Xi Rong tried to hide his smile. “You’ve seen both the spear and the horse, and now it’s late. Your Highness, it’s time to return.”
Lin Qingyu and Gu Fuzhou saw them off. Xiao Jie got into the carriage first. Xi Rong once again apologized for showing up without warning, then thanked them for hosting him and the prince. At last he said, “We’ll be off now.”
“Wait,” Lin Qingyu called. “I’ll write down the secret of brewing the tea and give it to you next time. Will that be all right?”
Xi Rong bowed. “Thank you, Lady.”
As soon as the carriage left, Gu Fuzhou rubbed his face. “Why is it so tiring to pretend that my face is stony?” he complained.
Lin Qingyu turned. “What doesn’t tire you?”
“Sleeping.” Gu Fuzhou followed him, putting a hand on his shoulder seemingly casually. “How did the talk with Xi Rong go?”
“You were right. He has a lot of ambition.”
Gu Fuzhou smiled. “How could I have been wrong? I’ve read the entire book.”
“Ah, how wonderful,” Lin Qingyu complimented him in a deadpan voice, then continued, “He also seems to care a lot about his body’s…shortcomings. Well, I understand. The person he’s besotted with laughs and smiles innocently in front of him, yet Xi Rong will only be able to watch him marry and father children. If it were me…”
“Wait.” Gu Fuzhou furrowed his eyebrows. “‘The person he’s besotted with’? Who are you talking about?”
“Xiao Jie, of course.”
Gu Fuzhou was shocked. “Why would you think that Xi Rong is besotted with Xiao Jie?”
Lin Qingyu was confused. “Wasn’t that what you wrote on that paper? Xiao Cheng and Shen Huaishi; Xiao Jie and Little Eunuch.”
“Well, I also wrote down Xiao Li and the empress together. You didn’t think the mother-and-son duo could have romance between them, did you?” Gu Fuzhou clicked his tongue in approval. “I couldn’t tell that you had such an open mind, Physician Lin! I’m ashamed now—I’m nowhere near as open-minded as you!”
Although it was a rarity, Lin Qingyu was flustered. Gu Fuzhou had made his mind sound utterly perverted.
“What kind of relationship do Xi Rong and Xiao Jie have if not romantic?” he asked coldly. “Don’t tell me Xi Rong is only Xiao Jie’s confidant, and that his only motivation is loyalty.”
“Before the drunken emperor took to Xiao Jie’s mother, she was privately involved with a guard and had a child. Few people worked at the same temporary imperial abode that maid did, and no nobles resided there permanently, so she successfully hid her pregnancy for months and gave birth to a boy.”
“You mean…Xiao Jie and Xi Rong are actually half brothers?” Lin Qingyu asked in surprise.
Gu Fuzhou nodded. “After she had Xi Rong, that maid asked someone to send him out of the palace to her relatives. Her family brought him up until he was nine years old, then sent him back to the palace. After he was castrated, he became a eunuch serving Xiao Jie. But since they were only side characters, the book didn’t talk much about them. Only Xi Rong himself knows how he feels about Xiao Jie.”
“Does Xi Rong know his own origins?”
“He does. That’s why he protects Xiao Jie. But the more he protects him, the more his ambition grows. They had the same mother, but one is a prince and one is a eunuch. If that prince ascended to the throne one day, then wouldn’t Xi Rong be the older brother of the emperor?” At this point, Gu Fuzhou felt like there were some things he needed to tell Lin Qingyu. “Qingyu, in the original ending of Huai’s Revenge on the Monarch, Xi Rong protected Xiao Jie and went with him to the land he was given. I told you before that Xi Rong is smart and not easily controlled. A naive simpleton of an emperor with a power-hungry official close to him…especially if they were brothers…wouldn’t be a good thing.”
Lin Qingyu knew what Gu Fuzhou meant. “So, in the original book, was Xiao Cheng a good emperor?”
Gu Fuzhou scoffed. “The author glossed over it. They only said that after Xiao Cheng made Shen Huaishi the empress, Great Yu flourished like never before. If you were a magnanimous person, Lin Qingyu, you’d want to let him live. Otherwise, Great Yu might not have good fortune.”
“According to that logic,” Lin Qingyu said coolly, “Jing Ke18 shouldn’t have tried to assassinate the Emperor of Qin, since he would’ve hindered the Qin state in uniting the nation.”
Gu Fuzhou lifted a brow. “I didn’t say that.”
Lin Qingyu laughed coldly. “If I could really help Xiao Jie take the throne, I’d naturally keep a vigilant watch on the brothers. If they were disobedient, then I’d find someone obedient instead. Xiao Jie isn’t the only member of the Xiao family.”
“You might as well sit on the throne yourself, then,” Gu Fuzhou said. “There’s a quote… ‘Are kings and generals more inherently noble than we are?’”19
Lin Qingyu glanced at him, the light in his eyes twinkling. “If I were emperor, I wouldn’t feel satisfied doing evil things anymore—they’d be boring.”
Returning to the study, Lin Qingyu summoned Huantong. “Take a message to the marquess of Nan’an’s estate. Say that the anniversary of Young Marquess Lu’s death is soon, and I want to offer him incense.”
Huantong started. “The young marquess has been gone for a year already?”
“Yes.”
“Time passes so quickly,” Huantong said sadly.
Hualu, as well as Lin Qingyu, remembered Lu Wancheng’s death anniversary well. She’d already pulled together a bevy of items as offerings. As she prepared some dried fruit, Gu Fuzhou happened to see her. When he noticed how many items she’d gathered, he assumed that guests were coming over.
Hualu didn’t know whether she should tell the general about the young marquess’s death anniversary. She looked hesitantly at Lin Qingyu.
“Do you not remember anymore?” Lin Qingyu asked.
“Not remember what?”
Lin Qingyu paused. “Nothing.”
Lu Wancheng’s last days had been agonizing. He was barely conscious, so of course he wouldn’t have known the date… Even if he’d been fully aware for one last day, he had lost his ability to see.
It was good that Gu Fuzhou didn’t remember. That hadn’t been a happy event.