Chapter 16
Chapter 16
After the two departed, Shen Yuan, hidden among the rafters, lowered his eyes in thought.
In the seventy-ninth year of Jian’an, disaster struck Pingcheng. Emperor Jian allocated six hundred thousand taels of silver for relief, and the Ministry of Revenue offered silver to the Second Prince’s faction as a pledge of allegiance. Xie Chengze personally went to Zhuolu County to inventory it, only to be accosted in the street by Zhu Xiaobiao, the County Magistrate’s son.
In a rage, Xie Chengze ordered Zhu Xiaobiao beaten to death in the street.
It had been an exceedingly trivial incident. Even Shen Yuan himself, upon hearing that Zhu Xiaobiao abducted innocent women, had believed the man deserved his fate – that one villain had simply met another.
But in the eighty-fifth year of Jian’an, six years after the incident, the top-ranked scholar at the Qionglin Banquet conspired with several dancing girls to assassinate Xie Chengze. Only after they were interrogated did the truth emerge: the newly crowned top-ranked scholar and those dancing girls had all once been Zhu Xiaobiao’s beautiful concubines.
Most had come from impoverished families and were disregarded by their parents. Some, simply for possessing excessive beauty, had even seen genuine tyrants break into their homes and buy them for a few taels of silver.
Zhu Xiaobiao had arrived in time upon hearing the news, kicked the tyrants aside, and seized the victims for his own household instead.
The beautiful top-ranked scholar had once been the youngest son in his family. His father favored the eldest son and, hoping to smooth the future official career of that newly qualified scholar, sent the younger boy into an official’s household. The official possessed peculiar tastes and beat and abused him at the slightest provocation. After finally escaping to Zhuolu County, he was caught by the other man’s pursuers.
Just as he was about to be beaten to death, Zhu Xiaobiao happened to pass by and saved him.
Zhu Xiaobiao settled him in a courtyard outside the residence and provided him with a monthly allowance, even secretly hiring a teacher for him. The world claimed the County Magistrate’s son devoured both men and women without distinction, but the young man knew Lord Zhu was an exceptionally good person.
He simply had troubles he could not reveal.
And this good man had been beaten to death in the street on the Second Prince’s orders.
They were mere commoners with no one to rely upon. They could only swallow their humiliation and bide their time for six years. The moment one of them became the new top-ranked scholar, they attempted to assassinate the Second Prince before the assembled court to avenge Lord Zhu.
They failed, but they also succeeded.
The newly crowned top-ranked scholar, devoted and righteous, spilled his blood at the Qionglin Banquet, while nine years earlier the third-ranked scholar had spilled his upon the execution ground merely for composing a poem of praise. These deaths thoroughly enraged the scholars of the realm. They mourned the two men, raged for them, and filled the land with condemnations of Xie Chengze, hoping His Majesty would deliver justice for the two dead scholars.
Emperor Jian was already gravely ill by then, and the affair ultimately came to nothing. But Xie Chengze had become estranged from all under Heaven, and one who lost the people’s hearts was doomed to a crushing defeat.
Yet now, Xie Chengze – who should have killed Zhu Xiaobiao – had spared him.
What was he plotting? Had he taken Zhu Xiaobiao away to put him to use, or to eliminate a future threat once and for all?
Would those so-called “beautiful concubines” meet mysterious deaths after the party departed?
How could Shen Yuan protect their lives?
He quickly arrived at a decision. Shen Yuan dropped from the rafters and prepared to leave, only to push at the door and find it would not budge.
Shen Yuan: “?”
…
After leaving the county yamen, Shen Yuan returned to the convoy entering the city.
“Lord Shen! Where is my imperial brother?” Xie Zimiao rushed over like a gust of wind and asked anxiously.
“His Highness the Second Prince is resting in the family quarters of the county yamen.” Shen Yuan remained fairly courteous toward Xie Zimiao. The boy was innocent by nature, possessing a kind of stupidity untainted by the ways of the world that made him surprisingly easy to deal with.
“Oh.” Xie Zimiao wanted to find Xie Chengze at once, but curiosity got the better of him. He turned back toward Shen Yuan, who had kept both hands hidden behind his back. “Lord Shen, what are you hiding in your hands?”
Shen Yuan: “…”
“Nothing.” It was merely a certain person’s outer robe that he had gotten dirty when, furious at being locked inside the silver vault, he took a fall.
“All right, then. I’m going to find Imperial Brother!” Xie Zimiao, who possessed an excellent sense of boundaries, rushed away like the wind once more.
The convoy lodged overnight in the county yamen, and Shen Yuan was assigned a private room in the family quarters.
Cicadas chirped without pause through the night. The room was so stifling that he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. With worries weighing on his mind as well, he simply rose and went outside to cool off.
He had taken barely two steps when he spotted a slender dark-red figure and a stout golden one crouched around the corner. One large head and one small head were pressed together as the pair whispered furtively about something, occasionally letting out low, villainous chuckles.
For some reason, the sight was rather amusing.
Shen Yuan cleared his throat. The dark-red figure reacted like a startled wildcat, abruptly drawing in his backside and whipping around to look. Those long, narrow phoenix eyes visibly widened into perfect circles. In the darkness, they resembled two little lanterns suddenly flaring to life, captivating the eye.
Shen Yuan’s eyes flickered, his mood inexplicably shifting.
Once the figure recognized who had made the sound, those two little lanterns rapidly dimmed. He turned and said something to the golden figure, then rose with feigned composure and sauntered toward Shen Yuan.
“What is His Highness the Second Prince doing awake in the middle of the night, whispering with the little mouse who stole the rice?” As Xie Chengze approached, Shen Yuan folded his arms and leaned against a pillar, watching him at leisure.
Unlike during the day, the sleepless man at midnight carried an air of composure and danger. The elegance of white robes lined in blue could not conceal the hostility and scrutiny in his eyes. He resembled a black panther hidden in the shadows, waiting for his chance to strike as he contemplated how to toy with the cunning prey once it fell into his grasp.
Beneath his white robes, something dark had taken root.
Xie Chengze stopped before him. His clear, luminous gaze met Shen Yuan’s dark eyes directly.
A moment later, his crimson lips parted. “Odd changes, even stays?”
Shen Yuan frowned. “What?”
*Not a fellow transmigrator, then…*
Xie Chengze took another step forward. Shen Yuan was tall and stood half a head above him, so Xie Chengze tipped back his neck and continued crowding closer, staring at him with the intrigued appraisal one might give some novel and entertaining object.
Shen Yuan instinctively retreated in disgust, forgetting the pillar behind him. That single delayed step was enough for Xie Chengze to trap him between both arms. Without warning, Shen Yuan found himself staring straight into those increasingly brilliant eyes.
He watched Xie Chengze slowly speak, amusement mingling with mischief in his smile. “This prince cannot compare with the refined tastes of a certain gentleman in the rafters. One imagines a locked chamber must possess charms all its own.”
Shen Yuan’s expression darkened. “You did that deliberately.”
At the time, the guards at the silver vault had all been intentionally dismissed. County Magistrate Zhu was away from the yamen, leaving no one in charge of the treasury. Xie Chengze had deliberately arranged for Zhu Xiaobiao to lock Shen Yuan inside, all so he could watch and laugh from the shadows.
Now Xie Chengze put on an innocent act again. Blinking, he pressed a little closer. “This prince doesn’t understand Lord Shen’s riddles. Nor does he know where his robe is at present. If it has become dirty, he must trouble Lord Shen to wash it clean for him.”
He had even seen Shen Yuan take his anger out on the robe.
Shame brought a restless flush creeping over Shen Yuan’s face. In ten years of conflict, he had rarely acted so impulsively, yet the robe’s actual owner had caught him red-handed.
“Lord Shen?” Xie Chengze raised a brow, his smile growing ever more teasing.
Shen Yuan stared at him darkly. The man before him looked so smug, like a kitten that had won a battle and could not resist revealing its hidden tail to swish it before Shen Yuan.
In that case, Shen Yuan would take advantage of the opportunity and seize that tail.
He grasped Xie Chengze’s shoulder and spun abruptly, reversing both their positions and the balance of power in an instant.
Trapping Xie Chengze between his arms, Shen Yuan bent close to his face, a nasty smile curving his lips. “Then perhaps Your Highness could clear up this Shen’s confusion. Why have ten thousand perfectly good taels somehow returned to Your Highness’s hands?”