After Pretending to be an Idiot, I Was Targeted by the Cold-Blooded Zhangyin - Chapter 12

The Old Emperor eventually finished his drunken antics and grew tired. Muttering “A’Lan” under his breath, he crawled groggily onto the bed. A beautiful consort sat by the window, hand-feeding him pieces of fruit.

Xie Changsheng sat on the floor, entertaining the little princess. He held up two fingers and asked, “What is this?”

The little princess replied timidly, “It’s Third Brother’s hand.”

“Wrong!” Xie Changsheng wobbled his head. “These are rabbit ears.”

He asked again, “What is one plus two?”

The princess said, “Three.”

“Wrong!” Xie Changsheng laughed. “Haven’t you heard that ‘Three begets all things’? One plus two is ten thousand!”

The little princess blinked in confusion. “…”

Xie Changsheng asked a third time, “There is a word that everyone pronounces wrong. What word is it?”

The little princess knit her brows and thought for a very long time. “I don’t know. What is it?”

Xie Changsheng burst out laughing. “The word ‘wrong’!”

Having stumped the princess with three riddles, Xie Changsheng grew boastful. He stood with his hands on his hips and laughed loudly. “I am the smartest person under heaven!!”

Beside them, Gu Feiyi’s hand twitched as he listened. For the first time, he made a rare mistake while writing on a memorial. Instead of “No need to petition again,” he had written “Idiot.”

He reached out and tore the memorial up. Hearing the noise, Xie Changsheng turned to look. Gu Feiyi gave him a smile, but his gaze was chilly, carrying a hidden threat. Xie Changsheng shrank back, feeling both frightened and bewildered.

Once the Old Emperor fell asleep, the consort took the little princess and left. Xie Changsheng wanted to leave too—he felt incredibly uncomfortable here. He would rather be locked in a cage with two Siberian tigers than spend another moment alone with the Old Emperor and Gu Feiyi.

He shrank behind the consort, trying to follow her out. As he passed Gu Feiyi, Xie Changsheng muttered under his breath, “You can’t see me, you can’t see me, you can’t see me…”

Gu Feiyi: “…” Pure self-deception.

He watched with amusement as Xie Changsheng shuffled toward the door. Just as the boy’s foot was about to cross the threshold, Gu Feiyi played a mischievous trick. He tapped his slender finger against the edge of his desk. “Little Highness, come here.”

Xie Changsheng’s face instantly collapsed. The consort and the little princess both cast him a sympathetic look and left without looking back.

Xie Changsheng: “…” Seriously? No comrade-in-arms spirit at all?!

Xie Changsheng stood there hesitating for a long time. Finally, perhaps remembering the threat of being caned if he didn’t listen, he moved back with a bitter face, taking tiny, reluctant steps.

“What is it?” he asked Gu Feiyi gruffly. “I’m not a man of leisure, I’m very busy! I still have to go play in the garden!”

Gu Feiyi’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “This servant found processing memorials boring today and wanted someone by my side to talk to.”

Xie Changsheng was immediately distracted. “Talk? What do you want to talk about? I’m the best at talking.” He plopped down beside Gu Feiyi.

He asked, “How about I tell you a story? Do you want to hear the story of the Three-Body Aliens vs. Ultraman, or the one about the Soldier King’s Counterattack?”

“Failing that, I can teach you physics! Heh heh, do you know why apples fall from trees?”

Gu Feiyi watched him calmly. He realized he had become accustomed to Xie Changsheng saying at least three or four words per sentence that he didn’t understand. If he tried to argue with a fool, there would be no end to it.

So, he simply said, “Little Highness, you are sitting on this servant’s sleeve.”

“Oh,” Xie Changsheng said, lifting his hips to pull the fabric out from under his backside.

Gu Feiyi smoothed the wrinkles in his sleeve with his fingers, looking perfectly elegant. Once he had straightened his clothing, he picked up a memorial. His gaze swept from top to bottom, and he let out a soft tsk. Suddenly, he turned to Xie Changsheng.

“Little Highness,” he asked slowly, “I am holding something in my left hand and my right hand. Do you choose the left or the right?”

Xie Changsheng looked at him strangely. “Holding something? You’re lying. Your hands are clearly empty.”

Gu Feiyi’s eyes curved, but he didn’t answer. He simply tilted his chin. “Little Highness, left or right?”

Xie Changsheng knit his brows and thought for a long time. Finally, he said cautiously, “I choose the middle.”

Gu Feiyi: “No. You must choose one.”

Xie Changsheng could only say, “Then I choose the left!”

Gu Feiyi smiled. “It seems this Master Sun keeps his life.”

…What did that mean? Choosing left meant Master Sun lived? If he had chosen right, would this Master Sun have lost his life?

Xie Changsheng broke into a cold sweat. Yet Gu Feiyi wasn’t done playing. He pulled out another memorial, glanced at the name, and asked with a light smile, “This time? Left or right?”

Xie Changsheng became timid; how could he dare speak?

Damn it! He was just a delicate male college student who wouldn’t even step on a bug—excluding cockroaches and mosquitoes! How could he casually decide someone’s life or death?! The feeling of treating a human life like a toy made his scalp tingle.

Gu Feiyi pressed him: “Hmm? Pick one.”

Xie Changsheng stared at him blankly, then suddenly grabbed his stomach. “So… so strange.”

“What is it?”

“My stomach is making noises, and it hurts. Why?” He thought hard for a while, then adopted a look of sudden realization. “Oh, right! I’m hungry! It turns out I’m just hungry!”

His tone was so excited, it was as if he had solved a mystery of the century.

Remarkably, Gu Feiyi allowed himself to be fooled by this simple tactic. His gaze landed on Xie Changsheng’s lips, and he seemed to be in a good mood. “This servant will have the Imperial Kitchen send lunch over.”

By the time lunch arrived, the Old Emperor had woken from his stupor. He still remembered what Xie Changsheng had said before he fell asleep. Muttering “A’Lan, A’Lan,” he jumped off the bed to find his son.

Xie Changsheng jumped up as if pricked by a needle, wanting to run. But Gu Feiyi pressed him back down.

Gu Feiyi said, “Your Majesty, you are drunk. You should rest more.”

It was a simple sentence, yet the Old Emperor actually listened. He rubbed his hands together and sat back on the couch with a fawning smile. Xie Changsheng watched in amazement.

In the original novel, the author wrote that the Emperor loved Xie Changsheng and Gu Feiyi most. But Xie Changsheng realized these “loves” were completely different. The Emperor’s love for the original Prince was like the affection for a pet. For Gu Feiyi, however, the roles were reversed. It felt as if the Emperor was the one being tamed by Gu Feiyi.

Xie Changsheng instinctively looked back at Gu Feiyi. He immediately met those narrow, dark, and indifferent eyes. They were like a black panther hiding in the night—wild and full of killing intent. It was as if Gu might lunge out and tear two bloody holes in someone’s throat at any second.

“What is it?” Gu Feiyi asked.

Xie Changsheng reached out blankly and stroked Gu Feiyi’s face. “Your face is so white. It’s as white as a steamed bun.”

Gu Feiyi: “…”

Gu Feiyi usually loathed being touched. He always felt other people had invisible filth on their hands. But this time was different. Although he knew Xie Changsheng’s hands were often covered in mud and grime, Xie was different. Xie Changsheng was a little toy he had decided to take under his wing. As the “Master,” he had to show a bit more endurance.

However, the comparison was a headache. Others were described as “fair as paper,” “fair as the moon,” or “fair as daylight.” Why did it become a “steamed bun” when it came to Xie Changsheng?

Gu Feiyi’s thin lips opened, closed, and opened again. He slowly squeezed out a few words: “You gluttonous brat.”

As they spoke, the food from the Imperial Kitchen was delivered. About twenty varieties of exquisite dishes were spread across the table, looking incredibly beautiful. Usually, Xie Changsheng’s meals were fine enough, but here at the Emperor’s, there were many dishes where he couldn’t even identify the ingredients.

He had been called away by Yang Luo to Gu Feiyi’s place early in the morning. It was now afternoon and he hadn’t eaten. He was indeed starving. After receiving Gu Feiyi’s permission, he sat down and began to eat. He even invited the Emperor, Gu Feiyi, and Yang Luo (who was waiting outside) to join him.

However, his invitation had little effect. The Emperor said he was too lazy to get up and summoned several beautiful maids to feed him wine and food while he leaned on his pillows. Gu Feiyi said he wouldn’t eat. And Yang Luo? How could she dare sit at the same table as the Emperor and the Palm Print?

Xie Changsheng was happy to be left alone and began to feast. He intentionally acted the part of a fool, eating with zero regard for his image. But a truly handsome person can only look so ugly. A starving person can make eating dirt look like a delicacy.

Xie Changsheng, handsome and hungry, stuffed his mouth full, eating with such gusto that everyone’s eyes eventually shifted to him. They watched him slurp down osmanthus pudding, gnaw lamb meat off a bone, and stuff eggplant into small buns to eat in one bite until his cheeks were bulging.

Xie Changsheng noticed the stares. Are they treating me like a Mukbang streamer? He felt a bit embarrassed and buried his head to stuff even more food into his mouth.

Gu Feiyi watched his opening and closing lips and the way he chewed with such vigor. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction. He couldn’t help but chuckle softly to himself, “Little hungry ghost.”

By the time he returned to Yuling Palace, Xie Changsheng felt like his body was falling apart. Yang Luo laughed as she saw him sprawled on the bed like a pile of limp mud. She asked in confusion, “Little Highness, you didn’t run around today. you just sat there and ate delicious food. Why are you so exhausted?”

“You don’t understand,” Xie Changsheng said weakly. “The former is a paid vacation; the latter is a corporate team-building event on a weekend.”

Being stared at by the Emperor and Gu Feiyi all day made him feel as if all his strength had been sucked dry. He seriously suspected those two were draining his yang energy. Give me back my prime virgin vitality!

Xie Changsheng stayed in bed for three full days like he was recovering from childbirth. Finally, he felt alive again. He stood up to stretch, planning to continue his “sculpting empire” in the garden, when someone burst through the door.

“Little fool!”

Xie Hemiao, dragging his bad leg, walked toward him at a brisk pace.

“Ah, Second Brother,” Xie Changsheng called out blankly.

“How is it that after not seeing you for a few days, you look even more dazed and stupid?” Xie Hemiao smiled and grabbed Xie Changsheng’s wrist. “Come. Today there is a spectacle involving the Palm Print to watch. Second Brother will take you to see the fun.”