Lin Qingyu let go of Gu Fuzhou’s hand and caressed his hair. “And you won’t go bald, don’t worry.” Before Gu Fuzhou could get a word in edgewise, Lin Qingyu continued, “Even if you do, I’ll make sure your hair grows back.”
Gu Fuzhou wasn’t even sure where to position his hands—he didn’t want to flail in front of Lin Qingyu. Doing his best to appear charming, he teased, “If you can really do that, you’d get rich overnight if you visited my hometown.”
When the emperor’s efforts to arrange a marriage for Gu Fuzhou persisted, it left the general no choice but to evade the topic with perfunctory excuses. He said that he preferred gentle Jiangnan women over the capital’s magnificent noblewomen. But then, after the empress handpicked several aristocratic ladies from Jiangnan for him, he told her that he was most enamored with the straightforward candor of women from the northwest.
Gu Fuzhou kept stalling for time until Zhu Yongxin finally reached the capital, escorted by guards from the general’s residence. These guards were skilled, trustworthy, and most importantly, loyal to Gu Fuzhou.
It was there in the general’s home that Lin Qingyu, along with Gu Fuzhou, met the butcher who could completely change Shen Huaishi’s life.
Zhu Yongxin was a man in his thirties with an unassuming appearance, easily forgettable to the average person. Given that he’d had a brush with death, this forced visit to the capital didn’t ruffle him in the slightest. He spoke to Gu Fuzhou and Lin Qingyu without being either haughty or overly humble; he even let out a chuckle. “I never expected that I, a mere butcher, would be granted such a privilege—a man so beautiful, and General Gu himself, seeing me off before my death. Quite a lucky thing, if you ask me!”
“Before your death, you say?” Gu Fuzhou looked down at Zhu Yongxin coldly from his spacious chair of the finest wood, exuding the fearsome aura of a man accustomed to power and prestige. “What makes you think you’ll end up dead?”
“Why would you have me escorted here from so far away if not to punish me for what the Tianji Guard did to you?” Zhu Yongxin asked nonchalantly.
“You seem to have prepared yourself for your death long ago,” Lin Qingyu remarked. “If that’s the case, you should’ve shown your master loyalty by dying with him when the Tianyu Sect was exterminated. Why did you run away?”
“How did you know I belonged to the Tianyu Sect?!” Zhu Yongxin asked, shocked.
“Even if you didn’t die with your master, you could’ve stayed in the Tianji Guard and waited for a chance to avenge your former sect,” Lin Qingyu continued derisively. “I heard that everyone in the Tianyu Sect committed to dying for their cause, but now I know that was nothing but a lie.”
Zhu Yongxin guffawed. “What use was I alone, when even the Tianyu Sect’s young master joined the Tianji Guard?”
“Shen Huaishi didn’t defect to the enemy,” Gu Fuzhou said. “He merely believed what the crown prince told him—that the Tianyu Sect was extinguished by an alliance of its enemies in the martial world. He also thinks that the crown prince saved his life.”
This stunned Zhu Yongxin. “He does?”
“I can arrange for you and Shen Huaishi to meet,” Lin Qingyu said. “He’s currently a member of the Tianji Guard, as well as a shadow guard protecting the crown prince at close quarters. He’s capable of doing much more for your cause than you are.”
Zhu Yongxin had long wanted to tell Shen Huaishi the truth, so he readily agreed to meet him. “I’ll tell the young master everything!”
“Everything? What use will it be to tell him the truth about the emperor being behind his sect’s devastation, and the crown prince getting cold feet and regretting his actions against the Tianyu Sect?” Lin Qingyu sneered. “You know your young master well, don’t you? Considering his devotion to the crown prince, these pieces of information alone could prevent him from taking action. I fear that he’d feel conflicted and tormented after hearing these so-called truths from you, then decide to forgive everyone and return to working for the Tianji Guard and crown prince.”
The sight of Lin Qingyu’s sneer—as evil as his face was strikingly beautiful—set Gu Fuzhou’s heart on fire.
“You’re going to tell Shen Huaishi that the emperor wasn’t involved in any of this. It was Xiao Cheng who presented the lives of the entire Tianyu Sect on a silver platter to the emperor to demonstrate his loyalty and secure his position as crown prince.” Lin Qingyu bent down and whispered in Zhu Yongxin’s ear. “That is the truth. Do you understand?”
Lin Qingyu’s eyes were deep, frigid pools that drowned whoever beheld them. Zhu Yongxin’s gaze gradually unfocused. “I understand,” he murmured, his tone docile.
“Good.” Lin Qingyu straightened up and had Huantong usher Zhu Yongxin out.
Gu Fuzhou watched him with a smile. “When did you learn how to change the plot, Imperial Physician Lin?”
“As if I needed to learn that,” Lin Qingyu replied indifferently. “You can do it with nothing but your own two hands.”
For his part, Gu Fuzhou had been confused by the plot when he read Huai’s Revenge on the Monarch. If Xiao Cheng valued nothing more than the throne and hadn’t yet fallen in love with Shen Huaishi, then how come he suddenly couldn’t bear to wipe out the Tianyu Sect?
Then he came to a realization—if the author wanted to give the couple a happy ending, of course they wouldn’t go too far. Not doing so would make it easier to play down Xiao Cheng’s involvement in the massacre. Their thought process had probably gone like this: So I wrote that there’s a blood-soaked feud between them? Well, it’s not that bad. Xiao Cheng regrets everything he did in the end, right? It was the emperor who gave the Tianji Guard those orders, not Xiao Cheng. So it’s totally fine to give them a happy ending!
Lin Qingyu had seen through these cliché developments, however. If they completely quashed any argument that made Xiao Cheng out to be better than he really was, then Shen Huaishi would have one less excuse to show the crown prince mercy.
“I’m going to take a bath,” Lin Qingyu said.
“During the daytime?” Gu Fuzhou thought over what had happened. “You were standing so close to Zhu Yongxin. Did you do anything to him?”
“I planted a gu on him so that he won’t prattle on and disrupt our plan,” Lin Qingyu said coolly. “If Shen Huaishi still can’t bear to kill Xiao Cheng even after everything Zhu Yongxin will tell him, then he’s a pathetic excuse for a man.”