"You... you..."

Zhao Yao was instantly flustered, even Zhao Pei, who fell from the chair and was quietly watching the scene, was stunned.

On the other hand, Fang Linyuan felt somewhat fortunate.

To shut the mouth of this princess who liked to stir up trouble, enduring this bit of discomfort was worth it.

Just as he was about to excuse himself and leave this place of gossip, a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

He slightly turned his head and saw Zhao Chu behind him, pushing him back, standing in front of him.

Looking over his embroidered shoulder, Fang Linyuan noticed Zhao Yao's subtle step backward.

"What... What do you want?" She showed a hint of sternness.

Zhao Chu, with lowered eyes, gazed at her coldly.

"I suppose you've reached an age where I shouldn't have to remind you of what you shouldn't say or do," he said.

Zhao Yao was stunned, memories flooding back to her instantly.

Her expression turned extremely unpleasant.

When she was twelve, she had said that Zhao Chu's abandoned birth mother was despicable, and she even forced Zhao Chu to admit it, threatening to make her pick the highest plum blossom in the Imperial Garden.

Despite Zhao Chu's stubbornness, who would rather climb a tree to pick flowers than utter a word, she felt disappointed and crushed the flowers, then drove Zhao Chu away.

Before leaving, Zhao Chu had said softly to her. "Some words should be spoken carefully."

She didn't care. But the next day, she inexplicably got separated from the palace maids and was locked in the cave in the corner of the Imperial Garden, until the next morning when the Emperor sent people to turn the entire Imperial Garden upside down, only to find her almost unconscious from the cold.

She cried to her mother, saying it was done by Zhao Chu, that little wretch. But her mother said the little wretch had been confined to bed in the palace all day and hadn't come out at all.

She cried and demanded that the Emperor investigate thoroughly, but he became even more impatient, even forbidding her from leaving her room while still ill, telling her to calm down.

"You... you admit it, don't you!" Zhao Yao regained her senses, glaring at Zhao Chu with wide eyes.

But Zhao Chu just gave her a cold glance.

"You said it! You admitted that you did it, didn't you!" Thinking of that dark, cold night in the cave, Zhao Yao trembled all over, her eyes fixed on Zhao Chu.

But Zhao Chu just pulled up Fang Linyuan with one hand and left without a word.

Zhao Yao watched the two of them leave the hall side by side. Although one was a man and the other a woman, they were of the same height, yet there was nothing odd about them. Instead, they seemed perfectly matched.

She glared at them with resentment, just like that day when she was rescued from the cave, filled with bone-deep hatred, yet not daring to step forward.

It was not until the hall door closed again, and silence enveloped the space, that Zhao Yao suddenly grabbed the cup on the table and threw it heavily to the ground.

"I'm going to tell the Emperor!" she exclaimed.

*

On the carriage, Zhao Chu's cold gaze shifted away from the wound on Fang Linyuan's neck.

He never planned to let Fang Linyuan do anything for him.

He used Fang Linyuan because, among his many admirers, Fang Linyuan had the simplest background. When he needed to hide from public eyes through marriage connections, Fang Linyuan was the best choice.

Even if forced into his scheme, he would not let the other party suffer. And what he needed Fang Linyuan to do was simply to keep his mouth shut.

In his demands, there was never a requirement for Fang Linyuan to endure harm for him.

Zhao Chu silently reassured himself in his mind.

As for that foolish Zhao Yao, unless he wanted it, she couldn't even get close to him, but Fang Linyuan insisted on taking the blow for him, clearly acting on his own.

But even so, his gaze uncontrollably drifted over again.

The three fresh scratch marks, not deep, had begun to scab over gradually. But the unusually white, slender neck, wrapped in who-knows-what sand from the border, seemed unaffected by the wind, not tanning at all.

Making the wound particularly striking.

Zhao Chu furrowed his brow.

Like a piece of silk torn apart, wrenched by a thread, that thread happened to hook onto a string in his heart.

Zhao Chu had never experienced being protected like this before, so he thought the problem lay in Fang Linyuan's unnecessary actions.

Just like on the day of the wedding, he insisted on acting as if he were blind, leading himself all the way.

Thinking of this, Zhao Chu unconsciously tightened the hand resting on his knee, as if his flesh and skin were instinctively searching for the softness he had felt when grasped that day.

Yet Zhao Chu was oblivious to it, thinking it was merely his impatience with Fang Linyuan's meddling.

His gaze drifted back to the wound on Fang Linyuan's neck without him realizing it.

This time, he met Fang Linyuan's turned gaze head-on.

Fang Linyuan scrutinized him up and down, his expression puzzled yet guarded.

Zhao Chu paused, then saw Fang Linyuan with an alert expression who asked, "Why do you keep staring at me?"

*

Zhao Chu's frequent glances made Fang Linyuan's heart uneasy.

The pain in his neck only lasted for a moment, quickly forgotten by him. He felt Zhao Chu's gaze was peculiar, sometimes staring at him with no expression, other times not speaking at all, all very strange.

Fang Linyuan couldn't help but speak up.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Chu glanced at him coolly for a moment, then averted his gaze.

"It's nothing," he said lightly.

What does he want after all? Why can't he just speak plainly?

Fang Linyuan fell silent for a moment.

He could only quickly review everything he had seen and heard just now.

Suddenly, something came to his mind, and his heart skipped a beat.

Could it be about what Zhao Yao said, calling him a "wild seed"?

Seeing the guarded expressions of the palace servants just now, Zhao Yao's words must not have been uttered casually. But the purity of royal bloodline is no joke. If there were any impurities in Zhao Chu's lineage, he wouldn't have been able to live in the palace so openly until today.

But...

Indeed, parental lineage is always deeply ingrained, and very few people would remain indifferent upon hearing such words.

Thinking about Zhao Chu's hesitant demeanour earlier, Fang Linyuan faltered for a moment, then reluctantly spoke up to comfort him.

"You don't need to take Zhao Yao's words to heart," he said.

"Hmm?" Zhao Chu looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised, apparently not understanding his meaning.

"You look quite similar to His Majesty," Fang Linyuan added seriously.

Zhao Chu immediately understood Fang Linyuan's meaning.

Was he thinking that he was still upset about what Zhao Yao had said earlier?

If Fang Linyuan didn't mention it, he would have long forgotten about it.

What Zhao Yao said was indeed true. Since he could remember, he often heard palace servants gossiping about it.

They said that Empress Dou was pregnant while accompanying the Emperor on his inspection tour. At that time, they had just entered the territory of Yanzhou, and Empress Dou submitted a memorial, stating that there were constant bandit troubles in Yanzhou and, to ensure the Emperor's safety, requested that they take a detour.

The Emperor did not follow her advice, but upon entering Yanzhou, the Emperor's carriage was hijacked by bandits.

However, it was Empress Dou who was abducted.

Originally, after the Emperor rejected Empress Dou's proposal, she secretly exchanged carriages with the Emperor, and he reluctantly agreed, which allowed him to escape the ordeal.

Two days later, the Imperial Guards rescued Empress Dou, who had been kidnapped. And upon her return to the palace, she was diagnosed with signs of pregnancy.

Although the records clearly stated the days Empress Dou accompanied the Emperor on his tour and spent the night together, rumours began to spread gradually—Empress Dou was abducted and spent two days alone in the bandit's retreat. Who could say for sure what happened during those two days?

This rumour, his proud and suspicious father, the Emperor, could not possibly ignore, even though his mother was trapped in the bandit's lair to save his life.

Since childhood, Zhao Chu had tried all the methods of verifying lineage rumoured throughout the world.

Even when he was five years old, he was secretly taken to a secret room filled with the bones of the bandits who had raided his mother. Eunuchs dragged him in and dripped blood onto those bones one by one, until they confirmed that not a drop of blood had penetrated the bones before letting him go.

Even his mother didn't know about this.

Over the years, even his father stopped testing, and no one in the palace mentioned the old matters again.

Including him, he was no longer the waste who was scared to high fever by the mountains of bones in the secret room.

It was only fools like Zhao Yao who would bring up this matter and use it as a weapon against him.

However, facing Fang Linyuan's concerned gaze, Zhao Chu felt for the first time that these nonsense words were quite interesting.

Was he comforting him?

Zhao Chu, who was treated like this for the first time, found it somewhat novel, and his gaze couldn't help but linger on Fang Linyuan's face.

Little did he know that overly beautiful and charming eyes, when scrutinizing others, would always carry a hint of disdain and mockery.

He watched as Fang Linyuan's comforting gaze, after a moment of bewilderment, disappeared at a visible speed.

"...Forget what I said."

After gritting his teeth, Fang Linyuan turned his head and looked out the window, ignoring him.

Just when Zhao Chu couldn't understand why Fang Linyuan suddenly turned cold again, those three scratches appeared in his sight once more.

As Fang Linyuan turned his head, the newly formed scab was lightly pulled, and a tiny bead of blood emerged.

Zhao Chu involuntarily looked there again.

It was as if he saw the thread that hooked onto his heart.

As if he could just reach out and gently pluck it, the torn silk would have no connection to him anymore.

Thinking like this, he instinctively lifted his hand and wiped away the blood with his fingertip.

A light touch, like a dragonfly skimming the water's surface.

He seemed to have missed, not plucking the thread but brushing against the silk, tender and warm.

Zhao Chu felt some regret, but couldn't help but twirl his fingertip.

Fang Linyuan almost instantly sprang up from his original position.

"What are you doing!"

He covered his neck with one hand, looking at Zhao Chu with fear and taking a big step toward the other side of the carriage.

As if what touched his neck was a blade meant to kill him.

 

--

The author has something to say:

Fang Linyuan: What does it mean if someone touches your neck sneakily?

Friend: They like you.

Fang Linyuan: What if it's a man?

Friend: ...Men like you.

 

Translator : DarNan