Chapter 123
But saying nothing would only make Xie Chengze feel more wronged. He had never been a forgiving, broad-minded person. On the contrary, he was petty as hell and quicker to hold a grudge than Hu Lai.
He pressed his lips tight and forced his eyes wide, trying to hold back the tears gathering in them. He addressed Shen Yuan behind him with biting sarcasm. “Since His Highness the Crown Prince is so wonderful, why don’t you go find him? Tell him about it. I’m sure he’d just love to hear it!”
Hearing that jealous tone, Shen Yuan knew he was angry again.
But he didn’t understand why Xie Chengze dragged the Crown Prince into it every time he got angry.
What did the Crown Prince have to do with this?
“This has nothing to do with the Crown Prince. What good would telling him do?” Shen Yuan reached out to turn his face back, only to find it wet.
“You’re crying?” he asked in astonishment, looking at the tears that felt cool against his fingers.
Apart from the time Xie Chengze had talked in his sleep about his dog shattering, Shen Yuan had never seen him cry. Even the Second Prince of his previous life hadn’t cried – at least, not in front of outsiders.
Both men had an inordinate amount of pride.
Only now did Shen Yuan panic. He rose onto the heated brick bed and turned the young man’s entire body around. “I was teasing you. It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I just…”
Just… “Want to know whether you’re really the Second Prince. What exactly is the relationship between you and him?”
Half a year ago, Shen Yuan would never have asked that question aloud.
He had feared that exposing the final unspoken secret between them, confronting the other man before they trusted each other enough, would instead drive them apart, or even make them enemies.
Only after seeing Xie Chengze build Dujiangyan, offer gunpowder and heated brick beds to Emperor Jian, and even hurry to Liaozhou the moment he learned Shen Yuan was missing, had Shen Yuan finally lowered his guard and decided to place his trust in him.
He knew that if the Second Prince had been reborn, even if he resolved to devote this life to goodness, he could at most do what Shen Yuan himself had done: purge corrupt officials and recover stolen silver in Yizhou, predict Liaozhou’s snow disaster, and take precautions. He could never, like an immortal descended to earth, transform Yizhou’s doomed land into a miracle, leading the people to defy their fate and overcome Heaven through human effort. Nor could he make frigid Liaozhou a warm haven, sparing its people the torment of freezing cold from then on.
The Xie Chengze of this life truly resembled the “heaven-sent lucky star” for the Jian’an Dynasty described in the Imperial Observatory’s celestial pronouncement.
He was willing to believe, just this once. Perhaps his own rebirth was connected to this “Xie Chengze” too.
Wiping the tears remaining at the corners of the young man’s eyes with his fingertips, Shen Yuan lowered his head and coaxed, “I was wrong, Your Highness. Don’t cry.”
He had only wanted to test him, to probe his feelings, to make him tell the truth.
Xie Chengze turned his face away and gave a cold laugh. “If I’m not the Second Prince, who else could I be?”
“The Second Prince would never refer to himself so simply as ‘I’ when speaking to me.” Shen Yuan lowered his gaze and smiled. “Nor would he ever allow me to call myself ‘I’ in his presence.”
As though a floodgate had opened, he began listing the differences between them. His eyes and brows held a tenderness even he had not noticed. “You’re clever and resourceful, Your Highness. Though you like to throw little tantrums, you never kill anyone in anger. The Second Prince, however, was capricious. The slightest displeasure made him want to kill. So many capable officials and fine generals died at his hands.”
“You distinguish loyalty from treachery, and the people are always foremost in your thoughts. All the wealth you seek goes to them. But the Second Prince saw only power, gold, and silver. For those things, he didn’t hesitate to plunge the realm into devastation and leave white bones piled everywhere.”
“If the Second Prince learned I was missing, he’d probably clap with delight. Of course, he’d send people to find me too, but only to stab my corpse a couple more times, then toss it to the wild dogs in the mass burial grounds…”
“Pfft.” Xie Chengze couldn’t help laughing, then straightened his expression again, pressing his lips tight in a show of seriousness.
“Only you, Your Highness, would worry about my safety on learning I was missing, and even risk your own life to find me.” Shen Yuan’s voice grew softer and softer. In the night light, his eyes were like the moon, concealing countless stars as he gazed at the young man lying on the bed. “Shen Yuan has been reborn. What about you, Your Highness?”
Shen Yuan’s unexpected candor left Xie Chengze momentarily stunned. Meeting that deep, shadowed gaze, he found a few barely perceptible traces of tension and unease.
Could a man who had once dominated the court as a powerful minister feel uneasy too?
What was he uneasy about?
Afraid Xie Chengze wouldn’t tell the truth? Afraid all his trust would prove misplaced?
Or afraid he was still that Second Prince who had committed every imaginable evil?
The man before him was tense, but Xie Chengze wanted to laugh. That trace of unease in Shen Yuan’s eyes undoubtedly emboldened him, lifting his spirits.
His brows curved as he deliberately provoked him. “I’m afraid you’ll be frightened if I tell you, Lord Shen.”
“Shen Yuan isn’t afraid.” Shen Yuan lowered his head and wiped away the last moisture at the corners of the young man’s eyes. He said calmly, “I’ve died once, and I’m prepared to die again. If I don’t even fear death, what else is there to fear?”
“All right.” Xie Chengze coughed lightly, then grew serious. “I’m someone borrowing a body. My name is also Xie Chengze, but I’m not the Second Prince. By accident, I possessed the body of this man with the same name.”
Possession?
Shen Yuan had never imagined that answer.
There were indeed rural tales of possession by ghosts. But he had never believed in ghosts or gods. So, though he’d considered that Xie Chengze might be a double who looked exactly like the Second Prince, it had never occurred to him that a “ghost” had taken possession of him.
“You don’t believe me?” Seeing Shen Yuan fall silent, Xie Chengze sprang up from the bed again and said urgently, “I didn’t believe it at first either. How could people have souls? But that’s what happened. I really did come here. Think about it. Would your Second Prince have built Dujiangyan? Made gunpowder? Or heated brick beds? Would he be here calmly opening his heart to you?”
The young man pointed at his chest. “Don’t forget. In your previous life, you stabbed him to death yourself, with your Jian’an Sword.”
Shen Yuan’s pupils contracted, his gaze falling to the young man’s chest. “If you’re a wandering soul possessing him, how do you know what happened in the previous life?”
“Uh…” Xie Chengze was silent for a moment. He couldn’t exactly say this was the world of a book. That was even more outlandish and unbelievable than ghostly possession.
He cleared his throat and decided to use the explanation he had already prepared. “Have you forgotten? I’m the heaven-sent lucky star, an immortal descended to earth. Isn’t it perfectly normal for me to know a little about past lives?”
Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow. “If you’re truly an immortal descended to earth, you ought to know why I came here, and why I stayed.”
Xie Chengze: “…”
“Immortals come down to earth to undergo trials. Some of their memories must be sealed away,” Xie Chengze muttered. “I’m mortal now, and mortals get forgetful as they grow old. Isn’t it normal to forget a few things? Do you remember what you ate on this day last year, or what color your shit was?”
Shen Yuan: “…”
Such a glib tongue, without a serious word.
Shen Yuan didn’t care why Xie Chengze knew so much. All that mattered to him was that he wasn’t the Second Prince.
He teased him, testing him as well. “Then what has Your Immortal Highness come to the mortal world for?”
“To eat well, drink well, and sleep well, of course!” Xie Chengze replied at once. He proudly patted the warm bed beneath him. “Look at this heated brick bed! So warm! Just like that, my wish to sleep well has come true!”
His wishes were utterly simple, yet the means he used to fulfill them were astonishingly grand. To eat and drink well, he sought to create a land of abundance. To sleep well at night, he had made these heated brick beds. It seemed he was securing comfort for himself, but in fact he was bringing it to all the people of the realm.
Plainly, he had a sharp tongue and a soft heart.
Shen Yuan felt a faint stirring in his heart. He laid the quilt over the young man’s slender body to keep him from getting chilled and catching a cold, then said, “If you truly want to sleep well, Your Highness, a heated brick bed alone won’t do.”
“Hm?” Xie Chengze wondered why he’d said that. Then something occurred to him, and he abruptly blushed again, mumbling, “Ahem, well! That’s true… I’m still missing someone warm to hold under the covers.”
Shen Yuan: ?
Was that what he’d meant?!