Chapter 81
Chapter 81
After returning to the palace, Xie Chengze could not sleep because of all the tea he had drunk. So he lit a lamp in the middle of the night and began sketching on paper again.
He ruined sheet after sheet. They lay scattered across the floor as messily as his tousled hair. Only when dawn began to pale the sky did he rub his aching eyes and prepare for bed.
No sooner had he dozed off than the night guard knocked outside. “Your Highness, one of your retainers requests an audience.”
A retainer?
Through his haze, Xie Chengze remembered that the Jian’an Dynasty did indeed allow princes to maintain private retainers. The pay and benefits were excellent. A high-ranking retainer could even secure a life of comfort for his entire family. Many talented men of humble birth who failed the examinations would settle for the next best thing and seek an interview to become a prince’s retainer.
In return, however, such retainers had to be prepared to lay down their lives for their prince. Whether their master was good or evil, betrayal was forbidden.
Several retainers did live in the rear court of Chenghuan Hall. But Xie Chengze had only just arrived in this world and then spent half a year away on assignment, so he had never summoned any of them.
In the original novel, these retainers were fairly loyal at first. Yet as the Second Prince descended further into darkness, many became unwilling to keep serving a tyrannical master. The blunt ones rammed their heads into pillars and killed themselves; the cleverer ones secretly defected. Of course, every clever defector was eventually discovered and executed.
But was paid leave not wonderful? Why would a retainer suddenly come looking for him?
Surely no one had been idle so long that he actually wanted to work?!
Xie Chengze punched his pillow twice before getting up and opening the door. “What is it?”
A middle-aged man in black stood below the steps. The moment he saw Xie Chengze, he hurriedly bowed. “Your Highness! This subordinate has an urgent matter to report. Please dismiss everyone else.”
Xie Chengze rubbed his temples and waved the night guard away. “Speak.”
The middle-aged man checked left and right to make certain no one remained, then stepped forward and said gravely, “Your Highness, someone offered this subordinate fifty taels of gold yesterday to betray you and whisper persuasive words in your ear from now on!”
Xie Chengze: ?
Xie Chengze woke up instantly. He gave the retainer a peculiar look. “What was your name again?”
The man looked at him in confusion. “Your Highness! This subordinate is Hu Lai!”
Xie Chengze: …
Oh. He remembered now.
The Second Prince did have a retainer named Hu Lai. The name had stuck in Xie Chengze’s memory because the man was extremely prone to reckless schemes, and even the Second Prince could never quite determine where his moral bottom line lay.
In the original novel, Hu Lai constantly proposed strange, slippery, rotten plans that caused Shen Yuan and the Crown Prince’s faction to suffer many bitter losses. Later, after Wuhen died in battle and the new emperor was assassinated upon the dragon throne, Hu Lai took advantage of the chaos to flee the capital and disappeared without a trace…
Xie Chengze wiped a hand over his face. “Why did they approach you?”
At this point in the original plot, no one had bribed one of his retainers. Later still, no one would ever have chosen Hu Lai, because everyone knew the man was utterly unscrupulous. Using him as an inside agent was simply playing with fire.
“Oh, that!” Hu Lai stroked his beard and explained at leisure. “At first, they tried to bribe someone else. That man refused, and this subordinate happened to overhear as I passed, so I volunteered!”
Xie Chengze: …
Are you sure you merely happened to pass by? You did not keep track of every retainer’s suspicious movements and deliberately follow him there?!
Now Xie Chengze remembered. The Second Prince had never possessed the brains to identify traitors. Hu Lai had been the one who uncovered their clues and ordered them all killed!
Xie Chengze stood in the wind, mentally disheveled. It took him a long time to recover. “So who asked you to whisper in my ear, and what exactly were you told to say?”
“I do not yet know who they are. Their accent sounded like someone from Jizhou. Anyone who can produce that much gold at once must serve either a merchant or an important court official. But they ordered this subordinate to persuade Your Highness to recruit Lord Shen Yuan, the Vice Minister of Justice, so the merchant possibility may be ruled out…”
Hu Lai rattled through his analysis, then concluded regretfully, “Unfortunately, this subordinate cannot serve as a court official and knows little about the civil and military officials. Perhaps Your Highness knows who it is?”
Hu Lai looked at Xie Chengze expectantly.
Had the original Second Prince been standing here, Hu Lai would inevitably have been disappointed. Xie Chengze was different. He would leave Hu Lai both disappointed and consumed by unsatisfied curiosity.
Because Xie Chengze said, “Oh, I know who it is now. But I’m not telling you.”
Hu Lai: …
Hu Lai: ???
Hu Lai: Your Highness! How are you even more shameless than I am?!
Hu Lai had always excelled at reading people. One look at Xie Chengze’s expression told him that His Highness truly did know who was behind the bribe.
And for some reason, the Second Prince felt a little different from before.
But that was no great problem. As long as he was still “His Highness the Second Prince,” nothing else mattered.
“Where is the gold?” Xie Chengze held out a hand, ready to confiscate the illicit proceeds.
Hu Lai’s sleeve abruptly sagged. His gaze wandered. “Your Highness, that would hardly be fair… Serving as a double agent is no easy task. And as Your Highness knows, this subordinate has twenty-eight concubines to support…”
Xie Chengze whipped his head around. *Hmm???*
Had he misheard?
Since when did Hu Lai have twenty-eight concubines?
“You…” Xie Chengze stopped himself. He badly wanted a clear answer, but feared the original owner might have known about this. So he asked vaguely, “If you go back on your word, are you not afraid the patron behind the scheme will threaten your… twenty-eight concubines?”
“Oh, no!” Hu Lai waved a broad hand. “My twenty-eight concubines are scattered throughout the Jian’an Dynasty. I have even forgotten what many of them look like.”
“Then how do you support them?” Xie Chengze asked in shock.
“Ahem. That is a secret.” Hu Lai coughed softly. He would never tell Xie Chengze that whenever he left a city, he gave the woman the name on an account he had forged at a bank. Every month, she could withdraw a generous sum from it, enough to raise her children in comfort.
Xie Chengze did not think Hu Lai was lying. In the original novel, the man had indeed been miserly and loved petty advantages. He demanded lavish rewards for every plan he offered, yet no one knew where he spent the money.
Rubbing his brow, Xie Chengze finally dragged himself away from the gossip and back to the matter at hand. “You said that man wanted you to praise Shen Yuan in my ear and persuade me to recruit him?”
Hu Lai nodded. “This subordinate has heard of Vice Minister Shen’s achievements. He is indeed a talent worth recruiting. But now that he has brought down Yang Qinghui with such force, attempting to recruit him at this moment could easily make His Majesty believe Your Highness is courting court officials for a private faction.”
Which, admittedly, he would be. Hu Lai added the thought in silence, then leaned closer and probed in a low voice, “Your Highness… this subordinate has heard that you have recently been choosing a male Princess Consort?”
Xie Chengze: ???
Seeing Xie Chengze’s eyes widen, Hu Lai immediately wore a teasing look. “Your Highness appeared extremely averse to the company of men before, but now you have changed completely. I assume something happened between you and Vice Minister Shen on the journey south to Yizhou?”
Xie Chengze: …
Taking Xie Chengze’s silence as confirmation, Hu Lai sorted through the information he had painstakingly gathered over the past few days and said carefully, “If Your Highness truly wishes to recruit Vice Minister Shen, this subordinate does have a plan. I am not sure whether I should voice it…”
Xie Chengze instinctively felt he should not. But curiosity got the better of him. “Let’s hear it.”
“I hear Vice Minister Shen has a good friend named Sheng Yiren, the daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites. Why not befriend her and use that connection to meet Vice Minister Shen in secret? If you cannot approach him openly, you can always do it behind closed doors!” After speaking, Hu Lai added bitterly, “This subordinate would actually rather recommend that concubine-born Su son, but he is far too ungrateful. Sheng Yiren will have to be the next best choice.”
He sighed in regret. “How wonderful it would be if we could take both approaches at once! Ah!”
Xie Chengze: …