CH 39.2

Meng Huan inexplicably thought.

Were ancient couples like this? Without falling in love, after getting introduced by a matchmaker, going through the process, and sleeping together one night, the two people began to stay together until they were old.

Did Lin Bozhou also think like this about himself?

Did Lin Bozhou know what love was?

“……”

Meng Huan was not quite sure why he had this inexplicable thought, and he thought about what he wanted to pursue. He shook his head, thinking this was perhaps the illusion of being full and idle.

You Jin came in through the door with his back bowed and asked, “Princess, where will the dishes be placed?”

“Put it on the table outside.”

Meng Huan tidied up his clothes, fastened the buckles, and walked out. Lin Bozhou was writing a letter, but his brush hung in the air halfway through writing, and he sat in his chair, raising his eyes in a slightly tired manner.

Chen An, standing next to him, hastily took out a white jade bottle, poured out a pill, and picked up a cup of tea. “Your Highness, please take it.”

Lin Bozhou drank it down, his hand still holding the brush, the line of his throat was sharp and dry, but his body was drenched with a sense of humidity as if bathed in a thick fog.

It gave people the feeling that he was about to suffocate.

Meng Huan was stunned and asked, “What’s wrong with Your Highness?”

“Nothing.” Lin Bozhou spoke briefly.

Chen An, however, looked grave and said, “The weather has been too hot lately. The eyes don’t get hurt unless they’re on fire. His Majesty’s eye disease is showing signs of recurrence.”

“Eye disease recurrence?”

Walking next to Lin Bozhou, he still held the brush in one hand, but the words he wrote were indeed somewhat blurred as if a layer of fog blocked his eyes. The initially remarkably steady and firm handwriting became dazzled and disturbed.

His eye disease could turn Lin Bozhou from a powerful minister with infinite power in the court into a useless, pitiful, blind man, trampling his pride to the ground, stepping into the mud and water, and viciously trampling on it. It could turn him from a capable prince regent into a wretch insect drenched by a rainstorm with nowhere to return to.

Meng Huan half crouched, with his eyes level with Lin Bozhou.

“Is it serious?”

Lin Bozhou pursed his lips and smiled gently. “Not serious.”

The smile at the corner of his lips was deliberately forced to appease him. And Meng Huan knew in his heart that his eye disease was the only thing that could make him remove his usual false mask of gentleness and return to violent paranoia and gloomy mania; the only thing that could make all his calmness and sanity vanish and turn him into an undignified lunatic, making a fool of himself and becoming unsightly.

In the original book, when Lin Bozhou’s eyes were injured at an early age, he thought he would never regain sight, so his father treated him as an outcast and raised his younger brother instead.

The younger brother was foolish and naughty, but the collection of hardcover essays from the capital was still given to the younger brother, who couldn’t understand a shit.

…… He could never see again.

…… He had no choice in this life but to be like this.

…… Let’s just groom Xu-er. The prince’s residence needed someone to hold it up.

The person supporting the prince’s residence would never be a blind man.

Later, the eye disease healed but occasionally relapsed, so he had been living in the loss and gain, always thinking that maybe one day the sky would turn dark again and never light up, and from then on, he would fall into the darkness forever.

Lin Bozhou’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, and his eyes were indifferent, looking straight ahead.

Meng Huan reached out and gently touched his eyelids. “Since the eyes are already not well, Your Highness, don’t write first and stop, okay?”

After touching, he realized the light in Lin Bozhou’s eyes dimmed.

Lin Bozhou’s voice was calm. “Huan Huan, go eat. This husband will come over soon.”

Meng Huan was stunned momentarily, nodded, and walked to the table with the dishes.

Chen An took out the medicine bottle and poured more pills into his hand. Lin Bozhou picked up the cup of tea in a hurry, tilted his head, and swallowed them. The tea splashed on the back of his lean fingers, slightly puffed up with veins.

The expression on his face did not change, and he closed his eyes as if to rest.

The study room was dead silent.

Meng Huan was about to stand up when You Jin gently pulled his sleeve and put his hand on his lips. “The prince has just taken his medicine and will rest for a while. Your Highness, don’t go. Let the prince rest quietly.”

For some reason, Meng Huan felt the atmosphere in the entire bed chamber pile up and become stagnant. Everyone who had been joking around suddenly began to tense up their nerves and even began to worry about this head around their neck.

Let him rest a little?

Fine then.

Meng Huan got up and walked to the outside of the bed chamber.

You Jin, as if afraid that Meng Huan was overly concerned, quickly said, “Your Highness is still catching fireflies? After a day, this old servant’s technique has improved greatly, so he can definitely catch many today.”

“Forget it. I’m not in the mood.”

Meng Huan wandered around the prince’s residence and walked to the gate entrance to find many new lanterns hanging outside. Various shapes and colors were mixed together, held by a rope, spreading along the street toward the end of the road.

Meng Huan tilted his face. “What is this?”

“Midsummer,” You Jin said with a smile. “The Lantern Festival is about to begin.”

At this time, the Lantern Festival, the most prosperous and lively summer night in the capital, was about to begin.

Meng Huan nodded and walked back but saw servants inside the prince’s residence stepping on elevated shelves, one by one, silently taking down the beautiful bright lanterns from the eaves.

One by one, the lanterns went out, and the prince’s residence was enveloped in ghastly darkness.

“……”

Meng Huan seemed to understand suddenly.

— Lin Bozhou’s eye disease had returned.