Chapter 90

Chapter 90

I still remember when he first transmigrated to this time and space, Shen Lian had carried this faint air of death about him.

Back then, he groggily felt that his memories were fragmented, mostly centered on his years as a student—skipping grades all the way to a PhD and spending all his time in the lab.

Occasionally there were flashes of award ceremonies, scenes of dazzling stage lights flashing back, dimly aware that these were scenes from years later, yet he had no memory of the specific events at all.

This world had cut his memories off at his lab days. As for that epidemic-fighting drug the system's customer service had mentioned, he had no memory of it at all, let alone how he'd ended up choosing this world in the first place.

Now that he'd finally grown attached to his family in this world, and had even met someone who made his heart flutter, the system was trying to take it all away from him.

He couldn't die. He had to stay.

A fierce, desperate will to live kicked in, and Shen Lian sprang into action. He grabbed a stack of letter paper and scribbled out dozens of farewell letters, each one more outrageous than the last.

Months ago, when he was framed by Dehui, he had also written a farewell letter to Dian Xia. Back then, with his back against the wall, he'd written with total honesty. Looking back, he'd already laid his feelings bare—his crush, his racing heart, all of it.

Thank God Dian Xia never saw it.

Thank God his young male concubine never saw it.

Thank God his war god Prince Qi never saw it.

Otherwise, there's no way they'd believe this brutal farewell letter.

A teardrop bled into the cruel handwriting on the page. Shen Lian quickly put down his brush, propped his elbows on the desk, and covered his eyes with both hands.

Don't be upset.

He'd ended up in this mess because he'd stopped the Fengchi Valley disaster. Nothing to regret. He should count himself lucky.

Somewhere in those memories that failed to transmit had to be the reason Shen Lian chose to come to Xie Yuan.

In this era, wise rulers with capable ministers and fierce generals were practically guaranteed a golden age. Shen Lian was happy to be the civil official who added the final touch of brilliance, serving the people.

But deep down, he had another goal that mattered just as much: to pull Xie Yuan through that calamity.

To pull him through that total loss of faith in the world, through the bone-deep loneliness of the years ahead.

He'd chosen this. No regrets.

Shen Lian roughly wiped his eyes, blinking wide despite the redness, gritted his teeth, grabbed the brush, swapped in a fresh sheet, and started over.

His hand shook so badly he could barely hold the brush.

It's fine, it's fine. He just had to raise the darkening value within seven days. As long as he could reignite Xie Yuan's ambition to fight for the throne, he could clear up every misunderstanding.

His ex-husband had always spoiled him. Maybe he'd believe Shen Lian had no choice.

The crumpled drafts used up almost all the paper in the house. He kept writing until well past midnight before he was finally, barely, satisfied.

After the ink dried, he quickly folded the letters and stuffed them into envelopes, not daring to look at them again.

With the crucial "darkening guidance" step done, Shen Lian started wondering if he should grab his dad and older brother and skip town with them. Conveniently, the two of them were planning to hand in their resignations tomorrow anyway.

It wasn't that he thought Xie Yuan would lose it and take it out on his family.

It was just that they might not be able to reunite until Xie Yuan became Crown Prince. And if he couldn't contact his family during that time, his dad and brother would worry themselves sick. So it made more sense to just run together.

Oh, wait. Right.

His ex had just handed him a chest of "betrothal gifts." That chest of silver—at least a few thousand taels—was more than enough for his family of three to live comfortably forever.

It would also conveniently make it look like he'd swindled the money and bolted.

But there was one problem.

This was actual silver, not banknotes. Four eunuchs could barely carry the thing in. How was he supposed to haul it out by himself?

Only now did Shen Lian bother to get up, walk over to that chest wrapped in iron bands, and bend down to try lifting it.

"Urgh—ahhhh!"

Nope. Couldn't budge it. Way too heavy.

He opened the lid and, for the first time, carefully examined the silver inside.

Xie Yuan had apparently prepared a whole chest of small silver ingots for him—five taels each, packed in tight.

If it had been anything else, the dense pattern might have creeped him out. But this was silver. It was honestly adorable. Even his grief got shamelessly soothed a little.

He counted the rows, then pulled out one stack and counted the ingots individually.

Holy crap.

The chest contained three thousand taels of silver in total. Shen Lian's head spun at the number.

His brain short-circuited for a solid minute before he did the math: with this much silver, not counting the chest, it'd weigh two hundred twenty jin. With the iron-banded chest, it was pushing two hundred fifty. No wonder it took four eunuchs to haul it in.

Shen Lian's legs gave out, and he plopped down next to the chest, stroking the silver and staring off into space.

How many years would he get for scamming this much money?

And he was scamming the emperor who was literally the strongest fighter in this era's history books.

He suddenly felt a weird, tingly ache in his gut, like he could already feel his young male concubine's grip on his waist.

That young male concubine of his was seriously strong...

This wasn't the first time he'd noticed this terrifying fact. Every time the young male concubine grabbed him without thinking, it hurt.

It really hurt.

Shen Lian wasn't exactly strong, but he had a high pain tolerance—he wasn't the sensitive type.

But Dian Xia could leave bruises shaped like handprints with one pinch, dragging him around like a damn rag doll. People probably thought he was being "dainty," but anyone who'd actually been manhandled by that freakishly strong guy would know how insane it was.

How had he never once thought, back then, that this was the War God of Great Wei's strength?

The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous the whole thing seemed.

First impressions really screwed him over.

Because the first time he'd gone to Prince Xi's place, he'd been in a rush to find his male favorite, and got blindsided by a top-tier sculpted face. Xie Yuan looked way younger than the Prince Qi he'd pictured. It was impossible to match that face to the name.

In his head, the dragon-conquering protagonist was supposed to be around twenty-five or twenty-six. But when he suddenly saw this "male favorite" who was somewhere between boy and man, he got completely thrown off and never doubted it again after that.

The infuriating part was that he actually went along with the mistaken identity and claimed the role of male concubine...

He even went out of his way to come up with the name "Dian Xia"!

No wonder people at Prince Xi's mansion always sounded weird when they called out "Dian Xia."

So it was actually "Your Highness" all along?

The realization hit Shen Lian like a ton of bricks.

How much effort did this little male concubine put into his schemes?

So basically, every letter Shen Lian sent to Prince Xi's mansion had to be relayed from there to Prince Qi's mansion?

No wonder replies came back fast when Dian Xia sent someone to deliver letters, but when Shen Lian sent letters directly to Prince Xi's mansion, sometimes he'd have to wait until the next day for a response.

That's the difference between routing through a relay station and same-city express delivery.

Which means—

Song Jin and Prince Xi...

Those two bastards were in on it too, helping Xie Yuan pull this off?

Do these rich people really have nothing better to do?!

The more Shen Lian thought about it, the angrier he got, and his guilt faded fast. He wished he could go back and tack on a few more complaints to that farewell letter.

Damn that little male concubine!

His mind was a mess.

Shen Lian straightened up, knelt down, and tried to lift one corner of the box.

It didn't budge an inch.

A person weighing two hundred fifty jin could still move their arms and legs and get around.

But silver packed in a box like this might as well have been welded to the floor.

Even wooden rollers would get crushed under that kind of weight.

How the hell was he supposed to make off with this money?

Oh wait, what about silver notes?

When the little male concubine first took him to that Michelin-starred restaurant for a fancy meal, he'd paid with silver notes.

The biggest money house in the capital had to have branches in other cities.

But...

These little silver ingots were official Chu State currency, with Chu State markings stamped on the bottom.

Depositing a huge pile of Chu State official silver all at once in a Great Wei money house would probably make the manager suspicious about where it came from and report him to the authorities.

And there was no way he could melt them all down in a short time.

The biggest headache was that ancient money house branches were nothing like modern bank branches.

Sure, in theory, after signing an agreement at the main branch, you could withdraw money elsewhere, but the actual process was a huge pain in the ass.

Verifying your identity meant sending someone with letters to confirm—it wasn't like in TV dramas where you could just cash notes anywhere like checks.

With Prince Qi Xie Yuan's intelligence network covering the whole realm, if Shen Lian withdrew money in another city in the morning, he'd be arrested by noon, with the secret police showing up at his door to execute him.

Shen Lian sat back down on the wooden floor, biting his lip, deep in thought. How the hell was he supposed to run off with his ex-husband's bride price?

And why didn't the little male concubine use recast silver for the betrothal gift? All of it was brand-new Chu State official silver—it was like he deliberately left markers to keep his ex-wife from running off.

When your conscience is guilty, everything looks suspicious.

Running away right under Xie Yuan's nose was already risky enough; spending his silver without marrying him was even riskier.

At this point, Shen Lian had completely stopped caring about how much his act would hurt Xie Yuan. He just wanted revenge for that fake male concubine identity.

Because if he'd known from the start that Dian Xia was Prince Qi, he never would've dared to treat him like a workhorse so recklessly, nor would he have let himself get so attached and dependent.

If it weren't for the little male concubine's fake identity letting him let his guard down and fall in love, he wouldn't be worrying right now about becoming some pitiful, forgotten concubine among the countless beauties of a dragon-pride protagonist.

Damn you, Dian Xia, arghhhh!

Fueled by rage, he tried lifting the box again.

Still didn't budge an inch.

After despairing and thinking it over for a long time.

Shen Lian decided to ask Su Ziling for help.

Su Ji Pharmacy still saw him as the savior of their whole clan. Leaving this box of silver with the Su family for safekeeping would definitely be fine. Those people were genuinely kind-hearted—no wonder they became imperial merchants through pure merit without any connections.

How much travel money would he need for a family of three on the road?

The main question was when that wicked little male concubine would become Crown Prince.

According to the original storyline, Prince Qi still needed two years to take down the eldest prince, because in the original, Feng Rui, who committed treason, was silenced on the battlefield, leaving no evidence of the eldest prince's betrayal.

But now things were different.

Because Shen Lian had made Xie Yuan swear over and over not to ambush at Fenggu Valley, he might've inadvertently made him more cautious, avoiding that defeat. The main forces took no casualties, and Feng Rui probably didn't die either.

So... should he add another reminder in the farewell letter for the little male concubine to use Feng Rui to take down the eldest prince?

That way, Prince Qi might secure the Crown Prince position ahead of schedule, and Shen Lian wouldn't have to wander around forever.

With that wicked little male concubine's brains, he'd definitely catch on with just a hint.

So let's assume he only needed to wander for a year—one or two hundred taels of travel money would be more than enough.

Besides, property prices elsewhere were cheap. A few dozen taels could buy a nice big house to live in comfortably—no need to rent.

In just half an hour, Shen Lian had already gone from grief-stricken to planning a year-long getaway.

He kind of wanted to live by the sea.

But in this era, Hainan was still a miasma-ridden land—dense forests, sparse population, full of pestilence and prone to malaria.

Better to head to Jiangnan instead and see what his hometown was like in this era.

He had analyzed the climate, prices, and living conditions, but never once considered the pursuit-and-strike prowess of Tengri Heavenly Blade as recorded in historical texts—an ex-wife who'd bolted with the money would dare to flee to a prosperous and comfortable major city.

-

Xie Yuan had not slept all night, blazing through the four best-selling storybooks of the past six months.

He'd never been this on-the-ball even during military campaigns.

Fortunately, it paid off.

From the storybooks' descriptions, he pieced together that when a wife bites that spot on her husband's shoulder and neck, it means she already desires him desperately—it was not a sign of sulking.

The problem was his lack of experience; the young imperial physician must be dying for it, aching to give himself over, but too shy to say it, just like in the storybooks. What kind of husband would let etiquette get in the way at a time like this?

A qualified husband should never let go of a wife who yearns so intensely and allow her to return to her family—this was Prince Qi's fault.

Setting down the book, Prince Qi lowered his gaze to the bulging blanket over his taut lower abdomen, furrowed his brows, and drew a sharp breath.

With a whoosh, he yanked the blanket aside. The situation was urgent; his wife must be in great agony, and Prince Qi had to make amends immediately.