PCA Chapter 189

Liu Cheng’s figure visibly froze, quickly turning his head to face the person outside the bars, immediately stunned in place.

 

In just an instant, Liu Cheng scrambled up from the ground and stood facing the wall, leaving only his back to the two of them.

 

“Zhongpei…” Cui Hao frowned, “Come here, look at me.”

 

“Who told you to come back!” Liu Cheng shouted angrily, “Go back to your Huizhou! This isn’t where you should be!”

 

“I won’t leave!” Cui Hao gripped the wooden bars tightly, “Wherever you are, that’s where I’ll be!”

 

Liu Cheng was furious. He knew this stubborn mule’s temperament—expecting him to leave on his own was unrealistic. He turned to Su Cen instead: “Lord Su, this isn’t proper procedure. Please take him away immediately!”

 

Su Cen said calmly: “If I don’t bring him here, he’ll block my front door. If my neighbors see him, I’m afraid of being implicated.”

 

Liu Cheng was speechless, forcibly suppressing the urge to turn around and give Cui Hao a thorough scolding, nearly choking on his anger. Didn’t this person understand his own situation? Running around showing his face in public—Su Cen lived in an area where high officials and nobles gathered. If someone saw him, the consequences would be unthinkable.

 

Unable to persuade, he switched to threats. Liu Cheng angrily said: “If you don’t leave, I’ll call for help!”

 

“Go ahead, call them. It would be best if they arrest me too,” Cui Hao smiled gently, “then I could be locked up next to you, and we could be together again.”

 

“You!” Liu Cheng was nearly driven to fainting by anger. Before he could figure out how to scold this stubborn fool awake, he heard Su Cen say: “You two talk first. I’ll wait outside.”

 

As Su Cen’s footsteps gradually faded from the prison, Liu Cheng’s voice also grew quieter, eventually falling silent. Those few sentences had exhausted all his strength. Now that his anger had dissipated, he stopped trying to persuade or scold, silently facing the wall without a word.

 

He had originally thought their farewell at the city gate would be forever, but now the person was standing here again. How could he bear to truly drive him away?

 

Cui Hao smiled gently, knowing this person was just being stubborn while reluctant to let him go. Pretending to be aggrieved, he pressed further: “Zhongpei, turn around and look at me.”

 

Liu Cheng hesitated, then raised his sleeve to wipe the dust from his face and used his hands to smooth his somewhat disheveled hair before turning around somewhat embarrassedly, looking at Cui Hao with pursed lips.

 

After waiting a moment and seeing Cui Hao still standing motionless, he frowned: “Am I ugly?”

 

Cui Hao came back to his senses, his nose suddenly stinging as tears surged up fiercely. Suppressing them, he forced a smile: “Not ugly, you’re handsome.”

 

“Nonsense!” Liu Cheng’s face reddened. In his current state, being presentable was already good enough—how could it have anything to do with being handsome? Embarrassed and angry, he was about to turn away again when Cui Hao hurriedly said: “Don’t, don’t go, you really are handsome!”

 

Then he looked at Liu Cheng seriously and emphasized again: “No matter what you become, I’ll always think you’re handsome.”

 

“Shameless,” Liu Cheng chided, then smiled gently, his gaze softening like a bright moon, just as it was in his memories.

 

“I can’t reach you,” Cui Hao reached through the wooden bars, “come here, let me get a good look at you.”

 

Liu Cheng stepped forward a few paces. Just as he reached the door, he was suddenly grabbed and bumped into the bars, seeing stars. Before he could recover, he was embraced through the bars.

 

Cui Hao took a deep breath near his ear, then slowly exhaled, clenching his teeth tightly, his voice seeming to squeeze from his very core: “I really, really never want to let you go again.”

 

With the cold wooden bars between them, Liu Cheng felt some pain from being held so tightly, but ultimately couldn’t bear to interrupt. His hands slowly encircled Cui Hao, gently patting his shoulder, as if comforting him while also greedily seeking this moment’s warmth.

 

“I’ve thought it all through. When you get out, we’ll travel the world together, visiting all the places you’ve wanted to go but couldn’t find time for. If we get tired, we’ll find a place to live in seclusion. We could go to my hometown, Hongzhou. Haven’t you always wanted to see that place that ’embraces three rivers and girds five lakes’? We could lease a few acres of lotus ponds, build a thatched cottage nearby, and raise some ducks. If you find them too noisy, we could raise geese instead.”

 

Cui Hao remembered what Su Cen had said—that Zhongpei was now determined to die, and he needed to rekindle his will to live. But once the words came out, he realized these words had been prepared in his heart thousands of times. Speaking them now felt like sailing downstream, and by the end, he didn’t know if he was trying to persuade Zhongpei or venting his own long-suppressed feelings.

 

Liu Cheng interrupted: “Geese are noisy too.”

 

“Then we won’t raise any. Whatever you want to raise, we’ll raise,” Cui Hao smiled gently, “cats, dogs, anything is fine. What matters is that we raise them together.”

 

Liu Cheng said: “Let’s raise a donkey.”

 

“A donkey?” Cui Hao was momentarily confused, then quickly said: “A donkey… a donkey works too. It can pull a mill and be ridden, and when we’re old and can’t move anymore, we can slaughter it for meat. You really think things through.”

 

Liu Cheng smiled softly, straightening up from Cui Hao’s embrace, looking at him with gentle eyes: “Then remember, you’ll have to do all of this for me.”

 

Cui Hao’s expression changed dramatically: “What do you mean ‘do it for you’? We’ll do it together!”

 

Liu Cheng shook his head: “You’re fine out there. I can’t drag you into this abyss too.”

 

Cui Hao was stunned, suddenly understanding Liu Cheng’s meaning.

 

“It may be fine outside, but without you, it’s nothing. If you’re in the abyss, then I’ll follow without hesitation!”

 

Cui Hao reached out to grab him, but Liu Cheng stepped back two paces to avoid him, lowering his head and saying softly: “I killed someone. I can’t get out.”

 

“You didn’t kill anyone!” Cui Hao shouted angrily, “It was that mother and son who made you do this, wasn’t it? Haven’t they harmed you enough all these years? Now they want you to clean up their mess too—why should you?!”

 

“Shut up!” Liu Cheng frowned, his gaze cautiously sweeping across every prisoner’s face around them. Only after confirming no one was eavesdropping did he breathe a slight sigh of relief, then glare angrily at Cui Hao. “Do you want to die?”

 

Cui Hao stubbornly shook his head: “My life belongs to you. If you die, I won’t live either.”

 

Liu Cheng retreated two more steps, hiding himself in the darkness. “You’re still young, you still have a bright future ahead. Though you’ve been demoted to Huizhou now, I’ve arranged everything. In a couple of years when things calm down here, I’ll find a way to transfer you back. Someone will naturally promote you then. Your career won’t end here, and you’ll meet someone better than me in the future. Why waste time on me?”

 

“Worthy of being Prime Minister Liu, arranging everything down to the smallest detail. First send me away to save my life, then when things blow over, bring me back to continue climbing the ranks and getting rich,” Cui Hao suddenly laughed. “But have you considered this—on the day of your execution, I’ll smash my head against the execution platform and die before you. Let’s see how you implement those plans and arrangements then?”

 

“Ah Hao…” Liu Cheng’s expression finally showed a moment of wavering. Just imagining that scene made his heart tremble. If Cui Hao really appeared at the execution ground, he would probably go mad on the spot.

 

After much internal struggle, he could only say: “I… I have no way out. From the moment I stepped into the Dali Temple, I already had no retreat.”

 

“Who says so?” Cui Hao’s eyes suddenly flashed. “In this court, it’s not just Empress Dowager Chu who holds all the power.”

 

“You mean…” Liu Cheng’s voice paused, then he shook his head soberly. “I’ve opposed him at every turn before. He should be the one most eager for my death.”

 

“But he has a weakness,” Cui Hao’s gaze swept lightly backward. “Su Cen doesn’t care about these things. All he wants is the truth. As long as we tell him everything we know, he’ll clear your name.”

 

“Su Cen…” Liu Cheng pondered for a moment. This past year, Li Shi’s favoritism toward Su Cen had been undisguised, sometimes even defying ancestral laws and customs. If not for this incident, he had planned to target Li Shi through Su Cen. Now it seemed this was truly the only way out.

 

“But why would he help me?”

 

“Because he hasn’t changed,” Cui Hao said with certainty. “Since entering court this past year, each of us has changed to some degree, but not him. He still maintains that youthful spirit. Back then, he could confront his superior for the sake of one life—though in the end it was that superior who left. Now he can also give us justice.”

 

Seeing Liu Cheng still hesitating, Cui Hao added: “Don’t you want to find the real killer who harmed Tian Pingzhi?”

 

Liu Cheng’s expression indeed stirred at this.

 

Cui Hao breathed a sigh of relief, though his heart ached faintly. If not absolutely necessary, he didn’t want to bring up Tian Pingzhi. He could see that Liu Cheng had some feelings for Tian Pingzhi. If Liu Cheng hadn’t been so slow to understand matters of the heart, he might have been won over by Tian Pingzhi back then.

 

Fortunately, Liu Cheng had been slow to react back then, and fortunately, he had appeared in time.

 

After a long while, Liu Cheng finally nodded lightly.

 

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