Chapter 64
IN THE END, the emperor unwillingly granted Gu Fuzhou and Lin Qingyu’s marriage. Conflicts were rising in the northwest again, so right now, he had to make sure Gu Fuzhou was happy. Besides, Xu Junyuan had said that the marriage would be auspicious. The emperor had to release his personal desires for the sake of the bigger picture. He was the ruler of an empire; he knew that he should prioritize his land and subjects above a beautiful imperial physician.
That said, the emperor had only tacitly agreed to this marriage, not formally instructed them to wed. He’d also issued an imperial edict: From now on, male wives could no longer become court officials.
When Gu Fuzhou heard that, he wanted to argue that point with the emperor as well, but Lin Qingyu stopped him. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long before the emperor personally invites me back.”
Gu Fuzhou pretended to complain. “Physician Lin’s been doing bad things without me again.”
“This didn’t really count as a bad thing.”
The day Lin Qingyu left the palace, most of his colleagues from the Department of Imperial Physicians simply stood by and watched. But Hu Ji walked with him the entire way—and, to Lin Qingyu’s surprise, Chu Zhengde also came to see him off.
The old man still didn’t look thrilled to see Lin Qingyu, and his tone was quite sarcastic as well when he said, “You’re really marrying whoever you want. You’re wasting all your talent and potential!”
Lin Qingyu was indifferent to the criticism. “It’s precisely because I have talent that I can take breaks on occasion.”
That stunned Chu Zhengde into silence for a moment. Then he said angrily, “Get out, get out. I feel unlucky just looking at you.”
Lin Qingyu didn’t get to leave, though—an Eastern Palace eunuch arrived and announced that the crown prince wanted to see him.
✦ ✦ ✦
When Lin Qingyu saw Xiao Cheng again for the first time in ages, he barely held back a laugh.
After struggling at death’s door, Xiao Cheng seemed like a completely different person from the energetic, spirited man he used to be. He’d grown much thinner, his cheeks were sunken, and his lips were pale. Even the magnificent clothes he wore did little to hide his pitiable condition. It even occurred to Lin Qingyu that the crown prince looked no better than Shen Huaishi when Lin Qingyu met him that day at Changsheng Temple.
When the crown prince’s eyes looked toward Lin Qingyu, they were no longer full of arrogance and rational calculation. Instead, his vengeful eyes contained hatred.
Following the rules, Lin Qingyu told Xiao Cheng politely: “This lowly official greets Your Highness.”
Xiao Cheng no longer held Lin Qingyu’s gaze as he had before. Instead, he asked immediately, “Have you got news of Shen Huaishi?”
Lin Qingyu raised his eyebrows. “Guard Shen is Your Highness’s personal bodyguard, yet you ask me for news of him?”
Xiao Cheng pursed his lips tightly. Even after so long, the Tianji Guard had found no trace of Shen Huaishi. Anxiety and anger still blazed within the crown prince, even after he’d smashed everything he got his hands on in the Eastern Palace. In the end, one of the Tianji Guards asked timidly, “Does Guard Shen have any relatives or friends, Your Highness? We could start with them.”
Xiao Cheng had frozen. He’d thought for a long time before finally remembering Lin Qingyu.
All Shen Huaishi’s relatives and friends had disappeared three years earlier along with the Tianyu Sect. During those three years, setting aside Xiao Cheng himself, Shen Huaishi had seemingly interacted only with Lin Qingyu. Had that not been the case, Shen Huaishi wouldn’t have appeared on Jingchun’s birthday to plead for mercy on Lin Qingyu’s behalf.
“You only need to answer my questions,” Xiao Cheng said. “Have I allowed you to ask anything else?”
“I last saw Guard Shen at the Imperial Academy of Medicine,” Lin Qingyu said. “I don’t know what mission he had carried out on your orders, Your Highness, but he was covered in wounds. I just gave him a treatment for them. That’s all.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Xiao Cheng held little hope that Lin Qingyu would know anything, but…he really was completely out of ideas. He needed to grasp any tiny morsel of information, even if it was completely trivial.
Lin Qingyu thought for a while. “He mentioned Princess Jingchun.”
“Jingchun?” Xiao Cheng asked impatiently. “What did he say?”
“He said that he’d grown up with Princess Jingchun and had seen her be forced to marry the North King. He didn’t know how she had fared over the last three years.”
“Did he say he was going to the North Kingdom?” Xiao Cheng pressed.
If Lin Qingyu appeared to guide the conversation too deliberately, that would only increase Xiao Cheng’s suspicions, so he merely replied, “He never said that. He only said that he was Your Highness’s shadow guard, so he naturally had to be by your side.”
Xiao Cheng narrowed his eyes. “I have no further need of you for the moment.”
Before leaving, Lin Qingyu asked, “Your Highness, are you aware of my engagement to Great General Gu?”
“Of course,” Xiao Cheng said mockingly. “You’re eager to remarry even before Lu Wancheng’s corpse has gone cold. As I thought, Lin Qingyu, you truly cannot live without a man. But how could an oaf like Gu Fuzhou satisfy you in bed? A sickly invalid like Lu Wancheng couldn’t have done so either. If you had been with me earlier, perhaps you would have tasted heavenly pleasure.”
Lin Qingyu could tell that Xiao Cheng was just talking big. In his current condition, the crown prince probably couldn’t have gotten it up even if Princess Jingchun stood in front of him.
“At one time, Your Highness repeatedly made advances toward me, so I thought that you summoned me today over my marriage to Great General Gu. I didn’t expect that you’d leave it completely unmentioned, instead focusing only on Guard Shen.” Lin Qingyu laughed quietly. “It seems as though Your Highness cares much more about Guard Shen than me.”
Xiao Cheng froze, as if he’d only just realized that as well. Then, as if trying to convince himself, he replied, “I’m concerned about his whereabouts because I want to punish him and see that he reaps what he has sowed.”
“As you say, Your Highness. This lowly official shall now depart.”
However rumors flew, Lin Qingyu and Gu Fuzhou’s marriage would still happen. They didn’t have much time to plan, but under Lady Lin and Yuan Yin, everything from the formal proposal to selecting an auspicious wedding date went smoothly.
The last time Lin Qingyu got married, he’d prepared basically no dowry. When Lady Lin wrote a list for him this time, though, he said, “We can include more.”
His mother looked embarrassed. “Qingyu, your father has always been humble and righteous through his years working in the palace, refusing bribes from others. We only have this much saved up.”
Lin Qingyu smiled. “That’s not what I meant, Mother. I’m the one being taken as a bride, so of course I’ll provide my own dowry. How could I use my parents’ savings? Don’t worry—I’ll delegate this to the servants.”
“How will you provide your own dowry?” Lady Lin fretted. “You’ve worked in the palace for such a short time.”
“Young Marquess Lu can help me with that.” Lu Wancheng had left him a large inheritance, and he had nowhere else to spend it.
Lady Lin was shocked. “Th-that wouldn’t be right, would it?”
“What’s not right about it?” Lin Qingyu smiled a little. “If Young Marquess Lu hears about this in the underworld, he might want me to take a bigger dowry to the general’s residence.”
Lady Lin’s eldest son was growing more and more mysterious. However, Lady Lin never questioned Lin Qingyu’s decisions; in the end, everything proceeded according to his wishes.
The soon-to-be husband and wife couldn’t see each other in private before the wedding. But despite that, Gu Fuzhou kept delivering gifts to the Lin residence. For instance, the robes that Lin Qingyu would wear on the wedding day were brought over by Yuan Yin after being personally chosen by Gu Fuzhou.
Lin Qingyu knew that Gu Fuzhou was oddly obsessed with seeing his fiancé in wedding robes. He had thought that Gu Fuzhou would pick a set even more elaborate than those Lin Qingyu had first gotten married in, but what he received was robes of extremely fine silk without excessive embroidery. They were simply an expanse of crimson, like a pure, burning flame.
Lin Qingyu touched the band on his ring finger, which was also carved simply. Gu Fuzhou truly had fine taste; the general didn’t like wearing garish clothes either.
With the robes arrived a letter from Gu Fuzhou. It was written in informal language and was full of complaints about how tired and hungry he’d been these past couple of days, and how he couldn’t take it anymore. He then made declarations about his life, saying that living was boring, that he’d rather jump in a lake than not eat meat, and so on.
Lin Qingyu didn’t understand. “I expected the general to be tired, but why is he hungry?”
“In order to encourage himself to train, the great general ordered his wedding robes to be made a size smaller,” Yuan Yin said in resignation. “He doesn’t eat much these days, sustaining himself only on leafy greens and radishes. Yesterday, he even asked me, ‘Why must men live? Only to wed beautiful wives? Life truly isn’t worth it…’”
Lin Qingyu didn’t know what to say. Gu Fuzhou’s figure actually wasn’t half bad. He had broad shoulders and long legs, so he would never look beefy. Everything about his frame was fine as it was. Lin Qingyu had said that Gu Fuzhou’s abs were getting flabby specifically to encourage him to exercise more; there was no harm in that, after all. He just hadn’t realized that it would be such a blow to Gu Fuzhou.
Lin Qingyu laughed. “Tell him that I don’t like men who are too thin. He should eat properly.”