The carriage curtain lifted at one corner.
A little kitty head poked out.
Lu Yan’s lips curved, and he strode over.
“Awake?”
Jiang Sheng nodded and climbed down—except Lu Yan’s cloak was so enormous he nearly tripped stepping off the carriage step. Fortunately Lu Yan’s reflexes were swift; he caught him and gathered him into his arms.
Across the way, the monk was still watching them.
Jiang Sheng felt a bit embarrassed and kicked his calves lightly, signaling Lu Yan to put him down.
He muttered, “If we’d arrived, why didn’t you wake me?”
“You were sleeping so soundly. I couldn’t bear to.”
Lu Yan kissed his forehead without a hint of self-consciousness. “There’s still a stretch before we climb. Shall I carry you?”
Jiang Sheng shook his head.
Only then did Lu Yan set him down, taking his hand as they walked over. “This is Abbot Kongjing. He came down the mountain to gather herbs and happened upon us.”
Jiang Sheng pressed his palms together and bowed very obediently.
Kongjing smiled. “To meet is fate. Let us climb together.”
Along the way, Jiang Sheng was uncharacteristically quiet, not saying a single word. Lu Yan asked several times whether he was tired, whether he wanted to be carried—each time, Jiang Sheng only shook his head.
“What’s wrong? Feeling unwell?”
“No.” Jiang Sheng leaned past Lu Yan to sneak another look at the abbot.
Cheng Jing had said Lu Yan had set up a Longevity Tablet for him—that must have been arranged through this Master Kongjing. He wondered how powerful this monk really was…
Just then Kongjing happened to glance their way, and Jiang Sheng’s gaze whipped back with a whoosh.
Every little movement was laid bare before Lu Yan. The man squeezed his palm and said nothing.
Fortunately, nothing else unusual happened. The two of them prayed for their Peace Cords, and the abbot consecrated them personally. Jiang Sheng’s was tied around his wrist, and Lu Yan also got a little jade pendant to hang on him.
Jiang Sheng looked thoroughly satisfied, lifting his wrist to admire it.
“Pretty!”
Afternoon tea was taken at the temple—all vegetarian fare, very plain. But Jiang Sheng’s appetite seemed poor; he ate only a little before setting down his chopsticks.
Something had seemed off about Jiang Sheng all day. Lu Yan half regretted bringing him, wondering if falling down this very mountainside last time had left a shadow in his heart.
After the meal, Lu Yan didn’t linger, and they started back down. On the way, they stopped at the halfway point—but the Hunter family no longer lived there. Having accepted Lu Yan’s silver, they had moved into the city.
Jiang Sheng looked rather deflated. Lu Yan comforted him—they could have someone find where the family had moved, and pay them a proper visit.
“It’s fine. Let’s not disturb them.”
Jiang Sheng’s voice was small and droopy.
Lu Yan looked at him, his heart gone utterly soft. Jiang Sheng had always been like this—every kindness anyone ever showed him, he locked away in his memory, always searching for a chance to repay it double.
Jiang Sheng, this good—he wanted to hide him away where no one else could ever see.
The day had passed smoothly enough, minor hiccups notwithstanding. But when night fell, Jiang Sheng suddenly spiked a burning fever.
The manor descended into chaos.
The Divine Doctor rushed over to take his pulse. Nothing seriously wrong—just a chill wind in the body, a common cold caught. Two doses of medicine first, and see how it went.
The illness came fast and fierce. Jiang Sheng burned like a little furnace, burrowing dazedly into Lu Yan’s arms. The moment his eyes cracked open, Lu Yan was feeding him medicine mouth to mouth, tipping the decoction in.
Jiang Sheng’s face scrunched into a bun, tongue sticking out at the bitterness. “Ptui, ptui!” His lips wobbled, on the verge of tears.
He whimpered, “Poison.”
Lu Yan touched his forehead, heart aching, and sighed. “Drink your medicine quickly, Baby.”
Jiang Sheng kept wailing that Lu Yan was feeding him poison.
Lu Yan ran out of options and said, expressionless, “It’s not poison. It’s an aphrodisiac.”
Jiang Sheng went quiet in one second.
The Kitty stretched out, boneless. “Ahh, no wonder I’m so hot.”
Lu Yan: “…”
Jiang Sheng opened his mouth. “More. Feed me more, Husband.”
And so Lu Yan fed Jiang Sheng the medicine spoonful by spoonful, and Jiang Sheng was sweetness itself, even licking away the drop at the corner of his own lips. An utterly shameless little creature.
The sight made the veins at Lu Yan’s temples pulse.
The man repeated to himself, over and over: Jiang Sheng is sick. He’s sick. His head isn’t clear. Do not stoop to his level.
You spoiled him yourself. Endure. Endure.
And Jiang Sheng just kept fanning the flames.
Barely settled for a moment, his eyes opened again. “Husband, when are we starting? The medicine’s wearing off—I don’t feel very hot anymore.”
Lu Yan felt his forehead. The fever did seem to be breaking. The man relaxed a fraction inside, but didn’t dare let his guard down, calling the Divine Doctor in for another pulse reading.
After all that back and forth, Jiang Sheng finally drifted into true sleep in the small hours. Lu Yan didn’t dare sleep all night, holding him and testing his temperature every little while. By dawn, the fever had finally broken.
Lu Yan gazed down at the sleeping Jiang Sheng and felt his heart would be crushed to pieces by him. Every time Jiang Sheng fell ill, Lu Yan wished he could take the suffering into his own body in his place.
He sighed low, kissed Jiang Sheng’s lips, and then reached out and untied the red cord from his wrist.
The next day, Jiang Sheng was back at full health, a fine and frisky Kitty once more.
Lu Yan took a day’s leave from court and stayed home to watch over him, terrified of a relapse. Jiang Sheng himself, meanwhile, acted as if nothing had happened, wandering all over the courtyard.
Having finished some documents, Lu Yan called Cheng Yu and Cheng Jing in. It was now essentially confirmed: the people who tried to assassinate him had been arranged by the eldest young master of the Jiang Manor.
And the man’s name really was Jiang Feng.
When Lu Yan first heard it, his eyelids had twitched wildly. But it seemed impossible. First, Jiang Sheng had denied it so absolutely, again and again. Second… he and Jiang Feng had no deep grudge between them; they’d always been civil on the surface. Jiang Feng merely resented him for spiriting away his precious little brother, but could do nothing about it.
In any case—if this Jiang Feng really were the Jiang Feng of the modern world, there was no way he would arrange an assassination, least of all right in front of Jiang Sheng.
Judging by the corpses at the scene, each man had a tattoo on his chin—the mark of a notorious assassin organization, the [Green Rice Ball]. They took in criminals, trained them in the martial arts, paid them in silver, and set them loose to do the organization’s bidding.
By all appearances, this “Jiang Feng” was very likely the head of that assassin organization.
And he was probably still in the Capital.
Cheng Yu said in a low voice, “Rest assured, Your Highness. Your subordinate will stake his life on it—within ten days, Jiang Feng’s head will be laid at your feet.”
That single sentence made Lu Yan’s skull buzz.
He could not kill Jiang Feng. On the strength of that name alone, on that face identical to “Jiang Feng’s,” Lu Yan could never raise a hand against him.
“No killing.” Lu Yan said evenly. “Keep him watched. And keep him away from This Prince’s wedding.”
Never mind anything else—at minimum, he had to marry his Wife smoothly first.
Speaking of which…
Where was the Wife?
At the question, Cheng Jing blanked, scratching his head. “Playing with the dogs in the West Garden, probably?”
Cheng Yu hurried to add, “No—before I came, I saw him in the front courtyard, telling stories.”
Lu Yan: “…”
Truly, not a moment’s peace.
Not even recovered from illness and already out running around in the wind.
And so Lu Yan circled the entire manor before finally running his quarry to ground.
“What are you doing?” Lu Yan wiped the sweat from Jiang Sheng’s forehead. “You’re supposed to be resting inside.”
The weather outside had been turning colder these past two days. Once this month turned, it would be the New Year.
Jiang Sheng had just run two laps around the courtyard with the stray dog that had recently taken up residence, and had worked up a sweat, steaming all over like a freshly steamed soup dumpling.
Lu Yan badly wanted to lean down and take a bite.
Jiang Sheng, incapable of stillness, was clamoring for Lu Yan to take him out to play. Lu Yan refused—his illness hadn’t fully passed.
The Kitty drooped, muttering about how un-hospitable Capital people were. Weren’t the dramas always full of households exchanging invitations, this one and that one? Why hadn’t a single person sent him an invitation?
Cheng Jing, overhearing, could only grumble inwardly: with the reputations Master and the North-Guarding Prince currently enjoyed, who dared invite them?
Infamous, the both of them.
People fled at the very sight.
But Lu Yan had been worn down by Jiang Sheng for the better part of a day, both ears growing calluses, until at last he gave in and agreed to take him out for a stroll.
Lu Yan devised a solution: he simply tied their two jade pendants together. That would guarantee Jiang Sheng couldn’t stray an inch.
No choice. This Kitty was gone the moment you let go of the leash.
Jiang Sheng agreed instantly—as long as he got to go outside, he’d agree to anything.
The two of them simply had dinner at a restaurant in town.
As they walked down the main street, no one noticed that on the second floor of a teahouse not far away, a figure watched from the shadows, eyes practically spitting fire.
Jiang Feng smashed his teacup down in fury, jabbing a finger. “Leashing my brother to go out in public! What is the meaning of this?! This is humiliation! This North-Guarding Prince is truly a piece of work!”
His subordinate craned his neck to look. The Jiang Family’s young master was skipping merrily along in front, while the North-Guarding Prince trailed behind.
Who exactly was leashing whom was honestly debatable…
Jiang Feng snarled, “This Lu Yan—I will not let him have an easy life.”
His subordinate reminded him, “Master, the North-Guarding Prince has lately hounded us until there’s nowhere left to hide.”
“So what! When you’re cornered, you fight your way out—do you understand?! In any case, at the wedding in a few days, I WILL take my brother back!”
Jiang Feng’s face was set in iron resolve.
When he’d left home all those years ago, Shengsheng had been such a tiny thing, and he’d already known to call “Gege” in that soft little voice.
After that, Jiang Feng had clawed his way through the jianghu alone. By the time he’d finally made a name for himself and learned what had happened at home all those years—learned that his little brother… had been handed over to the North-Guarding Prince.
Jiang Feng had been beside himself with rage, swearing to rescue his brother!
Meanwhile, Jiang Sheng had no idea how pitiful he looked in other people’s eyes. He skipped along, humming a little tune, the picture of good cheer.
The restaurant had been booked out in advance. Jiang Sheng ordered a whole table of dishes and dined happily with Lu Yan on the second floor, returning home stuffed to the gills.
At this point, fewer than ten days remained until the grand wedding.
In the days that followed, Jiang Sheng stayed home obediently, with frequent fittings of the wedding garments. The manor went up in lanterns and red silk everywhere—even the newly adopted stray dog had a red ribbon tied around its neck.
Cheng Jing and the others were positively festive.
For one simple reason: the closer the wedding drew, the better the Prince’s mood, his manner approaching downright amiable. Even when someone botched a task, the Prince would wave it off with a light “Be more careful next time.”
Unprecedented.
And so the entire household, from top to bottom, wished the couple a hundred years of harmony with the utmost sincerity.
Until the day before the wedding.
Everything was in readiness.
The wedding garments were finished, and both had tried them on. A well-matched pair.
Jiang Sheng’s only regret was that they couldn’t take wedding photos. It was his first time wearing ancient-style wedding clothes, and he’d wanted so badly to hang pictures above the bed.
He’d grumbled about it to Lu Yan just the day before, and the next day Lu Yan had painters brought to the manor—eight or ten of them at once—commissioned to paint their portraits, telling Jiang Sheng to paste them wherever he liked, fill the whole room if he wanted.
Jiang Sheng was delighted, cherishing every single painting. In the end he quietly set aside his favorite one, planning to sneak out at midnight and burn it for their mom and dad.
But there was no sneaking anything.
Lu Yan slept far too lightly. With his arm around Jiang Sheng, the man woke at the slightest movement—he simply always pretended not to notice. So when Jiang Sheng tiptoed out with the painting and turned to close the door, he found Lu Yan already up, standing by the door, watching him.
