Today was the Ghost Festival (Zhongyuan Festival).
When the old valley master was alive, he’d repeatedly told Song Junran to return to Yongdu to pay respects to his maternal grandparents’ family.
But both elders had passed away decades ago. Song Junran had visited Yongdu several times but never found their graves, only knowing the general area.
Thinking of this, he felt a pang of guilt.
The carriage slowed to a stop.
Song Junran sighed again, grabbed the prepared spirit money, and jumped down.
It had rained not long ago, so the country roads outside the capital were muddy.
He had just gotten off the carriage and hadn’t even found his footing when he heard a voice: “Young master, watch your step!”
Song Junran looked in the direction of the voice and saw a familiar figure in brown clothes, temples flecked with gray, standing in the distance looking at him.
“Steward Zhao?”
“It’s me,” Steward Zhao replied with a smile and a bow.
As they spoke, Song Junran’s gaze slipped past Steward Zhao to the area behind him.
-The once barren field of mounds had, at some point, been cleaned up and filled with headstones.
Seeing this, Steward Zhao smiled and said, “This was His Majesty’s idea.”
“Xie Bufeng?”
“Ahem…” Hearing Song Junran call the emperor by name, Steward Zhao coughed awkwardly and continued, “After learning about the matter, His Majesty specially ordered people to find the elderly and villagers living nearby. They spent several months identifying the graves one by one, restoring the whole area, and finally found your maternal grandparents’ grave.”
Steward Zhao had lost his parents young and had been cared for by Song Junran’s maternal grandparents as a child.
He’d long regarded the two elders as his own family.
Unfortunately, after entering the palace, he’d never left, and hadn’t attended their funeral, nor did he know the exact location of their graves.
Now, Xie Bufeng had sent people to find and restore the site.
As Steward Zhao spoke, his gaze grew more grateful.
“So that’s how it is…”
Song Junran walked over through the mud, and together with Steward Zhao, burned spirit money at the graves.
As he rose after paying his respects, he couldn’t help but think:
…Maybe Xie Bufeng isn’t so hopeless after all?
——————————
Detoxifying was no simple matter, especially since Xie Bufeng’s body harbored several different poisons.
Wen Qingci changed the prescription again.
This new medicine, like the previous ones, was a strong dose.
After drinking it, there were side effects: dull pain in the organs, and coughing up blood.
Logically, after taking his medicine, he should have rested well.
But Xie Bufeng did not follow the doctor’s orders.
Barely the time it takes for an incense stick to burn after taking his medicine, he disappeared from the bedroom.
…He wondered if he was just overthinking it.
These last few days, the front halls seemed much livelier, with people coming and going.
Xie Bufeng had also become busier.
Though he knew the other was an emperor, with countless important matters demanding his attention and no time to delay, Wen Qingci still couldn’t help but worry when he thought about the side effects.
After hesitating for a while, he finally put down his medical texts for the moment, grabbed his medicine box, and hurried toward the front hall.
Sure enough, Xie Bufeng was in the side hall.
Seeing this, Wen Qingci couldn’t help but frown. “Your Majesty, you should be resting after taking your medicine. Why are you here?”
“Is my beloved minister concerned about me?” Xie Bufeng’s voice drifted over through the beaded curtain.
Wen Qingci paused, instinctively defending himself: “I’m just worried something might go wrong with the patient, and others would blame it on my lack of skill.”
The next moment, a suppressed cough came from the side hall.
Half of this side hall had originally been used for storing medicine, so it needed to be kept cool and dry at all times.
As a result, there were few windows in the room, and the lighting was somewhat dim.
At the moment, Xie Bufeng hadn’t lit all the lamps.
Everything was shrouded in shadows.
“Has Your Majesty been coughing up blood?” Wen Qingci quickly walked over.
“It’s nothing,” Xie Bufeng said, taking a sip of tea. “Just a simple cough. If you don’t believe me, you can come and see for yourself.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice.
As Wen Qingci approached, he saw that Xie Bufeng’s lips were a normal color and his complexion hadn’t changed.
The cough just now really didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Wen Qingci finally let out a breath of relief. “That’s good.”
The lamplight illuminated Xie Bufeng’s face; he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying Wen Qingci’s concern.
Those amber eyes stared intently at the person in front of him, his expression openly joyful.
Wen Qingci instinctively looked away.
A few seconds later, his gaze fell on the desk in front of Xie Bufeng.
A few years ago, when he had served the deposed emperor, Wen Qingci had gotten himself into quite a bit of trouble for getting too involved in politics.
He knew, as a physician, he shouldn’t be paying attention to such things.
But when he saw the words on the silk-handled scroll, Wen Qingci was so shocked he forgot to look away.
“What are you looking at?” Xie Bufeng’s voice suddenly rang out.
Wen Qingci immediately averted his gaze, realizing he had overstepped his bounds.
The thought made him a little nervous.
But Xie Bufeng’s reaction was different from what Wen Qingci expected.
“Sit, beloved minister.” As he spoke, Xie Bufeng, just as before, wrapped an arm around Wen Qingci’s waist and made him sit beside him.
His movements were utterly natural.
Then he gently picked up the item on the desk.
By the warm glow of the candlelight, Wen Qingci finally confirmed he hadn’t been mistaken-what was on the desk was indeed an imperial edict!
…And not an ordinary one.
“This is the decree to appoint the crown prince,” Xie Bufeng said with utter calm, as if it were no big deal. He even frowned and corrected himself, “No, it should be ‘Imperial Younger Brother.’”
“Your Majesty is appointing the second prince as Imperial Younger Brother?”
Wen Qingci’s heart suddenly sank, and for a moment he even forgot to push Xie Bufeng’s hand away and get up from the dragon bed.
Xie Bufeng had married his own “coffin.”
He would not take a wife, nor have children.
All of this had long been made clear, if unspoken.
But it wasn’t until he saw this edict that Wen Qingci truly realized just how serious Xie Bufeng was.
…So the recent bustle in the side hall was because of this.
Wen Qingci’s tone was a bit shocked.
But Xie Bufeng was completely different.
He didn’t answer Wen Qingci’s question directly, but instead corrected him seriously: “It’s ‘Prince Heng.’”
He had no consorts-where would a second prince come from?
Finally, he added lightly, “Xie Guanzhi may be a bit… immature, but he’s qualified to be a ruler who maintains the status quo.”
Xie Bufeng paused for a moment before finding a relatively suitable word.
But Wen Qingci guessed that what he really wanted to say was probably something like “a bit simple-minded.”
Xie Guanzhi’s personality was clear from the way he’d never understood “moderation,” never hid his brilliance, and nearly brought disaster on himself.
“After what happened with the deposed emperor, I think he’s matured a lot,” Xie Bufeng said.
Wen Qingci nodded slowly.
Betrayed by his father, nearly losing his life, and then confined for several years in the imperial monastery.
No matter what, Xie Guanzhi wouldn’t be as naive as before.
That might be a good thing for him as emperor.
Xie Guanzhi had a compassionate side, which made him unsuited for troubled times, but as Xie Bufeng said, he was indeed fit to be a ruler who maintained stability.
As he spoke, Xie Bufeng suddenly flipped open the memorial on the desk.
Wen Qingci looked down at his motion.
-The memorial was densely covered in red-inked comments, but the handwriting wasn’t Xie Bufeng’s.
“…These characters, are they Prince Heng’s?”
Xie Bufeng nodded slowly. “While I was in Lianhe, he was in charge of Yongdu, acting as regent.”
He flipped through the memorial as he spoke. “Xie Guanzhi’s performance was actually quite good.”
Wen Qingci clenched his fist.
When Xie Bufeng went to Lianhe, he took a group of people with him.
At the time, the plague was urgent and everyone was busy; no one had time to mention any of this.
Moreover, Xie Bufeng had gone incognito, pretending to be a patrol officer. To avoid exposing his identity, the imperial physicians had deliberately avoided talking about it.
Only now did Wen Qingci realize that Xie Bufeng had actually entrusted Xie Guanzhi with acting as regent…
This was no joke.
-Before leaving Yongdu, he had already arranged a fallback for the entire empire.
“So… Your Majesty, you did all this with the thought that you might…”
Wen Qingci hesitated for a long time, unable to utter the word “die.”
Xie Bufeng nodded gently, rubbing his chin against Wen Qingci’s forehead.
“That’s right,” he whispered by Wen Qingci’s ear, “I made all the necessary preparations.”
Of course-how could Xie Bufeng not know how dangerous Lianhe was?
He had been on the battlefield and knew well that on the road to the underworld, status and rank meant nothing.
An epidemic would not spare him just because he was emperor.
Wen Qingci suddenly turned and looked at Xie Bufeng.
The warm candlelight flickered in his pitch-black eyes:
“If Your Majesty guessed wrong and I was never there, or if I had truly already died… what would you have done after arriving?”
Even now, Wen Qingci did not know how Xie Bufeng had managed to find him, or how certain he had been that Wen Qingci was in Lianhe.
Hearing these words, a sharp pain pierced Xie Bufeng’s heart.
He realized that, even though Wen Qingci had survived and was sitting right beside him, he still did not dare imagine the possibility that Wen Qingci might truly have died.
The dragon bed was huge, suitable for sitting or lying.
Xie Bufeng slowly drew Wen Qingci into his arms, letting his ankle rest on the coiled dragon.
Realizing what he was stepping on, Wen Qingci immediately tensed up and began to struggle instinctively.
Xie Bufeng gently kissed Wen Qingci’s forehead, ignoring his protests.
“That would be just right.”
“…Just right?”
“Then I could go and look for you.”
Suddenly, Xie Bufeng reached out and pulled the jade hairpin from Wen Qingci’s dark hair.
In an instant, his black hair cascaded over his shoulders like a waterfall.
Under the lamplight, his features looked even more delicate and vulnerable.
“They say that, at the moment of death, it’s those closest to you who come to take you away… If you really left, wouldn’t that mean you’d come to fetch me?”
Xie Bufeng slowly smiled, and his tone was tinged with longing and anticipation.
“When that time comes, I’ll hold your hand tight, and in the next life, we’ll be reborn together.”
But fortunately, Wen Qingci was still alive.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait for the next life…
Xie Bufeng pressed a trail of gentle kisses to Wen Qingci’s forehead.
The person in his arms brushed his foot along the edge of the dragon bed.
Realizing he was stepping on the dragon, Wen Qingci started to struggle again: “-Your Majesty, let me down.”
But in the next moment, Xie Bufeng’s gaze suddenly grew unfathomably deep, and his breathing faltered for an instant.
Realizing something, Wen Qingci froze in place, ceasing all struggle.
