Chapter 135
“Oh, you’re awake.”
Inside the carriage, Elder Gu tucked his hands into his official sleeves and looked at Su Qinghe as he slowly came around.
He’d gone to fetch him from the Imperial Observatory, only to find him unconscious, his face covered in blood. He had hurriedly summoned an imperial physician.
Learning that Su Qinghe had merely fainted from exhaustion, he’d bundled up the unconscious young man without much ceremony and hauled him into the carriage.
“This is…”
Feeling the carriage jolt, Su Qinghe panicked.
Was he being sent back to the Su family?
Because he’d failed to meet His Highness’s expectations? Because the Second Prince was disappointed in him?
Did he no longer want him?
Tears instantly spilled from his eyes, running down his delicate, handsome cheeks. Su Qinghe truly loved the Imperial Observatory, and the Ministry of Works too. He’d gained respect and recognition here. He’d found things he was good at. Yet these days felt stolen, and in the end he had to return to the place where he’d originally belonged…
He was such a failure. He still wasn’t good enough, which was why he was being cast aside and rejected…
He couldn’t do anything right…
His tears fell like pearls from a broken string. Before they could land on his official robe, they were already cold enough to make him feel plunged into an ice cellar. Watching the young man bite his lips to keep from making a sound even as he cried, Elder Gu sighed inwardly.
Of course he could see that something was wrong with the boy’s disposition.
But he’d thought peaceful days would wear away the pain of the past. Like the beating His Highness had given his backside: even if scars remained, the pain would fade. People had to look ahead, to do justice to the life still awaiting them.
“Stop crying. You’re an official now. What kind of behavior is this?” Elder Gu shook his head helplessly. “When we reach Liaozhou, if His Highness sees you’ve cried yourself blind, who knows how he’ll torment and blame this old man?”
Perhaps he’d cry, make a scene, and threaten to hang himself, shouting, “Give me back my adorable Su Qinghe! Waaah!”
Elder Gu shuddered in horror and hastily banished the image from his mind again.
Su Qinghe’s falling tears stopped. He looked up blankly. “His Highness is in Liaozhou? When did he go?”
“Yes.” Elder Gu nodded. “Didn’t you know? He volunteered to go to Liaozhou to save Lord Shen. It’s been more than half a month now. He wrote asking me to take you there to make these ice sculptures. You’re very dexterous. It’s a good opportunity for me to teach you carving.”
Su Qinghe abruptly smiled through his tears, sniffling as he both laughed and cried. “I thought, I thought…”
That His Highness didn’t want him anymore…
Only after wiping his face clean did he belatedly ask, “Save Lord Shen? What happened to him?”
“Apparently, bandits abducted him. But I hear he’s already been rescued.” Elder Gu seldom attended court and had only learned this from other officials. “In any case, there’s no problem. Rest while we’re traveling. The physician said you’ve overworked yourself and need a few days to recover. No more reading.”
Su Qinghe obediently nodded. Learning that Xie Chengze hadn’t abandoned him, but had hurried out of the capital because something had happened, he finally shook off the gloom. He gently lifted the carriage curtain.
Outside, everything was white with snow. Like his heart at that moment, the view opened into brightness.
Your Highness, Qinghe wants to see you so much.
Qinghe wants to make pastries for you again.
…
“Why are these damned pastries so hard to make?”
In the woodshed, Shen Yuan looked at the cakes in the steamer, steamed beyond recognition, and couldn’t help rubbing between his brows, which were already coated with flour.
In both his previous life and this one, he’d eaten Su Qinghe’s pastries. He knew they were outstanding in appearance, aroma, and taste. It was perfectly natural for Xie Chengze, that greedy little cat with a sweet tooth, to keep thinking of them.
He just hadn’t expected them to be so hard to make.
If only they at least looked a little better…
Shen Yuan could easily imagine how mercilessly Xie Chengze would laugh if he offered him these cakes.
Should he buy ready-made ones after all?
His own were simply too embarrassing to offer.
He tore off a piece and put it in his mouth. The taste was tolerable, not bad, but clearly far removed from Su Qinghe’s skill. Beside those pastries, these could easily seem like coarse, miserable fare.
Forget it. Feed them to a dog.
Thinking that, Shen Yuan stuffed another piece into his own mouth.
After erasing all evidence of pastry-making from the woodshed, he wrapped the ruined cakes in cloth, intending to eat them for lunch while leading the standing troops to clear snow from the official roads. Then he ran into Xie Chengze coming out.
Xie Chengze seemed perfectly normal. He greeted Shen Yuan and prepared to go about his business.
Shen Yuan was silent for a moment. He badly wanted to ask whether Xie Chengze had seen the rabbit ice lantern he’d left. But when the young man showed no intention of mentioning it, a spark of anger suddenly rose inside him.
Why should he be the only dog?
Shen Yuan quickly unwrapped the cloth bundle, tore off a piece of cake, and forcibly stuffed it into Xie Chengze’s mouth.
They could both be dogs!
He tied the bundle back up, turned, and marched down the mountain in a fury.
Xie Chengze: ?
What was wrong with him this early in the morning?
He chewed the soft cake and found it quite sweet. When had the woodshed started making something this good? Why hadn’t anyone brought him some?
His appetite whetted, Xie Chengze hurried to the woodshed. But he found nothing, not even a trace of cake-making.
Was Shen Yuan secretly keeping the food all to himself?
Surely he wasn’t that stingy!
Xie Chengze smacked his lips, savoring the rare sweetness lingering in his mouth.
Never mind. Business first!
His work grew increasingly mysterious, and he was often nowhere to be found. With the arrival of the first blizzard, vast clouds of snow rolled over the mountains and towns like dense, billowing mist. A thick quilt of snow covered roofs and ground, making every step difficult.
Mining stopped. The villages began calling on everyone to clear snow. With heated brick beds and relief grain, the blizzard seemed less hopeless. In high spirits, the people went out to shovel, clearing the layers on their roofs as well to prevent deadly collapses in the night.
The “freshly minted” standing troops and coal bandits were also made to work. In constant shifts, they pushed snow to either side of the official roads to keep the second shipment of relief grain from being delayed.
On the frozen Hun River.
Looking across the snowy ice, Xie Chengze rubbed his eyes. He was clearly unused to this boundless glare.
Suddenly, a thin, soft strip of black gauze wrapped over his eyes from behind. It gently passed the tips of his ears and around the back of his head, leaving the faintest pressure. A pair of large, slender hands with cool-toned pale skin fastened the gauze and finished with an exceptionally beautiful bow.
Xie Chengze turned his head and found himself meeting a pair of narrow black eyes, sharpness hidden within.