Mo Yu had only just returned with news about the house’s owner when Xiao Jinyi dispatched him again to the medical hall, instructing him to look for a middle-aged man with a stout build who was injured and accompanied by a servant.
When Shen Shixu saw Mo Yu, who wore the same tight-lipped expression as his master, and heard Xiao Jinyi’s orders, his eyes suddenly went wide before he couldn’t help bursting into laughter.
Xiao Jinyi watched Shen Shixu laugh until his eyes crinkled, a small dimple appearing on the right side of his mouth, and for a moment he found himself staring, transfixed.
Shen Shixu when he laughed was like a flower in full bloom in springtime, radiant and brimming with life, a sight that filled people with hope.
After laughing for a while, Shen Shixu composed himself. He and Xiao Jinyi returned to the house and looked around in every direction.
Seeing that no one was nearby, Shen Shixu raised an eyebrow at Xiao Jinyi. “Your Highness, shall we go in and take a look?”
From his sneaky manner, Xiao Jinyi understood that “going in” probably didn’t mean through the front door, but over the wall.
That suited him just fine. He reached out, gripped Shen Shixu’s shoulder, then lightly tapped the ground with his foot and leapt into the air, bracing his toes against the wall for a second boost, and carrying Shen Shixu with him, landed steadily inside the walls.
To Shen Shixu, the scenery before his eyes blurred and shifted, and when he looked again, they were already inside the compound.
From the outside, the place might look like an abandoned residence, but the interior was exquisitely elegant, there were rockeries with flowing water, a small tranquil grove of bamboo, and strangely shaped stones, with fish still swimming merrily in the water.
The pebble paths were spotless, without a single weed; there were no cobwebs in the corners of the buildings, and not even fallen leaves on the ground, as if someone swept the place every day.
Yet according to the neighbors they had questioned, no one had ever come here. Which meant the house held a secret, there should be a hidden passage somewhere.
Shen Shixu and Xiao Jinyi split up to search. Shen Shixu took the row of rooms on the left, while Xiao Jinyi took the right.
The row of rooms on the left connected one to another, looking like servants’ quarters. The rooms weren’t large, but each bed was hung with gauze canopies in pink, purple, and pale red, and each room had a dressing table bearing rouge and face powders, all of them opened and used.
The rooms on the right, where Xiao Jinyi searched, were somewhat larger than those on Shen Shixu’s side. Besides the same layout as the left-side rooms, they also had a bathing tub and a folding screen, as well as a soft couch for resting.
But apart from these items, they found no entrance to a hidden passage in any of the rooms. Having come up empty-handed, the two emerged from their respective areas.
Shen Shixu had picked up some dust on himself, he’d wondered whether the passage entrance might be under a bed and had crawled underneath to check, only to find nothing there and get covered in dust for his trouble.
Shen Shixu brushed off his clothes. Seeing Xiao Jinyi’s grim expression, he understood that his side had yielded nothing either.
“How strange. Someone’s been using the rouge and powders in these rooms, yet there’s not a soul in the house, we couldn’t even find the passage entrance.
I even crawled under the beds to look and found nothing. If it weren’t for the fact that those cosmetics had clearly been handled, I’d almost suspect I guessed wrong.”
Shen Shixu found it truly baffling, so baffling that he forgot to refer to himself as “your subject” in front of Xiao Jinyi. Fortunately, Xiao Jinyi didn’t mind.
It was Shen Shixu who came to his senses first. He quickly bowed and apologized, “Forgive me, Your Highness. That was improper of me. I beg your pardon.”
Watching Shen Shixu bend in a formal bow, Xiao Jinyi found the sight displeasing, far less lively than the Shen Shixu who had just been grumbling freely at him.
He reached out a hand to help Shen Shixu up. Looking at the man who had shrunk back into his shell of courtly formality, he said, his voice carrying a hint of hope, “You needn’t be so formal with me. I have very few friends, aside from my eldest brother, hardly anyone can really talk to me.
I think you’re a good man, and remarkably capable. I’d like to be your friend, if you’ll have me.”
Xiao Jinyi was entirely sincere this time, dropping the royal self-reference when speaking to Shen Shixu. Shen Shixu, after all, had been raised with a twenty-first-century education, where everyone was equal.
Though he had come to Da Qian and kept reminding himself that this was a feudal society, at heart he was still the same Shen Shixu as before.
So he accepted Xiao Jinyi’s offer of friendship quite easily. “Since Your Highness puts it that way, I won’t stand on ceremony.”
Seeing Shen Shixu come back to life again, the corner of Xiao Jinyi’s mouth lifted slightly, then quickly smoothed back into a straight line before Shen Shixu could notice.
Shen Shixu looked at the dust on his hands and wanted to wash them, so he walked over to the pond, crouched down, and scooped up some water to clean himself.
Beside the pond stood a rockery. After washing his hands, Shen Shixu pulled out the handkerchief he carried with him, and as he dried his hands, he suddenly noticed something off about the rockery.
He hadn’t noticed while washing his hands, but after staying there a while, the strangeness became apparent.
Not a single bird had landed on the rockery, which was highly unusual.
The Shen family had a rockery too. As a mischievous child, he had climbed it once and found several bird nests inside, even stealing a few eggs.
But no birds perched on this rockery at all. He circled it once, not a single nest to be found.
Shen Shixu thought of the TV dramas he used to watch, where corrupt officials would hollow out rockeries to hide their ill-gotten gold, silver, and treasures inside.
So could a rockery serve as the entrance to a secret passage?
At this thought, Shen Shixu waved at Xiao Jinyi. “Your Highness, come quickly! I’ve made a new discovery.”
Xiao Jinyi had already guessed he’d found something odd from watching him circle the rockery, and when Shen Shixu beckoned, he hurried over at once. “What is it? What did you find?”
“There’s something wrong with this rockery, it’s too clean. My family has one too, and when I played in the courtyard, I’d see birds landing on it from time to time. But this rockery, not a single bird has landed on it since we came in. Someone must have coated it with something to keep birds away, and snakes, insects, and ants too.
Tell me could the secret passage entrance we’ve been searching for be hidden inside the rockery?”
Xiao Jinyi thought it quite possible, and the two of them began feeling around the rockery. In the end, Shen Shixu found its entrance: there was a spot on the rockery that could be pressed down. When Shen Shixu pressed it, the rockery behind them slowly split open, revealing a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.
Shen Shixu and Xiao Jinyi exchanged a glance, each seeing delight in the other’s eyes. Xiao Jinyi took out a fire starter and stepped into the crevice first, with Shen Shixu following behind him. Both of them were curious about what could be at the end of this passage.
But when they saw what lay at the end, both were stunned.