CH 15

It was silent in the room for a while. Ye Zi’s heart was beating so fast that it seemed to thump out of his chest. Gu Yan looked deep into his eyes and wanted to continue to say something, but held back.

He couldn’t be too hasty. If he accidentally scared the little fool, the loss would outweigh the gain.

Gu Yan didn’t say anything more as he sat down and quietly sipped on his tea. A short while later, the door of the room opened again and a man dressed in black walked in leisurely.

Pei Ge walked up to Gu Yan and bowed towards him, “Your Majesty, sorry to keep you waiting.” 

Gu Yan nodded and turned his head to Ye Zi: “Go out first and wait for me.”

Ye Zi’s eyes lit up: “Then can I……”

Along the way to the clinic, he had seen a lot of novelty items. Now that Gu Yan was busy with something and he had nothing to do, he might as well go and take a look.

“No——” Knowing what he wanted to say, Gu Yan refused without thinking. Before he could say anything further, Ye Zi pursed his lips and gave him puppy-dog eyes. 

Gu Yan paused for a moment and the words that came out took a change: Fine. I’ll give you one incense stick’s[1] time. Remember to pay attention to safety.”  

Ye Zi immediately smiled: “Deal!”

Ye Zi happily went out the door. Once the door closed, Pei Ge couldn’t help but laugh softly.

Gu Yan asked him: “What are you laughing at?”

Instead of restraining himself, Pei Ge became a bit more presumptuous: “Naturally, I am laughing at Your Majesty.”

Gu Yan frowned and Pei Ge continued: “Earlier, I had heard that Your Majesty had gotten married and didn’t believe it. After all, there are a lot of rumors in the streets recently, saying that Your Majesty’s marriage was fake and that unwilling to accept a marriage bestowed by His Holiness was true. But seeing it today, it wasn’t as complicated and deep as I thought. It is clear that Your Majesty has been deeply trapped and can’t extricate himself.”

“Deeply trapped……Pei Ge, you sure have the audacity. How dare you laugh at this Prince?” Gu Yan coldly snorted meaningfully, but there was no annoyance in his eyes.

Pei Ge hurriedly begged for mercy: “This commoner doesn’t dare.”

Gu Yan said: “No matter, let’s talk about business. What is the progress of the matter you were asked to do?”

Pei Ge collected his joking look and replied: “There are not too many records about the plague in Chang’an twenty years ago, but I have found a few people who survived the plague and have gotten some results. However, I still need time to thoroughly find out the cause of the epidemic and the way to deal with it.”

“Whatever you need, just ask, but I don’t want to wait too long.”

Pei Ge was silent for a moment and responded: “Yes.”

Gu Yan raised his eyes to look at him: “What do you want to say?”

Pei Ge asked: “Your Majesty, are you suspecting that the plague from twenty years ago……was premeditated?”

Gu Yan narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer.

Twenty years ago, there was a terrible plague in Chang’an and even Gu Yan’s biological father, the former Crown Prince, also died in that epidemic. If the plague was premeditated, then there were probably a lot of things involved.

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Pei Ge hesitated for a moment: “Your Majesty, there are some things that perhaps I shouldn’t talk about but……you should understand that twenty years have passed and you are investigating these things under the eyes of the current Emperor. Even if you do find out what happened, what can you do?”

“…Some things may be better left unknown than known.”  

Gu Yan glanced at him and said quietly: “You worry too much, that isn’t what this Prince wants.”

“What I want is the root cause of the epidemic and the cure.”

On the streets of Chang’an, Ye Zi finally had the chance to catch some fresh hair. Everything he looked at seemed like a novelty; checking out the gadgets sold at the stalls over here to tasting the freshly baked pastries at the stall over there. Overall, he was having a great time.

From the start of the street to the end of the street, Ye Zi looked through several stalls in a row, all of which sold some rouge, vermilion hairpins, silk, and satin, few of which caught his eye.

At the end of the street, there was a street performer. He attracted many passers-by to gather around and the crowd would erupt from time to time with playful cheers. When Ye Zi walked over, the performance had already ended and the performer was already packing up.

Seeing Ye Zi leaning over, the cockatoo in the birdcage suddenly shouted: “Sir, auspicious!”

Ye Zi’s eyes lit up.

The cockatoo was snow white except for the cluster of feathers on its head, which were a light yellow. Its long tail hung down and its azure eyes looked radiant and beautiful.

Ye Zi and that pair of azure eyes stared at each other for a moment as he touched the cockatoo’s feathers through the birdcage. The cockatoo spoke again: “Sir, best wishes!”

The performer finally noticed Ye Zi’s presence: “Shoo, shoo, shoo. Don’t touch it, it will bite.”

The more Ye Zi looked at the cockatoo, the more he liked it and asked: “Are you willing to sell this cockatoo?” 

The performer glared at him: “How am I going to earn my money if I sell it? Not for sale.”

Ye Zi didn’t relent: “I will pay a high price so sell it to me.”

“High price? Sure.” The performer laughed mockingly, “I bought this cockatoo for ten taels of silver. All these years of training and feeding, it can at least earn a hundred wen for me every day. If you want to buy it, fine, I’ll let you have it for two hundred taels.”

“How about it, young master, can you afford it?”

The cockatoo shouted at the right time: “Sir is generous!”

Ye Zi: “……”

Ye Zi frowned and was dissatisfied: “A cockatoo for two hundred taels, you are too——Wait, don’t leave.”

Seeing that the performer wanted to leave, Ye Zi hurriedly went forward to stop the person: “This big brother, I really like this little guy. Two hundred taels is fine, but I don’t have so much money on hand, I will give you an IOU and pay you back later, okay?”

The performer immediately changed his face: “If you can’t afford it, get out of here. Hah, give me an IOU? If you run away tomorrow, who am I supposed to look for? Get lost, don’t delay me getting to my next performance.” 

“Hey, you——”

The argument between the two attracted many passers-by. In a restaurant not far behind, two men were sitting opposite each other drinking.

Hearing the noise on the street, Xiao Min looked down: “What’s going on down there, why is it so noisy?”

As soon as he spoke, he froze for a moment and immediately recognized Ye Zi in the crowd.

Gu Xuan followed his gaze and looked over: “Isn’t that……the servant boy from Imperial Brother’s manor?”

Xiao Min nodded with a complex look in his eyes.

When he was at the Prince Rui Manor, he had begged Gu Yan for this person as a joke. At that time, the joke implication was there, but he didn’t expect that Gu Yan would grimace with displeasure.

Xiao Min was the only son in his family and he always got what he wanted. If Gu Yan had given him the servant boy directly that day, his interest might have faded within two days.

But he wasn’t able to get his hands on that person and then he began to occupy his mind. 

After Xiao Min returned to the manor, he always unconsciously thought of the servant boy at the Prince Rui Manor. The more he thought about it, the more he liked him and he soon lost interest in looking at the beautiful people in the brothels. He originally wanted to find an opportunity to go to the Prince Rui Manor to check on Gu Yan’s true intentions, but he didn’t expect to bump into him on the street today.

Ye Zi ended up saying a mouthful, but that performer simply refused to sell the cockatoo to him. 

The performer didn’t want to bother with him anymore and gave him a hard push. Ye Zi wasn’t able to stand still from the push and stumbled a little before a person from behind reached around his waist to hold him steady.

Ye Zi looked back, just in time to see Xiao Min’s playboy face.

Xiao Min asked: “Are you okay?”

“It’s you?” Ye Zi fumbled to push the person away and whispered, “Thank you, Little Prince.”

Xiao Min didn’t mind and turned to ask the performer: “What is going on?”

Xiao Min took his attendants with him to the streets. With a group of people surrounding him, all that was missing was basically writing “Prince Yu Manor” on their faces.

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The performer knew Xiao Min and immediately backed down: “This young master wanted to buy my cockatoo, but he didn’t have any money on him so we……”

“Cockatoo?” Xiao Min looked back at Ye Zi and asked in a warm voice, “You want this?”

Ye Zi was chilled by his gaze and didn’t reply.

“It’s just a bird, what’s there to fight about?” Xiao Min smiled carelessly and said to the performer, “I’ll buy this bird. You can go to Prince Yu Manor to receive the five hundred taels of silver.”

The performer immediately smiled: “Yes, thank you, Little Prince.”

Ye Zi felt very apologetic: “Little Prince, you don’t have to do that.”

“What do you mean?” Xiao Min ambiguously came closer to Ye Zi, “It’s only five hundred taels, I am not short of money. If you feel sorry, accompany me for a drink, it can be counted as a thank you.”

His voice carried an obvious frivolousness and the corners of Ye Zi’s eyebrows twitched. He was almost unable to resist the urge to beat him up.

Just as Xiao Min was about to put hand on Ye Zi’s shoulders, a hand suddenly stretched out from behind the two of them and tightly grasped his wrist. With a slight twist of that hand, Xiao Min let go in pain.

Before Ye Zi could react, he was pulled by a strong force and directly into an embrace.

Xiao Min grimaced in pain and cursed: “Which bloody bastard——”

When he looked up, he met Gu Yan’s cold and hostile eyes.

“……Zicheng?”

Gu Yan asked in a cold voice: “What are you doing?”

Quickly recovering from the unforeseen event, Xiao Min rubbed his wrist and waved away the attendants who nearly rushed forward: “It’s nothing, don’t be so nervous.”

He looked at Gu Yan and smiled sloppily, “Zicheng, since you have seen it, I won’t bother hiding it. I like him so please just give him to me, I will definitely treat him well.”

Bringing up the old matter again, Xiao Min’s thoughts were very simple.

When Gu Yan rejected him before, it was most likely because he couldn’t get used to his profligate appearance which always provoked others. He was only just a servant in the manor. With his more than ten years of friendship with Gu Yan, there was nothing to be unwilling about.  

As Xiao Min thought of this, he expressed his determination: “To be honest, I really like him and I have been thinking about him since I saw him at your manor last time. Look at how destined we are, we can even happen upon each other just by strolling the streets. This is a match made in Heaven, you can’t tear apart two people destined to be.”

With every word he said, Gu Yan’s arms around Ye Zi became tighter and the anger in it was self-evident.

Ye Zi looked pitifully at the Little Prince who wouldn’t have to die if he had just kept quiet. 

Poor child, he didn’t even know who he was asking for from Gu Yan.

Sure enough, Gu Yan laughed back in anger and said softly: “You like him? You have been thinking about him since you guys met last time? It’s a match made in Heaven?”

“Yes……yes.” Xiao Min sensed something was wrong with his tone and replied with a guilty conscience. His gaze moved down slowly and only then did he notice Gu Yan’s hand wrapped around Ye Zi’s waist.

He was stunned and vaguely realized what was going on. His heart suddenly went half cold: “Y-y-y-you guys——……who is he??”

Gu Yan smiled: “I’ll tell you who he is.”

After he finished speaking, he reached out his hand and lifted Ye Zi’s chin before kissing him fiercely.

********

The author has something to say:

Ye Zi: Was this throwing a tantrum or taking advantage of the opportunity?

Gu Yan: Of course I’m taking advantage of the opportunity.

Little Prince Xiao: …….I endured a torture that shouldn’t be endured at this age [Aggrieved.jpg]

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[1] Around half an hour.