After everything at Feng Yiming’s grave was settled, it was already near noon. Zheng Yang pulled Su Cen from behind: “Brother Su, please accept my condolences. Let’s go back.”
Su Cen didn’t turn his head: “You go first. I’ll stay a little longer.”
Zheng Yang wanted to say more but was pulled away by Ning Santong, so he had to follow the crowd and leave first.
Su Cen stood for about the time it takes to burn an incense stick. When the crowd had gone far, he stepped forward and gripped the tombstone firmly: “Rest in peace. Leave the rest to me.”
Having said this, he turned and walked away without lingering.
Just past noon, Taiji Palace had just finished the midday meal. Su Cen waited outside the palace gates for most of an hour before the palace messenger returned, instructing “Follow this servant” and walking ahead without looking back.
Taiji Palace, along with Daming Palace and Xingqing Palace, were known as the “Three Great Inner Palaces.” After Li Shi occupied Xingqing Palace, Taiji Palace was now forcibly seized by Li Sheng. Of the renowned “Three Great Inner Palaces,” only Daming Palace truly remained for the emperor’s residence.
When Li Sheng first arrived, he still showed some restraint, living in what had been Prince Yu’s residence before Crown Prince Chongde’s investiture. Later, as his power grew, he became increasingly unrestrained, disregarding court protocols.
Even now, Su Cen couldn’t understand why Li Sheng harbored such hostility toward Li Shi when it was Emperor Taizong who had usurped Crown Prince Chongde’s position, followed by Emperor Shenzong Li Xun’s succession. Li Sheng seemed determined to imitate Li Shi in everything while trying to surpass him.
Unlike Xingqing Palace, Taiji Palace neighbored Daming Palace, with many outer court institutions located within Taiji Palace itself. If Li Sheng harbored treasonous intentions, this placement put him directly at the young emperor’s doorstep—just one step away should he choose to force the palace.
Taiji Palace actually consisted of three parts: the central Taiji Palace, with Yeating Palace and the Eastern Palace on either side. Li Sheng’s location was the former crown prince’s residence—the Eastern Palace.
Since the emperor was young and no crown prince had been established, this Eastern Palace had remained sealed since Crown Prince Chongde’s time. Su Cen had only glimpsed it from outside a few times and wasn’t familiar with its interior layout.
Following the eunuch inside, Su Cen was secretly amazed—every brick, stone, plant, and tree here was identical to that grand mansion at the Lu family estate. When the Yonglong Palace incident occurred, Li Sheng was only about ten years old, yet he had truly memorized every detail and recreated it at the distant Lu family estate.
Li Sheng was now reclining on a heated couch, holding a hand warmer and resting with closed eyes, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings.
Su Cen had no choice but to kneel: “Commoner Su Cen pays respects to Your Highness.”
Li Sheng looked down and smiled: “That day when I asked you to call me Your Highness, you stubbornly refused. Now you know how to read the situation.”
Back at the Lu family estate, when Li Sheng had asked Su Cen to call him Your Highness, Su Cen had thought it was just Li Sheng imitating Li Shi again, not realizing the significance of that identity.
“It seems this year’s trials weren’t wasted.” Li Sheng raised his hand, and Su Cen stood up. Too lazy to settle old scores with Li Sheng, he got straight to the point: “Where is Qu Ling’er?”
Li Sheng contentedly narrowed his eyes: “Qu Ling’er belongs to my Secret Door. Naturally, he’s with the Secret Door now.”
“You…” Su Cen stepped forward but forcibly stopped himself. With no support now, he could only humble himself and plead: “Don’t make things difficult for him.”
“Nations have laws, families have rules. Our Secret Door has its own arrangements for dealing with traitors,” Li Sheng raised an eyebrow. “Feng Yiming was one, and so is Qu Ling’er.”
Su Cen clenched his fist tightly. He had known Feng Yiming’s death was connected to Li Sheng, and since Li Sheng was admitting it now, it saved him from having to investigate further. He silently noted this debt—he would settle it sooner or later.
“Qu Ling’er originally defected from the Secret Door because you wanted to kill him. What he told me later was all what you wanted him to say through his mouth. Though he has no merit, he also has no fault. There’s no need for you to kill him.”
“The affairs of our Secret Door need not concern you.”
Su Cen pressed his lips lightly. Things hadn’t reached an irreversible point yet. Li Sheng still needed to keep Qu Ling’er to threaten Qi Lin, so his life shouldn’t be in immediate danger. The urgent matter at hand was to see Li Shi. Su Cen could only state his purpose: “I want to enter Xingqing Palace.”
“Oh?” Li Sheng looked up, a playful smile hanging at the corner of his lips. “You left in such a hurry last night—I thought you were rushing off to a secret tryst with a lover. Why didn’t you go in after all?”
Because you set two dogs at the gate to block the way. Su Cen’s gaze was sharp, as if he wanted to carve two gashes across Li Sheng’s face. “Since you agreed to let me investigate, you must give me the right to freely come and go. The deadline is year’s end. Your Highness gave your word—surely you won’t go back on it?”
“Sharp-tongued,” Li Sheng smiled lightly. His gaze caught sight of a maid coming to serve tea, and with one look he froze her in place. Turning back to Su Cen, he continued: “But the most important thing for clever people is knowing how to read the situation. You look too fierce—I don’t like it. You were better back at the Lu family estate.”
Li Sheng’s words carried deeper meaning. Su Cen looked at the maid holding the tea, then viciously pressed his fingertips into his palm before finally stepping forward to take the teacup from her hands and present it to Li Sheng: “Your Highness, please have some tea.”
Only when Su Cen’s fingertips turned slightly red from the hot teacup did Li Sheng take the cup, smiling lightly: “That’s much better.”
Su Cen directly threw the obtained hand edict in the face of the guard at the gate, surrounded by an aura of hostility, almost viciously commanding: “Open the gate!”
Seeing the hand edict, the two guards couldn’t say much more. They reluctantly turned back and opened just a small crack, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.
Su Cen stepped past the two men and pushed with all his strength. The door pivot creaked as it slid open, the two high gates swinging wide to reveal the magnificent jade towers and halls within.
Only then did Su Cen step inside.
When had the grand Xingqing Palace ever been so petty?
Entering with passion, Su Cen walked only a few steps before gradually slowing to a stop. Looking around, every brick and tile was familiar to him, yet somehow felt inexplicably strange.
After standing for quite a while, Su Cen finally realized what was wrong—it was too quiet. In this massive palace, he couldn’t see even a single person’s shadow. The lively scenes from the garden party were still vivid in his memory, but now all those people were gone. The shoulder-to-shoulder Three Guards of Tuduo were gone, the cold-faced Chen Ling was gone, even the cooks who had competed to show off their skills were gone.
Su Cen suddenly understood why Li Sheng hadn’t kicked someone when they were down by directly sending him to the imperial prison. He was making Li Shi guard this empty courtyard alone, watching the once-flourishing flowers and greenery slowly decay, the exquisitely carved beams and painted pillars gradually gathering dust. It was like slowly consuming a person’s soul from within—far more painful than physical torture.
Su Cen steadied himself and quickened his pace. After a few steps, he broke into a run as fear gradually crept into his heart. He suddenly became afraid that Li Shi was aging along with Xingqing Palace.
In the vast Xingqing Palace, he almost charged around blindly following memory—not at the lakeside pavilion, not at the Flower Calyx Mutual Radiance Tower, not in the sleeping quarters. He had always thought Xingqing Palace was large, but it had never seemed this large before. After aimlessly charging around for a long time, checking some places even two or three times with no results, one place gradually became clear in his mind.
It was where Li Shi usually spent most of his time, often staying until dawn because he was entangled with governmental affairs. Deep down, he had thought that without those endless memorials to review, Li Shi shouldn’t be staying there anymore. He had devoted so much heart and soul to this court situation, yet in the end was betrayed.
In the end, it was just his own unwillingness, while Li Shi had never harbored resentment from beginning to end.
Su Cen’s steps gradually slowed, each one taken with deep consideration. Finally, he simply stopped, gazing at that figure on the tower above. His vision suddenly became blurred.
Li Shi spent considerable effort carefully separating the tangled and twisted orchid root systems. Perhaps because he finally had time to tend to them now, these orchids had been growing wildly since winter began, with several actually bursting out of their pots. Taking advantage of the fine weather today with abundant afternoon sunlight, Li Shi found some empty flower pots to repot these plants. They had been neglected too long—the root systems were coiled and entangled together like an unravellable strand of silk.
Hearing a commotion, Li Shi looked up. His hands paused, and a section of root broke off in his grasp.
Su Cen climbed the steps, each one feeling like stepping on cotton. He had rushed all this way, abandoning everything to cross mountains and rivers, but now at these final steps, he suddenly couldn’t move forward.
He had a thousand things to say. All his grievances, unwillingness, and anger rolled in his throat several times, but finally he only asked with a light tremor: “These orchids… are still alive?”
Li Shi smiled. In those deep eyes was something familiar to him: “They’re all here. Why don’t you count them yourself and see if any pots are missing?”
Su Cen frowned at the mud covering the man’s hands: “Why do this work yourself?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he nearly bit his tongue. Now that Xingqing Palace was empty of people, who else could Li Shi wait for to do it if not himself?
But Li Shi didn’t mind, lowering his head to continue sorting the root systems while working: “When have I ever let others handle these flowers?”
Su Cen was startled, suddenly understanding as a surge of bitterness welled up. He had to bite his back teeth tightly to suppress it. He remembered now—when he was here, watering and fertilizing these orchids was always Li Shi’s personal task. Otherwise, how could these delicate little things have survived until now?
Back then, he had thought tending these orchids was just a hobby for Li Shi’s leisure time. Only today did he understand that Li Shi treated this as serious business, never handling it carelessly.
Momentarily speechless, Su Cen watched quietly as Li Shi gradually separated the complex root systems. Those hands had once commanded territories and defeated thousands of troops, now stained with mud and lingering among soil and ceramic pots, yet still pleasing to the eye.
After finally separating the two root systems and moving them to new pots, just as Li Shi reached out, Su Cen had already handed over the flower spade.
Li Shi smiled as he took it: “He who knows me is Zixu.”
The two worked together silently with perfect coordination. In no time, they had repotted both plants properly.
Li Shi stood up and stretched his back, washed his hands, and took the towel Su Cen handed him before asking: “When did you arrive?”
“Yesterday.” Su Cen pressed his lips and looked up. He had arrived yesterday but only came calling today. He deliberately didn’t mention last night’s troubles, wanting to see how Li Shi would react.
But he only saw the man shake his head: “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I shouldn’t have come—then who should? Feng Yiming?” The moment Su Cen spoke, he regretted it. Feng Yiming’s matter probably troubled Li Shi’s heart too. He softened his voice: “You said that if one day you lost all power and were ruined and disgraced, you wanted me to stay with you. Have you forgotten?”
“I regret it,” Li Shi sighed lightly. “I don’t want you to stay with me anymore.”
He reached up to touch a strand of hair at Su Cen’s temple that had become disheveled from running: “That joke shouldn’t have become your burden. I regret it. I want to see you marry and have children, living out your life peacefully and smoothly.”
“Marry and have children? Live peacefully and smoothly?” Su Cen tilted his head and smiled, raising his hand to wipe away tears from the corner of his eyes. When he looked up again, only bloodshot redness remained: “You almost got to see it, you know? Do you know how much effort I spent accepting that you would never be in my future life again? How much strength I used to get back up and start over? I was already standing in the wedding hall, facing Miss Wang—a renowned lady from Yangzhou—with a courtyard full of guests assembled. The three documents and six rites were just one step away… just one step! But I ran away, all for a piece of news about you that I didn’t even know was true or false!”
Li Shi frowned, unsure whether he was troubled by Su Cen’s marriage or blaming him for not completing the ceremony.
“I’m now betrayed by everyone, with a ruined reputation, having offended everyone I couldn’t afford to offend. You want me to live peacefully and smoothly—how can I live peacefully and smoothly?” Su Cen suddenly stepped forward. “Now we’re grasshoppers tied to the same rope—if we live, we live together; if we die, we die together. Do you understand?”
Those eyes looked at him with profound depth, but Su Cen knew he was about to surface.
“When something happened to you, everyone knew I would come back. Didn’t you think I would return?” Su Cen pressed closer inch by inch, his gaze burning as he demanded: “Did you think about it?”
Li Shi narrowed his eyes but hadn’t yet answered.
“Then what did you think?” Su Cen didn’t retreat but drew closer, reaching out to take Li Shi’s hand that wore the thumb ring, interlacing their fingers: “Did you think like this?”
He pulled that hand to rub against his face, then brought it to his lips for a gentle kiss: “Or like this?”
Then he pulled that hand downward, sliding along his smooth neck all the way down, touching the edge of his clothing where the skin was delicate, burning hot, rising and falling with his breathing: “Or perhaps…”
“Enough,” a sigh slipped out softly. Li Shi’s expression suddenly turned fierce as he grasped that wrist and hoisted the person up.
The world spun around. Su Cen’s forehead knocked against the man’s back and he hadn’t caught his breath when he was heavily placed on the extremely wide purple sandalwood desk where Prince Ning usually reviewed memorials. His head had been knocked, and Su Cen frowned. Before he could raise his hand, he was pinned to the desk surface with overwhelming force.
The pressure continued tightening. Su Cen felt all his bones aching from the restraint, with burning breath circling near his ear. He heard Li Shi sigh heavily: “I missed you to death.”
##
![Flying Dust [Fei Chen]](https://www.freenovels.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/9k.png "Flying Dust [Fei Chen]")