Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I first met Ye Qing a year ago at a welcome banquet.

He was, quite simply, breathtaking.

I heard that back when he took first place as the Zhuangyuan and paraded through the streets with flowers in his hair, he was nearly buried under the sachets and blossoms tossed by the women lining the road.

To someone like me-who grew up in the wilderness and later drifted around the borderlands without ever seeing the world-he was nothing short of a deity descended to earth.

At the time, the Emperor was hosting a welcome banquet for the generals returning from a great victory.

The banquet was held in the Imperial Garden.

The Imperial Garden was a place of magnificent splendor, with carved beams, painted rafters, artificial mountains, rare stones, and exotic flora. It felt like a fairyland.

I was like a country bumpkin entering the city for the first time; everything I saw was a marvel, and every sight drew a gasp of wonder from me. My behavior had already invited the ridicule of some of the capital’s elites.

I didn’t care, though. I’ve always been wild at heart, doing as I please and never much caring for what others think.

I had been seated in the men’s section.

My neighbors were either crusty old men, weaklings, or little brats. There were a few tall and handsome men as well, but the man in the center was like a pearl among pebbles.

Yes, he was the one.

My mother had told me I must be conspicuous and steal the spotlight; choosing him couldn’t possibly go wrong.

I made a point to ask around.

His name was Ye Qing.

He was the Vice Minister of the Right in the Ministry of Rites.

He was exceptionally brilliant and profoundly learned.

His looks were androgynous, possessing a beauty that defied description.

That’s right-he was a man, yet he was hauntingly beautiful.

The common folk called him the Capital’s Number One Handsome Man.

I stared at him, dazed, my mouth hanging open like a fool’s for a long time.

It wasn’t until he felt offended and shot me a frowning glare that I snapped out of it.

That one look was like shimmering autumn ripples, soul-stirring and captivating.

Could such a beautiful person even be intimidating when angry?

I spent the entire banquet staring at him. The more I looked, the more handsome he became.

“A beauty that sinks fish and brings down birds, eclipses the moon and shames the flowers… a national grace, a heavenly fragrance, a beauty that could topple cities and ruin states…”

I used every idiom I knew to praise him, yet I felt every word fell short.

Xiao Yu told me to stop talking, saying people were laughing at me.

Coming to my senses slightly, I heard someone say, “Look, Lord Ye’s appearance has completely entranced that stunned lad.”

Then came a burst of teasing laughter.

I leaned over to look. Ye Qing’s face was full of displeasure, his eyes cold.

Xiao Yu whispered, “He’s so beautiful. You don’t think he’s like those characters in the plays-a woman dressed as a man, do you?”

My servant and I lowered our heads to discuss whether he was a man or a woman, a human or a demon.

I bet fifty push-ups that he was a woman.

Xiao Yu bet a hundred push-ups that he was a man.

And so, when everyone gathered in the Imperial Garden after the meal to talk big and compose poetry, I pointed at Ye Qing from a distance and shouted, “Hey! You, the best-looking one over there! Do you pee standing up or squatting down?”

The very wind in the Imperial Garden seemed to stop because of my words.

One by one, they turned their heads to stare at me in shock.

A long silence followed.

*Snap-*

Ye Qing suddenly snapped his folding fan shut and looked at me with a chilling gaze. “Young master, however you do it is how I do it.”

His words were a bit convoluted, and I didn’t catch the implication immediately.

So, I simply raised an eyebrow and said as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “I pee squatting down!”