Nan Xi tugged at the hem of Jiang Miao’s clothes from behind: “Miss Jiang Miao, are you really going to keep him?”
A Lu Shengzhou with his wits intact had status, had ability.
A Lu Shengzhou who’d lost his mind—needed to be fed at meals, led by the hand to walk, wouldn’t even cry for help if he fell into a lake. Nothing but an oversized, walking burden.
Jiang Miao: “I’m keeping him.”
She remembered a rainy day when she was ten.
At a street-side restaurant, a little girl about her age waved a slice of cake at her.
She ran over to take it, turned to find a corner to eat it in, when a muffled rumble of thunder rolled overhead and the rain suddenly came pouring down.
The cake was washed into mush by the rain, dripping down through her cupped palms.
She stood there staring down at the white-and-pink mess in her hands, and behind her, no one was calling her home.
Her parents had divorced. Neither wanted her.
That day was her birthday.
What had she wanted back then? For someone to walk over, crouch down, wipe the mush off her hands, and say, “Come with me.”
She was already ten, and she still couldn’t take care of herself properly.
Lu Shengzhou looked to be only two or three years old now. If no one looked after him, he really would be done in by someone.
Beside her, Lu Shengzhou dug the vine wreath he’d dropped earlier out of the mud. All the pink flowers had fallen off, leaving only a bare ring of twisted vine.
He pursed his lips, went and picked a few fresh pink flowers, and clumsily poked them into the vine.
It took him forever. Five flowers ended up on it, crooked and uneven, the edges of their pink petals smeared with mud.
Then he grabbed her wrist and tried to slip the little wreath onto her hand.
It was too small—it jammed at the base of her palm and wouldn’t go up.
He poked at it for another long while, and finally caught her middle finger and looped the wreath around it.
Like an oversized ring.
Jiang Miao turned the vine-and-pink-flower ring on her finger. Sunlight leaked through the gaps between the petals, casting dappled light on the back of her hand.
She leaned close to his face: “Then you’ll just have to marry me.”
Lu Shengzhou clapped his hands, his mouth splitting into a grin: “Mumu! Marry!”
Jiang Miao held out her hand to him: “Come with me. My Primary Husband.”
Lu Shengzhou obediently took her hand.
She led him forward as he walked along, bouncing and skipping, his shoe tips occasionally kicking the backs of his own heels.
They walked for over an hour.
Airships came and went at the academy, but there were no public airships.
After all, none of the nobles who came here to study were poor enough to take public transportation.
Jiang Miao looked up the price of secondhand airships—starting at a hundred thousand. Nan Xi’s savings could just barely be squeezed.
But academy regulations forbade secondhand airships on campus.
And if they wanted to buy a new one, Nan Xi would have to sell her house.
Ah, forget it.
She turned off her Astrarium and kept walking.
After another half hour or so, the three of them finally made it to the residential district.
Jiang Miao looked up, and her feet welded to the ground.
In the distance, snow-capped mountains wore their white crowns; up close, a river threaded between the buildings, its surface scattered with sunlight like flecks of gold.
Standalone little houses were scattered sparsely among flowers and tree shadows, each separated from the next by a hundred meters of lawn, shrubbery, and winding gravel paths.
The privacy was so complete it was as if every student had been granted their own independent little kingdom.
She found her own building—five stories, high-tech exterior walls, with a small garden out front. The flowerbed had just been watered, the soil a deep brown.
A woman was standing at the entrance.
Glasses, hair in a bun, standing as straight as a tree strapped tight with bandages.
The moment she saw Jiang Miao, her face darkened: “Student Jiang Miao! You said you’d arrive in the morning—it’s noon now! Do you have no concept of time?”
“Sorry. Long walk.”
Lu Shengzhou bounced on his feet, trying to push inside.
The woman held out a hand to block him. “I’m Luo Yike, your academic advisor. Academy regulations allow each student a maximum of two attendants.”
She opened the Astrarium’s registration function and jerked her chin at Nan Xi. “You. Scan.”
Nan Xi complied. Then she turned to Lu Shengzhou.
The scan result popped up: enrolled student.
Luo Yike’s eyebrows rose. “And he is?”
“He’s sick. I’m taking care of him.”
Luo Yike’s gaze swept up and down over Lu Shengzhou a few times.
She snorted. “An idiot? Jiang Miao, I’d advise you to send him back. If he causes you to mess anything up and my points get docked…”
Jiang Miao made her position clear: “I’ll keep him in line.”
Luo Yike flung out several thick volumes of academy regulations, the pages slapping into Jiang Miao’s palm with a buzzing tremor.
Then the lecture began.
Fast-paced and dense with words, it went from punctuality to tardiness, from punctuality to appearance, from appearance to grades, regulations, and assessment weightings.
Jiang Miao stood and listened to the whole thing.
Half an hour later, they watched Luo Yike turn and leave, gradually disappearing from view.
Nan Xi’s gaze slid naturally toward the small building across the way.
Third floor. Curtains. In the gap, a thin sliver of light—lens glare.
A telescope.
Nan Xi’s shoulders tensed, and she murmured, lips barely moving, “Across the street. Third floor. Someone’s watching us.”
Jiang Miao glanced in the direction she was looking, then raised her hand and waved at them.
The gesture was as open and easy as greeting an old acquaintance.
Then she opened her Astrarium, stretched the projection to its maximum size, and a line of text hung in the air, bright enough to be crystal clear even from over a hundred meters away—
“Come over and sit a while.”
Across the street, the curtains snapped shut.
Nan Xi silently gave a thumbs-up. Once something hiding in the dark is dragged into the open, who can stay hidden?
Jiang Miao turned around.
A five-story building. With a garden. All hers. The corners of her mouth stretched upward from her earlobes all the way to the tips of her ears.
Then she started snapping photos like crazy. Wide shots, close-ups, the garden, the terrace, the crooked-necked tree by the entrance.
The fully automatic care robot, its round blue eyes glaring, was circling the garden watering plants, and she filmed a clip of it too.
When she finished, she ran all over the house.
Lu Shengzhou followed behind her, copying her every move.
She touched the wood grain on the wall; he reached out too, fingertips gliding along the direction of the grain.
She knocked on the stair railing; he knocked too, his knuckles rapping out a clanging echo on the metal.
She asked the robot for water; he also told the robot, “Water.” The robot chirped and poured him a glass as well.
The two of them ran up and down the stairs several times, footsteps rising and falling in turn, like a pair of frolicking foals.
The moment the bathroom door swung open—
Lu Shengzhou caught sight of himself in the mirror. A grimy face, dried clumps of mud in his hair, and a faint trace of starfruit jam still lingering at the corner of his mouth.
He looked at his filthy self, then announced loudly, “So dirty! Need a bath!”
The bathtub sensed the command and started filling, white steam rising from the water.
Lu Shengzhou lowered his head and began tearing at his clothes—grabbing his collar and yanking upward.
The shirt successfully flipped over his head, wrapping it up entirely.
His arms got stuck in the sleeves, both hands flailing in midair, and he could see nothing.
Jiang Miao walked over, reached out, and peeled the tangled shirt off his head layer by layer.
The instant he regained his sight, Lu Shengzhou lifted his leg to climb straight into the tub.
“Pants!” Jiang Miao grabbed the waistband just in time.
Out of a sense of humanitarian duty, she helped him take off his pants too.
Then her gaze froze a little.
His Achilles tendon drew a long, slender line up from his ankle, his pelvis sat at just the right height, his legs were long and straight, and the curves of his knees were clean and neat.
His skin was fair, with thin muscles clinging to his bones—nothing exaggerated, but the line tapering in at his waist held a hidden strength.
Jiang Miao leaned against the edge of the bathtub, her eyes sweeping up from his ankles.
She laughed.
“Lu Shengzhou, do you have money to pay for living expenses?”
Lu Shengzhou tilted his head at her, looking dazed.
Jiang Miao raised her hand, her fingertip landing on his collarbone. It slid over and stopped in the hollow. “No money, huh… then you’ll just have to pay with your body.”
Lu Shengzhou’s tilted head tilted even further.
Then he crouched down, scooped up a handful of water, and splashed it at her.
The water splashed all over her face, and he giggled. “Mumu! Bath time!”
“Fine, let’s bathe.” Jiang Miao wiped the water off her face and stepped into the tub. “I’ll bathe too.”
Her hand went straight to his waist.
“Hee hee hee hee—that tickles! Mumu! Tickles!”
Lu Shengzhou rolled around in the bathtub, water splashing all the way to the ceiling.
Her so-called seduction turned entirely into tickling with him.
She went to rub his chest, and he laughed even harder, curling up like a shrimp, mumbling incoherently, “No more, no more,” without any idea what he was saying no to.
After a long bout of fooling around, more than half the water had been splashed out. Both of them were soaked through.
Jiang Miao slumped in the bathtub, her arms too sore to lift.
Such a gorgeous hunk. Naked. In the steam. Right in front of her. Visible, touchable—
Untouchable.
She tilted her head back and stared at the droplets of condensation on the ceiling, a deep sense of helplessness welling up inside her.
This Primary Husband. A lost cause.
But—was it really incurable? If famous doctors couldn’t do it, what about folk remedies? Those assorted ancient secret arts, energy therapies, neural repair pods?
As she scrubbed Lu Shengzhou’s back, she mentally ran through the names of her other four fiancés.
If she won them over, with their resources and connections, could they find a way?
Or rather, no matter how unorthodox, shouldn’t she just try everything first?
After the bath, she dried him off. Rummaging through her luggage, she pulled out her largest pink nightgown and pulled it over Lu Shengzhou.
She stepped back two paces.
And froze completely.
His shoulders were broad, stretching out the upper half of the garment, warping the cartoon kitten on the chest. The sides tapered in at his waist, and the hem sat right at his knees, revealing half of his well-proportioned calves. His ankle bones jutted out, clean and neat.
This fifteen-Nie-Yuan nightgown from the wholesale market somehow looked like haute couture on him.
Jiang Miao stared at him for a long while, her eyes going straight.
If he put on a long wig, he’d be utterly androgynous.
The smile in her eyes deepened.
Make money. She had to make money. Buy him delicious food. Buy him pretty dresses. Get him the best doctors.
From downstairs, Nan Xi called, “Dinner’s ready!”
At the dinner table, Lu Shengzhou ate with gusto.
Surprisingly, he even served Jiang Miao food.
After the meal, she began to worry.
Money. How to earn it.
She pulled up the files on her other four fiancés, projecting them in rows into the air:
Second Husband, Ji Baishang. Son of the Marshal of Xiya State. Win him back, and she’d have powerful backing.
Third Husband, Huo Sinan. Son of the Foreign Minister of the Country of Fore. Win him back, and she’d have reputation and influence.
Her fourth husband, Fang Du. Son of an Earl of the Aize Kingdom. His status was mediocre, but he was a super genius with energy purification technology in his hands—and her contaminated territory happened to need exactly that.
Her fifth husband, Xiao Linqiu. Son of the Head of House of Xiao Corporation. Immensely wealthy. Purifying and rebuilding her territory would both require his money.
Right now, the one she most wanted to go see was Xiao Linqiu.
But showing up empty-handed was useless—she needed something of equal value to offer in exchange.
Back when she was the Crown Prince, the Xiao family had eagerly invested in her.
Now she was a pauper with nothing but that broken-down territory, and even that would only be worth investing in after it was purified.
So—the first one she should win back was Fang Du.
She hurriedly pulled up Fang Du’s information. Class schedule. Dorm number. Social activities.
Just as she was searching, the doorbell rang.
Jiang Miao went over and opened the door.
Standing at the door was a woman in a floral dress, smiling with upturned lips and two dimples.
Her voice was as sweet as a freshly opened jar of honey: “Hello, neighbor—I’m Qin Songya, I live across from you. I was just fiddling with my telescope and happened to take a look over here. No other meaning intended.”
She tilted her head, her dimples deepening.
Jiang Miao leaned against the doorframe, scanning her from head to toe.
Oh. So it’s you.