Chapter 250: The Great Crime (Part 2)

Chapter 250: The Great Crime (Part 2)

If it doesn't work once, just try again.

But this was ultimately too hard, too hard.

Le Wuya had to tread carefully, trying to keep anyone out of it.

If he had to involve someone, whoever was greedy or wicked, he'd drag them in.

From birth to now, he'd burdened too many people. At this point, one less is one less.

He'd given up the Le family's affection.

He'd pulled away from Zheng Miao, his close friend.

As for that Little Phoenix, he just gave up on him.

He hadn't shot the breeze with Xiaoliu and Xiaoqi in ages.

He favored the petty, shunned the wise, and only kept company with the crooked. In time, he became the biggest flatterer in the land.

Le Wuya had figured he still had time.

Until that morning when he got up, had a small bowl of porridge, choked a little, and couldn't stop coughing—until he coughed up a bit of blood, and only then did his chest ease up some.

Qiu Sinian, waiting on him, was quick as a flash—wiped the blood spattered on the table with a cloth in one swift move, then clenched the bloodied cloth tight in his fist. His eyes held a grief that wouldn't melt away, but in the end, he didn't say a word.

Qi Hongzhuang had been going over the books in the outer courtyard, heard him coughing badly from a distance, and came to check it out.

By the time she entered the room, the master and his servant both acted like nothing was wrong.

Le Wuya had even resumed drinking his congee, as if the blood he'd just coughed up was just his imagination.

"Coughing again, huh?" she turned to Qiu Sinian coldly. "A'Si, we're out of loquat syrup. Go buy some more."

Qiu Sinian lowered his head and said yes, all proper and deferential.

Le Wuya watched them over the edge of his bowl, feeling pretty helpless.

He knew full well who both of them really were.

And both of them knew that he knew who they were.

But the two of them just didn't trust each other.

Qiu Sinian was hardworking and quiet, while Qi Hongzhuang was cold-faced and cold-hearted.

The two were a lot alike—no matter what they felt inside, they never let it show on their faces.

So Qiu Sinian didn't believe that Qi Hongzhuang—whom the emperor had personally pardoned and made a princess—would genuinely have Le Wuya's best interests at heart.

And Qi Hongzhuang didn't believe that Qiu Sinian, raised in the palace since age five, would have a clear head and know right from wrong.

Le Wuya had once gently hinted to each of them, "We're all on the same side, why bicker?"

But instead, both of them turned it around and warned him not to let the other fool him.

Suspicion, once it takes root, is damn hard to get rid of. Even Le Wuya had no good way to deal with it.

In the end, he just asked to have Qiu Sinian transferred from Qi Hongzhuang's side.

Every time he sent a letter to the palace, Qiu Sinian had to look it over and compare notes with Sister Qi, so the two wouldn't get their stories mixed up.

Qi Hongzhuang just came by to ask one question, then turned and walked off.

As soon as she was gone, Le Wuya shoved his porridge bowl forward, pressed his palms together, and gave Qiu Sinian a little bow: "Little A'Si, Little A'Si, I've lost my appetite. Do me a favor and clean this up for me."

Qiu Sinian had said yes to this kind of thing countless times, so he wasn't surprised now. He went through the motions, picking up the snacks on the table and eating.

He was used to eating like a pig, and even though he'd held back over the years, he could still put away way more than a normal person.

He said in a low voice: "Should I get a doctor?"

Le Wuya rinsed his mouth thoroughly: "No. I just had one the day before yesterday."

Qiu Sinian: "My lord, this isn't right."

"Right or wrong, I don't give a damn." Le Wuya set down his cup and looked at Qiu Sinian. "But you—I need to find you a good place to land."

The snack in Qiu Sinian's mouth suddenly tasted like nothing.

But that little oddity was nothing compared to what Le Wuya had just said.

He knelt to the ground, his face pale: "My lord, have I done something wrong?"

"No." Le Wuya nudged his knee with his foot. "My chest hurts, I can't bend down. Get up yourself—don't expect me to help you."

Hearing that Le Wuya's chest hurt, Qiu Sinian stood up swiftly and helped him to the soft couch, then crouched by the bed, gazing at him anxiously.

Le Wuya's chest indeed ached as if pricked by needles, but he had long grown accustomed to it, so he could still muster a relaxed smile: "Boy, don't be stubborn. Your lord is finding you a way to live. Like this—when I'm gone in the future, you won't need to return to the palace. A spy who was sent to watch me—once you go back, where would you have a place to stand? They'd have you die suddenly, wrap you in a mat, and toss you to the crematorium. That would be far too easy."

Qiu Sinian opened his mouth: "My lord... will surely live a long life."

"Ha." Le Wuya pinched Qiu Sinian's sleeve, where the blood-stained handkerchief was still hidden. "If you're going to say auspicious words, at least think them through."

Qiu Sinian fell silent, resting his head against Le Wuya's knee.

He had never been good with words, but his instincts were sharper than most—a kind of animal intuition.

Le Wuya stroked his head, his expression somewhat dazed.

Not long after Qiu Sinian entered the household, Le Wuya had given him a name: Qiu Sinian.

"'May you endure for ten thousand years, blessed by Heaven's grace.'" Le Wuya wrote these eight characters and circled "Sinian." "This is your name."

Qiu Sinian had been educated and knew this was from the Book of Songs.

He could tell that Lord Yue's calligraphy was truly atrocious.

He pretended to be simple: "This servant doesn't understand its meaning."

Le Wuya gestured: "It means you're someone blessed by Heaven, with good fortune for ten thousand years."

Qiu Sinian smiled: "This servant is unworthy."

"There's another meaning, and it's quite amusing." Le Wuya folded the ugly calligraphy carelessly and tucked it into his arms. "Figure it out yourself when you get back."

Qiu Sinian could tell.

The master was saying that the Qiu family's fourth lad would be blessed for ten thousand years.

But he had never felt lucky himself.

What kind of good fortune was it to be the only one left when your whole family was dead?

The master had both parents alive, a tight-knit family, and friends galore—only someone like him could talk that naive.

But watching from the sidelines for a long while, he slowly saw the master shoving every bit of kindness away.

He'd forced himself into being a lone wolf.

And now, after the master had fully trusted him, he was fixing to push him out too.

Qiu Sinian's heart was pounding with panic, and when Le Wuya patted his head twice, his breathing went all haywire.

"I'm gonna do something big," Le Wuya suddenly said amidst his turmoil. "...It's what your family tried to pull off but never did."

Qiu Sinian shot up straight, locking eyes on him.

Le Wuya said, all friendly-like, "Scared?"

Qiu Sinian didn't say a word.

Le Wuya went on, talking to himself, "This thing's too easy to blow wide open; I wanted to take my time. But heaven ain't giving me the time..."

He was pale and sickly, all his sharp, refined brilliance pooled in those violet eyes, making him look even more eerie and otherworldly.

And yet, with a face like that, he was speaking straight from the heart: "The ties that needed cutting, I've mostly cut. But you and Qi Jie are different... You're my people. I can't just toss you or her out like that... I gotta figure something out, figure something out..."

Qiu Sinian felt something off and reached out to feel his forehead.

Burning up.

He pulled his hand back but didn't hurry to call a doctor: "...Master, what can this Little A'Si do for you?"

"It's real simple," Le Wuya said. "I need you to hate me."

"I'm gonna... promote you to the Huan Prison, put you in charge there."

Qiu Sinian froze, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

The head of the Huan Prison's gotta have their tongue cut out—the whole 'no words, no heart, no feelings' deal.

That was a rule Le Wuya had set himself.

"That's just to fool people. The Huan Prison's been a safe haven I set aside for you all along," Le Wuya waved his hand. "I've mulled it over—I gotta be harsh, wound you deep, so you got every right to hate me. You're such a good kid, all your arms and legs in one piece; messing up your limbs or wrecking your face just won't work."

"Later, if anyone asks, we'll have it written down for show—that I suddenly shipped you off to the Huan Prison, cut out your tongue, and left you to rot."

"That way... if I ever screw up down the line, you'll have a post, and maybe it'll keep you alive."

Qiu Sinian just stared at him, dumbstruck.

"I know you never liked the name I gave you."

"But long as you're breathing, that's enough. Being alive means there's a shot. I didn't get that back then, and I wrecked my own body over it. Now it's too late for regrets, so I just don't bother. But Little A'Si, you're still young—don't go down with me."

With that, Le Wuya gave his cheek a hard pinch and smiled, "...My Little A'Si, blessed for ten thousand years."

Qiu Sinian bowed his head, evening out his breath: "This servant will remember. Anything else you'd have me do?"

"Don't worry about Qi Jie's fate no more. I got my own plans for her. There's one thing I gotta hand over to you..."

Right then, Le Wuya started coughing again, every cough twisting his face in agony.

But once the fit passed, he was back to normal, like his rotten shell was still pure gold.

"Back in the day, I raised two fine boys, and I was real fond of 'em," Le Wuya said, slightly breathless. "If you ever get the chance to meet 'em, do me a favor and look after 'em some. Brothers and sisters don't gotta be blood to be family."

And so Qiu Sinian was shipped off.

He left quiet and obedient, like he was really just some heartless, go-with-the-flow servant.

Told to go, he went; told to get his tongue cut out, he did it.

Only Le Wuya knew that this cold-looking kid would, in the dead of night, pay his respects to his dead family in front of a cabinet full of burial robes.

Those robes, picked out by rank and build, were his longing with nowhere to land.

Qi Hongzhuang watched him send Qiu Sinian off and didn't say a word out loud, but she immediately wrote to the palace, spinning the 'kicking out the emperor's spy' as a small thing—'promoting a trusted man.'

She had no clue that Le Wuya had quietly set his sights on her too.

Qiu Sinian was, after all, an outsider, a servant—he could be sent out of the Le house under the cover of a promotion.

But Qi Jie was the wife the emperor had gifted him.

So what was he supposed to do about that?

...No way around it; he'd have to play the long game.

Only heaven really wasn't gonna give him the time to play the long game.

...

When the pale blue dawn crept through the window lattice, Le Wuya opened his eyes.

The man beside him was breathing easy, still out cold.

He'd woken up before Xiang Zhijie for once—a rare thing.

He was thirsty, so he got up to grab a drink of water.

The tea was still warm—Hua Rong must've come in to swap the water, seen the two of them cuddled up asleep, and slipped out without a sound.

A smile rose up from deep inside Le Wuya.

Before he opened his eyes, he'd been all alone, scheming his guts out, with nobody to lean on.

After waking up, he had it all.

Being alive was good.

As he sipped his tea, he stared hard at Xiang Zhijie's handsome face, still pretty in sleep.

By all rights, he oughta hate this son of his enemy, oughta use him as a pawn to get back at that man.

Le Wuya smiled to himself, quiet as anything.

To hell with common sense.

A good man like that—just because he's his son, he's supposed to just toss him aside?

But he won't.

So what.

This is what Le Wuya has coming to him.

As if sensing a gaze lingering on his face, Zhi Jie's eyelashes fluttered. Without even opening his eyes yet, he reached out to feel the bedding beside him.

Noticing the bed was empty, his brow furrowed slightly, and he fumbled groggily deeper into the bed.

Watching him stubbornly search for him while half-asleep, Le Wuya blinked, tiptoed to the bedside, climbed over him, and scrambled on hands and knees to the far side of the bed.

Zhi Jie fumbled around until he finally grabbed a bare ankle. He opened his eyes and saw Le Wuya sitting at the foot of the bed with his knees drawn up, smiling at him.

Seeing Le Wuya looking at him like that, Zhi Jie suddenly realized how childish he had been just moments ago. His face went hot with embarrassment, and he sat up straight: "Teacher, good morning."

"Not good!" Le Wuya kicked his knee playfully. "I'm hungry—go buy me some wonton soup."