A Thousand-Mile Exile, An Encounter with an Old Friend - Chapter 12

When he saw the small calf, Zhu Qinghou brushed aside the silk over his eyes and blinked in surprise. “What is this?”

“A gift from Lou Changqing,” Li Zhen replied succinctly.

The gatekeeper had just reported that Lou Changqing had arrived at the entrance leading a cow, leaving behind this calf and a letter of gratitude.

Zhu Qinghou fell silent for a moment, engaging in a silent staring contest with the young animal. After a brief deliberation, he said, “Have someone send it back to him.”

“You don’t want it?” Li Zhen asked.

He had assumed Zhu Qinghou would enjoy such an eccentric, unconventional thing.

“What would I do with it?” Zhu Qinghou looked at the calf, a plan forming in his mind. “Have your men return it with great fanfare. Announce that it is a gift from the prince’s manor, intended for him to use to help the local people plow their fields.”

Li Zhen remained silent. Yongzhou was a remote place a land of swirling yellow sands and sparse arable land; most grain and supplies had to be brought in from elsewhere.

“If they can’t grow rice, they can grow something else,” Zhu Qinghou remarked. He had hand-picked Lou Changqing from that group of exiled officials, and he trusted his own judgment.

Hearing his enthusiastic tone, one might think he had already claimed Yongzhou as his own territory. Li Zhen neither agreed nor disagreed, simply doing as requested and having the calf sent back.

Thus a peculiar sight appeared on the main street: soldiers from the Prince’s manor led a calf, struggling to stop it from halting every few steps to graze on weeds. They led it all the way to the small lodge where the local officials stayed.

Lou Changqing, who had just finished tying his belongings to a bamboo pole in preparation for his journey to his new post, stared at the returning calf.

The calf stared back, huffing through its nose and letting out a soft lowing sound.

Under the watchful eyes of the public, Lou Changqing set off for his new appointment leading the calf. While other officials departed for their posts riding tall horses or seated in grand carriages with embroidered canopies, the gatekeeper at the magistrate’s office watched the dusty young man leading a cow and fell into a deep state of confusion.

“Is this official. the Cow Magistrate?”

The joke about the man leading a cow to his post spread instantly. When these harmless jests reached Zhu Qinghou’s ears, he didn’t laugh; instead, he continued to focus quietly on his calligraphy.

The phrase ‘When one bears the resentment of the people, every place is dangerous’ echoed frequently in his mind. Resentment and hearts, these two words churned repeatedly in the depths of his soul.

The people’s resentment could kill him, but their hearts could save him. Whether for life or death, he wanted to see for himself what it felt like to have the people on his side.

Lost in a whirlwind of thoughts, Zhu Qinghou stared at his handwriting. It was crooked and messy, completely unrecognizable.

He wanted to laugh at the sight of it, so he set down his brush, leaned back in his chair, and let out a low chuckle.

**

Li Zhen had grown increasingly busy lately. Yongzhou had a new provincial governor, and with the mess left behind by the previous administration to clean up, everything was in a state of reconstruction. He often didn’t return until the middle of the night.

In his absence, Zhu Qinghou didn’t even bother to pretend. He used the purple silk meant for his blindfold to tie up his hair instead, though he tied it so haphazardly that it leaned awkwardly to one side or the other. Uncle Cui could only shake his head at the sight, lamenting the decline of traditional morals.

Zhu Qinghou ignored him, keeping his hair bound with the purple silk as he wrote page after page of ugly characters. Once finished, he burned them all, refusing to let anyone see his work.

When Li Zhen stepped into the hall, he caught the faint scent of ash. He frowned slightly. “Does your hand still hurt?”

The attendants had reported everything Zhu Qinghou did in the hall—the practicing, the burning in meticulous detail.

“It hurts,” Zhu Qinghou admitted. He held out his hand, staring at his palm. “Xianpu, will I ever be able to write properly again?”

His tone was flat, devoid of his usual playfulness but also lacking any overt sadness, as if he were merely asking a casual question.

Li Zhen frowned and approached with his staff, reaching out for Zhu Qinghou to give him his hand.

There were still unwashed ink stains on Zhu Qinghou’s fingers. He hesitated for a second, then mischievously decided not to warn the other man as he placed his hand in Li Zhen’s.

Li Zhen grasped the slender, long fingers. They were well-defined but covered in thin calluses. He whispered, “With rest, it will eventually heal.”

How much time has passed? Zhu Qinghou wondered. Where did the man go who, just a short while ago, was gripping my throat and trying to kill me the moment we met?

He felt a sudden urge to laugh. He leaned his shoulder against Li Zhen’s chest, letting out a muffled “Mm.”

Li Zhen remained silent, gently stroking the soft, dark hair of the man in his arms, his thoughts unreadable.

“In a few days, I will send men to deliver this season’s tribute to the capital,” Li Zhen said, his hand still moving gently through Zhu Qinghou’s hair. However, the motion gave Zhu Qinghou a subtle sense of unease. In the darkness, he heard Li Zhen’s cool voice from above. “While they are there, they will look into those thirty million taels of silver.”

Zhu Qinghou stiffened slightly, the internal tension he had managed to relax suddenly snapping back into place. He feigned nonchalance, remaining still in Li Zhen’s arms, even idly playing with the ends of the white silk blindfold.

“If you send men to look, but you can’t move it immediately, you risk leaving clues for others to find. Someone else might get there first…” Zhu Qinghou trailed off, leaving the rest to the imagination.

Li Zhen actually laughed a rare occurrence. “No matter who finds it, it will remain within the Jin Dynasty regardless.” He asked in a gentle, hushed tone, “Xiao Yu, what are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid that once you see the gold and silver, you’ll turn cold and kill me on a whim.”

Zhu Qinghou lowered his voice, speaking with calculated ambiguity.

“I wouldn’t have the heart,” Li Zhen said, his voice a chilling blend of icy detachment and strange tenderness.

It was April now; the ice on the Huai River had finally thawed.

Thinking of this, Zhu Qinghou grew quiet for a moment. “Send your men, then.” Before the other could ask, he provided the answer: “It is beneath the Hall of the Secretariat in Yejing.”

Zhu Qingping had once been the Minister of the Secretariat. It wasn’t surprising that he had hidden the massive fortune within the very office he oversaw during its construction.

Only this could explain why the Minister of Justice and the highest officials had scoured Yejing from top to bottom and still found no trace of the silver.

Having obtained the information he sought, Li Zhen showed no sign of joy. His expression remained cold and calm, tinged with a dark intensity, as if he were looking through everything with indifference.

“I will send men to find it.” He withdrew his hand and said flatly, “Your hair has come loose.”

Zhu Qinghou started. He knew Li Zhen was aware he’d been using the blindfold as a hair tie. Just before Li Zhen entered, he had hurriedly untied it to cover his eyes, causing his hair to spill over his shoulders.

Li Zhen seemed to mention it only in passing and didn’t dwell on it. Zhu Qinghou simply removed the blindfold and began to tie his hair back properly.

Once Li Zhen had left, he sat back in his chair and slowly resumed his calligraphy practice.

When Zhu Xueting appeared, Zhu Qinghou was busy drawing turtles on the paper—circles within circles and crisscrossing lines, much like a three-year-old first learning to control a brush.

Zhu Xueting took one look and quickly averted his eyes from the page full of turtles. Zhu Qinghou used his hand to partially cover the drawings and smiled at him.

“Xueting, do you know how to write acrostic poems? Or perhaps poems where the message is hidden at the end of the lines?”

Lately, a new song had been spreading through the rugged lands of Yongzhou. It was called the Song of Light Taxation, praising the Emperor’s benevolence and the peace and prosperity of the common people.

Since Emperor Shun had recently reduced the tax increase, local governments were heavily promoting the song to glorify the Imperial name. The common people, hearing the upbeat and simple melody, were happy to sing a few lines in their spare time.

This was like forcing a “cap of virtue” onto the Emperor’s head. Even if he wanted to raise taxes again in the short term, he would likely be too embarrassed to lose face.

“If you read this poem diagonally, that is the true message being sent,” Zhu Xueting gestured with his hands.

Zhu Qinghou gave a light laugh, a smile so radiant that Zhu Xueting couldn’t help but daze for a moment. Before he could recover, Zhu Qinghou leaned forward and gently patted his head.

In that close proximity, the faint, elegant scent of the young man in purple drifted toward him. Zhu Xueting had never seen a night-blooming cereus, yet at that moment, he inexplicably thought of the flower a rare bloom in a golden pond, magnificent, lush, and exquisitely beautiful.

He stood perfectly still, letting Zhu Qinghou pat his head. But the other man soon withdrew his hand and leaned back into his chair.

“Do you want to leave this place?” Zhu Qinghou asked him.

Zhu Xueting froze. After a long silence, he nodded.

Zhu Qinghou wasn’t surprised by the answer. With Zhu Xueting’s talent, he deserved a much wider world than this.

“Do you know where your family is now?” Zhu Qinghou asked next.

Zhu Xueting blinked, then shook his head. Clearly, he had no idea.

“Would you like to go with them.” Zhu Qinghou paused, worried about eavesdroppers. He simply used two fingers to mimic a person walking. Watching the somewhat comical gesture, Zhu Xueting’s eyes began to well up with tears. It took Zhu Qinghou by surprise—why was the boy suddenly crying?

He had always felt that Zhu Xueting was like a younger version of Li Zhen—quiet, introverted, and a bit sensitive. Sometimes it was impossible to tell what he was imagining in his head.

Zhu Qinghou reached out and pulled Zhu Xueting into an embrace, just as he used to comfort Li Zhen when they were children. “Alright, cry if you need to.”

The young Li Zhen had rarely cried. Consort Cui couldn’t stand the sight of it, so even when he was wronged, he suffered in silence.

Back then, a small Zhu Qinghou would quietly hug him and say, ‘I’m here. You can cry out loud if you want to.’

Every time he did that Li Zhen, who was two years older would just look at him with those dark, quiet eyes. In his memory, Li Zhen’s eyes always held a spark, as if he were about to speak.

I’m not crying. I don’t want to cry, Zhu Xueting gestured to him.

His body was stiff, like a piece of wood in Zhu Qinghou’s arms, not daring to move an inch.

Li Zhen didn’t like to cry either, Zhu Qinghou thought. Noticing the boy’s stiffness, he let go, pulled back, and asked in a low voice once more: “Do you want to go with them?”

There was no need to specify who “they” were. Zhu Qinghou’s only remaining family was Zhu Liujun, but Zhu Xueting had a whole household. If they left on their own, he feared the Prince’s wrath would fall upon the remaining members of the Zhu clan.

Zhu Xueting hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded. Blood is thicker than water, after all; who could simply cast their family aside?

The most critical question remained.

Zhu Xueting’s family are they willing to go?

That was a problem for Zhu Xueting to solve; Zhu Qinghou didn’t care to interfere. He patted the boy’s shoulder. “When the time comes, take them with you. We will split into two groups to avoid drawing attention.”

Zhu Xueting said nothing and made no gestures. He just stared quietly at Zhu Qinghou with watery eyes, like a small animal about to be abandoned. It left Zhu Qinghou feeling somewhat perplexed.

“Never mind. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.”

Zhu Qinghou casually burned the paper, and the turtles sprawling across it turned to ash.

As he watched the embers, his thoughts drifted. He idly wondered if what Li Zhen said was true that if the Child parasite left the mother, it would result in a violent death.

He was curious to see if he would actually die.

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