Xie Tao didn’t know exactly when she fell asleep, but throughout the night, her dreams kept replaying the scene she had seen on her phone screen before going to bed.
The young gentleman with disheveled damp black hair, not a stitch of clothing on, his well-defined upper body like flawless white jade, droplets of water sliding down his chest along the curve of his throat, down to his abdomen…
Further down, further down… Xie Tao suddenly woke up, her face flushed.
Her nose felt a bit warm.
Subconsciously, Xie Tao touched her nose, but there was nothing unusual.
Her alarm clock rang timely, and Xie Tao hurriedly reached out to turn off the alarm clock on her bedside table.
Because the curtains were tightly drawn, the room was very dim at this moment.
Xie Tao turned on the light, yawned, and when she turned her head, she saw the white robe she had hastily thrown to the innermost part of her bed last night.
She was momentarily stunned.
It felt as if scorching lava was bursting open in her mind, and the scenes from last night once again uncontrollably surfaced before her eyes.
Last night, after cramming a few more essential ancient poems despite being already very tired, she hastily washed up. Just as she was about to go to bed, a piece of clothing fell on her head.
It was a white robe, completely in the style of ancient times.
There seemed to be a faint fragrance lingering in the folds of the robe.
At that time, she took her phone and opened the video call intending to ask Wei Yun about this robe, but unexpectedly, as soon as the video call connected, she saw…
Xie Tao buried herself under the covers again.
But two minutes later, she quickly threw off the covers and got out of bed, rushing into the bathroom.
She couldn’t afford to be late for the exam this morning.
She didn’t even have time for breakfast. Xie Tao went to the bus stop, took the bus, and arrived at school.
At that moment, Wei Yun was standing still in the Astrology Pavilion, holding a small jade teacup in his hand, frozen in mid-air, undecided whether to put it down or not.
“What’s wrong with the Lord?” Tao Xi, the young steward responsible for miscellaneous matters in the Astrology Pavilion, looked down from the corridor and felt puzzled, so he asked Wei Jing beside him.
Because swords were not allowed in the Forbidden Palace, Wei Jing, who was accustomed to carrying a sword, felt a bit uneasy, feeling like something was missing in his arms.
Hearing Tao Xi’s question, he absentmindedly replied, “I don’t know.”
Since last night outside the bathhouse, he had only heard the Lord inside the room instruct him to fetch a robe, but wasn’t that clean robe delivered by Uncle Wei early in the morning?
Although Wei Jing was puzzled, he didn’t dare to say much either.
But since last night when he saw the master coming out of the bath, he noticed something was amiss with his countenance. After that, the master sat in the study all night, and he stayed outside the study all night as well.
Come morning, at the time for court assembly, he finally saw the master emerge from the study.
After court, the master continued to sit here, holding a scroll in his hand, but his mind seemed elsewhere.
During this period, how many peculiarities had the master of his household revealed to Wei Jing?
Quite a few.
Especially after the incident where that mysterious woman with extraordinary abilities pinned him to the wall last time, Wei Jing had become enlightened. He started to believe that nothing was impossible in this world.
It was like suddenly, in the typically dull and dreary study of the master, there would be a fresh bouquet of flowers every day.
At this moment, Wei Yun sat at the desk, his hand hidden beneath the wide sleeves embroidered with auspicious clouds in indigo and silver threads, occasionally rubbing a copper pendant between his fingers.
The late autumn sunlight fell upon him, casting a radiant glow on his satin robe.
Across the water and amidst the shadows of the trees, one could faintly see Taoist priests in moon-white robes coming and going atop the jade towers, each holding a whisk, almost everyone sporting a stubble, presenting an air of immortality as if they were already celestial beings untouched by the mortal world.
Across the shimmering water, Wei Yun glanced towards the figures pacing back and forth atop the high railing, his eyes betraying a hint of coldness.
Although Wei Yun was in charge of the Astrological Pavilion, the matter of alchemy had always been under Wu Fuqing’s supervision, which was the most cherished concern of Emperor Qi He.
However, the recent batches of new elixirs produced in the alchemy room had left Emperor Qi He dissatisfied, leading him to execute two groups of Taoist priests.
And now, the figures hastily pacing back and forth on the high railing were the members of the third batch.
“Master.”
At that moment, Wei Jing suddenly walked in from the corridor.
“What is it?”
Wei Yun looked up at him.
“The letter from Yecheng.”
Wei Jing handed over a ciphered letter he had just received with both hands.
Upon hearing the words “Yecheng”, Wei Yun’s expression turned serious, his face adding a few degrees of solemnity. He took the letter from Wei Jing’s hands, opened it, and took out the paper.
There were only a few words on it, but they immediately furrowed Wei Yun’s brow.
“My lord, what is it?” Wei Jing asked as he noticed the change in his expression.
Wei Yun lowered his gaze, his voice devoid of any extra emotion. “The Crown Prince and the Prince of Xin are both investigating my background.”
Upon hearing this, Wei Jing asked, “Does my lord want me to do something?”
“No need.”
Wei Yun shook his head, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips, but it was cold. “Let them investigate. What I want them to know, they will know. What I don’t want them to know, they won’t hear a whisper of it.”
For the trip to Yingdu two years ago, he had long been prepared.
Even the previous Emperor Qi and Emperor Kai had secretly sent people to investigate his past.
What the Crown Prince and the Prince of Xin could find out was only what Emperor Qi had left behind to be discovered.
“It used to be just one Crown Prince, but why does it seem like this Prince of Xin is also closely watching you now?” Wei Jing voiced his life’s question.
“They are not the same.”
Wei Yun leisurely poured himself a cup of tea, lifting it up. “The Crown Prince is determined to see me dead, while the Prince of Xin wants to win me over.”
Although their actions were different, their ultimate goals were the same.
Because in Wei Yun’s hands, there was an elite cavalry.
That was the thing that had spread throughout the court when Emperor Qi invited Wei Yun to join the court.
The elite cavalry consisted of two thousand people from exotic races with extraordinary strength. They were hereditary soldiers and had existed as a special force to protect the Emperor since the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
But what was embarrassing was that this elite cavalry had always refused to serve Emperor Qi.
Because he was not of pure royal blood, but the legitimate grandson of the maternal family of the former Emperor.
The former Emperor had difficulty producing offspring, with only four sons who all died under mysterious circumstances. At that time, the Empress Dowager still harbored the desire to rule and wanted to arrange for her eldest grandson from her maternal family to be adopted by the former Emperor.
At that time, the former Emperor was deeply immersed in the grief of losing his sons and was unwilling to adopt someone else’s child as his own prince.
However, seeing the former Emperor gradually weaken, the Empress Dowager began to conspire with her maternal family to seize power.
Later, after seizing the throne, the former emperor was furious and grief-stricken, and passed away on that very day.
What the Empress Dowager didn’t expect, however, was that the obedient future emperor she had chosen was actually extremely ambitious.
In just a few years, the Empress Dowager’s dreams of wielding power behind the scenes were shattered, as she found herself restrained at every turn by the new emperor, ending her days in melancholy.
Great Zhou seemed to remain the same Great Zhou as before, yet it seemed to have already taken on the name of another family in an intangible way. What remained unchanged were the ministers standing in the Golden Luang Hall.
With each change of emperor, it seemed that many had already forgotten the bloody palace coup completely.
Perhaps the world would forget, but the Valiant Cavalry would not forget his unjust and improper name.
Thus, two thousand Valiant Cavalry disappeared overnight, leaving no trace behind. No matter how Emperor Qi He searched, their whereabouts could not be found.
Yet two years ago, he saw the unique transparent Valiant Cavalry token in Wei Yun’s hands.
It was an item that Emperor Qi He hadn’t been able to find for many years.
The reason Emperor Qi He summoned Wei Yun to court was twofold: firstly, he valued his unparalleled intelligence and strategy, and secondly, for the Valiant Cavalry in his possession.
Besides being the emperor’s personal guards, the Valiant Cavalry had also been in charge of the imperial family’s private treasury for generations.
Emperor Qi He was obsessed with cultivating immortality and Taoism, carrying out extensive construction projects, building numerous Taoist temples, and spending countless resources searching for spiritual materials throughout the land to refine elixirs.
The state treasury could no longer sustain his extravagance.
The wealth in the imperial family’s private treasury was his third objective.
Emperor Qi He had such intentions, and Prince Xin and the Crown Prince naturally shared them.
The three of them were ultimately heading in the same direction on divergent paths.
“We needn’t concern ourselves with this matter any longer. Just keep a close eye on Wu Fuqing for me; he hasn’t been very well-behaved lately.”
In the end, Wei Yun instructed.
Wei Jing immediately bowed, “Yes.”
As he finished his cup of tea, Wei Yun looked across and saw a figure standing atop the high railing—it was Wu Fuqing.
Wu Fuqing was dressed in a crimson robe, and as he stood there, he gazed in Wei Yun’s direction. Catching Wei Yun’s eye, he smiled, his eyes narrowing into slits.
Wei Yun tugged at the corner of his lip, set down his teacup, and rose, walking into the building.
At dusk, Wei Yun left the Forbidden Palace and rode in a carriage back to the Master’s residence.
He held the copper pendant in his hand all along, as if waiting for something, but he furrowed his brows, as if remembering something, with a slight warmth creeping up his ears.
Until finally, the copper pendant in his hand began to heat up.
In the moment of golden light scattering, a letter fell into his hand.
There was a faint smile in Wei Yun’s eyes, he almost had no hesitation, reaching out to open the envelope.
There was only a brief sentence in the letter:
“I finished the exam…”
Wei Yun pinched the paper with his fingertips, as if finally settling down a bit, his brow slightly relaxed.
Upon returning to the residence, he went straight to the study.
When Xie Tao received the reply, she was slurping down instant noodles, and even got burned on her mouth.
“How was it?”
He only wrote these three words.
“…okay.”
She slowly typed back.
And this time, he only had one word:
“Okay.”
Xie Tao replied as well:
“Okay…”
It was like polite small talk between two strangers, with an unspoken awkwardness between them.
Even though… neither of them mentioned what happened last night.
But there was a question lingering in her mind all day.
Finally, Xie Tao deliberated for a moment, then typed out a message and sent it:
“I, um, have a question for you.”
“Mm.”
Just one word from him.
“That… the clothes from yesterday… were yours, right?” Xie Tao didn’t know why, but as soon as she typed out those words, her face began to feel a bit warm.
And when Wei Yun saw that sentence on the paper, his eyelashes trembled like crow feathers, his gaze momentarily flickering as if restless, even his ears felt a bit warm.
Just as Wei Yun was unsure how to reply, he saw another letter from her appear on the desk.
“But your clothes… why did they just fall off like that? Why weren’t they in the delivery locker?”
Wei Yun paused, his brows furrowing slightly.
He stared at the copper pendant on the desk, his expression inscrutable for a moment.
Little did they know, just last night, beneath Xie Tao’s building, the mysterious man with the ID number AM670 had appeared again.
This time, the deviation in his appearance was all his doing.
And now, he was being dragged around by his ears by his boss, getting scolded:
“Do you have a hole in your brain? I asked you to modify the Phoenix Scale settings, and look at what you’ve changed? How can you be so useless? Can’t even handle a simple task and still want to eat, huh?”
As the woman yanked on the slightly chubby man’s ear, she scolded loudly.
In the midst of the action, the amethyst earrings beside her ear continued to sparkle brightly.
The man wiped his face, “Boss, scold me all you want, but please watch the spit… I didn’t know the Phoenix Scale would be so stubborn, after all, it’s a divine object. But you insisted on adding that smart setting, and now you want me to change it, how can I…”
“You’re fired!” the woman gritted her teeth.
“Boss, please… if you hadn’t insisted on adding that thing, maybe it would have been easier for me now. But this Phoenix Scale, it’s really difficult to deal with.”
The man said with a bitter expression.
“Just go eat your meal!”
The woman’s words were ultimately just hot air. Eventually, she let go of his ear, and on her usually unserious face, there was unexpectedly a hint of indescribable sadness.
In the end, she blamed herself for this.
Losing such an important person, and also losing such an important token of affection.
