Chapter 13
JIANG SUIZHOU ENSURED that no one was nearby before he spoke.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Your humble servant is named Sun Yuan, Your Highness,” said the boy as he hurriedly wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Jiang Suizhou nodded slightly, then gave him some simple instructions—like to serve Huo Wujiu with the utmost care—and emphasized that there was no room for error.
The boy certainly seemed like the obedient, cowardly type. As he listened to Jiang Suizhou speak, he nervously gripped and kneaded the hem of his clothing.
None of his reactions or movements went unnoticed by Jiang Suizhou.
His naivety and docility were quite suitable.
“Since you began attending to Madam Huo yesterday, has anyone requested for you to pass something along to him?” Jiang Suizhou asked the boy.
Sun Yuan jolted. Immediately, panic washed over his face, and he frantically waved his hands.
“N-no!”
That, of course, meant “Yes.”
Although Huo Wujiu was from Northern Liang, his father used to be a general for Southern Jing. There were probably at least a few people in the court who once had some kind of connection with his father, so it wasn’t at all strange that one or two of them might reach out in secret.
Jiang Suizhou nodded.
“Even if someone approached you, I will not punish you for it.”
“Your Highness,” Sun Yuan said, flustered, “while someone did indeed ask for a message to be delivered, your servant declined!”
Jiang Suizhou did his best to seem pleasant and approachable.
“So there was someone,” he said mildly.
The gentler His Highness’s voice became, the more sinister it sounded, like the ominous calm before the storm. It scared the porter boy witless.
Sun Yuan’s legs went weak with terror. He knew there was a reason His Highness had wanted to talk to him out of the blue! How had he guessed the truth, though?
Everyone knew about Madam Huo’s true identity. How could Sun Yuan dare to help him correspond with an outsider? At this point, it didn’t matter if he had declined the offer or not; he was probably going to be silenced regardless.
“There was… But your servant really didn’t…”
“Next time, if someone asks you to deliver another letter,” Jiang Suizhou instructed him carefully, “you are to give it to Madam Huo. No need to report back to me.”
After all, Huo Wujiu was no fool. If a letter could make its way to him that easily—in Jiang Suizhou’s own living quarters, no less—he would be able to deduce that someone had aided the messenger.
“Your servant would never… Huh?”
The boy stared at him, disbelief written across his face. He was absolutely stupefied.
Jiang Suizhou once again adopted his cold, stern persona.
“Just do as you’re told. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone,” he said. “If even a whisper of this gets out, well, I’m sure you know what the consequences will be.”
✦ ✦ ✦
With Sun Yuan thoroughly threatened, Jiang Suizhou walked away, hands clasped behind his back.
His room was currently a complete mess, all because of Meng Qianshan’s featherbrained “arrangements.” Jiang Suizhou felt a headache set in just looking at it, and when he remembered that Huo Wujiu was also there, he chose to retreat to the study for a while.
Deciding it best to bypass all that for as long as possible, he calmly ascended the steps and made his way toward the study, detouring through the veranda.
En route, however, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the man he intended to avoid. Amid the constant hustle and bustle, Huo Wujiu was the most incongruous figure in the room.
He sat silently in the corner, alone. He was naturally good-looking, but his gaze was menacing enough to make anyone’s heart skip a beat in fear.
Right now, however, those eyes were lowered, and he was seemingly lost in thought. His long eyelashes concealed the fierce glint in his eyes, giving him an unexpectedly tranquil aura, as though a clear boundary had been drawn to exclude him from the surrounding world.
Jiang Suizhou’s footsteps slowed.
At that moment, a maidservant carrying a chest walked past Huo Wujiu. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going, and she accidentally kicked his wheelchair.
Huo Wujiu only swayed slightly, but the maidservant staggered from the collision and nearly dropped the chest. She steadied herself, then rounded on Huo Wujiu in annoyance.
“Why are you so in the way? Can’t you sit a little farther away?”
She flicked a disdainful look at Huo Wujiu before moving on.
Jiang Suizhou’s brows furrowed.
He couldn’t help but veer off the path toward the study. Stepping over the threshold of the main room, he strode inside to confront the maidservant.
“What did you just say?” he asked, frowning.
He didn’t even know these people’s names, and yet they were so good at causing trouble for him. Here he was, racking his brain to come up with ways to covertly win over Huo Wujiu, and then these people just came along and openly bullied him?
All of the servants in the room were caught off guard, and they glanced fearfully in Jiang Suizhou’s direction. He paid the others no attention, only staring frostily at the maidservant.
She jumped at the sight of him, for she immediately knew that he had overheard her snide comments. Not daring to refute him, she dropped to her knees in front of Jiang Suizhou, hugging the chest in her arms.
He gazed down coolly at the maid. “Do you know what you did wrong?”
Bobbing her head repeatedly, the maid said that she knew.
“Who should you be apologizing to?” he pressed.
The maid dropped the chest and shuffled over to Huo Wujiu on her knees before kowtowing to him.
“Your servant behaved discourteously. Madam, I humbly request your forgiveness!”
Huo Wujiu didn’t even look up. He continued sitting there, his entire body turned to the side as though none of this had anything to do with him.
Jiang Suizhou was a little stumped.
He knew that the maidservant ought to be punished for saying such a thing. However, what exactly should that punishment be?
Meng Qianshan wasn’t present at the moment, and Jiang Suizhou had yet to figure out the rules of the residence as far as penalizing servants. Perhaps a pay deduction was appropriate? But he didn’t know how much of her pay to deduct. Other common punishments would be lashing or prolonged kneeling, but Jiang Suizhou, with his modern sensibilities, couldn’t bring himself to issue a physical sentence.
After thinking it over for a bit, he failed to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
“Go find Meng Qianshan to receive your punishment,” he said limply.
The maid hastily bowed to him and responded that she would.
Jiang Suizhou assumed that his reprimands had been effective, considering that all the other servants had fallen silent, too scared to even move. At the very least, all the people in his living quarters would think twice about bullying Huo Wujiu again.
Relieved, he began to leave.
He did what needed to be done. Now, he was going to head to the study and enjoy a lovely few hours away from Huo Wujiu and at least a handful of his other problems.
A disgruntled look flashed across the kneeling maid’s face after he turned away.
She went by the name Taozhi. Until now, she’d been one of His Highness’s most highly regarded servants, just below Meng Qianshan. If he wasn’t attending to His Highness, then she was.
She never imagined that one day, her master would berate her so ruthlessly because of some invalid. And in front of everyone, no less!
However, even though her master had chastised her, he hadn’t personally punished her, despite the severity of her mistake. That must have been a sign of her master’s compassion for her, surely. He was just giving her some pointers because he happened to overhear what she said, that was all. Still, the opprobrium stung.
She raised her head and glared at Huo Wujiu; everything was entirely his fault.
Meanwhile, Jiang Suizhou had completely failed to notice the ice frosting over Huo Wujiu’s gaze, concealed beneath his long eyelashes.
As Jiang Suizhou exited the room, Huo Wujiu lifted his gaze from his spot in the corner and swept a glacial look in the direction of the prince’s back.
The Prince of Jing was acting rather ridiculous. He had already assigned someone to monitor him, anyway. What was the point? He should just own up to his actions.
He watched over him for an entire night, all for the sake of this charade which he refused to drop. Why bother putting on a show of defending him at this point?
There was no need for that.