Lord Su’s act of feigning injury this time turned out real—he had truly suffered internal wounds. Not only did he have a large bruise in the shape of a footprint across his back, but his chest throbbed with a dull pain, every breath tugging at his lungs, making even speaking an effort.
After helping him onto the carriage, Yu Wang climbed in himself.
Su Yan said, “The imperial physician already said the injuries aren’t serious. A few doses of medicine will do. Your Highness need not personally escort me back; I can manage on my own.”
But Yu Wang couldn’t rest assured—he had to send Su Yan all the way to his bedchamber before finally letting go.
“About Royal Mother, I don’t know what reason Royal Brother used to persuade her. For now, it seems she’s let you off. But if she stirs up trouble again in the future… why don’t you stay at my manor for a while?”
Su Yan shook his head. “That would be improper, inviting needless gossip. Whether they say I’m clinging to the royal clan, or accuse Your Highness of currying favor with court officials, neither would be good.”
Yu Wang’s mind gave a sudden twitch. He almost blurted out: If you became Yu Wangfei, it would be perfectly proper! But knowing how strictly Su Censor kept private and public separate (at least in front of him), he swallowed the words back.
“No need to be so anxious. I thought, though the Empress Dowager still looked angry when leaving, it didn’t seem directed at me. Most likely His Majesty gave her some reason she couldn’t refute.” Su Yan smiled. “Besides, if I were to spend every day worrying that Her Majesty might punish me, what official could I still be? I might as well resign and return home at once.”
Yu Wang liked his free-spiritedness, so he too smiled. “Alright, as long as you’re clear on things. I’ll station some guards at your residence—if anything happens, they can hold the line, and inform me in time.”
Considering Su Yan needed rest, Yu Wang didn’t linger. After a few parting instructions, he rose to leave.
Su Yan politely saw him off from the bedside.
At the doorway, Yu Wang suddenly raised a brow, doubled back, and leaned close. “I saved your life again.”
Was this meant as a favor, or was he boasting? Su Yan secretly curled his lip, but since he had indeed been saved, he cupped his hands and said, “Many thanks to Your Highness for the life-saving grace. If there is anything within reason you wish of me, I will comply without refusal.”
Yu Wang thought for a moment. “Ah Wu misses you. When you have time, come visit my manor? Bring him some sugar figurines or candied haw—he loves those.”
Su Yan suspected the little boy Ah Wu hadn’t thought of him at all. After all, they’d spent so little time together—what child remembers such things? Clearly, the unscrupulous father was just using him as a pretext.
Trying to trick me into being your free babysitter again! But since he had already given his word, he could only agree: “When I have time on my hands, I’ll go pay respects to the young shizi.”
Yu Wang smiled with satisfaction, and on a whim, snatched a sweat cloth tucked beneath Su Yan’s pillow, stuffing it into his own robe as he left.
Su Yan glared at his retreating back. That makes two of my cloths now, doesn’t it? A dignified prince, and yet he loves this petty pilfering without shame!
Well, it was just a cloth—he couldn’t be bothered to argue.
Not long after, Xiaobei came to report: “My lord, Shen Tongzhi has returned to the city with his men. I hear they did not catch the escaped Mister He.”
Su Yan said, “It’s enough that they returned safely. If they didn’t catch him, they didn’t catch him. Where are they now?”
Xiaobei: “They went to the Northern Surveillance Bureau.”
Su Yan thought for a bit, then suddenly slapped the bed frame. “That’s guilt! Otherwise, he’d have come here to report first. Xiaobei, go tell him this: His Majesty has ordered me to rebuke him for dereliction of duty—call him here at once to take his scolding.”
Xiaobei left, trying to hide his laughter.
The more Su Yan thought, the less right it felt. Then he recalled an old matter—at Linhua Pavilion, Ruan Hongjiao had once said rumors were circulating about Shen Qi at the Changchun Courtyard.
What kind of talk could spread from a brothel of young male courtesans? And involving reputation, no less. He had long wanted to inquire, but at that time he was busy with the explosion case, and one official matter after another had buried it.
Now, with new doubts surfacing, Su Yan decided not to put it off any longer. He summoned Xiaojing and told him to find a way to sniff around Changchun Courtyard.
Xiaojing wasn’t reliable at everything, but in digging up gossip, no one was more enthusiastic. He patted his chest, promising to get the details clear.
Once the two attendants were gone, Su Yan’s mind turned to many things—about the Wei family and the Empress Dowager, about His Majesty and the prince, about the shadowy “Player” and the unfinished game of chess. He also thought of the wounded Ruan Hongjiao from last night—unsure how her injuries fared—planning that once he could move a bit tomorrow, he’d visit Mister Yingxu’s clinic to check on her.
At dusk, Shen Qi arrived, carrying a pouch of pinpo fruit.
He sat at the bedside, carefully peeling the fruit with a small knife, head lowered, looking for all the world like an honest youth from a good family. Once peeled, he speared a neat piece with the knife tip and held it up to Su Yan’s lips.
Su Yan turned his head slightly, not taking it, and instead asked: “How is Shi Qianhu?”
“After the medicine wore off, he woke up. His body is fine, but he didn’t see who attacked the prison cart. None of the other guards did either.” Shen Qi waited patiently, fruit still poised before Su Yan.
Su Yan hesitated, then said: “Fortunately those remnants of the Void Sect still had a shred of conscience—they only freed the prisoner and didn’t harm the guards. Otherwise, Shi Qianhu and the others’ lives would have been in danger.”
Shen Qi’s hand stilled in midair. His gaze fixed on Su Yan, expression shadowed. “If you have doubts, then just ask directly. My heart is already laid bare to you—what need is there for hints and roundabout words between us?”
Hearing this, Su Yan felt a pang of guilt. He opened his mouth and took the fruit, chewing carefully.
The taste was far duller than an apple from later ages, only faintly sweet, though with a distinctive fragrance.
Once he finished, Shen Qi cut another slice. This time, he carved the outer layer into a sharp arrow shape, like two pointed ears, and tugged them up into the shape of a rabbit. He lifted it with the knife tip once more and offered it.
A rabbit-shaped pinpo fruit—somewhat cute in form, yet pierced by a sharp blade. Gentleness and violence intertwined, like fire and ice.
Su Yan sighed silently, then ate it, before asking directly: “The remnants of the Void Sect hate the Embroidered Uniform Guard to the bone. What conscience could they possibly have left? When they broke the prison cart, why spare Shi Qianhu and the others? Were they not afraid the men would wake early and ruin their plan?”
“Good question,” Shen Qi said. “If it were me, I wouldn’t rest easy unless I finished them all off one by one before rescuing the prisoner—unless time was too short.”
Su Yan began to think it over. Shen Qi continued, “I led the team to clear the road ahead, not far from the prison cart. At any moment I might have turned back to check on it. Under such circumstances, of course the enemy would want a quick battle—break open the cart, take Mister He, and immediately move him out of the city. How could they waste time on killing people?”
—This line of reasoning did make sense. Su Yan silently nodded, then asked: “The prison carts for felons are specially made by the Northern Surveillance Bureau, from the locks to the shackles all forged of refined iron. How did they unlock them?”
Shen Qi said, “I inspected the chains. There were many small notches caused by chopping, which shows the attackers tried brute force at first, but it failed. Yet the locks were still opened. I checked the keyholes and found fine scratch marks from sharp tools, which means there was a lockpicking expert among them. There are experts in the Embroidered Uniform Guard skilled at opening all sorts of locks—after I showed the lock to one of them, it confirmed my suspicion.”
Su Yan felt the explanation was sound, and so nodded. “I asked you first, so that when His Majesty questions you later, you won’t be caught off guard. Of course, if even I can’t believe your account, then His Majesty surely won’t either.”
Shen Qi’s hand stilled, then he began carving rabbit ears again. “Then do you believe me?”
Su Yan smiled. “If I can’t even trust you, who else in this world could I trust?”
“…You don’t like pinpo fruit. You don’t need to force yourself.” Shen Qi set the fruit aside, wiped his hands clean with a cloth, then wiped the knife blade before returning it to his waist.
“Who said that? I like it.” Su Yan reached for the remaining half of the fruit.
Shen Qi snatched it first, stuffed it into his own mouth, and gnawed it down to the pit in just a few bites. Tossing the pit into the dish, he said, “The fruit you like is either very sweet, very sour, or has a special taste. Something this bland—you don’t like it.”
Su Yan caught hold of his hand, feeling a pang of sadness. “Qilang, when one likes another, one can’t help but love what they love, hate what they hate—that’s human nature. You have to give me the chance to like it.”
Shen Qi’s fingers rubbed against his palm, his voice low and deep. “What I want is for you to act as you wish, without the least bit of forcing yourself—not even for me. I only began eating pinpo fruit after meeting you. It’s not the bland taste I like—it’s the name.”
Pinpo fruit. The fruit of longing. A single inch of yearning holds a thousand flavors—how could it be bland?
Su Yan’s eyes moistened uncontrollably. He felt the tip of Shen Qi’s finger slowly tracing a familiar shape in his palm—the same heart he had once drawn in Shen Qi’s hand on the Lantern Festival night when they parted—now faithfully returned, blooming in his own hand.
After finishing the heart, Shen Qi curled Su Yan’s fingers one by one, clasping that heart tight, and said: “My heart still beats with yours—this ‘heart’ and that ‘heart,’ are they the same?”
Su Yan threw his arms around him, choking out: “Yes. Qilang, I shouldn’t have… I—”
Shen Qi answered with an even tighter embrace, his voice warm: “No need to say it. I know. If you weren’t suspicious even of this, then you wouldn’t be the clear-headed, broad-minded Su Qinghe that I know.”
Su Yan was guilty yet moved, stroking the ridges of his back, his soft voice carrying a thread of urgency: “Tonight, don’t leave.”
The unprecedented invitation stirred a blaze in Shen Qi’s chest. He kissed him deeply, tongues entwined, while stripping off his upper garments and pressing him down against the bedding.
After a while, the kissing made Su Yan want to cough. Shen Qi drew in a deep breath, tamping down the fire in his heart, and turned him over onto his stomach to check the large bruise marring his back.
“I heard it was the guards of Cining Palace who did this,” Shen Qi said, breathing heavily but steadying himself. He took out a jar of ointment, spread it over the bruise, and gently rubbed it in with the heel of his palm. “Today at the Ancestral Temple, it was truly close. For the first time, I even felt a surge of gratitude toward Yu Wang.”
“…And also His Majesty,” Su Yan murmured into the bedding. “He seemed indifferent on the surface, but if he hadn’t wanted to save me, why would he have rushed out of the palace so hastily? To save me while still balancing his bond with the Empress Dowager, and the court’s reaction—that was no easy task.”
Shen Qi’s hand paused, then resumed its work.
“I know His Majesty has always guarded against you. Heavy suspicion is the disease of emperors, and he is no exception. With your natures clashing, it puts you at a disadvantage. But I’ll do my utmost to mediate, to win his trust in you, to have him value you. Even if his suspicion never fully fades, at the very least, for the sake of balance, he will no longer suppress you.”
“Just knowing you have this heart to protect me already makes me happy.” As he spoke, Shen Qi couldn’t help but lower his head to brush a kiss on Su Yan’s bare neck.
Su Yan faintly felt something amiss, but in that moment the tender affection swept all else away. He turned his head and kissed Shen Qi back.
Before leaving, Shen Qi placed two pinpo fruits on Su Yan’s pillow. “The ointment is a little pungent. Breathing in the fruit’s fragrance might make it easier to sleep.”
Because of the chest pain, Su Yan couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning for a long time before finally dozing off.
He seemed to have a dream—entangled, constricted, impossible to break free from. But upon waking, he couldn’t recall its content, only a hazy emptiness.
Sitting at the bedside in a daze for a long while, he finally thought: he needed to draft a memorial, “Twelve Crimes of the Wei Clan,” compiling the impeachment he had voiced in court into writing, and formally submit it to the emperor.
The memorial would not only list all the crimes of the Wei family, but also include the results of related trials, along with a call for the court to “purge corruption, root out traitors, and uphold the state’s discipline.”
He knew once this was published in the Court Gazette and made known throughout the realm, the waves it stirred would far surpass even the fall of Feng Qu’e.
The storms of thunder and lightning, or the gleam of blades—there would be no avoiding them now.
From this moment on, he would truly stand at the very forefront of the court, to bear all the scrutiny from allies and foes, from kin and strangers, from those who understood him and those who did not.
He wished to stand there firmly—shielding those who needed shelter, opposing those who deserved resistance, repaying those who should be repaid—until at last he fulfilled his vision of a flourishing realm.