CH 9

Ye Zi trembled and almost fell from the beam.

Miscalculation, a miscalculation. He always thought he was raised by Gu Yan as a good luck charm, he didn’t expect that he was actually a food reserve.

If he was sliced up, would he still be able to live?

Ye Zi lay on the beam of the room waiting for Gu Yan’s final decision only to hear the man pause for a long time before whispering: “Okay, I’ll do as Doctor Pei suggests. Go dig up that small herb.” 

Ye Zi: “……”

The servant girl left and the others also left one after another. Soon, Gu Yan was the only one left in the room. He leaned on the bed, his expression hidden in the darkness and couldn’t really be seen.

Soon, a servant girl hurriedly came in carrying Ye Zi’s flower pot: “Your Majesty, the immortal plant is missing!”

The soil in the flower pot had obviously been hastily turned over, and the small green herb originally planted in it had disappeared.

The little servant girl was so anxious that her eyes were red: “This servant carried it out of the courtyard with my own hands in the morning, this……it hasn’t even been an hour yet, how could it have disappeared?”

Gu Yan sat up. He gazed at the flower pot for a moment and his voice a little hoarse: “No matter, it can’t run far.”

“Bring Erbao in, let it look for it.”

Erbao was the name of the orange cat in the front yard.

The servant girl withdrew from the room to follow his order. Gu Yan didn’t continue lying down. He casually put on an outer robe and got out of bed, pouring himself a cup of tea. He sat down at the table and quietly sipped on the tea.

Not long after, the servant girl’s voice sounded outside the door again: “Your Majesty, Erbao has made a round outside and seems to want to enter your room.”

Ye Zi: ! ! !

Gu Yan’s movement paused and the corners of his mouth curled up into a shallow arc. He ordered, “Let it in, the rest of you wait outside.”

The door cracked open and the wide, fat orange cat jumped in.

Ye Zi tried his best to curl himself up in a small plant ball and plastered himself close to the edge of the beams. Layers of leaves closed together, protecting the rustling little flower bud, even the leaf tips tightened up in fear.

The room was strangely silent. Except for the occasional crisp sound of the cup lid touching the cup when Gu Yan drank tea, no other sounds could be heard.

Ye Zi peeked out his head and a pair of dark green cat eyes, magnified countless times, was condescendingly measuring him. The pink cat nose twitched a little and the orange cat grinned, showing him two pointed teeth.

“Aaaaahhhhhhhh——”

Ye Zi frantically tried to escape and fell off the beam. The orange cat followed and jumped down. As a result, a plant and cat ran in circles around the room. Ye Zi was very scared. While running and cursing, he didn’t even notice that he was talking aloud at this point.

“Ahhhh, damn Gu Yan, stinking Gu Yan, quickly take the cat away! I’m going to get bitten, I’m going to get bitten, help, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh——”

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Ye Zi ran around the room several times. In a panic, he climbed up Gu Yan’s trouser legs all the way up into Gu Yan’s arms. He stretched out his slender stems and grabbed Gu Yan’s collar, huddled into Gu Yan’s arms, and tried to burrow into his collar. 

The orange cat jumped on the table. Panting, he meowed at Ye Zi.

Gu Yan gently ran his fingertips across Ye Zi’s leaves and asked in a warm voice: “Not going to pretend anymore?” 

Ye Zi: “……”

Ye Zi stiffened and suddenly stopped moving. Gu Yan laughed evilly, picked up his root, and lifted him toward the orange cat.

“Ahhhhhh, don’t——I won’t pretend anymore. I really won’t pretend anymore, wuuu……” Ye Zi’s tense nerves were finally collapsing under fright. He clung to Gu Yan’s hand as his voice took on a crying tone.

The small plant didn’t have tear glands, but large tears fell from its flower bud, like small dewdrops, plopping and falling down in a series.

Gu Yan’s heart instantly softened like no other.  

He carefully gathered Ye Zi into his palm and gently stroked his leaves, softly comforting, “Alright, don’t cry anymore.” 

Ye Zi kicked his hand with his small plant root and shouted in a sobbing voice: “Get the cat out of here, get it out of here!!!”

“Okay, I’ll have someone carry it away.” Gu Yan softly soothed him and ordered in a loud voice, “Someone, take Erbao away.”

Two servant girls pushed open the door of the room and walked in. Before they could catch the cat, the orange cat took the initiative to jump off the table. It turned its head to gaze at the small green plant in Gu Yan’s hand before strutting out the door.

Gu Yan ordered: “You guys can leave.”

The door to the room was closed again before Gu Yan unfolded his palm.

When someone had entered the room just now, Ye Zi didn’t dare to make a sound and his stifling caused hiccups to form. Sitting in Gu Yan’s palm, the little plant cried and sniffled, looking exceptionally pitiful.

Gu Yan regretted everything at this moment. If he had known that Ye Zi would react so strongly, he would never have thought of this bad idea to force him to admit. He stroked the leaves of the little green plant and coaxed in a low voice: “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have scared you with the cat, don’t cry, okay?”

Ye Zi sobbed and asked: “A-are you still going to make medicinal soup with me?”

Gu Yan responded: “Of course not.”

His voice was no longer as hoarse as before.

Ye Zi froze for a moment and looked up at Gu Yan. The latter was full of energy and his face was rosy. He didn’t look the least bit sick! 

“You lied to me?!”

Gu Yan froze and his finger hooked around Ye Zi’s small stem as he played with it: “If I didn’t, how could I get the little brat, who has been deceiving me, to reveal his true form? You can obviously run and jump and talk, but you pretend to be a little plant. Is it that fun to tease me?” 

“I’m not pretending. I really am a plant.” Ye Zi’s leaves opened up and he exaggeratedly shook his branches in front of Gu Yan.

Gu Yan was amused by his cute appearance and tenderly wiped the water droplets on the leaves for him.

Ye Zi’s sanity gradually returned and he asked suspiciously: “How did you know I can talk? And how dare you find a way to test me?”

“I didn’t know.” Gu Yan said, “But I knew that a certain little guy in my room could turn into a human.”

Ye Zi, who thought his disguise was seamless, tilted his head and looked at him in confusion.

Gu Yan frowned and vaguely felt something off. However, he didn’t think too much about it and pointed out Ye Zi’s flaw without any delay: “Yesterday I asked someone; no new servant has entered the manor in the past month.”

Ye Zi twisted the words and forced logic: “That’s it? What if I am an assassin who came to assassinate you?”

Gu Yan laughed softly and replied patiently: “The material used for the clothes you wore yesterday was a tribute by the Jiangnan manufacturing workshop this year. The Prince Rui Manor only received two or three bundles as an Imperial gift and I only had one of them made into clothes.”

“……If a little assassin came to assassinate me, why did it sneak into my room and steal my clothes? Could it be, he has a crush on me?”

Ye Zi: “……”

……How embarrassing.

Gu Yan said: “Actually, there is one more thing.”

Ye Zi: “W……what?”

“I went to look for Qiu Tang.” Gu Yan said, “That girl is timid. Once I forcefully interrogated her, she spilled everything.”

Ye Zi weakly asked: “That means……you know everything that I said to her?” 

Gu Yan nodded tenderly: “Everything.”

Ye Zi: “………………”

Ye Zi shrunk into a ball of shame and anger in Gu Yan’s hand. He desperately wanted to find a hole to bury himself in.

What had he done, ahhhhhhhhhhhh——

Why was he not bitten to death by that cat just now? ?

Gu Yan said in a warm voice: “Change back, okay? I want to see you.”

Ye Zi slapped Gu Yan’s hand away, jumped to the table, and sat down with his back to Gu Yan: “Why should I listen to you?”

“Little one, are you angry?”

“I’m not ‘little one,’ how am I little?” Ye Zi wiggled his small roots hanging on the edge of the table and angrily emphasized, “My name is Ye Zi, the Zi from Zimu[1].”

“Ye Zi……” Gu Yan looked slightly frozen for a moment and no one knew what was going on in his mind. After a while, a smile appeared on his lips again, “Okay, I will call you Ye Zi from now on. Ye Zi is a good boy, can you change back?”

His voice was gentle and compelling, and the resentment in Ye Zi’s heart dissipated.

Ye Zi touched his blade and whispered: “I can’t change back.”

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“Why?”

Ye Zi leaned back and spread himself out on the table: “I took on a human form for the first time yesterday, but not long after that, I somehow changed back. I don’t know when the next time I’ll turn into a human will be.”

“That……” Gu Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, “That is a little bit troublesome.”

This matter was out of Gu Yan’s expectations.

The wedding date was approaching, but the bride was still unable to turn into a human form. How was this supposed to work?

Was he going to have to bring a flower pot to the bridal chamber?

It was the first time that the carefully calculated Prince Rui had a difficult time.

As Ye Zi remained lying down, he began to feel a little sleepy. Earlier, he had been chased by the old cat and was too tense. After crying and finally relaxing, he now felt exhausted. 

Gu Yan noticed his listless appearance and asked: “What’s wrong?”

A pair of warm hands reached over. Ye Zi subconsciously entangled his leaves and muttered nasally with some confusion: “……Sleepy.”

After saying that one word, Ye Zi stopped moving; he seemed to have fallen asleep. 

Gu Yan was surprised: he had been talking for one second and then fell asleep the next. Shaking his head helplessly, he carefully picked up the little green plant with both hands and placed it on the bed: “Sleep for a while, I’ll go find someone to change some new soil for you.”

Gu Yan turned around and went out the door so he didn’t see that Ye Zi was once again surrounded by a faint white light.

Gu Yan withdrew all the attendants from the courtyard and ordered no one to go in and disturb them. Doctor Pei, who was recruited by him as an actor, was still waiting outside the courtyard and Gu Yan personally sent him off: “Doctor Pei, thank you very much this time.”

Doctor Pei laughed loudly: “It’s a small thing. I’ve previously accepted the Prince’s favor so if the Prince wants my help with something, naturally I can’t refuse.”

Gu Yan lightly said: “Doctor Pei is being too serious. All these years, it is you who has been helping me.”

“I don’t dare.” Doctor Pei paused for a moment with a worried look on his face, “But what I said earlier was not all false. That medicine is three times as poisonous. The Prince has been taking that medicine for months and years…..the medicine is extremely strong, if it continues like this……”

Gu Yan asked: “What will happen?”

Doctor Pei subconsciously rubbed his medicine box and his eyes narrowed as he answered: “The poison will enter the lungs and it will be difficult to cure.” 

Gu Yan sent him away and ordered his subordinates to prepare some new soil. He brought a plate of Ye Zi’s favorite red fruits and walked into the side courtyard.

He pushed open the door but froze in place.

In the inner room, a teenager was lying defenseless on his bed.

The sleeping boy was not wearing any clothes nor was he covered with a blanket and he was hugging his arms like he was afraid of the cold. His pale porcelain back was bowed, outlining the thin and beautiful lines with the rise and fall of his shallow breathing

Gu Yan paused: something seemed to have exploded in his brain.

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[1] Zimu [梓木] : Catalpas.