A Thousand-Mile Exile, An Encounter with an Old Friend - Chapter 6

Zhu Qinghou froze, surprised that Li Zhen could actually hear him. “You heard wrong,” he replied, his tone gentle and helpless as if he were a victim of a sudden, undeserved grievance. “Why would I ever curse you?”

Fortunately, Li Zhen didn’t press the matter. He reached out again, his fingertips searching the air for a few moments before lightly brushing against Zhu Qinghou’s face. Without sight, Li Zhen relied entirely on touch and sound to construct a vivid image of the man before him.

Zhu Qinghou had gradually grown accustomed to the other’s touch. Li Zhen had beautiful hands fingers long, clean, and well-defined—but his movements were unsettling. It wasn’t so much a caress as it was a form of exploration and verification. His palm would cover Zhu Qinghou’s face, fingertips tracing his features from top to bottom, even pressing against the eyelids to feel the movement of the eyes beneath.

It was a silent form of control.

Zhu Qinghou’s chest rose and fell, his heart thumping with a sudden, unexplainable nervousness. The feeling Li Zhen gave off was truly strange. It seemed the Su Manor was not a place where he could stay for long.

**

With Li Zhen’s tacit permission, Zhu Xueting was allowed to stay. The young man, who had just come of age, was timid. He used his bangs to hide the brand on his forehead and followed Zhu Qinghou everywhere, always trailing half a step behind and never uttering a single word.

Sensing something was wrong, Zhu Qinghou handed a bowl of freshly brewed snow-pear soup to Xueting and asked casually, “Can your voice still be recovered?”

Zhu Xueting’s hand stiffened as he took the cup. He shook his head, silently mouthing the word: Unknown.

Extreme terror can cause a person to lose their voice. Xueting had witnessed the horrors of the Ministry’s dungeons; he had been so paralyzed by fear that he hadn’t dared to make a sound. By the time he left the prison, he realized he could no longer speak.

Zhu Qinghou didn’t ask for details, but he could guess well enough. He patted Xueting on the shoulder, his eyes flashing with a sudden, firm certainty. “Don’t worry, it will come back. Drink more of the pear soup.”

Zhu Xueting stared at his reflection in the liquid and nodded. After finishing the soup, he hesitated, then gestured with his hands: Let’s run away. Let’s go far away and not stay in the Su Manor.

Watching the boy’s gestures, Zhu Qinghou was reminded of that year at the Lanting gathering. The refined, scholarly youth had composed a five-character poem about the suffering of the common people, drawing the attention of everyone present and earning his family the chance to be recognized as a branch of the Zhu clan.

That scholarly pride and those dreams of fame had vanished along with the fall of the Zhu family.

“Alright,” Zhu Qinghou nodded. “If the opportunity arises, we will run away.”

A small smile finally broke across Xueting’s face, as if he had glimpsed a sliver of hope.

Zhu Qinghou looked out at the thin layer of snow, recalling the lines of a poem: Everyone speaks of the snow as a sign of a bountiful year; but what of the reality of such a year? There are poor people in Chang’an; for them, such “signs” should not be many.

Beside him, Xueting was also remembering that poem. Back then, the seats were filled with the elites of the capital. When they heard his poem satirizing the wealthy, the room had fallen into a heavy silence. It was Zhu Qinghou who had been the first to cheer for him. He remembered the scene vividly—the young man in purple standing up with a laugh, unfastening his gold and white jade ornaments and tossing them onto the table.

“I lack your literary talent,” Zhu Qinghou had said, “so I’ll just remove this ‘stinking’ wealth of mine to provide some winter clothes for the people.”

Because he spoke first, the others had scrambled to unfasten their own treasures. In an instant, the table was piled high with jewels. That day, the poem had made him famous, fulfilling his family’s wish to climb the social ladder.

As much as his family had thanked him then, they hated him now.

“Xueting,” Zhu Qinghou’s voice snapped him back to reality. “Go build a snowman for me to play with.”

Xueting blinked, then went into the courtyard as requested. The snow in the borderlands melted slowly; it piled up on the ground like coarse salt, forming a thick, white quilt. Zhu Qinghou didn’t stay idle either, joining him in the snow. Seeing the gloom lift from Xueting’s brow, Zhu Qinghou smiled. “You’re so handsome; you should smile more often.”

Coming from anyone else, the words might have sounded flirtatious. Coming from Zhu Qinghou, they were lazy and natural.

Xueting turned his head away, not wanting Zhu Qinghou to see the brand on his forehead. Unlike the permanent brand on Zhu Qinghou’s brow, his was a tattoo a lighter punishment where the ink would gradually fade over time. Even so, he was ashamed, especially in front of Zhu Qinghou.

The snowman in the courtyard slowly began to melt.

Over the next few days, Li Zhen began returning later and later, the scent of blood on him growing heavier. He was likely busy with the season’s tax collection in Yongzhou. Zhu Qinghou pretended not to notice. Since Li Zhen wouldn’t kill him and didn’t want him involved, he was happy to enjoy his leisure.

But within the quiet, eerie atmosphere of the Su Manor, a sudden change occurred.

During the morning meal, Li Zhen had already left. Zhu Qinghou was watching the snow from the veranda. Usually, Xueting would have been up by this hour, but today he was nowhere to be found. Sensing something was wrong, Zhu Qinghou looked toward the guards.

The guards were watching him with an intensity that bordered on suspicion, as if he had committed some unspeakable crime.

Zhu Qinghou thought for a moment, then stood up and walked toward them. “Where is Uncle Cui?” he asked with a smile. “I wish to see him.”

Uncle Cui would certainly know where Xueting was.

However, the entire morning passed without anyone appearing. No matter how Zhu Qinghou tried to fish for information, he couldn’t get a single word out of the guards.

Finally, at midday, Li Zhen returned, and with him was Zhu Xueting, held by guards.

“Zhu Qinghou,” Li Zhen said, his voice level and his question direct. “Did you send him to my study to steal documents?”

The documents in Li Zhen’s inner hall were all written in punctured code; unless one was trained to read them, they were indecipherable. Only the records in the front study were written in standard script. Before dawn, the guards had caught Xueting acting suspiciously outside the study and had detained him to wait for the Prince’s judgment.

Zhu Qinghou looked at Xueting. The boy was pale, kneeling on the ground and shaking his head frantically, trying to explain with his silent throat. He was mouthing: No one ordered me. I did it alone. Kill me, cut me, it has nothing to do with anyone else.

Averting his eyes from the boy’s desperate struggle, Zhu Qinghou nodded slightly and looked directly at Li Zhen. “I forced him to do it,” he confessed softly.

Upon hearing the confession, Li Zhen became strangely calm. “You wanted to know the taxes of Yongzhou that badly?”

“Yes,” Zhu Qinghou stood up and walked straight to Li Zhen. “I wanted to know. I wanted to know how much the court has increased taxes using the Zhu family’s ’embezzlement’ as an excuse. I wanted to know how much pressure Yongzhou is under.” He stopped and lightly tapped Li Zhen’s chest over his heart. “And I wanted to know how many people you’ve killed these past few days.”

Yongzhou was a border town surrounded by vast sands. In spring, the dust filled the sky; in winter, the snow blocked the rivers. Before entering the city, he had observed this strategic location there was no land to farm and a shortage of drinking water. There were only massive stones standing in the perennial ice and snow.

Where would the cattle, sheep, silver, and gold demanded by the court come from?

From the people, of course. Either the commoners or the officials. If you didn’t want to cut into the people, you had to cut into the officials.

That was why Zhu Qinghou asked how many people Li Zhen had killed.

A dead silence fell over the room. No one had expected Zhu Qinghou to be so bold. Li Zhen was quiet for a moment, then suddenly mentioned Xueting. “He was coerced into framing you. You didn’t know?”

At those words, Xueting’s rigid back trembled. He lowered his head, not daring to look at Zhu Qinghou. The atmosphere was thick with tension.

Zhu Qinghou gave a light laugh, brushing the subject aside. “Who hasn’t been forced by circumstances?” He reached out and took Li Zhen’s hand. The Prince’s fingers were so icy that Zhu Qinghou instinctively flinched. “Xianpu, give me a chance to stand by your side, alright?”

The son of a traitor, the descendant of a criminal official… the resistance and disdain he would face if he meddled in the affairs of the fief were self-evident.

Uncle Cui, standing behind Li Zhen, felt a surge of complex emotion. Zhu Qinghou could have done nothing. He could have hidden in the Su Manor, relying on a thread of childhood affection, and waited for the Prince to resolve the tax issue. At the very least, he would have lived longer.

Instead, he had chosen to step into the fire.

“Uncle Cui,” Zhu Qinghou said, glancing at the old man. “Xueting is frightened. Please look after him.” His tone was so composed and familiar that one might have thought Uncle Cui was his servant rather than Li Zhen’s.

Li Zhen’s long fingers slowly tightened, gripping Zhu Qinghou’s hand in return. “Why should I trust you?”

Zhu Qinghou didn’t flinch. He leaned in, his warm breath brushing against the young Prince’s neck. “Because my life is in your hands.” In the intimacy of the moment, he whispered, “My life, my sister’s life, and the lives of the entire Zhu clan are all in your hands.”

Wealth, gold, and jade—Zhu Qinghou was born with it all. He could throw it away for a game or toss it aside with ease. But his life was the one thing he would not throw away. He valued his life above all else. Seeking profit and avoiding harm was his instinct.

In the darkness, Li Zhen squeezed his fingertips, playing with them slowly. These were slender fingers, elegantly bony, raised on luxury but now marked by the hardships of his journey, the pads of his fingers slightly roughened.

“Have someone bring the medicine,” Li Zhen said coolly.

Zhu Qinghou blinked, feeling a sudden, baseless fear. Instinct told him this “medicine” was nothing good.

“There is a type of parasite in the borderlands. I went through great trouble to find it,” Li Zhen said, his voice calm as if he were telling a trivial story. “The ‘child’ parasite cannot be far from the ‘mother’ parasite. The further the distance, the more heart-wrenching the pain, until a sudden death occurs. If the mother dies, the child dies as well.”

He lowered his voice, asking tenderly, “Xiaoyu, I found this specifically for you. Do you like it?”

The calm, gentle tone sent a shiver down Zhu Qinghou’s spine. He stared at the bowl of black medicine and said nothing. Everyone in the Su Manor watched him, their cold gazes ready to pierce holes through him, waiting only for the Prince’s command to deal with this beautiful, insolent prisoner.

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