Gu Fuzhou shook his head. “That won’t help. Let’s get down to business for now. Even Duke Wu has heard that the emperor plans to betroth the seventh princess to me. He congratulated me again and again as we drank—he said he plans to take my future son in as his disciple. What can you do to change His Majesty’s mind?”
Lin Qingyu collected himself. “The seventh princess is the emperor’s youngest daughter, and His Majesty has always doted on her. A heroic general with countless achievements to his name is naturally a good match for her. But if you were afflicted with an unmentionable disease, the emperor couldn’t bear to betroth her to you, for fear that she’d live her remaining years without being intimate with her husband.”
Unmentionable disease? Without being intimate with her husband? The moment Gu Fuzhou realized what that meant, he shot up from the lower bunk in disbelief. “Do you want me to die of rage, Lin Qingyu?”
“No,” Lin Qingyu replied, his tone calm.
“Cut it out. I think you do want me to die of rage, so that you can marry a woman,” Gu Fuzhou said sarcastically.
“Why would I need to kill you before I married?” Lin Qingyu asked, perplexed. “Couldn’t I marry someone else while you were alive?”
A shocked silence later, Gu Fuzhou let out an exasperated laugh. “Nice words, my friend. Utterly logical and reasonable too—I don’t have a retort ready.”
Lin Qingyu softened his tone. “You’re not worried about my medical prowess, are you? I’ll just render you temporarily impotent—I’ll make sure you can get erect again when everything’s blown over. Didn’t you agree to that readily as Lu Wancheng?”
“I was forced to. How could I have cared about that stuff while my life was at risk? Things are different now, though,” Gu Fuzhou proclaimed. “I must live with dignity.”
“It’d be temporary,” Lin Qingyu emphasized.
“Even so, it’s out of the question,” Gu Fuzhou scoffed. “You said earlier that Great General Gu shouldn’t become a male wife because he’d risk his reputation. But now you’re proposing that you render him impotent. Don’t you feel something eating away at your conscience?”
Lin Qingyu considered that for a while. “You have a point.”
If word of Gu Fuzhou’s impotence spread, the general could no longer live with his head held high. His reputation in the army might suffer too. “Then we’re left with no choice but—”
“For you to be my bride?” Gu Fuzhou couldn’t help but interject, despite being in the middle of his tantrum.
“No choice but for me to murder both the emperor and Xiao Cheng at the same time,” Lin Qingyu continued, as casually as if he were talking about making two chickens into soup. “If the emperor doesn’t die, your betrothal and marriage are inevitable. And if the emperor dies and Xiao Cheng ascends to the throne, our situation will worsen.” Lin Qingyu’s gaze darkened, and he lowered his voice. “We have no way out…unless they both die and another prince takes the throne.”
Gu Fuzhou fell silent, but not out of shock. Lin Qingyu was already bold enough to attempt to assassinate the crown prince; taking the life of the emperor himself wasn’t that different.
“You’re getting more and more ambitious,” Gu Fuzhou said with a smile. “Are you thinking of making the emperor your puppet so that you can rule from behind the scenes?”
Lin Qingyu raised a brow. “Why not?”
He wasn’t that interested in ruling the nation. The only thing he’d wanted was to study medicine in peace, but the emperor and Xiao Cheng insisted on making things difficult for him and Gu Fuzhou, and he was sick of it. Lin Qingyu might as well go a step further—choose a prince who suited his needs and would never give them trouble, and help that prince take the throne.
Gu Fuzhou mulled it over. “After the battle for the throne three years ago, most of the princes are either dead or unfit to rule. Aside from Xiao Cheng, Xiao Jie and Xiao Li are the only two princes alive. Xiao Li is an idiot; despite being the emperor’s legitimate son, he’ll never inherit the throne. Xiao Jie is the only one left, isn’t he? A dolt with a pretty face.”
Lin Qingyu caught one important point. “You think he’s pretty?”
Gu Fuzhou’s survival instinct abruptly surged, driving him to correct himself: “Just average once you’ve seen him a few more times—unlike you, whose beauty stunned me the first time I saw it. And you keep getting more beautiful by the day. It’s incredibly unfair.”
Lin Qingyu scoffed at his teasing. “If Xiao Jie is a dolt, he’d be more easily manipulated.”
Gu Fuzhou disagreed. “We likely wouldn’t succeed while he has someone so shrewd in his employ.”
“Who?”
“You’ve probably met him. He’s a eunuch who has attended Xiao Jie since their childhood,” Gu Fuzhou explained. “When Xiao Jie left the palace to establish his residence, he brought him along. Now he serves as the prince’s steward.”
“And he’s incredibly brilliant?” Lin Qingyu did remember him.
“Among the three smartest people in Great Yu,” Gu Fuzhou confirmed. “His physical inadequacy has also made him prone to extreme behaviors and treachery. We’ll have to be vigilant while dealing with him.”
Lin Qingyu’s brow relaxed. “We can discuss all this later. Our priority right now is to figure out how to take those two men’s lives.”
Murdering the emperor, who was already seriously ill, wouldn’t be a difficult task. Lin Qingyu could simply alter his prescription slightly, and it would look as though the emperor had died of his worsening illness. Xiao Cheng, though, would prove their most troublesome obstacle.
Gu Fuzhou thought likewise. “Xiao Cheng doesn’t take medicine, and he only eats food made in the Eastern Palace. After what happened with Lu Niantao, he’s even stopped using incense. If you can’t poison him, that leaves us with only one opening, which is—”
“—Shen Huaishi,” Lin Qingyu finished.
Gu Fuzhou nodded. “But, Qingyu, this can’t wait too long. The emperor seems to want me to get engaged immediately.”
“Well, if we succeed, your potential betrothal will be a thing of the past. And if we fail, we can always discuss remarriage.”
“In other words, whether Xiao Cheng dies will determine whether we marry again,” Gu Fuzhou concluded.
Lin Qingyu nodded. “That’s right.”
“I suddenly feel very mixed emotions,” Gu Fuzhou said, looking conflicted. “I wanted him to die right away.”
“But now you don’t?” Lin Qingyu asked, his voice cool.
Gu Fuzhou laughed. “No—I still do, naturally.”