibly lecturing while actually coaxing: “Since you knew a young woman came to the mansion today, why didn’t you just ask me directly? I had no idea at all. If you had said something, I wouldn’t have gone to that other room.”
Upon hearing this, Fu Jinshu felt that these words were merely Wei Yunchan shifting the responsibility onto him. He immediately turned over to face Wei Yunchan directly, raised his hand, and slapped him across the face.
“Slap.”
The quiet room made the sound of the palm strike exceptionally crisp.
Wei Yunchan was stunned.
Fu Jinshu was also stunned.
Back when Fu Jinshu was in the mountains of Yaotai Mirror, he had been the undisputed tyrant of the forest. Although he was quite young at the time, his cultivation was the highest; he could even pin leopard spirits and tiger spirits to the ground and beat them up. He understood nothing of human social conventions; whenever anything angered him, female or male, old or young, he beat them regardless.
At most, he would spare a couple fewer slaps for females and elders.
A century ago, under Master Heji’s guidance, he had already reined in his previous temperament. Coupled with his past combative and overbearing nature, which had triggered the disaster of his physical body’s total destruction, he knew better now.
Therefore, after entering the Wei mansion, Fu Jinshu constantly reminded himself not to resort to physical force, especially against this weak and frail scoundrel Wei Yunchan, if he slapped him, would the guy still be able to maintain their romantic fate with him afterward?
Thus, when Wei Yunchan pinched the back of his neck, Fu Jinshu endured it; when Wei Yunchan stroked his head, Fu Jinshu endured it again; and when Wei Yunchan casually gave him silly nicknames during the day, Fu Jinshu endured that too.
Yet tonight’s affair was simply something Fu Jinshu could not endure.
Fortunately, he hadn’t used a shred of magic in that slap. With no candlelight to illuminate the room, Fu Jinshu used his night vision to observe, it was merely a bit red, that was all.
The burning, stinging sensation on his cheek made Wei Yunchan narrow his eyes, the tip of his tongue slowly pressing against the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t stunned because Fu Jinshu had slapped him; rather, he was stunned because after being slapped by Fu Jinshu, he realized he felt not a single trace of anger.
How peculiar.
“You’ve hit me, does this matter considered past now?” Wei Yunchan caught his wrist, his tone devoid of anger, opting instead to lecture him on moral principles and propriety: “Let this be an example to us. The husband is the guide for the wife, how can you throw your weight around like this?”
Fu Jinshu understood nothing of “the husband is the guide for the wife” and simply treated the words as passing wind, forgetting them the moment he heard them.
Then he withdrew his hand to write on Wei Yunchan’s palm.
Where is the person?
The room was pitch black, and Wei Yunchan couldn’t see what he was writing, so he had to concentrate even more intently on feeling the strokes he traced. The more focused he became, the itchier his palm felt.
Wei Yunchan caught his fingers, preventing him from continuing to write, and said, “The person has been sent away; we’ll talk about the details tomorrow. It’s pitch black and I can’t see what you’re writing, let’s sleep first.”
With that, he captured Fu Jinshu’s hand and closed his eyes first.
Fu Jinshu was sleepy as well. Though curious, he obediently pressed closer into Wei Yunchan’s embrace and fell asleep shortly after.
Wei Yunchan, however, suddenly opened his eyes. Looking at Fu Jinshu’s somewhat blurry sleeping face in the darkness, he raised his hand and rubbed his slapped cheek twice.
The little demon was quite fierce, resembling a cat even more; when pushed, he’d extend his claws and scratch people.
Yet he was also adorable.
The moment this thought surfaced, Wei Yunchan felt he must truly be bewitched. If anyone else had slapped him today, given Wei Yunchan’s temperament, regardless of gender, that hand would certainly have been chopped off to feed the dogs.
Yet Fu Jinshu had hit him, and he used the word “adorable” to describe the other.
Could Fu Jinshu have cast some kind of sorcery on him to muddle his mind?
Amidst these wild, random thoughts, he fell asleep at some point.
Having the experience of the previous night, Wei Yunchan was much calmer when he woke up the next morning. Using a bit of strength, he pried open Fu Jinshu’s gripping hand. As his breathing deepened, he couldn’t help muttering inwardly: Why did this little demon Fu Jinshu have the habit of grabbing someone’s lifeline while sleeping?
And he didn’t grab the soft ones either, only the hard ones.
After managing to break free with great difficulty, his back was soaked in sweat, and he needed a bath once more.
Estimating the time, Wei Yunchan woke up the soundly sleeping Fu Jinshu on the bed: “Get up, don’t be late again today.”
Hearing the word “late,” Fu Jinshu suddenly sat bolt upright.
Seeing him startled into sudden action, Wei Yunchan asked, “What is it?”
How could it not be something? Because he had been angered the previous day by Wei Yunchan’s intention to sleep with another woman, Fu Jinshu had completely forgotten about the teacher punishing him for being late, he hadn’t written a single character of those five hundred and thirty repetitions of Regulations of the Thousand Articles.
He might as well just fake an illness and take leave for the day.
Fu Jinshu’s eyes lit up, feeling this was a brilliant plan. He pulled on Wei Yunchan’s hand and wrote: Help me with a favor.
Unable to resist his bright, sparkling eyes, Wei Yunchan swallowed hard: “What favor?”
A servant of the Wei family went to the private school to ask for leave on Fu Jinshu’s behalf, giving illness as the reason.
The moment Shen Qingzhu heard it, he sensed something fishy. After witnessing Fu Jinshu’s unfathomable magic yesterday, he knew the other party was no ordinary mortal. Being sick certainly couldn’t be true, but his anxiety only grew deeper—yesterday he had spoken to Fu Jinshu about his elder sister Shen Fu’er; although Fu Jinshu hadn’t made him any promises, surely… surely Fu Jinshu wouldn’t stand by and watch someone die without helping?
Since Fu Jinshu wasn’t coming today, how was he supposed to inquire about news of his sister?
Just as he was burning with anxiety, a servant from his own household came looking for him, urging him to rush home immediately.
Shen Qingzhu felt a sinking sensation in his chest, gripped by an inexplicable and lingering sense of unease.
Today, a major crisis had erupted in the Wei mansion once again.
The woman Madam Wen had Fentao find for Wei Yunchan yesterday had her face slashed to shreds and was found hanged inside the east chamber.
The servants were struck dumb with terror as they took down the corpse, wrapped it in white cloth, and waited for the managing figures of the household to decide how to handle it.
Two days ago, a small servant of the Wei family had met an unnatural death. Barely a day later, another merchant’s daughter had lost her life inside the Wei household, her clothes in disarray, her features unrecognizable, and her manner of death wretched in the extreme. Trembling with fright, the servants of the Wei family all harbored private thoughts of their own.
He Pan had been brought back by Wei Yunchan, and Shen Fu’er had also spent a night of intimacy with Wei Yunchan yesterday.
As for Wei Yunchan himself, his ruthless methods from earlier years were known to all.
Now that his health had recovered, using such a perverted method to humiliate and kill people seemed entirely plausible.
At noon, members of the Shen family arrived.
Seeing the corpse wrapped in white cloth on the ground, Shen Qingzhu wailed aloud as he threw himself over it: “Sister! Sister!”
When the white cloth was pulled back, the garments were precisely the goose-yellow pleated skirt Shen Fu’er had worn when leaving home yesterday, but that delicate and pretty face had been slashed to pieces, making it impossible to discern her original appearance.
Overcome with grief, Shen Qingzhu fainted on the spot, collapsing flat onto the ground.
Unmoving and unfazed, Wei Yunchan sat in his chair, toying with the teacup in his hand, though his gaze fell upon Shen Yuanlin, the master of the Shen family.