After Being Reborn, He Became an Undercover Agent by My Side - Chapter 3

“I know you’re up to something.”

Shi Zizhuo sneered. “It seems I was wrong. Your Highness is no caged beast or frog in a well.”

“Then what am I?” Jing Si asked with feigned patience.

Without a hint of modesty, Shi Zizhuo stood up from the water. He reached for a nearby towel and began to dry himself, completely ignoring the way Jing Si’s gaze clung to his bare skin.

“A lecherous scoundrel with no sense of propriety.”

“Not at all,” Jing Si replied smugly. “The lecher’s wife was ‘covered in scabs and boils,’ while you have a ‘waist like a bound silk sash and teeth like embedded shells.’ Clearly, I am not that lecher, but Song Yu himself!”

How can he be so utterly shameless!

Shi Zizhuo’s hand froze on his waist. He glared at Jing Si.

The lecher had slandered Song Yu to the King of Chu, claiming Song Yu was a beautiful man who loved to seduce others. Song Yu had retorted that his neighbor was a stunning beauty with a “waist like a bound silk sash and teeth like embedded shells,” and she had spied on him from her wall for three years, yet he never touched her. Meanwhile, the lecher’s wife was hideous and covered in sores, yet the lecher had five children with her. Clearly, the lecher was the true libertine.

By quoting this, Jing Si was not only comparing his own beauty to Song Yu’s but also praising Shi Zizhuo for being as lovely as the neighbor’s daughter. But since the two of them looked exactly alike, how could this not be the ultimate act of self-flattery?

Shi Zizhuo deliberately took the opposite stance. “Your Highness is being superficial. How can one judge a person’s worth by their looks alone? How do you know the lecher’s wife wasn’t a virtuous woman? If he was devoted to her, how can he be called lecherous? Why are Meng Guang and Liang Hong praised by the world, while Dengtuzi is viewed as the exact opposite?”

Jing Si’s interest was piqued, and he countered, “Setting aside Dengtuzi’s slander of Song Yu—which was a villainous act—let’s talk about his wife bearing five children. Ten months of pregnancy each time drains a woman’s life force. How is that the act of a devoted husband?”

Shi Zizhuo looked at Jing Si and asked slowly, “In your opinion, Your Highness, if a man avoids his wife to prevent pregnancy, is it better to have three or four concubines and not trouble the woman he loves?”

Jing Si’s expression cooled. “Of course not.”

The conversation had taken a turn, and both men grew distracted. Shi Zizhuo thought of his Consort Mother in the palace, who rarely smiled and now lived in seclusion as a Dowager Consort.

Suddenly, Jing Si said, “You’re coming with me to the palace tomorrow.”

Shi Zizhuo was so startled he nearly snapped his belt. “Have you gone mad?”

Jing Si beamed. “This Prince is perfectly sane. Consort Mother has never seen you. I’ll tell her we are twins, and that you were taken from the palace by villains. Let’s see if she believes it.”

“Your Ladyship will make you copy scriptures as punishment,” Shi Zizhuo said coolly.

Jing Si didn’t ask why the punishment would be copying scriptures instead of something else. He set the hand warmer on the table and leaned in with a grin, taking Shi Zizhuo’s hands in his. “Oh? Your hands are warmer than the hand warmer. Let me use them. If I’m punished with copying scriptures, you’ll do it for me, won’t you? I wonder if you can even read. Do you have a courtesy name?”

Shi Zizhuo naturally had no courtesy name. Even his given name, “Shi Zizhuo,” had been bestowed upon him by a Ghost Messenger. At the time, the Messenger had pointed to the dark waters of the River of Forgetfulness and said, “Your journey from here will be like a pebble falling into muddy water. To uncover the truth will be a thousand times more difficult. To bring some good luck, how about we call you—”

Before the Ghost Messenger could even finish his sentence, Shi Zizhuo had already thought to himself: How about Shi Zizhuo?

Coincidentally, the Ghost Messenger said, “Let’s call you ‘Shi Zizhuo.'”

He had never been given a courtesy name.

Shi Zizhuo told Jing Si, “I don’t have one.”

Jing Si’s eyes lit up. “Then I’ll give you one. Your name is ‘Zizhuo.’ How about ‘Buran’?”

Shi Zizhuo pulled his hands away to wipe his damp hair. “I’d prefer ‘Jinran,'” he said casually.

“This is a good one,” Jing Si said, clapping his hands. “Water falls, stones emerge; forests are fully dyed. Though they have nothing to do with each other.”

Shi Zizhuo ignored him. Jing Si continued on his own, “This Prince’s courtesy name is ‘Daizhi’.”

“Mm,” Shi Zizhuo replied perfunctorily.

Jing Si refused to let it go. “‘Mm’? What does that mean?”

Shi Zizhuo said, “I’ve heard you.”

Jing Si twirled a lock of Shi Zizhuo’s hair around his finger. “Why not call me by it? Let me hear it.”

Shi Zizhuo’s face remained expressionless. “Your Highness is trying to get me killed.”

“There’s no one else here,” Jing Si said, sitting on a stool and looking up at him with a smile. “No one will hear us.”

Shi Zizhuo replied, “I won’t call you that.”

“Jinran, Azhuo, dear brother,” Jing Si said, his words growing more nauseating with each name. “If you won’t call me by it, I’ll just keep calling you these names.”

Shi Zizhuo felt a shiver of disgust. “Who taught you these tricks?”

Jing Si waved it off carelessly. “This Prince is naturally gifted. Do you not like it?”

“What is there for your subordinate to like?” Shi Zizhuo said woodenly. “Did Your Highness not just warn me to be wary if you get too close?”

Jing Si laughed. “That warning wasn’t for you.”

Shi Zizhuo understood immediately. Jing Si was using Mi Yi to intimidate him, but his real target was Mi Yi himself.

But why? Shi Zizhuo wondered. In my past life, Mi Yi hadn’t done anything wrong at this point.

“Is Mi Yi hiding something?” Shi Zizhuo asked.

“He broke a bowl yesterday,” Jing Si said. “He’s getting careless, thinking he can get away with anything because I favor him.”

Shi Zizhuo didn’t buy it. A broken bowl was too trivial. If Jing Si didn’t want to reveal the truth, no amount of questioning would get it out of him.

“Aren’t you worried that I’m hiding something too?” Shi Zizhuo asked.

“I know you are,” Jing Si replied matter-of-factly.

“You know?” Shi Zizhuo stopped drying his hair.

Jing Si started playing with the ends of Shi Zizhuo’s hair again. “Of course. A man who looks exactly like me, with a fresh scar on his face, just happens to run into my ‘best friend’ on the street. There are too many coincidences.”

Shi Zizhuo was baffled. “Then why did you still…”

Jing Si let go of his hair and tugged at his collar, pulling Shi Zizhuo down to his level. His eyes curved into a smile. “Because it’s amusing. I’ve never seen my own face like this before.”

The face he had seen countless times in the mirror was now inches away. Shi Zizhuo’s gaze darkened as he stared into the shimmering phoenix eyes before him, a strange sensation suddenly surging through his heart. It was an overwhelming feeling, one he had never experienced before, and thus he couldn’t name it.

Shi Zizhuo slowly raised his hand. His thumb traced the curve of Jing Si’s Adam’s apple while his other four fingers gripped the back of Jing Si’s neck. “Your Highness, aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you?”

Jing Si’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “If you were an assassin, you wouldn’t need to change your face. You could have just drawn your blade and killed me the moment Ji Shugui brought you here. The fact that you went to such great lengths to get close to me means your goal is far more complex than simply taking my life. Therefore, until you, or rather, your people—get what you want, my life is safe.”

Shi Zizhuo sneered. “Your Highness is far too confident.”

The five fingers gripping Jing Si’s throat slowly tightened, and a faint blush gradually spread across Jing Si’s face. Tears welled in his eyes as his lips parted, taking small, desperate gasps of air.

The instinct to survive should have made him struggle, but Jing Si remained perfectly still. He seemed certain that Shi Zizhuo wouldn’t kill him, or perhaps he was simply willing to die at his hands.

Shi Zizhuo watched Jing Si’s trembling eyes with a cold expression, his grip remaining merciless. This man was him, yet he was not him. He wanted to conquer him, and he also wanted to be conquered by him.

After a long moment, Shi Zizhuo abruptly let go. Just as he was about to step back, a pair of arms suddenly wrapped around his shoulders.

The moment he was freed, Jing Si gasped, but he found he could barely draw a full breath. The tears he had been holding back streamed down his cheeks. Unable to breathe on his own, he mustered all his remaining strength to cling to the man’s shoulders.

Lips pressed against lips. Shi Zizhuo’s eyes widened in shock, and he was about to push him away when Jing Si, dazed and gasping like a fish out of water, murmured, “Save me…”

Shi Zizhuo’s heart skipped a beat.

This is me!

Yes, this is me…

Without another thought, Shi Zizhuo pressed down hard, breathing into Jing Si’s mouth. “Breathe in,” he commanded coldly.

“Wrong.” Shi Zizhuo gripped Jing Si’s jaw. “This is how you inhale.”

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