Chapter 52
Chapter 52
After changing clothes, Xie Chengze waved Zhu Xiaobiao away.
He headed toward the bed to retrieve the sulfur powder he had hidden. As he passed the wooden table, the exquisite redwood clothes chest Shen Yuan had brought caught his eye again.
Xie Chengze frowned in disdain, ignored it, and continued toward the bed.
Three seconds later, his steps reversed and carried him back.
He would take one glance. Just one. He wanted to see whether that bastard Shen Yuan had tried to fool him by passing off rags as something valuable.
Xie Chengze raised a hand to his lips and coughed twice. Rather than face the table, he stood beside it with his body turned away and his back perfectly straight. Feigning indifference, he extended his right hand and lightly pried at the chest’s clasp.
The wooden lid sprang open at once, revealing what lay inside.
Several small brown paper packets were tied with thin red cord. A piece of red paper bearing the character for “pastry” had been attached to them. After several collisions, they had been crushed together in one corner of the chest and looked exceptionally pitiful.
Beneath the packets lay a begonia-red robe of Shu brocade. Fine golden thread traced countless auspicious clouds and immortal cranes across it. The fabric was silky and light, with a faintly cool, soft touch. Small, round, translucent red gemstones edged the lapels, flawless and clear as pomegranate seeds, announcing the wearer’s noble status.
Even with Xie Chengze’s limited discernment, he knew only an exceptional embroiderer could have made such a garment. Given Shen Yuan’s rigid refusal to owe anyone, had he bought the shop’s greatest treasure?
And he had even used his own silver.
Xie Chengze’s index finger lightly toyed with one of the little jewels, then his hand moved toward the corner of the chest. His fingers hooked through the cords binding the pastry packets and lifted them all out at once.
He opened them one by one. Inside were candied-date pastries, flower cakes, longan crisps, and mung-bean cakes. There was not much of any one kind, but enough to satisfy a craving.
With famine raging in Yizhou, even these little treats probably sold for astronomical prices. Xie Chengze picked up a longan crisp and popped it into his mouth. Its rich, flaky fragrance made him think, Fine. Shen Yuan is forgiven by one point.
Then he stuffed a mung-bean cake into his mouth. After chewing, he concluded: Shen Yuan is forgiven by two points.
He drank some water to clear his throat, then ate a candied-date pastry: Shen Yuan is forgiven by half a point.
Finally, he tried a bite of flower cake. Its delicate fragrance and heavy sweetness made him decide: This one earns Shen Yuan three points of forgiveness.
He glanced at the Shu-brocade robe again. That did not count. Shen Yuan had owed him a replacement anyway.
Having coaxed himself back into a good mood, Xie Chengze dug out the sulfur powder and white sugar. Worried that Shen Yuan might sneak in during the night and throw them away, he tucked them into his robe and quietly left the room, intending to find somewhere safe to hide them.
But where could he hide them…?
Xie Chengze skulked through the village, feeling that wherever he chose, Shen Yuan’s dog nose would sniff them out. Just as he ran out of ideas, someone suddenly patted his back.
Xie Chengze shuddered in fright and turned his stiff neck. When he saw Gu Ying and Bian Yangchun instead of Shen Yuan, he immediately relaxed. “Oh, it’s you two.”
“Brother Cheng, what are you doing here?” Gu Ying asked curiously, his bright puppy eyes fixed on him.
“Hiding something.” Xie Chengze looked at the two of them. “What are you doing here?”
“Big Brother Bian and I went to the bookshop to buy books. We’re going to report to Prefect Liang in a little while,” Gu Ying answered honestly. “He keeps feeling like someone wants to harm him. When he heard I knew martial arts, he said he wanted to hire me as a guard.”
“Oh?” Xie Chengze thought about it and nodded in agreement. “That makes sense. His life is valuable now. He really should hire some guards.”
Gu Ying tilted his head, clear eyes filled with confusion. “Why is it valuable now?”
“Well…” Xie Chengze improvised wildly. “Living to his age wasn’t easy. Every extra mouthful he eats adds another meal’s cost to his value. If he suddenly tripped over a rock and died, wouldn’t that be a terrible loss? You see what I mean?”
Understanding dawned on Gu Ying. Xie Chengze made perfect sense.
Bian Yangchun smiled from beside him. “All right, Little Ying. Brother Cheng has business to attend to. Let’s not disturb him.”
Gu Ying made a sound of acknowledgment and waved at Xie Chengze. “Then we’ll be going, Brother Cheng!”
“Hey! Wait! Help me with something!” Remembering his plan, Xie Chengze hurriedly took out the paper packet of sulfur and patted it against both men’s backs several times. “All right, you can go now!”
“What’s this?” Gu Ying sniffed Bian Yangchun’s back, finding the smell somewhat familiar.
“Sulfur.” Xie Chengze waved them away, then immediately walked toward the other villagers.
He had devised a brilliant solution – make everyone smell of sulfur powder!
Then Shen Yuan would never find where he had truly hidden the sulfur!
Hahahahaha! He, Xie Chengze, was a genius!
–
At dusk, Shen Yuan estimated that Xie Chengze’s anger should have cooled. He set down the case file in his hands and left the main hall to find him.
He had gone only a few steps when he passed a yamen runner and caught a faint, familiar smell. Frowning slightly, he glanced at the man.
Was it his imagination?
Shen Yuan paid it no further mind and continued toward the family quarters. Yet every person he passed carried the same elusive trace of sulfur powder, as though the scent had wrapped itself around his nose and refused to leave.
Shen Yuan: “…”
He could more or less guess what had happened.
Amusement rose within him. Xie Chengze truly had an endless supply of tricks. He had even invented a method like this. Was he really so afraid Shen Yuan would find and confiscate his sulfur powder?
He was a prince and could have used his power to suppress Shen Yuan outright. Yet he always seemed to watch Shen Yuan’s expression, allowing Shen Yuan to address him by name and oppose him directly without the slightest regard for the divide between sovereign and subject…
But Shen Yuan was the man who had killed him.
He still remembered with perfect clarity the moment his blue sword pierced Xie Chengze’s heart in the previous life. Hands slick with blood had clutched desperately at Shen Yuan’s sleeve. Blood flooded his lungs and left him unable to speak, but the bone-deep hatred in his eyes had burned like a raging fire that could swallow Shen Yuan whole.
After fighting for ten years, Shen Yuan naturally knew what he had wanted to say.
“Even if I descend into hell, I will return to kill you.”
Yet neither of them had gone to hell, and the reborn Xie Chengze had not killed him.
Instead, he saved Zhu Xiaobiao and spoke freely with the scholars. He devised Yizhou’s Land of Abundance Plan and knew how to manufacture a killing weapon like gunpowder. Shen Yuan could not possibly have failed to question the identity of a man so completely unlike “Xie Chengze.”
Shen Yuan had wondered whether Xie Chengze might not be “Xie Chengze” at all, but another man with an identical face who had somehow replaced the original without anyone noticing.
His instincts told him clearly that Xie Chengze was not “Xie Chengze,” yet Xie Chengze’s unmistakable knowledge of so many secrets from the previous life insisted just as plainly that he was.
Shen Yuan could think of no other explanation that might prove Xie Chengze was someone else. More importantly, the two were identical in every detail. Shen Yuan had traveled widely and seen many pairs of twins, yet never two people this perfectly alike.
Unable to be certain, he had never managed to lower his guard around Xie Chengze.
With a sigh, Shen Yuan reached Xie Chengze’s room and knocked on the door.
No one answered. Shen Yuan knocked several more times and called, “Your Highness, it is I.”
Still no answer came. He raised a hand to push the door open, but a voice suddenly sounded behind him. “What are you doing?”