Chapter 171: Confession (1)

Le Wuya brushed his fingertips across his lips.

It was less shock or fear, and more like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He glanced out the window.

Outside the courtyard, osmanthus petals were still drifting down, with no one in sight.

Having finished his reconnaissance, Le Wuya relaxed. He took a hand-painted silk map of Tongzhou from the wall, rolled it up, and briskly and succinctly ordered Zhi Jie: "Stand up."

Zhi Jie docilely put his legs down and stood ramrod straight before Le Wuya, as if propping up the sky.

Le Wuya looked up at him for a moment, then ordered again: "...Sit back down."

Zhi Jie suppressed the smile that nearly crept onto his face, and had just sat down when his left shoulder took a sharp whack from the rolled map.

Zhi Jie touched his right shoulder: "Teacher..."

Le Wuya's face was expressionless as he gave him a vicious whack on the right shoulder too, cutting off his words.

"'I'll indulge you just this once'? Last summer, at the post station in Shangjing, what did you do after I sobered up? Did I indulge you then so that you could travel a thousand miles today just to sink your teeth into me?"

Zhi Jie lowered his head and said sincerely, "I know I was wrong."

Le Wuya: "You know you were wrong, so what? Are you going to change?"

Zhi Jie shook his head bashfully: "No."

Today, Le Wuya had seen every defiant side of his good student and had grown numb to it. Without another word, he whacked him hard on the right shoulder again with the scroll.

Zhi Jie asked curiously, "What is teacher doing?"

"You're haunted by a clingy ghost," Le Wuya said. "I'm fanning away the ghost fire on both your shoulders to ward off evil."

Hearing the words "ward off evil," Zhi Jie actually chuckled under his breath.

Le Wuya saw that he still dared to laugh at a time like this, and the smile was gentle and joyful, just like when he was a kid. He couldn't help but let a trace of a smile creep onto his own face as he gave Zhi Jie a little poke on the head with the map: "What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing." Zhi Jie looked straight at him. "Teacher will surely get along well with Imperial Consort Zhuang in the future."

Le Wuya: "...What?"

...What does Imperial Consort Zhuang have to do with any of this?

Le Wuya shook his head in bewilderment, feeling as if he were in a dream today.

Only the lingering warmth on his lips gave him a taste of something real amid all the absurdity.

He folded his arms and looked at Zhi Jie, shaking his head: "Xiaoliu, teacher really doesn't get you anymore."

Zhi Jie said respectfully, "If teacher doesn't understand something, just ask me anything."

"You have your heart set on contending for the throne—why must you come to provoke me?"

"If I win the mandate of heaven, rule the realm, bring peace to the four seas and tranquility to all lands, isn't that so I can share it with teacher?" Zhi Jie spoke in a genteel, polished manner, yet his words were startling.

Le Wuya found this completely upside-down, mad enough to laugh at: "Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?"

"Not at all. In Xiaoliu's heart, teacher has always been the 'root.'" Zhi Jie countered, "Teacher is a phoenix. If I don't become sweet nectar or a wutong branch, how can I make teacher perch beside me?"

Le Wuya was rendered speechless for a moment, then asked, "What is so special about me that you would go this crazy over me?"

When Xiaoliu had first said these things to him, Le Wuya had turned it over in his mind.

He recalled their past together—they were just teacher and student, nothing more.

He didn't think he had done anything that would move heaven and earth for Xiaoliu.

Why had he become so crazed as to latch onto him and never let go?

After pondering seriously for a moment, Zhi Jie gently pinched his earlobe with his fingertip and gave an answer entirely unexpected to Le Wuya: "Teacher has... music in you."

Le Wuya: "...Huh?"

"The first time I saw teacher, it was a winter day. As I looked at you, I thought of 'Three Variations on Plum Blossom'; later, seeing teacher galloping on horseback and moving through the halls of power, I often thought of pieces like 'Drunken Madness' and 'Sunny Spring'; when teacher and I fell into the dry well together, I thought of 'The Hermit's Song,' wishing to till the clouds and fish by moonlight with teacher, unaware of the passage of time..."

At this point, the corner of Zhi Jie's mouth curved again: "...When teacher swiped tangerines for me, teacher carried the melody of 'Joyful Reunion.'"

Le Wuya: "..."

Zhi Jie's lofty discourse was a bit abstruse and hard to swallow.

Unfortunately, Le Wuya, who loved flute music, actually understood every word of it.

Truly maddening.

He nearly laughed in anger: "You really have studied music well."

Zhi Jie: "It's because teacher taught well."

"I taught you to start daydreaming about me the moment you see me?"

"All of this student's qualities are thanks to teacher."

Seeing Le Wuya standing with arms folded, already assuming a guarded posture, Zhi Jie smiled slightly and stopped pressing the attack. He simply fixed his gaze on him with eyes that were gentle yet held hidden ambition: "Teacher, I know my own heart clearly. Why don't you think about why you like me."

Caught off guard, Le Wuya actually gave it some genuine thought.

Fortunately, after a moment, he spat out the bait: "Get lost. Where did you get that I like you?"

Zhi Jie blinked: "Then what part of me don't you like?"

"Xiaoliu." Le Wuya answered with a question instead: "Do you know that your teacher is a man with insatiable greed?"

Zhi Jie nodded: "Yes, teacher craves love, craves affection, craves power, craves profit, craves tasty bites, craves laziness—the world's greatest glutton for all things."

Le Wuya let out a snort of laughter: "The world's greatest? Now that I like. So you should know, if we're to end up together, what do I want to take from you?"

"Please, do tell."

Le Wuya: "I want you to become the ruler of all under heaven."

Zhi Jie nodded: "I will do my best."

"I also want you to hover around me every day, putting my wishes above all else. If I'm sick, you're not allowed to call a full court session; if I'm hungry, your imperial chefs must send food over to my place; whatever rare and precious treasures you obtain, I get first pick."

"Deal."

"I want you to live your entire life with no wife, no concubine, no sons, no daughters—only me, for all your days. When I die, you need not take your own life for me, but you must remain faithful until the day you come to find me."

"Agreed."

To every word, Xiang Zhijie replied with utmost sincerity, crisp and decisive.

But because it was too neat, Le Wuya did not believe him. He crossed his arms with a chuckle: "Xiaoliu, do you realize that if you do all this, how will posterity judge you?"

Xiang Zhijie: "A name etched in history, a devoted emperor?"

Le Wuya: "..."

Confirmed.

This man was his own student, with a face thicker than city walls.

Le Wuya, who was himself a wall of a man, now found his thoughts in a burning mess with no clear direction. He pointed toward the door: "Fine. Please, go ahead. I'll wait for you to win me over with the whole world as your betrothal gift."

Xiang Zhijie smiled with refined elegance, rose to his feet, and performed the teacher-student salute. Then, stepping forward, he used his tall stature to lean down and plant a kiss on his cheek, asking: "Does this count as the formal betrothal proposal?"

Le Wuya said not a single word and kicked him clean out the door.

Xiang Zhijie, in the courtyard full of osmanthus fragrance, smiled at the tightly shut door.

Unexpectedly, as he turned around, he met someone's gaze directly.

A breeze carried the osmanthus fragrance, billowing both their sleeves.

Wen Renyue had just returned from his hometown, where he had visited his father, Wen Renxiong. Having just washed off the dust of the road, he had come to see Le Wuya, only to inadvertently encounter this man here.

Though questions swirled in his mind, he still remembered to offer his respects.

Xiang Zhijie, adhering to propriety, returned the bow with a scholar's courtesy.

Wen Renyue approached him: "Sixth Prince, it's been a long time since we last met at Nanting."

"I heard you've passed the provincial examination—truly, your luck has turned from bad to good." Xiang Zhijie extended his hand toward him. "But I didn't expect to find you here. How about returning to the capital with me? The metropolitan examination is scheduled for February next year; if you wait until the last minute to rush off, you might miss something important."

"Thank you for your kind offer, Sixth Prince." Wen Renyue politely declined. "I've traveled the road to the capital before. Once I've seen out the old year with my teacher, I'll head up again—a month's time will be plenty to get there."

...Seeing out the old year.

He could still see out the old year with him.

Xiang Zhijie looked at him, wearing a gentle, inquisitive look: "'Teacher'?"

"Lord Wenren," Wen Renyue said. "That I've found such a great teacher and such a good friend is all thanks to you, Sixth Prince."

With that, he bowed with clasped hands: "Shou Yue thanks you, Sixth Prince."

Xiang Zhijie raised an eyebrow, his voice growing even softer and clearer: "So that makes you my junior apprentice brother?"

Wen Renyue replied humbly: "I wouldn't presume."

Seeing that Wen Renyue wouldn't be easily swayed, Xiang Zhijie dropped the idea of poaching him from the teacher, and instead looked past him: "And this is..."

Wen Renyue shifted the book chest from his back to his front, cradling it in both arms as he introduced each item: "I went back to the teacher's hometown on his behalf. This is a gift from the teacher's father—the finest polished rice, plus some Jiangnan snacks..."

After going through them one by one, a lightbulb went off in his head, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly: "...And this is the book chest my teacher mended for me with his own hands."

Xiang Zhijie: "...Is that so?"

Xiang Zhijie's eyes curved into a slight smile: "How wonderful."