CH 35

After all, the two of them had been a model monarch and subject for a lifetime, although they did fall apart a bit in the end. In this life, though, they shed all the pretence of cordiality, tearing into each other like enemies.

“Okay, I really didn’t come here to fight with you,” Shen Yang rubbed his brow, sighed and then said, “I thought about it for a while, it’s better for us to cooperate. Xie Ke, I promise I can provide you with the greatest help, definitely better than in my previous life.

After the imperial examination, I carefully planned. Even if I grab this opportunity now, it will still be difficult to protect Zhiyu in the short term. Without a background, I can’t even get close to him and say a few words. Now his brain is damaged, what if he is really bullied in the palace?”

When Shen Yang talked about Fu Zhiyu, he couldn’t hide the worry on his face, as if he was a hard-working old father, much more caring than Emperor Qingyuan.

Xie Ke sneered and said, “Sure enough, calculate and plan, but I’m still the fastest way to go, right?”

“No need to say such unpleasant things,” Shen Yang said. “To put it bluntly, each takes what they need and uses each other.”

Xie Ke looked at him but thought of something else.

He clearly knew that Zhiyu didn’t believe that he had fallen in love with him a long time ago. He only felt that Xie Ke was making up for his regrets and would give up before long. Xie Ke couldn’t argue with this, so he had to use practical actions to show whether he was doing all these things out of deep love or out of guilt.

To be fair, Shen Yang truly felt guilty.

His guilt was so deep that his overwhelming obsession made his data refuse to disappear, and he came back with the entire rebooted world.

In his heart, Xie Ke knew that Yuan Mingdao was probably just being loyal. He was too different in age from Zhiyu, who had raised him as a younger brother. Love was not the only thing that made people risk their lives, many other feelings were possible.

But when Xie Ke saw that Zhiyu was so gentle to Yuan Mingdao while being so cold and indifferent to him, refusing to say a word, he felt uncomfortable all over, blind with jealousy.

Obviously… in the previous life, Zhiyu was only so good to him. Zhiyu’s eyes were soft when he looked at him. How could it be like this now?

But if he really got rid of that kid, it would really be impossible for him and Zhiyu.

Thinking of this, Xie Ke sighed. He didn’t have the intention of talking to Shen Yang anymore. He waved his hand and said, “Okay, it’s not certain if you can survive this fraud case. If you get out of it safely, come to me again. I’m not interested in chatting with a dying man now.”

Shen Yang also knew that it was Xie Ke’s style of talking. He rolled his eyes and said perfunctorily, “You should rest early”, before leaving quickly.

He understood the hidden meaning of Xie Ke’s words. Xie Ke wanted to see what his methods in this fraud case were and whether he could really be used by Xie Ke.

Fu Zhiyu in Liuli Palace didn’t care about these things. Today, he was lying lazily on a wicker chair in the yard, stretching out his hand to pick up the muskmelon on the table.

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The fraud case became more and more intense, and the rumours spread all over the city, both inside and outside the palace. The censors investigated for a long time, but more and more people were involved, including the top scorer of the examination. The emperor lost his temper in the court again today. There were rumours that the memorial was thrown to the ground by him, and the scolding was very unpleasant.

Fu Zhiyu finished eating the melon in his hand and turned over again.

The sun in spring was so comfortable, and the flowers and plants in the yard grew well. The spring flowers were bigger and denser than those elsewhere, forming golden waterfalls, with bees and butterflies flying among them, just like in a painting.

Yuan Mingdao was in the centre of this painting. He was training, and he hadn’t stopped practising for more than an hour.

“All right, all right,” Fu Zhiyu watched for a long time and couldn’t help interrupting him, “Don’t practise for so long, why are you in such a hurry, child? Come, have a sip of sweet soup, take a break and let’s talk.”

Yuan Mingdao obeyed, regrouped his stance, ran towards Fu Zhiyu, took the bowl in his hand, and took a big sip of sweet lotus seed soup. The soup has been left to cool and a sip of it at this time of the day, with glutinous lotus seeds in it, was indescribably refreshing.

After drinking the soup, Yuan Mingdao sat down by Fu Zhiyu’s side. He was so sweaty that he didn’t dare to touch Fu Zhiyu, who was clean all over. He just observed him and said with certainty: “Master has gained weight.”

“Have I?” Fu Zhiyu slowly raised his hand, touched the flesh on his face, and then pinched his arm, which was indeed a little soft.

Yuan Mingdao hurriedly added: “It’s a good thing. In winter, Master suffered a lot and was so thin the bones of his wrists could be seen. His waist was thinner than that of a girl.”

While gesturing with his hands, he used his not-so-large vocabulary to blow a rainbow fart to Fu Zhiyu: “But Master looks good anyway. He looks good when he is thin, and he looks good when he is fat. He looks better than everyone else.”

Fu Zhiyu had been in a relaxed state recently. He ate whatever he wanted, but he was too lazy to move. Naturally, he would grow some meat. But Yuan Mingdao didn’t lie. After he had gained a little weight, he was indeed more beautiful than before, not as thin as a piece of paper about to blown away by the wind

Fu Zhiyu looked at the scenery of the garden as if it were a painting, and the others looked at him this way.

The seventeen-year-old young man was dressed in cyan clothes and was lying on the recliner in the pavilion. He didn’t bother to tie his black hair. There seemed to be some fragrance of vegetation on his body, making one feel peaceful as soon as one was near. Taking a closer look, one could notice that the young man apparently thought it was a bit hot in the spring and didn’t even wear shoes. Anyway, he didn’t let anyone come in to serve, so he followed his own wishes. His white feet dangled from the edge of the recliner, so smooth and clean as if carved from a whole piece of white jade.

His whole person seemed to be glowing; one couldn’t move their eyes away when they looked at him.

“By the way,” Fu Zhiyu moved, as if remembering something, and took a closer look at Yuan Mingdao’s arms and calves, asking, “You have been taking my blood for a long time. How is your training nowadays? Is it much better than in the previous life?”

“Naturally,” Yuan Mingdao raised his head and said proudly, “I’ve opened Ren and Du meridians, and I have a foundation, so I take a lot less detours. It’s just that this body is still small now, so I’m still at a bit of a disadvantage against adults. If I continue like this and practise for a few more months, I will be able to return to the level of my previous life, and further progress is obviously just around the corner.”

Having said that, Yuan Mingdao was a little worried again, took Fu Zhiyu’s hand and said, “Master, don’t draw blood for me anymore. Didn’t you say that as long as I am with you for a long time, it is also effective? Consort Yun and the Yuan family really need it, they need to nurture their bodies, but I really have enough now. You will hurt your body if you take too much blood.”

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Fu Zhiyu curled his fingers and knocked on Mingdao’s little head, saying with a smile: “How much blood can you take from me? There are just a few people, and what you eat is diluted and then diluted again. The first time you ate it, it was just a drop, and it took a long time to wear off. It was like a magic potion; dare I give it to someone straight away like that?

In a few months, you took just a little bit of blood in total. I only let Dr. Chen draw it once anyway. The thumb-sized jade bottle was not filled yet, and my mother started shaking. The bottle is not finished yet. You guys, ah… such a little bit, it won’t kill me.”

He had mixed his blood into the food like pine nut candies and pear jam, to make it palatable and to disguise it. It was easy with his mother, but he couldn’t give people in the Yuan residence and Grand Master Xu medicine for no reason, right?

Ever since Dr. Chen developed the pills that were all warm tonic medicine and had no side effects anyway, Fu Zhiyu went ahead with them. If someone really checked them carefully, nothing would be found. Other doctors would look at the materials and think everything was fine, praising the good quality of the pills.

Pills were better preserved than the food, and he didn’t need to draw blood frequently. Fu Zhiyu was still afraid of a bacterial infection in unhygienic conditions. Besides, he had been reading a lot in the system space, and he also knew that the blood would be metabolised. It was not that it would be gone when it was drawn, let alone being drained like Yuan Mingdao imagined, so he was not worried at all.

He had several boxes of these pills stored, all of them made in one go last time. It was not easy for Dr. Chen to sneak around and do something. Fu Zhiyu also gave him a box by the way. Dr. Chen didn’t know that the medicine in the pills was the water mixed with the blood he drew last time. Maybe he guessed something, but anyway, he just did honestly what his master said.

As for the pain he felt when Dr. Chen drew his blood, it was like a mosquito bite to him. Compared with the effectiveness, it was negligible.

“Besides, if I don’t do it, how can I support my mother and you in the future?”

“Huh?” Yuan Mingdao looked confused; he really didn’t think of this. After being picked up by Fu Zhiyu, he had never worried about money again in his two lifetimes.

“Aren’t we very rich?” Yuan Mingdao wondered. The clothes he was wearing cost enough for ordinary people to eat for a year. “Do we still need to worry about this?”

“We are running away, my little friend,” Fu Zhiyu sat up on his recliner. “Naturally, the lighter we go, the better. Can you run with gold and silver? Even if we take lighter jade jewellery to exchange for money, many of the things we use now have imperial markings. The pawnshop will recognise it at a glance. How will they dare to exchange these things for money?

Even if we take something that can’t be recognised and get money in exchange, we can’t just sit on it, or expect to be fed by my uncles all the time, can we?”

It was hard to go from luxury to frugality; he wasn’t going to run away with his mother and Mingdao to endure hardships. Naturally, all these things had to be well planned, money included.

Yuan Mingdao thought about it carefully, and it really made sense.

“I, I’m already very well-fed.” He still tried his best to dispel Fu Zhiyu’s idea, “No need to spend much money on me in the future. And I’m very good at martial arts, I can make money.”

Yuan Mingdao thought about it carefully again and wanted to find an example for Fu Zhiyu how he could make a lot of money. However, it was not difficult to make some small money with high martial skills, but it was a bit difficult to make a lot of money immediately, unless you killed people for profit.

Fu Zhiyu stroked his head soothingly, telling him not to worry, and said: “Don’t fret, I have a sense of proportion. Even if I want to sell, I won’t sell a lot to the public and I will never reveal the ingredients. I will sell it little by little. Rare things are valuable. It will be enough to feed the few of us. Besides, although we can’t always rely on my uncles to eat, we can still use their help.”

When Yuan Jiangwen was young, he chose the way of commerce. It was really hard work. At first, he sold things like tea and silk, but later he started to sell all kinds of goods, making money while trading things between countries. Fu Zhiyu heard that he had also taken some ships out to sea.

In recent years, his uncle was getting too old to run around. Various caravans kept operating in a decent manner, but the profits were less than at the beginning. Yuan Jiangwen began to settle down instead, working as a money lender, pawnbroker and opened a restaurant and an inn in the south, unexpectedly making more than before.

The capital didn’t value business, as if merchants were inferior, and those who had some money would have their children study for the imperial examinations. But the south was different. Rumours were that merchants there had a high status, the market was prosperous, the bazaars were brightly lit all night, and there were many merchants who were beyond rich. It was not uncommon for them to throw piles of money to get what they wanted.

According to Fu Zhiyu’s considerations, pawnshops could come in handy at this time. He knew that pawnshops would regularly sell some things that were not redeemed in time. Some ordinary pawned things would be disposed of in bulk, but if there was something more precious, it would be used for auction. Naturally, this kind of auction would not reveal the seller and the pawnshops would keep it secret where they received the goods. It was safe and very in line with his plan to make a fortune quietly.

Fu Zhiyu planned to sell his pills there, and there was no hurry. When the time came, if his younger uncle took more of the medicine, he would surely have some understanding.

Even if Fu Zhiyu didn’t say anything, his uncle would take the initiative to ask; he had that necessary sensitivity a businessman must have. Even Hua Tuo (a famous doctor at the end of Han Dynasty) couldn’t make such a medicine while he was alive, so naturally it wouldn’t be a problem to sell it.

If it was done, Fu Zhiyu would be a mobile cash cow.

“It’s a secret, oh,” Fu Zhiyu winked at Yuan Mingdao, “between you, me and Mother Consort.”