“Just a fool.”
He watched as the man put down the basket and opened the lid. It was completely empty. Then, with a click, he pried open the bottom part, which could actually be detached, revealing a compartment packed to the brim with gleaming silver currency, jade pendants, beaded bracelets, and more.
The man looked confused and spouted grandiose words: “Your Highness only needs to give this subordinate a blade, and this subordinate will be able to slaughter my way out, take that tyrant’s head, and rescue Your Highness!”
“I am sorry, I did not bring one.” He smiled awkwardly.
“…”
“However, these are truly good things. Look, things like silver and jewelry can help you bribe the prison guards here so they can get you some wine and meat, and improve your meals.”
“Also, the dungeon is humid and breeds mosquitoes. This box of sachet powder has insect-repellent properties. You can apply it to your skin before sleeping, and it will surely let you sleep soundly until dawn.”
“I also have some fresh fruits here. Eat more of them to supplement your vitamins and enhance your resistance. Oh right, these pork jerky, beef jerky, wife cakes, and peanuts, hide them and eat them yourself. Do not let yourself starve.”
He nagged away as he took them out one by one.
The man’s expression gradually calmed down. After Jiang Wangnan finished speaking, he said, “This subordinate understands.”
“What? Ah!”
Before he could finish speaking, the man suddenly coughed up black blood!
Jiang Wangnan turned pale with fright, flustered and helpless: “What is wrong with you? Why are you suddenly coughing up blood?”
The man said weakly, “Your Royal Highness has forgotten, Yue State guards are all accustomed to biting the poison capsule hidden in their teeth.”
“Is there any saving you? Can you still be saved?”
Jiang Wangnan was on the verge of tears, desperately wanting to call an imperial physician, but in this world, he was nobody, and no one would be willing to help him.
“Your Highness has no choice, and this subordinate is unwilling to hold you back. There is one thing this subordinate did not tell you…” The man stiffened his neck, leaned close to his ear, and whispered something while his lips moved.
Jiang Wangnan’s almond eyes widened in shock. After a moment of numbness, he gasped: “You all? How could you? Your guts are too big.”
The man smiled faintly: “I never expected this to be the last thing this subordinate could do for Your Royal Highness.”
The man’s breath grew weaker and weaker. He choked out a few more mouthfuls of black blood, tilted his head, and went completely still. With his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, he died right in front of Jiang Wangnan.
Was he disappointed in me?
Did he guess that I had no way to save him, which was why he chose to commit suicide in despair?
Was it me who caused his death?
Jiang Wangnan stood frozen outside the cell like a wooden post, his eye rims moist, looking as though he had been terrified out of his wits, or perhaps simply lost in a daze.
He had never imagined things would turn out like this.
At the very beginning, it was not that he had never thought of bringing some weapons for self-defense, but the moment he considered that the other person might use them to commit murder and break out of prison, he hesitated.
He thought that within the massive Northern Pacification Commission prison, not even a fly could escape. If this person relied solely on his own strength, he certainly could not get away. Since failure was predestined, why let so many innocent people die first?
This man had already been captured here by Xiao Quanchuan and was destined to walk the road to the netherworld. He simply wanted to let this person live a bit more comfortably during his remaining days and be a little happier before setting off.
He did not want any more people to die.
Could it be that he was wrong?
He had no idea how long he stood there. When he finally snapped out of it, his calves were already slightly numb.
Jiang Wangnan took a few deep breaths, packed the items back into the basket, and before leaving, he pressed his palm down and gently stroked downwards, causing the wide-open, staring eyes to rest forever beneath closed eyelids.
“I am sorry. I could not help you while you were alive, but I think I can still do one thing for you.”
Those prison guards had been watching him from the shadows all along. Seeing him turn to leave, they hurried back to the break room via a shortcut, pretending to eat meat and drink wine loudly while talking and laughing.
“Pardon the interruption, I…”
Before Jiang Wangnan could finish, those men collapsed instantly as if struck by a sudden illness, sprawling left and right, using their stiff limbs to express: I saw nothing, I heard nothing.
A prison guard with a unibrow was peeing in the corner. When he turned around, he was the only one left standing in the entire room.
“…”
Jiang Wangnan had no choice but to walk toward him.
After squinting to get a clear look, the unibrow guard stepped back a few paces as if seeing a ghost, screaming internally: Do not come over here!
“Big brother, could you please do me a favor?” Jiang Wangnan asked quite politely.
The man could neither agree nor refuse. After all, this was someone sent in specifically by the emperor.
He was either someone favored to the point of arrogance or someone involved in a matter of great importance.
Knowing that the request he was about to make was rather demanding, Jiang Wangnan opened his basket, took out silver, jewelry, and other valuables, and shoved them all into the guard’s arms.
“Please, is this money enough? If not, I have more. I beg you, big brother.”
Jiang Wangnan was exceptionally pretty with fair cheeks, pinkish-red eye rims, and a pitiful look. Coupled with his soft, milky voice and coy tone, it was like feeding someone a love potion, making it hard for anyone not to waver inside.
The unibrow guard muttered an automatic “oh” as if under a spell.
“Thank you, big brother!”
“You are welcome.” He even lowered his head shyly, patted his chest, and declared, “Any favor is fine, your big brother is omnipotent!”
Jiang Wangnan said, “Okay! Big brother, I got lost just now and saw someone over there die a miserable death. Could you guys help me bury him in a decent spot? Please do not just throw him into the mass grave to feed the dogs, okay?”
“Huh?” The unibrow guard looked awkward.
The dead man was from Yue State; how could they possibly give him special treatment?
Suddenly, someone beside him kicked him, and he caught the hint: “Oh, fine, I promise you.”
Jiang Wangnan handed over another batch of silver: “Keep it a secret. Big brother is truly wonderful!”
After sending off this little ancestor, the rest of the guards instantly came back to life.
The silver in the unibrow guard’s arms tumbled down: “Boss, are there any good spots nearby?”
The boss slapped the back of his head irritably: “Are you out of your mind? You let a few words of ‘big brother’ turn your brain to mush?”
“But I already took the person’s money…”
“What else can you do?”
The unibrow guard felt terribly wronged: “Why did you even kick me earlier then? Wasn’t it to make me agree?”
“You do not recognize him, but I do. He is the former Crown Prince of Yue State, and the current Emperor’s Attendant Jiang! These gold and silver ornaments are stolen loot used to bribe prison guards! They are evidence! Do you understand?”
“Then what should we do with the dead Yue person?”
“What else can we do? According to the rules, throw him into the mass grave to feed the dogs!” the boss snapped impatiently.
“If he finds out, won’t we be in trouble for not doing our job right?”
“Tch, he is just an out-of-favor seventh-rank attendant with no power or influence, and he has not even seen the Emperor’s face more than a few times. Where would he ever get the chance to file a complaint?”
The unibrow guard looked reluctant: “Are we really not keeping this money?”
The boss smiled with utmost sleaziness, aggressively grabbing half of the silver: “It would be stupid not to take it! As for the rest, we will use it as evidence and report this matter upward. We might even earn a merit, hahahaha.”
Little did they know, separated only by a wall, Jiang Wangnan stood there stiffly.
He had heard every single word of that conversation from beginning to end without missing a thing.
Shortly after he left earlier, he suddenly realized he had not given money to the other guards and felt uneasy. After all, social graces needed to be handled properly, so he had turned back.
Who would have thought that bolts of lightning would crash and explode beside his ears.
He seemed truly very useless.
He could not even handle the smallest of tasks properly.
What on earth should he do?
Inside his wide, drooping sleeves, his five fingers clenched tightly into fists, his shoulders shaking with sporadic shudders as he abruptly turned around and left.
The candles in the Hall of Mental Cultivation had almost burned out, and a fresh batch of night-watch servants replaced them with new ones.
Memorials were piled high across the desk. Xiao Quanchuan pinched the bridge of his nose, popped two bitter lotus seeds into his mouth, and chewed slowly.
The bitterness of the lotus heart spread across the tip of his tongue, refreshing his mind.
A white-clothed scout was kneeling in the center of the grand hall. Xiao Quanchuan leaned against the dragon throne, supporting his head with one hand, closing his eyes to quietly listen to the brief report.
A moment later, he opened his eyes, his eyelids half-drooped: “Did he really cry?”
He ignored all the other details, noticing only this one point.
The scout replied: “Yes, this subordinate witnessed it with his own eyes. Attendant Jiang cried very sadly when he left.”
His expression showed neither anger nor joy; no one could ever read his thoughts. His voice was lazy: “A mere petty prison warden, abusing his position and hiding the truth from his superiors. Quite bold, aren’t they? Sun Nianhai, go pass down my imperial edict: subject him to castration, cut out his tongue, drive him out of the capital, and forbid him from ever returning.”
Sun Nianhai acknowledged the order and hurried off.
The scout asked: “Your Majesty, as for Attendant Jiang…”
Xiao Quanchuan let out a breath, as if lamenting something, and waved his hand: “There is no need to keep an eye on him. Just a fool.”
The scout suddenly remembered: “Right, Your Majesty, before the Yue man died, he whispered some words into Attendant Jiang’s ear. But this subordinate was standing too far away and did not catch them clearly, only hearing five words: ‘young master’, ‘medicine’, and ‘leave’.”
“Young master…” Xiao Quanchuan chewed on those two words repeatedly, still failing to find the answer to this game of piecing words into a sentence.
Could there be a Yue man trying to take Jiang Wangnan away?
Having entered his, Xiao Quanchuan’s, den, he was his person.
Where was the logic in quietly letting the food in one’s bowl be stolen away?
The imperial palace was treacherous and unpredictable. Xiao Quanchuan was accustomed to stretching his warning lines to the limit, keeping people at a distance of a thousand miles, and wearing a stern face when speaking to anyone. Because all the civil and military officials watched his expression to do their work, he could not afford a single moment of laxity.
That said, in just two or three short days, this pretty idiot Jiang Wangnan had genuinely caused his emotions to fluctuate quite a bit.
Looking back, Xiao Quanchuan felt these new experiences were rather pleasant, at least keeping him from being so bored.
Just the thought of seeing him again tomorrow, or hearing about whatever he was up to, made him feel that a life as plain as boiled water also had a unique flavor to it.
The mere thought that Jiang Wangnan might slip out of his control filled the depths of his dark pupils with gloom: “Keep a tight watch on him, ferret out that person in the shadows, and I will interrogate and judge them myself.”
Stepping out of the Northern Pacification Commission, Jiang Wangnan found Qiu Ruo waiting for him in a corner. Seeing him covered in tears, Qiu Ruo was startled: “Oh my, Your Grace, what has happened to you? Your eyes are red and swollen.”
He cried even harder, the moist upper lashes sticking to his lower eyelids: “I caused him to die, wuwuwu.”
Qiu Ruo patted his back to soothe him: “Your Grace, please do not cry. Matters of the world are unpredictable. Let us go back to the palace, apply an ice compress to bring down the swelling, and get some early rest. We still have to go pay our respects to the Empress Dowager tomorrow morning.”
“Respects?”
Jiang Wangnan stopped sobbing, his eyes watery and like a spring of water, appearing even clearer and purer.
That was not right. In the original book, the Empress Dowager mostly lived within the dialogue of the characters, rarely making an appearance, and the rule of paying morning respects was never even mentioned.
According to the setting, the Emperor recognized only the original shou as his Empress, but since the latter refused, the Emperor left the empress’s seat vacant and stubbornly refused to take anyone else as Empress throughout his life.
However, palace trivialities were numerous, and the Emperor refused to hand over the household management keys to the Noble Consort, so he simply had to invite the Empress Dowager out to manage various affairs of the inner palace. When it came down to it, she was purely a tool character.
Qiu Ruo said: “Your Grace, this maid heard that today Noble Consort Gao flew into a rage because of the palace meal supervisor incident. The minds in the inner palace are as intricate as a honeycomb cave, and since Your Grace has recently gained some imperial favor, you must be extremely cautious.”
After transmigrating, Jiang Wangnan had no desire to engage in nation-restoring projects, nor did he want to engage in a same-sex relationship with someone he disliked.
Through a series of twists and turns, the plot trajectory had reversed and turned into a palace intrigue novel!
He was doomed!
The plot of the original book focused primarily on the Emperor’s career arc of founding and pacifying the country, alongside the Danmei romance line of ten times a day with the original shou. Ink spent on inner palace life was minimal.
Could they please not play it this way? QAQ