Inside the door where he was confined, Rong Juan appeared to be reflecting on his mistakes, but in reality, the only one truly trapped in a small space was Gu Wen.
The final handling result caused an uproar throughout the court.
No one could guess the Emperor’s intention. Only some old officials vaguely figured out something: His Majesty not punishing Rong Hengsong heavily was equivalent to indirectly punishing the Right Prime Minister heavily.
The father bearing the son’s fault?
Then a new problem arose: reflecting behind closed doors—whose doors?
Discovering that Rong Juan continued to reflect in the General’s Manor, for a time, the General’s Manor also became a focus of attention.
Inside the manor, the steward put down the newly delivered pastries.
“That Mr. Gu has mentioned several times he wants to retrieve his lost books.”
When Gu Wen was kidnapped, the books he carried with him fell in the Prime Minister’s manor. It seemed that, compared to his own situation, he was more worried about the books.
Rong Juan waved his hand: “Let him wait.”
Next time he found something missing and went back to the Prime Minister’s manor to transport goods, he could help bring them along.
The steward nodded, especially pouring a cup of tea for Rong Juan before leaving.
Relationships between people are reciprocal. For example, yesterday Rong Juan hinted that he could help pass messages for Gu Wen, just remember to charge a fee.
The steward made a small profit from this.
With tea and snacks, Rong Juan lay on the rocking chair in the courtyard, reading storybooks.
This three-day statutory holiday didn’t connect with the regular rest days. occasionally, when tired of lying down, he would get up to tease the macaw and admire its robust “double-door” chest muscles.
Life was better than that of a little immortal.
“Warmth and fullness breed lustful desires.” Watching the bird, Rong Juan thought of the bird’s owner.
“Would Xie Yanzhou’s figure be this good too?”
He still remembered the feeling of being scalded by the other party’s fingers at the racecourse last time.
Rong Juan subconsciously rubbed his own fingertips; they were very cold.
…Felt like he was going to be completely cold (dead).
But the System jumped out.
[Don’t say that; the tonic really works. Your body temperature is a bit more normal.]
Rong Juan pulled the corner of his mouth perfunctorily. Who cared about this?
He wanted eight-pack abs and a door, a double door!
In the afternoon, Gu Wen started asking for books again.
Rong Juan thought about it and had someone buy some stall literature, preparing to use it to fend him off.
Before sending it over, curious, Rong Juan flipped through it casually first.
R-rated literature?
“Were ancient times this open?” Rong Juan could read a book at the speed of comic strips. His face darkened bit by bit.
“I %&#￥%…” He spoke bird language and fragrant flowers (profanity).
Playing pure love in R-rated literature, and finally staging a deeply abusive “reconciled/let go” ending? Is there something wrong with ancient people’s brains?
The System wasn’t much better off. Idle in the brain, it was previously reading a best-selling literary work in the System world. Saving updates to read in one day, it also ate a virus (bad ending).
One human and one system decisively wanted the other party to taste it too.
Rong Juan shook his head vigorously, refusing to listen.
The System, attempting to tell the novel content, bombarded him with magic and was still screaming.
Both sides were already very unhappy, but at this time, the unique sound of a flute came from the courtyard where Gu Wen was imprisoned.
The flute sound was desolate, making people uncomfortable just listening to it.
The unhappy human and system thought of something unknown. A moment later, they suddenly giggled, the System almost laughing into a witch’s voice.
[Little Rong, doesn’t he want to read books? Can we…]
“Of course.”
Initially, he had wanted to dampen Gu Wen’s spirit first, leaving him hanging for a while, but now Rong Juan has found a very good outlet.
Finally found someone to feed (poison/bad novels) to.
In the distance.
The Chief Superintendent was sitting with Xie Yanzhou in the pavilion. Hearing the strange sound, he looked up and witnessed Rong Juan laughing on the rocking chair until the flower branches trembled.
He shook his head slightly, holding a black piece and placing it on the lower left, cutting off the opponent’s layout.
Above the laughter, the Chief Superintendent also heard the flute sound and asked what Gu Wen had been doing recently.
The chessboard battle was fierce.
Xie Yanzhou unhurriedly sought a way out amidst the encirclement: “Playing the flute and qin, otherwise asking for books.”
The General’s Manor controlled the main gate, preventing entry and exit, but the guard wasn’t tight. If he had the heart, he could actually pass messages or even distress signals through other means.
Gu Wen, however, uncharacteristically quieted down, neither calling for help nor doing anything extra.
“His Majesty made it clear he wants to minimize the matter. Forcibly doing the opposite would be tired of living.” The Chief Superintendent changed the subject and said lightly: “Gu Wen is just one of Rong Chenglin’s students, but he played a very crucial role in some matters.”
He looked at Xie Yanzhou: “This person is a scourge. Either eliminate him or use him for ourselves.”
“There are spies planted by His Majesty in the manor; force isn’t good.” Xie Yanzhou clearly had the same idea: “Must find another way.”
Gu Wen had followed Rong Chenglin for so long; he must know a lot. Used well, he would be a sharp blade.
They knew this principle, and others knew it too. The Emperor was already suspicious, and a big move would be hard to clean up.
“No matter.” The Chief Superintendent said: “Rong Chenglin is more anxious.”
The game ended. The Chief Superintendent got up to leave.
Glancing at Rong Juan in the distance, who finally stopped laughing and started juggling the storybook, he said casually: “When the Imperial Censor entered the palace, my ‘noble son’ was crying injustice.”
Xie Yanzhou seemed to imagine the scene at that time, and the corner of his mouth hooked into an arc.
Chief Superintendent: “Rong Hengsong claimed that snatching the person was to help him work in the Ministry of Rites. Do you think Gu Wen will work for him?”
Xie Yanzhou was silent for a moment, then both laughed and shook their heads, no longer taking the joke to heart.
The next day, Xie Yanzhou returned from the drill ground.
Two personal guards followed quietly behind, not daring to say an extra word the whole way. They didn’t even dare to recall the General’s face during the assessment at the drill ground just now.
Just as the personal guards tried their best to be quails and lower their presence, a servant in the manor hurried toward the west wing.
Xie Yanzhou stopped him: “What’s the rush?”
The servant stopped abruptly and truthfully recounted that not long ago, Rong Juan had given him a book to deliver to Gu Wen.
And the reason he was so hurried was to seize the time to copy it again.
When Rong Juan first entered the manor, countless eyes were watching him. Any suspicious behavior would be recorded and reported.
Mentioned by the servant, Xie Yanzhou remembered this matter and said, “No need to stare at his side in the future.”
“That book…” The servant’s expression was exceptionally strange when mentioning the book.
Xie Yanzhou didn’t think much, thinking according to the most normal logic.
Since Rong Hengsong threatened to make Gu Wen help with work, it was normal to try to cater to his likes.
“Save a copy for me.”
He also quite liked reading books. The ones the other party specifically collected and sent to Gu Wen shouldn’t be bad.
…
When people do bad things, they never feel tired.
The book Rong Juan read yesterday was feudal “reconciliation/let go” literature with a scholar as the protagonist, which wouldn’t cause much psychological damage to Gu Wen. The novels the System read featured various systems as protagonists; just the appearance descriptions were like horror novels.
But none of this mattered.
The System library included ten thousand classics and web novels.
Rong Juan was responsible for preparing paper, and Koukou temporarily left the body, starting rubbing/copying at seventy miles per hour.
During this period, Rong Juan kept fanning it to cool it down.
“Keep it up.”
[Jia you.]
The mechanical lifeform wrote furiously, from sunrise to noon, almost smoking.
Thinking that someone would also step into the pit and feel like a fishbone stuck in their throat, they felt delighted.
At the West Wing. After the servant delivered the rubbing copy, he left without a word.
Gu Wen’s fingers brushed over it. Wonder if it was the hot weather, but the book pages felt hot.
Finally, a trace of ridicule flashed in his long, narrow eyes.
A slender little green snake crawled out from his belt, and his slightly thin fingers rubbed the snake’s head.
“Hungry?”
A person unskilled in martial arts naturally had other means of self-defense. If necessary, he could use the snake to bite Rong Hengsong and exchange the antidote for freedom.
It was too early to take this risk now.
Gu Wen shook his head: “The father and son are consistent in their methods of ‘treating worthy men with courtesy’ (corporal punishment/kidnapping).”
In the past, the Prime Minister’s manor had collected many ancient books for him as one of the conditions for his service. Since he was trapped with nothing to do anyway, Gu Wen opened the book.
The narrative style was exaggerated and very rough to read at first.
He looked back at the author’s name, and he had never heard of it.
When Great Liang was prosperous, people from foreign countries traveled across the ocean. Both their names and appearances were strange. The founding Emperor (Gaozu) had also wanted to build large ships to sail the ocean, but it came to nothing later.
This was obviously a foreign novel.
Gu Wen read two pages hastily and lost interest completely. Just as he was about to close it, his eyes suddenly lit up.
The book said:
[His face is dark, but the skin on his wrists is fair, indicating he just returned from the tropics… His left arm has been injured. A military doctor who has gone through hardships in the tropics and whose arm has been injured…]
“Tropics” and country names were unfamiliar terms, but what really attracted Gu Wen was this method of judgment.
“Observation method?”
A person could quickly judge another’s experience from the wear and tear on cuffs, knees, and shoes.
This observation, elimination, screening of hypotheses, etc., regarding people, was similar to how strategists did things.
From indifference at the beginning, the further he read, the more focused Gu Wen’s expression became.
When he was young and studying, out of curiosity, he had read some storybooks. The protagonists’ personalities were all the same, a waste of time, so he never read them again.
But this protagonist, under a calm exterior, had a conceited personality bordering on arrogance, which directly moved Gu Wen three points.
A sparrow from somewhere hopped onto the plate to peck at food. The little green snake was scared back into the belt.
Gu Wen didn’t even lift his head.
Sitting motionless for nearly an hour, finally finishing the first story, Gu Wen couldn’t wait to continue flipping to the second story.
…
“Wonder which story Gu Wen has reached.”
[Little Rong, I only copied the original version.]
A bunch of places involving English letters, the System was too lazy to replace, believing people of this era generally couldn’t read on.
Rong Juan ate grapes without spitting grape skins: “No matter, Gu Wen isn’t an ordinary person.”
Liking the commonality of planning people behind the scenes, paying great attention to human nature and to details, this book held an innate appeal for Gu Wen.
Gu Wen could swallow the parts he didn’t understand; it wouldn’t hinder capturing the real essence.
The System included a dozen classic short stories, expecting to reach the end by tonight.
Thinking of this, Rong Juan and the System laughed again.
The last story was “The Final Problem.”
—The ending where Holmes was written to death.
Conan Doyle successfully pioneered the precedent of readers sending razor blades single-handedly.
Rumor had it that after the death ending of Holmes was released, everyone from readers to publishers, from his own mother to the British Royal Family, expressed strong dissatisfaction with this ending.
Experiencing the earliest “fandom violence,” Conan Doyle really couldn’t withstand the pressure and forcibly wrote “The Adventure of the Empty House” resurrection.
“Wonder how ancient people will react to reading the all-dead version ending?”
[Little Rong, Little Rong! I have another plan.]
[Show him “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Isn’t Gu Wen secretly being your brother’s retainer? Let him watch the most awesome strategist—Zhuge Liang. He’ll definitely have a sense of substitution! Just let him read until Zhuge Liang dies of illness.]
Vast gray heaven, why are you so thin (cruel) to me!
Definitely more immersive than Holmes.
Rong Juan: “Wonderful.”
While clapping in praise, he was suddenly a bit distracted.
Xie Yanzhou worked hard marching and fighting daily. Should he copy a book on the art of war for him?
But soon he dismissed this idea. The System would copy some ancient books for archiving in every world.
This era didn’t lack powerful military books. There were actually a few methods truly usable in combat.
Xie Yanzhou should have long passed the time of discussing military tactics on paper and formed his own combat style.
During the days of reflection, except for being hurt by the storybook on the first day, Rong Juan maintained a good mood afterward.
“Do you say my three days count from the afternoon I left the palace, or round up from the next day?”
System: [Next day, probably.]
“I think so too.”
Getting the desired answer, both parties started living heartlessly again.
Rong Juan didn’t know the situation with Gu Wen. Anyway, he didn’t hear the other party playing the qin or flute this morning.
Mm, not playing the erhu counts as good.
Rong Juan lay on the rocking chair happily: “Awesome.”
His leave was nearly over, yet the captive could play music and rest each day. Why?
Rong Juan had someone send the second book copied by the System.
The servant of the General’s Manor was the most innocent.
Copying yesterday was already torture. Every word penetrated his mind, and the person in the story died inexplicably at the end.
He prayed today’s article would be normal, at least friendlier to him, the copyist.
The next day, Rong Juan had the servant send two more books: the full version of “Dream of the Red Chamber” with the eighty-chapter continuation, and “The Return of the Condor Heroes,” which once left a childhood shadow on him.
The main point was: all the suffering he had endured, others must eat too.
It was night, pouring rain.
At the third watch, the window was half-open. The wind blew in the unique smell of rainy days.
Rong Juan slept happily wrapped in a thin quilt.
Boom!
Rumble!
Amidst the storm and lightning, a thin figure suddenly appeared in the annex courtyard.
Three days. Reading about Holmes dying, Zhuge Liang dying, staying up late to read the dog-tail sequel of Red Chamber, and finally seeing Yin Zhiping taking advantage of someone’s fragile situation and Yang Guo’s arm being cut off…
Gu Wen couldn’t put the books down daily. Even an immortal couldn’t remain calm.
With dark eye sockets and a gloomy face, he said in a low voice: “Rong Hengsong, get the hell out here!”
Author’s Note:
Unofficial History: The Emperor, pouring out his heart and lungs to his subjects.
Note: The content of “The book says” is adapted and excerpted from “Sherlock Holmes”.