The Loyal Dead Soldier Did Not Plan to Run with a Bun (Pregnant) - Chapter 6

“Are you certain you want a male concubine?”

Wei San thought he had misheard and confirmed it again.

It wasn’t that he was unwilling, but he didn’t quite understand. Why would the Master suddenly want someone to pose as his male concubine?

However, he wouldn’t ask too many questions. The Master’s decisions must have their reasons. As subordinates, they only needed to obey orders.

Duan Lin did not know what he was thinking and nodded heavily. “It is the truth.”

The Prince had sent a secret letter early in the morning, explicitly requesting a dead soldier to pose as a male concubine for a period. The Prince’s requirements weren’t high: the person just needed to have fair skin, be beautiful, have a slender waist and long legs, be seven chi tall, have red lips and white teeth, and preferably possess a pair of alluring peach-blossom eyes.

Duan Lin pondered it, and reading between the lines, it was as if the Prince had directly named Wei San.

He couldn’t help but ask Wei San: “Has the Prince seen your face?”

Wei San said quite certainly: “Never.”

Dead soldiers only guarded the Master from the shadows; mission briefings were handled only with the Commander. Even when they were in the Master’s presence, they were either veiled or wearing human-skin masks.

Even if all the dead soldiers were to remove their disguises and stand before the Master, the Master wouldn’t be able to match them to their roles.

“Then it must be a coincidence.”

Duan Lin reached this conclusion. Fearing that Wei San would find the task repulsive, he offered a few words of comfort and then instructed him on the important points, emphasizing the Prince’s preferences and taboos. After all, although this male concubine task was just acting in front of others, he would ultimately have to serve the Prince at close quarters. Some things still needed to be paid attention to, so as not to offend the Prince or provoke his displeasure.

To avoid forgetting, Wei San wrote them down one by one in a notebook.

Duan Lin was quite pleased to see him so diligent, urging him to complete the mission perfectly and not to drag the Prince down.

Wei San suddenly felt a great deal of pressure. Having crawled his way out of the dead soldier camp, he had only ever been a dead soldier; acting as a male concubine was a first-time experience, like a young maiden boarding a bridal sedan.

Afraid he wouldn’t perform well or realistically enough, he even sneaked into a male pleasure house to carefully observe the mannerisms and movements of the young courtesans (xiao guan).

However, he ultimately didn’t learn a single thing, because he simply couldn’t bring himself to mimic the affectations and bashfulness of those courtesans.

Being a male concubine was much harder than being a dead soldier; it seemed his dead soldier career was about to have its first blemish.

Wei San stood by the willow tree at the head of the bridge, sighing.

With the imperial autumn examinations approaching, the capital was full of candidates who had come from all over to take the tests. Wei San mingled among them, wearing scholar’s robes and carrying a book basket, with a flower pinned in his hair. With his clean, fair, and beautiful face, he looked soft and weak—the very image of a pale-faced scholar who had spent his life studying the sages. Girls passing by glanced at him secretly, and occasionally, one or two bolder ones would throw a handkerchief at him and hurry away.

Wei San had already been pelted with four or five handkerchiefs. He was quite helpless but didn’t dare to leave.

Yesterday, the Commander had brought him this scholar’s outfit and asked him to disguise himself and wait here. He hadn’t given any instructions on how to act, so Wei San dared only to wait right there, not daring to go anywhere else, fearing he might ruin the Master’s grand scheme.

He waited for an entire morning, until Wei San began to think he had misremembered the date. Just as he was lowering his head to recall, he suddenly heard the voices of several young women coming from not far away. The tone sounded quite familiar, like the maids who served close to the Master.

He raised his head to look in the direction of the sound and immediately saw the Virtuous Prince (Xian Wang) surrounded by a group of gaudily dressed maids.

His eyes brightened; it really is the Master, he thought.

He forgot his current identity and habitually moved to hide in the shade of the tree, intending to protect the Master’s safety from the shadows. But the moment he moved, the Master who had been speaking with the female official beside him suddenly looked up, their eyes locking.

Wei San woke as if from a dream; right, my current identity is a scholar who has just arrived in the capital with no one to rely on, not the Virtuous Prince’s dead soldier.

Wei San forcefully suppressed his instinct, simultaneously forcing himself to shift his gaze away from the Master, continuing to pretend he was waiting for someone.

On the other side of the arched bridge, Wei Zheng’s gaze had not left the dead soldier once. He had always known the dead soldier was beautiful, but he never imagined that the dead soldier would be so alluring in scholar’s robes.

The scholar under the willow tree was scholarly and handsome, bowing his head with a subservient air, while the falling willow branches gently brushed the red flower by his ear. He was beautiful enough to be a painting.

His heart immediately began to itch. In his mind, he had already pulled the person into his embrace, biting the flower by his ear with his teeth, licking and sucking on it in his mouth.

“What is Your Highness looking at?”

The female official beside him had spoken twice without a response. Following his gaze, she also noticed the scholar under the willow tree.

He was a beauty of rare quality. She scanned the Prince, who was clearly staring with his eyes wide open, and said with a smile: “Your Highness, do you know that scholar?”

There was a smile on her lips, but her eyes were cold, seemingly calculating something.

“I don’t know him.” Wei Zheng did not look back. “But in a moment, I shall know this beautiful person.”

He seemed bewitched, only able to watch the person with a silly, dazed smile.

The female official saw his expression and put aside the misgivings in her heart, but immediately felt that something was amiss. She had always known the Prince loved beauty; otherwise, there wouldn’t be a pile of lithe and flower-like beauties serving around him.

Just as she was about to remind the Prince that it was time to leave, she saw the Prince suddenly turn his head and call over the head of the guards following them from afar, pointing at the scholar: “Do you see that beauty?”

The guard was confused, but he nodded submissively on the surface: “I see him, Your Highness.”

“Go and bring him back to the Prince’s mansion for me; I want that scholar.”

Is this not outright snatching a commoner man in the street?

The Virtuous Prince lifted his chin in a grand manner, not feeling in the slightest that what he said was outrageous.

The guard was a straight-shooter; he did whatever the Prince ordered. He immediately took two colleagues and walked toward the scholar with a menacing air.

“Wh-what are you trying to do?”

The scholar clearly hadn’t seen such a display; even though he held onto his composure, he could not hide his panic.

The guard shook the sword in his hand and said with a malicious tone: “Our Prince extends an invitation. Will you follow us on your own, or do you want us to invite you?”

“What if I am unwilling to go?” The scholar gripped his sleeves tightly, his slim, fragile frame trembling slightly from fear and nervousness.

The guard scoffed in disdain: “It is your good fortune that our Prince has taken a fancy to you. Look at your delicate skin and tender flesh; be sensible and follow us obediently, or suffer the pain of the whip.”

The scholar was even more terrified, turning pale and his eyes rimmed with red, looking quite pitiful.

The female official hadn’t expected the situation to develop like this. She was completely unable to stop it, watching as the guards surrounded him, while her own Prince shouted: “Handle him gently for me, don’t hurt my beauty.”

There were people coming and going in the street, and this commotion naturally caused passersby to stop and watch. Someone recognized Wei Zheng’s identity; although they didn’t dare say anything out of fear of his status, the looks they cast revealed many things.

Rumor had it that this Virtuous Prince was dim-witted and foolish; now, seeing it for themselves, he was actually tyrannical and despotic, going so far as to snatch a commoner man in broad daylight and under the clear blue sky!

The female official’s vision went dark, as if she could already see that person in the palace ordering her to bring her head to see him.

She took a deep breath, clutching her aching forehead, trying her best to remain calm.

“Your Highness, candidates who have come to the capital for the examinations are almost all provincial graduates (juren); this is improper!”

Wei Zheng would not listen: “What does it matter if he is a provincial graduate? I have taken a fancy to him, and I will have him.”

The female official tried to move him with reason, but Wei Zheng had already begun to find the guards too slow and walked forward himself.

Wei San had grown up killing and committing arson with ease, but he was particularly bad at acting.

He exchanged looks with Wei Jiu, who was disguised as a guard: Why don’t you just knock me out and take me away?

Wei Jiu looked fierce, casting his gaze to the side: The Master won’t allow it.

Wei San: “…”

I don’t think I can keep playing this frail scholar role!

Just as Wei San was considering whether to maintain his scholarly integrity and refuse to the death by jumping into the river, Wei Zheng finally arrived.

He scolded the guards: “I tell you to invite someone, and you can’t even do that? What else are you good for?”

The guards looked at their noses, not daring to argue.

Wei Zheng grabbed the scholar’s hand without further ado and ordered: “Why haven’t you pulled the carriage over yet? Today I am going to have a long talk with my beauty.”

The scholar was so scared he nearly fainted, his eyes pleading as he scanned the crowd one by one. But everyone present were commoners; even if there were some from noble families, none would offend the highly favored Virtuous Prince for the sake of a poor scholar.

Meeting a villain’s snatching and finding no help, the light in the scholar’s eyes dimmed. Perhaps the shock was too great, as he fainted on the spot.

The little dead soldier is quite a good actor, Wei Zheng thought happily, directly scooping him up horizontally and leading his guards and maids, carrying the person away with an arrogant air.

The news of the Virtuous Prince snatching a candidate flew to the palace on wings. The old Emperor listened to the report from the Head Eunuch and was so angry that he threw his report on the ground.

“Absurd! The royal family’s face has been completely lost by him!”

The old Emperor pinched the bridge of his nose, which was throbbing with pulse, his vision blurring, unable to speak for a long time.

Standing to the side, Crown Prince Wei Heng pursed his lips, feeling a sense of schadenfreude, while maintaining a submissive expression to lower his profile, lest the old Emperor vent his anger on him.

The Head Eunuch dared not even breathe.

After a while, the old Emperor’s anger subsided, and he waved his hand at the Head Eunuch: “Zhao Fu, go and summon the Virtuous Prince to the palace. I want to see what kind of mess he wants to make!”

The old Emperor was clearly extremely angry, directly calling him by his title as the Virtuous Prince.

The Head Eunuch squeezed a cold sweat for the Virtuous Prince and hurriedly responded, retreating to deliver the imperial decree.

In the imperial study, only the old Emperor and the Crown Prince remained. The Crown Prince, who had been playing invisible, came out and reached out to press the old Emperor’s temples.

After pressing for half an hour, seeing that the old Emperor was gradually calming down, he spoke as if inadvertently to plead for Wei Zheng.

“Old Seven is straightforward and innocent by nature; he always does what he wants to do on his own. But Old Seven is not an unreasonable person, Father. Just talk to him nicely; why go to such lengths as to be so angry?”

On the surface, he was pleading for Wei Zheng, but in reality, he was implying that he had no scruples and didn’t hold the old Emperor in his eyes.

Sure enough, as soon as the old Emperor heard these words, his anger flared up again.

“Straightforward? If he dares to snatch commoners today, will he dare to rebel tomorrow?”

“This Old Seven really needs to be disciplined properly!”