CH 25

“If you want me to help you, I can.” Ling Xiao had a plan in mind as he laid out the bait.

Delight lit up Mo Qi’s face, and she quickly crawled back up, looking upwards with her purple-covered face, her gaze looking at Ling Xiao with great desire.

Ling Xiao lightly gave her a glance, “There is a condition, though, you have to help me with something…”

Mo Qi asked pouting and full of resentment, “What else do you want me to help you with?!”

Ling Xiao gave her a slanted glance and asked, “Are you going to do it or not?”

Mo Qi clenched her teeth, “I’ll do it.”

“Very good.” Ling Xiao smiled, satisfied.

Within the Prime Minister’s Household, worry hung around like a gloomy cloud.

Young Master Lan Wei had been found unconscious at the entrance of the house the other day.

The Prime Minister quickly had people bring Lan Wei into the house and found the best doctor of the country to look at him.

However, Lan Wei never woke up from his unconscious state.

The Prime Minister stood guard in Lan Wei’s room, his hair going white from worry as he looked at Lan Wei’s pale white face as he lay on the bed. He repeatedly sighed and shook his head.

Lan Wei had many burn marks on him and his clothes were also worn out, as if he had been in a large fire. From what he heard these past few days, there was only one place that had burned and it was the residence of the Eunuch Steward. They also found the embroidered robe of the Eunuch Steward covering Lan Wei when he had collapsed in front of the house.

These were clear signs that Lan Wei had been in the Imperial Palace these past two days!

But before Lan Wei left home, the Prime Minister remembered that he was in high spirits and said to him that he was just going out to amuse himself for two days.

This amusing himself… he went to amuse himself in the Imperial Palace… and even returned with the Eunuch Steward’s robe and injuries!

The Prime Minister had the mind to reproach his son, but Lan Wei had still not woken up so far. As a result, he could only swallow all his scoldings, even if he had ten million of them.

Looking at Lan Wei’s pale white face, the Prime Minister felt extremely distressed. He considered going out to protest unfairness, but he didn’t even know what happened to Lan Wei in the first place!

Furthermore, the Eunuch Steward was always in the harem and without the Emperor’s permission, no man could enter!

This forced the Prime Minister to not dare to make it public.

He had no choice but to spread the word that Lan Wei had fallen ill after the last time he had visited the palace and could not go out.

As for what had happened, he had no choice but to wait for this trouble-causing son of his to wake up and clear up.

The Prime Minister stood by the bedside, gazing worriedly at Lan Wei, and let out a long drawn out sigh, leaning over to tuck in the corner of the bedcover a bit.

“Lord.” A soft cry from a manservant suddenly echoed from the entrance.

The Prime Minister slightly glanced out and said, “Come in.”

The manservant came in from outside, a letter clasp in his hand that he handed over to the Prime Minister, “Lord, a letter from the palace. They said it’s for Young Master Lan Wei.”

The Prime Minister reached out a hand to take the letter, a frown of suspicion on his face. In the palace, who would send a letter to Lan Wei?

While thinking that, the Prime Minister opened the letter and his whole face changed. He suddenly put it away and asked the manservant, “Where is the person who sent it?”

“They already left.” The manservant respectfully answered.

“Then did anyone else see this letter?” The Prime Minister asked.

The manservant shook his head, “The moment I got it, I directly brought it for My Lord and did not let anyone else see it.”

The Prime Minister released a breath at what he said and calmed down, waving his head, “That’s enough, you can go!”

Waiting for the manservant to depart, the Prime Minister once again looked over the letter, his complexion turning worse and worse.

It was at this moment that the person in the bed moved and slowly opened his eyes. Upon seeing this, the Prime Minister’s severe sight landed on the wakening Lan Wei.

In a daze, Lan Wei saw the Prime Minister’s figure and his heart calmed. He coarsely called out once, “Father.”

“Did I come back?” Lan Wei coughed and looked around at his surroundings as he struggled to get up.

“You are lucky to come back this time!” The Prime Minister coldly ridiculed.

Lan Wei was startled but he knew this time he had rushed into trouble. He struggled and knelt down in front of the Prime Minister, “Father, your son knows his mistakes.”

“You know your mistakes? You call this mistakes!” the Prime Minister threw the letter he had in his hand in front of Lan Wei, anger clear on his face.

Lan Wei stared blankly, he didn’t understand so he picked up the letter and read it. After that, stunned, his eyes went wide, “Father… this…”

“I already warn you earlier! Don’t approach that Mo Qi girl, she doesn’t have good intentions, she simply isn’t fit for you! But you don’t listen and look at how you end up! To even go assassinate Ling Xiao for her! Just because she said she is not pleased with Ling Xiao! And to even end up so badly injured!”

“I… I wasn’t, father…” Lan Wei frowned and tried to explain, doubt in his heart. The handwriting was unmistakable Qi Qi’s, but why would she write this letter?

He had been imprisoned for two days by Ling Xiao, yet this letter said he had been with her…

He had plainly wanted to help her by going and threatening Ling Xiao, yet why did Qi Qi say everything was his fault? Was she afraid of receiving blame from his father?

“You even made an agreement to leave with her? Good, very good. Lan Wei, to risk the Prime Minister Household’s safety for a woman, regardless of your old and gray-haired parents! You-you are very good!”

The Prime Minister was seething with anger, trembling pointed a finger at Lan Wei with a grieving and lamenting appearance.

Guilt burst in Lan Wei’s consciousness, he had thought about taking Mo Qi and escaping to somewhere far away, but Mo Qi had refused him, unlike the letter saying they had agreed to leave…

Why would Qi Qi write this kind of letter at such a time? Was she trying to make an appointment with him to leave?

Lan Wei’s eyes flashed before hearing the Prime Minister say, “Lan Wei, let us be clear. You could not touch Mo Qi before, and you cannot touch her even more now! Her plate has been turned over by the Emperor, even if the Emperor doesn’t touch her for her whole life, she is still the Emperor’s woman! That is something no one can change!”

“Are we clear!” The Prime Minister stated clearly and severely.

Lan Wei clenched his teeth and controlled his sight, hesitation on his face. The Prime Minister looked at him and suddenly understood. He retreated two steps, his face red with anger, “The son I personally raised for seventeen years is so unworthy of respect!”

“Father…” Lan Wei softly mumbled, his head low and his eyes red.

The Prime Minister felt resentful for him failing to meet his expectations, turned and walked straight out the room. He vigorously closed the door and ordered, “Get some more people here and watch after the Young Master. Do not let him come out even half a step past the door.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

Lan Wei gazed at the dense number of guards outside his door and powerlessly and weakly leaned against the bed. The letter was Mo Qi’s handwriting, but nothing in the letter was right, even the line about agreeing to leave with him didn’t say a time… she wasn’t really trying to leave with him, right? The whole letter pointed to Ling Xiao as the main culprit. Did this mean Qi Qi was siding with Ling Xiao?

Was this to remind him to not bear a grudge against Ling Xiao and to not use the Prime Minister Household’s power to retaliate against Ling Xiao?

Why? He had received such a disgrace… and he almost died this time!

Lan Wei painfully closed his eyes. Once he closed his eyes, the scene where Ling Xiao had rushed into the fire to save him played out, and he suddenly opened his eyes. He clenched his fist and smashed it down on the bedboard in hatred.

Ling Xiao, this deceased soul that wouldn’t disperse![1]

The Ling Xiao that was being thought about Lan Wei was currently returning to his Ning Xuan Palace in a good mood.

Mo Qi’s one letter helped him solve a difficult problem.

This one letter would be able to completely divert the Lord Prime Minister’s attention from him to his son and Mo Qi.

Because of this letter, Lan Wei would temporary not retaliate against him. He did, after all, love Mo Qi so much that if Mo Qi was “baring her shoulders”[2] to someone, he would not retaliate against them.

Ling Xiao laughed in a good mood, it looked like Mo Qi still had some use if he manipulated her properly.

Ling Xiao wandered around the whole way back to Qin Palace, pushing the door to his room open with both hands and pretentiously walking in.

However, once he walked in, he noticed a person sitting there.

Black robe with golden silk embroidery, neatly combed hair with not a thread loose, and a clear and handsome appearance that carried a serious atmosphere. The person that should have been examining memorials in the Imperial Study, the Emperor.

Ling Xiao’s smile went rigid and his knees went weak. He spontaneously knelt on the ground in front of the Emperor and saluted, “Long live Your Majesty!”

Footnotes:

[1]He won’t die and keeps influencing things

[2]Baring her shoulders was used before, I just put ‘sided with him’ because that’s what it means.