CH 17

He was now inevitably frightened and a little worried that Xie Ke would cause great disruption to his original plans.

Fu Zhiyu sat on the bed for a while when he got up in the morning, and decided to make Liuli Palace strengthen its defences, at least not to let Xie Ke come in so easily.

Before, he didn’t understand why Xie Ke had done such a big thing and had to reboot the world, and he didn’t know why Xie Ke suddenly paid so much attention to him. It turned out to be like this.

Fu Zhiyu was certainly not dumb when it came to emotions. He just couldn’t understand why Xie Ke would suddenly undergo such a transformation, nor did he want to understand.

It was funny, in his previous life, he was the one who chased after Xie Ke, but Xie Ke would never respond. If he had heard these words in the past, he would have been overjoyed, but now he was only worried about whether it would affect his life.

Fu Zhiyu took some time to pull himself together. He hadn’t forgotten that he was going out of the palace today and still had some things to do.

He also had to go to the Xie residence by the way. After all, he had promised before, and this encounter could not be avoided. It had been fine before last night, but now, thinking about it, it made him feel chilly.

Fu Zhiyu sighed for a long time and rubbed his brow wearily.

All in all, Xie Ke was really his nemesis. In two lifetimes, he refused to go along with Fu Zhiyu’s wishes and had to make him feel uncomfortable.

After Fu Zhiyu left the palace, he didn’t go to the Yuan residence immediately, let alone the Xie residence. Instead, he took two guards to the largest restaurant in the capital, ordered a few plates of snacks and a pot of wine, sat in the private room facing the street on the second floor and slowly ate and drank.

It was getting late, and the street was very lively, with shouts and conversations merging into one. Fu Zhiyu also saw a hawker selling sugar-coated hawthorns walking past below the building, so he asked the guard to buy two. 

“Do you guys want to eat?” Fu Zhiyu was now in a somewhat better mood. He broke out of Xie Ke’s gloom, a smile appeared on his face and he said to the two guards standing behind him, “It’s good to try them occasionally.”

The two guards shook their heads solemnly in unison, and Fu Zhiyu didn’t force it. He took a bite of one and wrinkled his brow in sourness but still lowered his head and took a second bite. The other one was wrapped in yellow paper and placed beside him.

Recently, as the imperial examination was approaching, the first floor of the Fengyue House was particularly lively, and Fu Zhiyu could hear many scholars talking about their poems and theories below. It attracted a crowd of onlookers, and the noise was even louder than the street outside.

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In his previous life, he and Grand Master Xu were in charge of the current examination. It was a big thing for Fu Zhiyu to be in charge of such an occasion. At that time, he was still a vigorous teenager and was in love. He wanted to show how good he was, just like a proud peacock. But now as he looked at these people, he only felt like he was looking at the people from another world.

It was natural for young men to be this energetic, but as he said to his mother, what he wanted now was different and it was normal to look at these things differently.

Opposite the restaurant was the most famous brothel street in the capital, which was why the restaurant was called the Fengyue House (fēngyuè = ‘beautiful scenery’ and ‘romance’). It was indeed true that one could sit there and “watch Fengyue”.

But now it was broad daylight and the street was closed to customers. However, not accepting customers  didn’t mean the street wasn’t working. It was still very busy there.

Fu Zhiyu knew that today the largest brothel in the street, Mei Pavilion, was bringing in a group of newly bought people, all young boys and girls around ten years old. There was a child among them that he had to rescue.

This child shouldn’t have a name yet. Fu Zhiyu gave him a name. He used the surname of the Yuan family and called the child Yuan Mingdao.

In his previous life, after Yuan Mingdao was sold into a brothel, the brothel keeper tried to teach him to be a young courtesan but the boy resisted to death. Who knows how many times he was beaten. One day, he escaped from the hands of the brothel keeper and ran down the street to the Fengyue House, where he ran headlong into Fu Zhiyu’s arms.

Whether it was in the book or in reality, Fu Zhiyu took the child away. Fu Zhiyu in the book felt that this child was young and full of ruthless energy, and would be a good henchman in the future; but in the previous life, the real Fu Zhiyu only felt that the boy was injured all over and looked too pitiful.

In his previous life, Yuan Mingdao was kept by Fu Zhiyu in the Yuan residence. The Yuan family treated him very well and taught him martial arts. The weapon he knew best was a curved half-moon scimitar. He even had to hold the sword at night to fall asleep. Indeed, he was an excellent martial arts talent.

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Fu Zhiyu would go to see him when he had time, but it was as if the child, Yuan Mingdao, recognised him alone and refused to stay at the Yuan residence, insisting on following him.

He had saved Fu Zhiyu’s life twice, and had defended him from swords and other things countless times, and whenever Fu Zhiyu went to the battlefield, Yuan Mingdao would follow him every step of the way.

When Xie Ke rebelled in the previous life, Yuan Mingdao took the lead in a counterattack but was unsuccessful. He was beheaded by the rebels; at that time, he was only in his early twenties.

In this life, Fu Zhiyu was going to do everything not to allow Mingdao to repeat the same mistake and fall into that situation.

In fact, this child didn’t like war at all, nor did he want to indulge in the scheming of the court. He just did it for Fu Zhiyu. In this life, Fu Zhiyu felt he had a responsibility to give the child a fulfilling life.

As far as Mingdao was concerned, the furthest back Fu Zhiyu could go was now, and he didn’t know where the boy really had been before then.

Just as he was thinking about it, he saw a simple carriage rattling from the other end of the road, heading in the direction of the brothel street.

That was it.

Fu Zhiyu’s spirits lifted, and he hurriedly led the guards downstairs. When he reached the carriage, the carriage also happened to stop at the intersection by Mei Pavillion’s backyard.

Fu Zhiyu didn’t need to do it himself, those two guards were enough. Not long afterwards the keeper of Mei Pavillion came out trembling, and there was a row of people kneeling in the backyard.

“If Wang Zhao wants anyone in the pavilion, just say it,” the keeper wiped the sweat from her forehead with a flattering smile on her face, “No need to make such a fuss.”

Fu Zhiyu pointed to the carriage and said, “I don’t want the rest, I just want him.”

The guard stretched out his hand and opened the curtain of the carriage. Fu Zhiyu looked inside. A child was curled up in the depth of the carriage. When he heard the sound, he raised his head and took a look.

The child had green eyes, and his exotic features were obvious. His origin should be the ancient country of the West, and he was resold here from thousands of miles away. It was dark inside the carriage, and the child squinted his eyes and looked outside. It took him a while to get a good view of the visitor.

After he saw Fu Zhiyu’s face clearly, the boy froze for a moment. Then a look of obvious surprise flashed his eyes, and a shallow smile appeared on his face, revealing two cute tiger teeth.

“Come here,” Fu Zhiyu stretched out his hand, his tone very gentle.

He wondered if Mingdao would be willing to go with him at this point. He was a little apprehensive in his heart, but what happened next proved that he was indeed overthinking it.

The child was very obedient and quickly crawled over to him, burrowing into his arms at once.

He was obviously ten years old, but because of malnutrition, he was very thin and looked younger than a seven-year-old. Fu Zhiyu picked him up easily, wrapped him in his cloak, and then stretched out his hand to give him the sugar-coated hawthorns that he had bought before.

“I remember you like to eat these little things,” Fu Zhiyu patted him on the back and said softly, “Come with me, I’ll take you to the inn to eat and take a bath, and buy a few more clothes later, okay?”

The child nodded and looked at him without blinking with his green eyes wide open, looking very docile.

“Why is he the only one left?” The brothel keeper looked at the empty carriage after the curtain was opened and couldn’t care about anything else. She slapped the pimp next to her, “I bought more than a dozen of them!”

“Don’t mention it!” The pimp had an unlucky look on his face and replied in a low voice, “I passed by Leicheng three days ago and all of them ran away at night. I think it was done by people with malicious intent. I don’t know about this child either, why he didn’t follow them. He was well-behaved all the way, so I brought him back. I didn’t expect that there would be no one left in the end.”

Fu Zhiyu didn’t care what was going on in the brothel; he took the person he wanted away.

In the room he booked at the Fengyue House, the servant had already prepared hot water and heated the stove. He needed to wash the dirty child first.

The author has something to say: 

Xiao Yu is not the only one who has been reborn. Are you surprised? Are you surprised?