Chapter 45

"You…" Yan Xiaohan stammered, jaw dropped. "Can… you say that one more time?"

Fu Shen looked at him with quite a lot of exasperation. A long time passed, then he sighed, extending both arms to him. "Come here."

Yan Xiaohan didn't dare to use anything even resembling strength as he loosely embraced him. "Say it again."

Some words that had been impulsively blurted out the first time around acquired a different feeling when said again. Fu Shen flushed with rare shame, his thick-skinned face turning red. "Go away. Quit making noise."

Yan Xiaohan added a bit of force to his hands. "Say it again."

"Did you get possessed by a mynah spirit?" Fu Shen used a special technique to fling the other's hands off his shoulders. "Go on, get. Get ready to go see your niece, and stop stirring up trouble."

Hands falling through empty air, Yan Xiaohan expressed his dismay through words. Fu Shen bowed his head in consideration, straightening out

his lapels and sleeve cuffs. "No need to be remorseful and repentant," he said all of a sudden. "To have been able to meet you is three lifetime's worth of blessings."

He hadn't yet finished when Yan Xiaohan suddenly tackled him into the soft sheets, his strained old waist making a loud noise, as it couldn't bear the heavy load.

The man gazed down at him from a high vantage point, a crafty grin roaming through his eyes, like a pitch-dark curtain of sky sprinkled with luminous stars. In the span of a second, Fu Shen thought that Yan Xiaohan might genuinely be the reincarnation of a strong huli jing from deep within the mountains. There wasn't a single aspect of his appearance that wasn't as exquisite and dazzling as the setting sun, yet he hadn't the tiniest trace of feminine qualities. There was a seductiveness in the tilt of his lips as well as the tiny upturn at the corner of his eyes, and even the curve of his slightly raised eyelashes tempted one to kiss.

"My only hope is that your heart is like my own," he spoke, as if sighing.

Fu Shen was being held down by his bestial, predatory pose, yet he didn't feel uncomfortable. Maybe he knew in his heart that the man wouldn't hurt him, no matter what. He even raised a hand and pinched his profile, relaxed, the tips of his fingers gentle. "I genuinely don't understand. You described yourself as having money and looks, a high position and heavy authority, and endless possibilities for the future. Why do you still think no one likes you?"

"When the one at their side is a jewel, one thinks themself as filth.*" Yan Xiaohan clasped his hand, eagerly affixing it to the side of his face. "And that's because you're too great."

What made Fu Shen hard to compare against wasn't purely because of external things like his family background or official's position, but his heart and nature. Yan Xiaohan was scorned and distrusted, but he traversed those hardships – and he knew that he would forever be unable to do so like Fu Shen could. A compassionate nobleman was like the splendor of an

alabaster moon; he might not be able to come across one all his life, only able to watch and wait from a distance. He had never dared to have the extravagant hope that there would be a day the bright moon of the Ninth Heaven would fall into his arms.

Fu Shen laughed. "Who's bewitching who, in the end… okay, come on, we need to go to the Prince's Estate to give congrats. Note this down in advance; I'll settle this debt with you when we get back."

"What do you still want to settle?"

"What you think?" Fu Shen grinned evilly. "If I don't fix you up with a harsh beating, I don't think you'll remember who the one ultimately in charge here is."

"..."

The Prince of Qi's Estate.

The Prince of Qi, Sun Yunduan, got word that his wife's older brother had arrived, and he hastened to welcome the guest himself in the foyer. Against expectations, the one he ran into first was Yan Xiaohan, and he subsequently paused. "…Mister Yan, Marquis Fu."

"Congratulations to Your Majesty." Fu Shen cupped his hands. "You've been blessed with a daughter."

The Prince subconsciously returned the gesture, returning to his senses from the impact of the head-on-collision and hanging a smile up on his face. "Many thanks. Please come in now and take a seat, you two."

Fu Shen really didn't come into much contact with the Prince of Qi. In his eminent position, it wasn't a good idea for him to get too close to anyone. Even if he and the Prince were considered family, as a result of his typical lack of major movement, the two were extraordinary strangers when they met in person.

His foresight came into play at this juncture. Yan Xiaohan had been in the palace for ages, and had long perfected the ability of being able to meet whoever and talking up and down about whatever. Noticing that Fu Shen had nothing to say, he took over the conversation with implicit understanding.

The Prince had quite a lot of reverence towards Fu Shen, but only had remnant wariness for Yan Xiaohan. The Flying Dragon Guard was the Emperor's personal guard, so Yan Xiaohan was naturally the Emperor's guy. Though he didn't know why he had unprecedentedly come to visit together with Fu Shen, it obviously wasn't to congratulate him. The Prince had originally been anxious due to the Yuantai Emperor arranging for them to go to Jingchu together, and his imagination roamed more than ever now, the entirety of his speech involuntarily assuming the cadence of an official.

Two people, one outside and one in, had a defined division of labor and a coordinated, tacit connection. At that same moment, Fu Shen wasn't sporting a 'husband's' image and dignity, either; following his carefree inspection of the wrinkled little infant and asking after how Fu Ling was, he turned his head for a peek. Hah. It's the cold, nippy spring of March, but the Prince was actually squeezing out a few beads of sweat.

He smiled as he shot a glance at Yan Xiaohan, hinting for him to not play around too much.

Yan Xiaohan intuitively grasped that message and succinctly veered the subject into chitchat about family life, an opportunity Fu Shen didn't neglect to interject in. "No need for politeness among family. I'll have to depend on Your Majesty to bear a bit more burden and look after this member of ours on the visit to Jingchu next month."

The Prince didn't immediately comprehend what sort of 'looking after' he was talking about, barely forcing out a smile after an instant of being full-stopped. "Your words are so heavy, Marquis. We're going so far away, it should be this Prince who's relying on Mister Yan's talents."

'This member of ours'… unless the discrepancy in status was too high, what dignified man would be willing to outwardly admit himself to being at

a wife-esque rank? The Great Zhou allowed men to marry, but it was still a 'husband's' world. The Prince surmised that when the Yuantai Emperor sanctioned the marriage, his original intention was to make Fu Shen be the 'wife'. Was Fu Shen saying something like this in his presence for the sake of lowering Yan Xiaohan's reputation, or for smacking the Emperor in the face?

His suspicious reaction fell into the two men's eyes. Fu Shen was rather sorry for it, and Yan Xiaohan was almost unable to tamp his schadenfreude down. He coughed drily. "Thank you for your trouble, Prince and Consort. We've been disturbing you for too long, and will be taking our leave."

The Prince was eager for them to hurry up and get the hell out of there, giving them a few phony words of courtesy before eventually asking the two great deities to leave. Upon arriving back in the bedroom, he disregarded his poise and plopped down on his butt, letting out an utterly exhausted, extended sigh.

As it happened, Fu Ling had woken up at this moment and turned around.

"What's wrong, Prince?" she asked in concern.

"Your older brother, is he…" The Prince paused, hesitating to ask. "… legitimately a cut-sleeve?"

"How could that be?!" Fu Ling yelled at once. "If he actually did have the Longyang preference, then things would be simple! Why would he wait for His Majesty to sanction a marriage to the Court bloodhound bully?!"

Seeing that was getting genuinely angry, the Prince rushed to place his hand on her and console her. "Don't be mad, don't be mad, it was a thoughtless question of mine. It's just that they visited together today, and Marquis Fu had spoken ambiguously, which made my thoughts stray."

Fu Ling hammered her fist on the bed hatefully. "All of it had to have been forced by that Yan guy!"

The Yan Estate.

Fu Shen switched out his pin-crown and clothes, long hair scattering loose over his shoulders. "How do you feel about the Prince of Qi?" he asked in passing.

Yan Xiaohan twirled a lock of that hair around his fingers as he thought for a moment. "Shrewd and cautious."

"Mn. He's also mistrustful. Cut from the same mold as his father. Speaking of which, my niece doesn't look like her mother, mostly like the Prince. They've got the same chin and eyes… oh?"

He suddenly halted in his speech, reaching out to take Yan Xiaohan by the chin and look him up, down, and all around. "I just realized that your chin is remarkably similar to theirs."

"That's just what they call 'if you're not meant to marry into a family, you'll never get past the door'," Yan Xiaohan senselessly blathered.

Fu Shen grinned. "It's 'a family' again, now? Who was throwing a tantrum at me earlier, refusing to go out and meet them no matter what?"

Yan Xiaohan kissed him slyly on the lips. "You're a generous one, Mister Marquis. Don't bicker with me, hm?"

"Pathetic." General Fu had a heart of stone and was not moved at all. "Spare me the theatrics. You're going to have to really learn your lesson today."

He casually took a book out of the bedside table and tossed it into Yan Xiaohan's arms.

It was a very thin volume with an indigo cover, its title of Essays of the Snowplum Hut written in white signature.

Yan Xiaohan didn't know what to make of it. He mindlessly opened it to the first page, gave it a cursory glance, and promptly became awestruck at

the clause 'the world is made good by the virtue of those living in it, and a dictator swindles the people'.

"I'm not seeing this wrong, right?" He turned the cover over to look at who the author was again. "A banned book was being hidden in the Royal Inspector Envoy's house? Where did you find this, Marquis?"

"During the time I went back to the Northern Yan last winter, you worked on the Kuangshan College case, didn't you?"

"I was wondering why this 'Mr. Xixian' looked familiar. So it's him,"

Yan Xiaohan recalled.

"Mr. Zeng Xixian is Imperial Censor Gu Shanlu's respected teacher. I owe Censor Gu a favor from the East Tartar envoy case; though his teacher violated a prohibition, it's not a crime punishable by death. He's suffered quite enough during his time being shut up in prison. So, I want to ask you to do a little intervening. Could you have some magnanimity and let the old man out?"

The warmth in Yan Xiaohan's eyes slowly cooled down.

"Jingyuan." He lowered them, gaze affixed to the inked letters on the page. "Did you actually forget, or did you deliberately want to remind me?"

"What did you say?"

"The Jin Yunfeng case." Yan Xiaohan raised his eyes. They seemed like they had been drenched in frost. "Why, after seven years, do you still want to use an equivalent incident to try and test me? Aren't you afraid that I'd go back to my old ways and put another knife in your back?"

Had anyone dared to talk to him like this in ordinary times, Fu Shen would have given them a huge slap to the face a long time ago. Today, however, he was unusually collected, not getting angry and simply talking peacefully. "You're overthinking it. My intention wasn't to test you, just to ask something of you. Is that not alright?"

"You're requesting something of me for another man. No," Yan Xiaohan responded unhappily.

He almost made Fu Shen grimace in anger, who barely managed to suppress it. "We'll compromise, then. How about giving you a reward?"

"What reward?"

"I gave you two trumpet-vine jade pendants. Help me with this errand, and you can take those two pendants as vouchers. One piece equals this favor: so long as it's of the mundane world, there's nothing I won't comply to. How about it?"

As if a bolt of lightning from the top of the sky had struck down upon him, Yan Xiaohan's entire person froze in place.

It was like his consciousness was floating outside of his body as he vacantly listened to his own stupefied question. "The other favor… is what?"

Fu Shen threw his own words back at him. "The Jin Yunfeng case. Why, after seven years, do you still not remember?"

He knew everything.

His slackened vision gradually focused, Fu Shen's image becoming clearer and clearer in his eyes, after which the entirety of it was engraved into the bottom of his heart. As if a divine weapon had touched down with a bang, it swept away all the pent-up, old injuries using incomparable strength.

Those lightless regrets and dejections were finally shone upon by rays of bright, instantly after which they scattered, akin to how rolling winds broke up clouds.

Being rendered speechless several times in the span of one day was something Yan Xiaohan could have claimed to have never experienced

before. In that second, he instantly understood the reasoning behind all of Fu Shen's words and actions early that morning.

He was giving himself to him, offering his entire heart up with both hands.

There was no one who came before the other, no one who was unworthy. This was predestined to happen, and decreed by fate, as they were nothing less than a match made in Heaven.

Yan Xiaohan's breathing suddenly picked up in pace. The moment he opened his mouth, his voice was already hoarse as if sand had run through his throat, even carrying a fine tremble to it. "Is that a deal?"

"Mhm." Fu Shen lightly smiled. "Anything of the mundane world, I won't refuse."