Chapter 12

Chapter 12

When he saw the small calf, Zhu Qinghou pushed aside the silk blindfold and widened his eyes slightly, "...What is this?"

"It's from Lou Changqing," Li Zhen said succinctly.

Earlier, the gatekeeper had reported that Lou Changqing had arrived with an ox, leaving behind a calf and a thank-you letter.

Zhu Qinghou fell silent for a moment, stared at the calf, eye to eye. After some thought, he said, "Have someone take it back to him."

"You don't want it?" Li Zhen asked.

He had thought Zhu Qinghou would like such a peculiar, unconventional thing.

"What would I do with it?" Zhu Qinghou looked at the calf, an idea forming in his mind. "Send someone to return it with great fanfare. Say it's a gift from Prince Su's residence and that he should give it to the commoners for farming."

Li Zhen said nothing. Yongzhou was remote, with yellow sand filling the skies and scarce farmland. Grain and military supplies were all allocated from elsewhere.

"If you can't grow rice, you can grow other things," Zhu Qinghou said. Lou Changqing was someone he had carefully selected from among the exiled officials. He trusted his own judgment.

Hearing his enthusiastic tone, it was as if he regarded Yongzhou as his own territory. Li Zhen neither agreed nor disagreed, but followed his instructions and sent the calf back.

Thus, a strange sight appeared on the main street: soldiers from Prince Su's residence leading a calf, struggling to stop it from grazing everywhere, all the way to a small public lodge.

Lou Changqing, who was preparing to set off for his new post with a bundle tied to a bamboo pole, looked at the returned calf: "..."

The calf also looked at him, snorted, and let out a moo.

In full view of everyone, Lou Changqing set off leading the calf. Other officials rode tall horses or traveled in ornate carriages with canopies. Amidst the procession of fragrant carriages and fine horses, the gatekeeper of the government office watched the dusty young man leading a cow and fell into deep thought.

"Is this lord... the 'Cow Magistrate'?"

The joke about someone taking office leading a cow quickly spread. These harmless jests reached Zhu Qinghou's ears, but he did not laugh. He remained quietly practicing his calligraphy.

The phrase, "Bearing the people's resentment, where is not perilous?" often echoed in his mind. "People's resentment" and "people's hearts"—these two terms churned repeatedly in his heart.

The people's resentment could kill him; the people's hearts could let him live. Whether to live or die, at least let him see what it truly feels like to have the people's support.

Lost in thought, Zhu Qinghou stared at the characters he had written—crooked and shapeless.

He looked at them and wanted to laugh, so he put down the wolf-hair brush and lay back in the round-backed chair, chuckling softly.

Li Zhen had been increasingly busy lately. With Yongzhou having a new governor and the need to clean up the previous mess, everything needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. He often worked until midnight before returning.

In his absence, Zhu Qinghou couldn't even be bothered to pretend. He casually used the purple silk meant for covering his eyes to tie up his hair, doing so haphazardly—sometimes tilted to the east, sometimes to the west—making Uncle Cui shake his head and sigh inwardly about the decline of morals and the fickleness of human hearts.

Zhu Qinghou ignored him, continuing to tie his hair with the purple silk, writing a pile of ugly characters, and burning them afterward so no one could see.

When Li Zhen entered the hall and caught a faint scent of ash, he frowned slightly. "Does your hand still hurt?"

Zhu Qinghou's practice of calligraphy, burning of papers, and everything else he did in the hall had been reported to him in detail by the attendants.

"It hurts," Zhu Qinghou said, extending his hand and staring at his palm. "Xian Pu, will I never be able to write again?"

The young man's tone was flat, devoid of his usual smile, and carried no discernible sorrow, as if he were merely asking casually.

Li Zhen frowned, leaning closer on his cane and reaching out toward Zhu Qinghou, gesturing for him to give him his hand.

Zhu Qinghou still had ink stains on his hand that hadn't been fully washed off. He hesitated for a moment, then mischievously didn't mention it and handed his hand over.

Li Zhen grasped his hand—slender, long, and distinct, covered with thin calluses—and said softly, "With time and care, it will heal."

It hadn't been that long since they last met, when the other had gripped his neck, intent on killing him. Where had that person gone?

Zhu Qinghou felt like laughing. He leaned his shoulder over, resting against Li Zhen's chest, and murmured an "Mm."

Li Zhen remained silent, gently stroking the soft, dark hair of the person in his arms, lost in thought.

Zhu Qinghou stiffened slightly. The relaxed strings in his mind suddenly tightened. He pretended nothing was wrong, remaining motionless against Li Zhen's chest, even idly playing with the two white silk strips meant for covering his eyes.

"If you send someone to look, and you can't take it away immediately, if someone discovers traces and gets there first..." Zhu Qinghou stopped mid-sentence, leaving room for imagination.

Li Zhen rarely smiled. "Whoever discovers it, it will remain within the Jin Dynasty," he said gently, his voice soft. "Xiao Yu, what are you afraid of?"

"...Afraid that once you see the gold and silver, you'll turn heartless and kill me without a second thought."

Zhu Qinghou racked his brain, lowering his voice and speaking indistinctly.

"...I wouldn't have the heart to," Li Zhen's voice was cool and even, carrying an indescribable chill and tenderness.

It was April. The Huai River's ice had melted.

Thinking of this, Zhu Qinghou fell quiet for a moment. "Send someone to go." Before the other could ask, he answered first: "Under the Secretariat in Yejing."

Zhu Qingping had previously been the Director of the Department of State Affairs. When overseeing the construction of the Secretariat's official buildings, he hid a vast amount of silver there, which wasn't particularly surprising.

Only this could explain why the Commandant of Justice and the Office of the Three Dukes had turned Yejing upside down but never found a trace of the silver.

Having obtained the information he wanted, Li Zhen showed no trace of joy on his face. His expression remained cold, calm, and slightly sinister, as if he possessed an all-seeing detachment.

"I will send someone to look," he said, withdrawing his hand. "Your hair has come loose."

Zhu Qinghou was startled, realizing the other had long known he used the eye silk to tie his hair. Just before Li Zhen entered the hall, he had hurriedly taken it off and covered his eyes, causing his dark hair to spill over his shoulders.

Li Zhen seemed to have mentioned it only in passing, not particularly concerned. Zhu Qinghou simply removed the silk from his eyes and retied his long hair.

After Li Zhen left, he sat back in the round-backed chair, leisurely practicing his calligraphy.

When Zhu Xueting appeared, Zhu Qinghou was drawing turtles on paper—circles within circles, lines crossing lines, much like a three-year-old child learning to control a brush.

Zhu Xueting glanced at the paper covered in turtles before looking away. Zhu Qinghou slightly covered it with his hand and smiled at him.

"Xueting, can you write acrostic poems? Or telestich poems would work too."

Recently, a poem called "The Song of Light Taxes" was being sung in the fierce and bold land of Yongzhou. It spoke of the emperor's benevolence, light taxes, peace under heaven, and the people living and working in contentment.

Coincidentally, Emperor Jinshun had recently reduced the increased taxes. Upon hearing this, local governments throughout the land vigorously promoted the song to glorify the emperor's virtue. The people, hearing this simple and cheerful tune, were happy to sing a few lines in their leisure time.

With such a high hat placed on Emperor Jinshun's head, even if he wanted to increase taxes again in the short term, he likely wouldn't be able to bring himself to do so.

"If you read this poem diagonally, that's the real message being conveyed," Zhu Xueting explained, gesturing with his hand.

Zhu Qinghou smiled lightly, a smile that made Zhu Xueting momentarily dazed. Before he could regain his composure, Zhu Qinghou leaned forward slightly and gently patted his head.

As the distance closed, the faint, delicate fragrance from the purple-robed young man wafted toward him. Zhu Xueting had never seen an epiphyllum, but upon smelling this scent, he inexplicably thought of one—the kind that blooms in the Golden Bright Pond, magnificent, richly colored, and exquisitely beautiful.

He remained motionless, allowing Zhu Qinghou to pat his head. But the other withdrew his hand and lay back in the round-backed chair.

"Do you want to leave this place?" Zhu Qinghou asked him.

Zhu Xueting froze, then after a long pause, nodded.

Zhu Qinghou wasn’t surprised by this answer. With Zhu Xueting’s talent, he was meant for bigger things.

“Do you know where your family is these days?” Zhu Qinghou asked again.

Zhu Xueting froze again and shook his head. Clearly, he didn’t know either.

“Do you want to… with them…” Zhu Qinghou thought for a moment, worried someone might be listening, and simply used two fingers to pantomime a little person walking. Zhu Xueting watched the slightly comical gesture, and his eyes gradually grew moist, which almost startled Zhu Qinghou. What was this? Why was the kid crying all of a sudden?

He had always felt that Zhu Xueting reminded him a bit of a young Li Zhen—quiet and reserved, a bit sensitive, and sometimes impossible to tell what was going on in his head.

Zhu Qinghou reached out and pulled Zhu Xueting into a hug, the way he used to comfort Li Zhen as a boy. “It’s okay. Go ahead and cry if you need to.”

When he was little, Li Zhen rarely cried. Consort Cui couldn’t bear to see him cry, so even when he was wronged, he’d swallow his grievances without a sound.

Young Zhu Qinghou would sneak a hug around Li Zhen and tell him, “I’m right here. You can cry as loud as you want.”

At such times, Li Zhen, who was two years older, would quietly watch him with dark eyes. In his memory, Li Zhen’s eyes would shine, like he was on the verge of saying something.

“No. I don’t want to cry.”

Zhu Xueting signed back to Zhu Qinghou.

His entire body was stiff, as if he had turned to stone in Zhu Qinghou’s embrace, not daring to move even slightly.

Come to think of it, Li Zhen never liked to cry either.

Zhu Qinghou thought to himself. Sensing Zhu Xueting’s stiffness, he let go, put some distance between them, lowered his voice, and asked again, “Do you want to leave with them?”

It went without saying who “they” were. Zhu Qinghou’s family only had Zhu Liujun left, while Zhu Xueting’s family was large. If they left alone, Prince Su might fly into a rage and take it out on the rest of the Zhu family.

Zhu Xueting hesitated for a moment but still nodded. After all, blood is thicker than water—who could easily abandon their family?

Now came the most critical question.

Would Zhu Xueting’s family be willing to leave?

This was something for Zhu Xueting to think about. Zhu Qinghou didn’t want to interfere and simply patted Zhu Xueting’s shoulder. “When the time comes, you take them and leave. We’ll split into two groups to avoid drawing attention.”

Zhu Xueting didn’t speak or gesture, just quietly watched Zhu Qinghou, his eyes glistening, like a little animal that’s been abandoned, which surprised Zhu Qinghou somewhat.

“Never mind, we’ll talk about it when the time comes.”

Zhu Qinghou casually burned the paper, and the turtles crawling and lying across it turned to ashes.

He stared at the ashes, his thoughts drifting, and idly wondered whether what Li Zhen had said earlier was true—that the Child Gu would die violently if separated from the Mother Gu.

He was going to see for himself if it would actually die.