From early morning, congratulatory gifts were being sent to the Han estate in an endless stream. Servants moved back and forth several times. As Yun Zhensong passed through a long corridor, a young-looking servant, whose movements appeared somewhat labored, accidentally bumped into Yun Zhensong’s lower back. The corner of the gift box was hard, and Yun Zhensong stumbled forward two steps, straightening his back in pain.
Yusheng hurriedly stepped forward to support him, wanting to rub it but not daring to.
The man in charge of the servants cracked a whip against the boy’s back, leaving a bloody mark on the coarse fabric immediately. He scolded harshly: “You fool! You can’t even handle this little bit of work! What do you eat every day to be this useless!”
Yun Zhensong clutched his back, looking at the man with dissatisfaction. The man quickly forced the boy, who had suffered the whip wound, to kneel, hurrying to say: “Apologize to the distinguished guest immediately! You eyeless idiot!” Saying this, he prepared to press the boy’s head into the ground, forcing him to knock his head.
Yun Zhensong frowned and shouted: “What are you doing! It was just an accidental bump—is such a harsh punishment necessary? Both of you, stand up, quickly!”
The man hesitated for a moment before crawling up slowly.
Yun Zhensong sighed and said to Yusheng: “Do you still have the wound medicine I prepared for Hongke earlier?”
“Yes, Master.” Yusheng rummaged through the medicine box in his hand and, under Yun Zhensong’s signal, stuffed a yellow jar into the boy’s hand. “Keep it. This was ground by our master himself; it works very well.”
The boy looked up in surprise, his watery gaze shifting between the two of them, his face filled with bewilderment and being overwhelmed by favor. Yun Zhensong reached out and pulled up the boy who was still kneeling; his forehead was bleeding from the knock. He said softly: “Put the things down first and apply the medicine.”
Then, he cast a cold glance at the man: “Is that alright?”
The man was stunned. If he hadn’t known the boy was born to a prostitute and sold to the Han Prince’s estate, he would have suspected the boy had a powerful backer.
The man nodded uneasily: “Ye, yes, as you say.”
“Yusheng, you stay here and keep him company. I’ll go by myself.” Yun Zhensong said. Seeing Yusheng about to speak, he quickly placated him: “It’s fine, don’t worry. I’m very safe; look, don’t I have a sword right here?”
“…” Yusheng opened his mouth and closed it again. “Yes.”
Yun Zhensong wore a robe of celadon green, with a sharp, lake-blue sword at his waist. When he wasn’t smiling, his beautiful peach-blossom eyes were calm and unfathomable, and the mole beside his nose added a touch of coldness, making him difficult to fathom.
After he left, before the man could turn his head to spit at him, Butler Wang appeared from nowhere and gave him a slap on the back of the head, snorting coldly: “Cheng Lao’er, pull in your dog-like temper!”
Yusheng was startled by his sudden appearance and “Ouch”ed, dragging the boy away from the crowd.
The boy: “…”
Yusheng asked: “What is your name?”
“…The servant is called Gouzi (Doggy).”
“That doesn’t sound nice.” Yusheng wrinkled his nose, meticulously applying medicine for him. “Tomorrow, I’ll ask my master to give you a new, pleasant name. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be afraid my master is a very kind person! He will definitely agree!”
Behind them stood a group of servants moving gifts, and not far away were many maids cleaning and decorating the Prince’s estate. Though they were all buried in their work, Cheng Lao’er knew clearly in his heart that they were all pricking up their ears to eavesdrop!
He muttered sullenly: “As you command, Butler Wang.”
Wang Younian frowned: “Stop pulling a long face like a donkey are you feeling wronged? I’m saving your life! If you lack the brains to analyze the situation, just keep your eyes down. There will be plenty of work in the Prince’s estate in the future. You are a senior servant; I won’t punish you this time, but there absolutely cannot be a second time.”
Then, Wang Younian leaned into Cheng Lao’er’s ear and whispered in a volume only he could hear: “Treat Magistrate Yun with respect. If you make him frown, both your life and mine will be forfeit!”
Cheng Lao’er’s eyes widened instantly.
Wang Younian bowed to Yusheng and said politely: “Follow me; this place is not suitable for rest.”
Not long after Yun Zhensong left, Wang Younian, sent by Li Yan, came to invite Qi Jianshuang to the conference hall, saying the Prince and Qi Jianshuang had important matters to discuss.
Qi Jianshuang was eating breakfast using the same bowl and chopsticks Yun Zhensong had just used. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow and glanced at him. Wang Younian’s mind was like a hornet’s nest; from just a few clues, he could guess seven or eight out of ten.
Qi Jianshuang leisurely finished the half-egg Yun Zhensong had left over, then picked up a piece of cucumber. His chopsticks paused in mid-air, and he lifted his eyes, asking deliberately: “In a hurry?”
Wang Younian lowered his gaze, shaking his head with a smile: “Not in a hurry; how could I be in a hurry?”
“I am the person who dislikes being scrutinized the most,” Qi Jianshuang said after a moment of silence. “Regardless of whether you are gambling on me or have some other purpose, keep it well hidden. Do not let me detect it.”
Wang Younian’s smile faded, looking somewhat stiff.
Qi Jianshuang put down his chopsticks, stood up, and said word by word: “Especially regarding those around me.”
“Let’s go; the Prince of Han is still waiting.”
Li Yan walked to the door and, just as he was about to push it open to leave, thought of something and turned back. He said with concern: “How about I stay behind? If you feel pain, my darling, you can bite my arm.”
“…Not necessary.” Qi Yan quickly pulled back on the clothes he had half-undressed, gritting his teeth.
“Baby…”
“Please, Prince of Han, leave… with some dignity.”
“Alas, don’t be so cold…”
“Get out.”
“Very well.”
Yun Zhensong paid no heed to the flirtation between these two, focusing instead on consolidating the acupuncture points and the order of the procedure.
The door closed tightly. Qi Yan loosened his clenched collar and muttered a curse. Li Yan hadn’t intended to stay at all; he just liked to tease Qi Yan, enjoying the spirited look Qi Yan had when he was puffed up with anger and wanted to beat him.
“Alright, he’s gone. Turn around and take off your clothes.” Yun Zhensong closed the light screen.
Qi Yan’s body was covered in craggy scars, crisscrossing each other. For a fleeting moment, Yun Zhensong’s mind wandered; he thought that the scars on Qi Jianshuang’s body would only be more numerous and more painful.
The gauze curtains drifted, and the candlelight flickered slightly. Yun Zhensong pulled his thoughts back and concentrated his attention.
He pinched the silver needle with his thumb, index, and middle finger like holding a pen. His eyes aimed at the acupuncture point, and his wrist exerted sudden force, using a clever technique to pierce the silver needle into the skin. His force was just right, and Qi Yan did not feel a hint of pain.
Yun Zhensong pinched the needle handle with two fingers, grinding and deepening it, making small, supplementary adjustments.
“Tell me when you feel sour, numb, swollen, or heavy.”
“Alright.”
The slow speed gradually pressed against the meridians. Yun Zhensong’s hand was steady; all his acupuncture felt like a gentle massage. Qi Yan felt the righteous energy within his body gathering, and a heavy, warm current rushed toward his lower body.
“Now.”
Yun Zhensong tilted his head slightly and took out a new needle, thicker than the others. With swift and decisive eyes and hands, he inserted it into the Huan-tiao, Yang-ling-quan, and Zu-san-li points one after another; his technique, force, and depth were precise to the extreme.
Accompanying the swelling and numbing sensation of dredging the meridians, the lower limbs, which had been withered and weak for many months, instantly gained strength.
Yun Zhensong tested the appropriate depth and left the needles in to continue stimulating the points. Seeing that Qi Yan did not have an expression of excessive pain, he instantly breathed a sigh of relief. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he raised his hand to wipe it.
Just as Qi Yan was about to speak, he was stopped by Yun Zhensong: “Don’t move yet; rest quietly. I will withdraw the needles for you in a moment.”
“The Prince of Han didn’t bring me here just to drink tea, did he?”
Li Yan smiled: “Is there some misunderstanding between this Prince and General Qi? I always feel your words carry thorns.”
Qi Jianshuang said: “There is one.”
Li Yan was startled. He had just spoken casually; he hadn’t expected there really to be a misunderstanding. “What is it?”
“We stayed at an inn before entering the city—though it was called an inn, it looked more like a brothel. I exchanged a few moves with them; judging by their martial arts, they should be the death-sworn soldiers who tried to assassinate me.”
“But that day,” Qi Jianshuang paused, “they wanted to kill Zhensong.”
Li Yan knew very little about that place not because he didn’t care, but because he felt someone had deliberately hidden it. What it was called originally, who had jurisdiction over it, and why it became an empty city overnight the records in the official documents had been erased, and the relevant people were nowhere to be found. It was truly eerie. In the first few years after he arrived, he had insisted on investigating it, but later, because of some matters, it was delayed. When he wanted to investigate again, he realized it was meaningless and let it be.
Now that Qi Jianshuang mentioned it, he suddenly remembered that a large fire had broken out there not long ago, but the torrential rain had quickly extinguished it. He hadn’t been idle to the point where he would investigate the cause of a fire with no reports and no casualties, so he hadn’t asked.
“This Prince knows that place, but there wasn’t a single person there,” Li Yan said in surprise.
Qi Jianshuang was shocked.
Then where did those few households at the time come from?!
They were all performing for me!
Li Yan said: “Those people must have done something else.”
“They know all my movements,” Qi Jianshuang said, lowering his voice, “including my fake death and hiding in Yuanqing County.”
Li Yan widened his eyes, shocked to the point that he couldn’t say a word for a long while.
The two remained silent for a long time.
The turn of events happened too fast. Li Yan hadn’t expected that such a matter would stand between them, and for a moment, he didn’t know how to steer the conversation back to the original track.
Fortunately, Qi Jianshuang was mindful of the time: “The person I suspected was you…”
“It wasn’t.” Li Yan denied it categorically. “When this Prince wants to kill someone, I don’t drag my feet. If I want you dead, you must be dead completely. To go to such great lengths, there must be a larger conspiracy. If it were truly that, you wouldn’t have been able to enter the city at all, let alone have it arranged for you to meet Gongsun Lin.”
Qi Jianshuang shrugged and said: “I thought of that.”
“Then you…”
“Why did the Prince of Han invite me here today, after all?” Qi Jianshuang perceived everything.
Tonight was the Prince of Han’s birthday banquet. Many local officials had rushed over, and the servants in the mansion were busy making arrangements. Along the way, voices could be heard constantly, but at this moment, the conference hall was so quiet it seemed isolated from the world.
“This Prince is the seventh son of the late Emperor. My birth mother was the daughter of the Chu family, once the head of the four great families. Only because my grandfather did wrong was the entire Chu family implicated. My birth mother died of illness, and I was banished to this bitter and cold land, letting my good brother become the Emperor.”
“If the new Emperor had talent, I would have nothing to say—I would admit that I was inferior in skill. But the new Emperor is weak and incompetent; he is blinded by the officials under his command and does not realize it. In the Northern Frontier battle, the military supplies could not be delivered to the battlefield in time; in the Jiangnan flood, the relief grain arrived a full half-year late, and people all died. Look at the current imperial court—it is foul with corruption, and the hearts of the people are terrified. War is about to break out with the Northern Frontier again. You tell me, how can Great Xuan win?!”
Li Yan’s words stabbed deeply into the thorn in Qi Jianshuang’s heart.
What he hated was what the Prince of Han hated; what he wanted to change was what the Prince of Han wanted to change. Qi Jianshuang’s eyes were obscure; he gripped the corner of the table, his body leaning forward involuntarily by half an inch. He asked: “What do you intend to do?”
Li Yan straightened his spine, slightly raised his chin, and shed all his playboy tendencies. What he displayed was the aura of an emperor.
Light shone in through the window; Li Yan stood under the light and shadow, with the arrogance of looking down on the world, saying with full confidence: “I, too, want to sit on that dragon throne.”
“Qi Jianshuang, come and become the sharpest sword in this Prince’s hand.”
Qi Jianshuang’s heart slammed violently against his ribs, shaking him with panic: “Reason.”
“I will give you endless wealth and monstrous power for the rest of your life.”
When Qi Jianshuang heard this, he laughed disdainfully: “How is this any different from Emperor Qinglong?”
Li Yan hooked the corner of his mouth in satisfaction: “Then I will promise you peace and stability, and bring prosperity to the world.”
Qi Jianshuang placed his sword on the table with a clang. He vaguely heard Yun Zhensong’s voice outside, like spring water drawing from wood.
“Alright. However, in my peace and stability, there must be one person accompanying me.”
“He shall not be a chess piece on the table—that is my bottom line.”