Sickly Jade - Chapter 9

The tight furrow of the Grand Preceptor’s brow felt like a blade plunging ruthlessly into Qi Chu’s heart.

“You are unwilling… why?”

Ye Shaoyun replied, “Unwilling means unwilling. Why must there be a reason?”

Qi Chu’s gaze shifted, a sudden surge of murderous intent flashing in his eyes. “Is it because of… because of General Ye? Ye Xiao?!”

The wind outside the window died down. The atmosphere inside the room grew as taut as a tightly wound instrument string, yet Ye Shaoyun slowly relaxed. “It is not because of anyone.”

“Not because of anyone?” Qi Chu stared into the Grand Preceptor’s eyes, his own brow gradually knitting together in blatant disbelief.

After a moment, a wave of sorrow surfaced in his eyes. “This is the first time you have ever refused me.”

Ye Shaoyun leaned back with casual indifference. “Then what does Your Highness intend to do? Were you planning to force yourself on me again, just like you did at the inn?”

The early morning air fell utterly still; one could have heard a pin drop.

It was as if Qi Chu was instantly jolted awake from his fury. Confronted by Ye Shaoyun’s scrutinizing gaze, he actually showed a trace of retreat. “What is the Grand Preceptor talking about?”

Ye Shaoyun’s face bore no particular expression, yet Qi Chu could clearly read the profound disappointment written across it.

“You know exactly what I am talking about.”

As those thin lips parted to speak, Qi Chu straightened his posture and stepped back. Suddenly, Ye Shaoyun lunged forward, his slender, pale fingers violently clamping around the Crown Prince’s throat.

“Ugh!”

Qi Chu did not resist. He allowed himself to be thrown down by the force, a sudden wave of suffocation crashing over him.

Ye Shaoyun looked down coldly at Qi Chu pinned beneath him, gradually increasing the pressure of his grip.

As the two locked in this tense standoff, Qi Chu’s face flushed a deep, suffocating purple. Still, he did not utter a single word. His dilating pupils quietly watched his Grand Preceptor, as Ye Shaoyun’s cascading white hair brushed gently against his cheeks.

The doors to the bedchamber were blown open by the wind. The draft sweeping through the hall slipped between the two of them, gradually extinguishing the flames of Ye Shaoyun’s anger.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?”

Ye Shaoyun exhaled deeply, the grip of his hand slowly loosening.

Having been deprived of oxygen for so long, air suddenly flooded back into his lungs. Qi Chu gasped violently for breath, coughing hard twice. When he finally looked up, his eyes were shot with broken blood vessels.

“Because… I do not believe the Grand Preceptor would truly kill me.”

Ye Shaoyun flicked his sleeve and sat up straight, his gaze remaining frigid. “What a fine ‘disbelief.’ If I had applied just a fraction more strength, you would have lost your life in an instant.”

Supporting himself against the daybed, Qi Chu slowly sat up. His breath had not yet fully steadied, and his chest heaved violently. “So, did that appease the Grand Preceptor’s anger?”

“No.”

Qi Chu lowered his eyes, adopting a submissive demeanor. He stared at Ye Shaoyun’s pale, delicate fingers; the fingertips were flushed red from the pressure. He reached out to cradle them, gently kneading them as he spoke: “Then what should I do? I no longer know how to please the Grand Preceptor.”

“Please me?” Ye Shaoyun frowned once more. “You think this is pleasing me?”

Qi Chu opened his clear, innocent eyes, looking at him helplessly. “What did I say wrong? Every time I do something wrong, the Grand Preceptor warns me like this, and then your mood improves considerably. Since you like this, I will naturally comply.”

“……”

Ye Shaoyun withdrew his hand, falling into a brief moment of self-doubt. Where exactly did things go wrong?

The warning had failed to serve its purpose; instead, it had turned into a twisted method of atonement.

Over the years, he had strictly followed the strategy manual for raising a rising emperor. Though he had mixed in some personal innovations along the way, it shouldn’t have broken the man into something like this.

“What if I really did kill you?”

Sensing the genuine murderous intent blooming in Ye Shaoyun’s eyes, a slow grin spread across Qi Chu’s face, as if he couldn’t care less. “Then I suppose I truly deserved to die. To die by your hand leaves me with no regrets.”

Ye Shaoyun: “……”

For a split second just now, he had genuinely wanted to choke Qi Chu to death. To dare treat him that way, only to wear such an expression afterward he was a complete, acting madman. It made him grit his teeth in sheer frustration.

“Why did you do it?”

Qi Chu’s eyes darkened for a fraction of a second before he looked up at him. “Because I do not want the Grand Preceptor to leave me.”

Ye Shaoyun’s tone was cold and heavy. “Do you know the consequences?”

“I know. You may punish me however you wish. The only thing you must never do again is hide anything from me.”

Ye Shaoyun stated coldly, “I can choose not to leave the capital, but I no longer wish to see your face. Get out!”

Qi Chu countered, “If you do not wish to see my face, I can wear a mask.”

Ye Shaoyun enunciated every single syllable: “It is over. We are finished. Do you understand, Your Highness?”

“Finished…” A faint, mocking smile crept back onto Qi Chu’s face. The veins on his forehead throbbed slightly, completely overwriting the innocent, youthful face stored in Ye Shaoyun’s memory.

“We can never be finished, Grand Preceptor.”

It was not a negotiation. Ye Shaoyun was suddenly overcome by a sense of powerlessness, like a beast sinking its teeth into his calf unable to shake it off, yet unable to kill it.

“I can fulfill any request you have. Go ahead and despise me, or loathe me if you must, but you will never rid yourself of me. In this lifetime, I have you completely cornered! If you have the stomach for it, then kill me.”

Qi Chu seemed entirely certain that Ye Shaoyun could not harm him. Ye Shaoyun suddenly found this streak of madness oddly familiar. After pondering it for a long time, he finally realized who it resembled—it resembled himself.

Turning his face away, Ye Shaoyun took a temporary step back. “I do not wish to see you for the time being.”

“Very well. Then I shall return later.”

“Get out.”

Qi Chu stared at him for a moment. Under the weight of the eviction in Ye Shaoyun’s eyes, he stood up and departed.

“I shall wait for the day the Grand Preceptor wishes to see me.”

Ye Shaoyun did not offer a reply.

After Qi Chu stepped out the door, Xiao Yun, clad in black-feathered light armor, slowly emerged from behind the curtains. The edges of his goose-front boots were still stained with fresh mud.

Ye Shaoyun glanced over, a wave of subtle alarm washing over his heart. Thank goodness he hadn’t allowed Qi Chu to do anything untoward just now.

“When did you return?”

A trace of awkwardness crossed Xiao Yun’s face. “Right before His Highness arrived. I was in a rush just now, so… I hid behind the curtains. This subordinate acted rashly; I await my Master’s punishment.”

Ye Shaoyun knew it was not his fault. “Forget it. What did you find out?”

“I investigated the north side of the city and found an inn matching your description. Just as you suspected, by the time I arrived, there were no survivors left. To be safe, I questioned the local townsfolk nearby. They all claimed that bandits frequently plague that area, and the inn had long been seized by them. Yesterday afternoon, a troop of government soldiers suddenly arrived and wiped out the entire nest of bandits. By my rough estimate, there were over a hundred of them.”

“Bandits…” Ye Shaoyun stepped off the bed and walked over to the red sandalwood lounger in the outer parlor, his fingertips tapping lightly against the armrest. “Only five miles outside the city—how could there be so many bandits?”

“Has any faction within the city been acting restless lately?” Ye Shaoyun’s sharp mind instantly drifted to another possibility.

Though Qi Chu was obsessive, he was not someone given to slaughtering the innocent indiscriminately. Furthermore, this was far too coincidental. How could Qi Chu have known he would definitely pass through that area? Someone must have laid an ambush there well in advance.

Xiao Yun pondered for a moment before answering, “Restless… The Third Highness has been rather active of late. Previously, he was utterly devoted to Daoist sorcery and remained confined to his estate. Recently, he suddenly emerged, claiming to gather like-minded individuals to hold some sort of grand prayer assembly to fortify the lifeblood of the Great Yang Dynasty.”

“He actually has such schemes in mind?” Doubts began to take root in Ye Shaoyun’s heart. A grand prayer assembly to fortify the lifeblood? Even though he himself was the Grand Preceptor and a fellow cultivator of the Dao, he had never believed in such nonsense; it was mere superstition.

The fortune and lifeblood of a nation rested upon its people. When the previous Grand Preceptor took him in as a disciple, he had told him explicitly: a practitioner of the Dao cultivates the heart, not superstition.

For a formal imperial prince to spread such rhetoric, his true intentions likely lay elsewhere.