Futile Devices Scans

Yu Gong Zhao Ye frowned as he watched Wei Fu jump from shock to shock and act out an entire drama by himself, thinking: What nonsense is he babbling about now?

If not for the tolerance expected of an elder brother, he would have thrown this chatterbox out long ago.

“Which part of what I said did you fail to understand?” Yu Gong Zhao Ye demanded. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it’s not that I explained badly, but that you’re the one being ridiculous?”

Wei Fu looked deeply wronged. “We’re the same age. Why do you insist on treating me like a younger brother? Do I really look that childish to you?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye could not even be bothered to answer aloud. His eyes plainly replied: If not, then what?

Wei Fu: “…”

Still unwilling to admit defeat, he argued, “You’ve met my actual older brothers and cousins before. Have I ever treated them the way I treat you? Even His Majesty and Chuiyun have never shared a bed with me. Never. Not once! Brothers simply aren’t like this…”

After thinking it over, Yu Gong Zhao Ye realized he had a point. With the way Wei Fu spoke—ten words containing nine and a half parts whining and clinginess—and how he would endlessly stick to someone once attached, who besides a brother raised together from childhood, or an elder brother much older than him, could possibly tolerate a lump of sticky rice cake constantly trailing after them? The hugging, the clinging, the demands to sleep together—between peers and friends, it really was far too intimate.

A trace of uncertainty finally entered his heart. “So… you never regarded me as an elder brother?”

Wei Fu nodded frantically like a pecking chicken, eyes shining with expectation as he gazed at him, waiting for this blockhead to finally understand.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye lowered his eyes. His lashes, thick as raven feathers, concealed his gaze and avoided Wei Fu’s scorching stare. Unexpectedly, he even looked faintly shy.

“I understand now…”

The heart that had just died inside Wei Fu suddenly performed a carp leap back to life and began dancing wildly with banners and drums.

Had he realized it? Was he about to say it out loud here? But what if someone passing by overheard? If the Sovereign and his colleagues asked tomorrow, how was he supposed to respond? Should he write a letter home to tell Mu Heng and Zhong Yi first?

“You grew up without the protection of your parents. People always say the eldest brother is like a father. As for your two older brothers… better not mention them.”

Although his parents had traveled far away, his grandfather the Duke Zhenguo was still alive—and besides, any marriage of his would require His Majesty’s approval before it counted… wait, could it be that Yu Gong Zhao Ye was already considering proposing marriage? But if anyone were to propose, shouldn’t it be him proposing to Yu Gong Zhao Ye first?!

“Before, I misunderstood. I thought the way you clung to me was because you saw me as an older brother you could rely on…”

For some reason, his eyes suddenly burned hot. His breathing became rapid and painfully tight, his heart pounding furiously against his ribs like a living creature. Wei Fu had been shocked too many times today and was close to breaking down entirely. Like a bashful young maiden, he clasped both hands over his chest.

“But thinking about it now, your nature is open and easygoing, and you have friends everywhere. What you lack isn’t brotherly affection or friendship, but true family—people who can stay with you forever, inseparable from you.”

His blockhead was finally about to bloom!

“Though it’s improper, contrary to propriety…”

As though he had finally made up his mind, Yu Gong Zhao Ye at last raised his eyes to meet Wei Fu’s directly. A trace of unconscious laughter lingered there, his eyes deep as the sea, as if capable of containing every absurd longing and impossible obsession Wei Fu possessed.

“But if you want to regard me as a father figure, then I also… hm? What’s wrong?”

Standing beside the carriage, Ying Yue blinked.

For a moment he thought his eyes had deceived him. Something had just flown past.

Oh. It was just Chancellor Wei dragging His Highness away.

He exchanged a look with the innocent coachman watching the spectacle nearby. Both wore expressions of perfect understanding. Neither had any intention of rushing off to rescue His Highness.

If some ordinary citizen were abducted by force, they would at least go check on the victim’s safety. But for Yu Gong Zhao Ye, not resisting meant consent. Not striking back meant indulgence. And if he allowed someone to do whatever they pleased without even trying to escape, that meant he was giving them face.

The great bandit who resorted to violence whenever words failed dragged Yu Gong Zhao Ye into a deserted narrow alley beside the street and slammed him lightly against the wall by the shoulders.

He looked fierce—like a puppy baring its teeth—but the force he used was so gentle it nearly made Yu Gong Zhao Ye laugh aloud.

Raising his eyes to glance at Wei Fu’s black-as-a-pot face, Yu Gong Zhao Ye wisely restrained the overly blatant amusement threatening to show.

Unfortunately, that untimely cleverness only fueled Wei Fu’s anger further. Gritting his teeth several times, his chest aching from the blazing fury inside him, unwilling to scold and even more unwilling to hit him, Wei Fu finally lowered his head and bit down hard on Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s shoulder.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye: “…”

No matter how hopelessly dense he was romantically, even he knew that under such circumstances, he absolutely could not say, “That didn’t hurt at all.”

Looking upward from the narrow alleyway, the night sky resembled deep-blue silk. A perfect full moon hung high overhead, scattering cold silver radiance impartially across all living things while silently observing the night travelers below.

Facing the moon’s gaze, Yu Gong Zhao Ye revealed a faintly helpless smile.

He used the Moon God as a pretext while secretly carrying out murder and arson in the shadows. And now, under the moonlight itself, he was trapped in an alley being gnawed on by Wei Fu, entirely incapable of fighting back. Truly, this counted as karmic retribution in the present life.

“Finished eating yet?” he tentatively poked Wei Fu.

Wei Fu almost wanted to bite his neck next.

“You were teasing me,” he lifted his head resentfully, accusing Yu Gong Zhao Ye. “You toyed with my sincere feelings, trampled on my emotions, and even took advantage of me.”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye could tolerate the earlier accusations, but the last one was utterly reversing black and white. “You haven’t taken advantage of me enough already?” He pointed at his shoulder, where a faint ache still lingered. “You just finished grinding your teeth on me. Your saliva probably hasn’t even dried yet, and now you’re denying it?”

“There was no saliva!” Wei Fu flapped frantically at the wrinkled fabric on his shoulder. “And that was because I was angry! Didn’t you notice at all?!”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye asked, “Angry about what?”

Wei Fu: “……”

“Go on, Young Master Wei.” Hidden in the shadows, Yu Gong Zhao Ye wore a wicked smile. “You were the one insisting I ‘explain things clearly.’ Come then—tell me exactly how I toyed with your feelings and trampled on your sincerity.”

Wei Fu: “……”

He was actually someone very skilled at reading people. He simply never liked using those skills on Yu Gong Zhao Ye. He had always relied on genuine feeling to move his blockhead prince.

But after that earlier misunderstanding, Yu Gong Zhao Ye had tossed the question right back at him. Wei Fu understood then that Yu Gong Zhao Ye still did not want to discuss “feelings” with him.

They had spent too little time together and too much time apart. Though Wei Fu had thought of him over and over through the years until his feelings overflowed like water, in Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s eyes, their acquaintance likely amounted to only that brief half year plus a single month.

The fact that Yu Gong Zhao Ye was willing to act as an elder brother already counted as tremendous indulgence.

Not to mention that between them stood the divide of two nations, the secrets of Yeguang, and the three-year agreement to return to court.

Wei Fu had once boasted behind Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s back that there was nothing he could not abandon for him. But now the greatest problem before him was that Yu Gong Zhao Ye might not even want “everything he had,” much less “his sacrifice.”

Wei Fu’s voice weakened in defeat. “…Anyway, it’s not what you said. Elder brother, father, all that—I don’t lack elders.”

Though Yu Gong Zhao Ye had bullied him into drooping like a wilted fox, he still found himself unable to bear it.

“Then what do you want me to be?”

Wei Fu asked gloomily, “Would it matter even if I said it?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye considered for a moment, then coaxed him half-seriously. “If you promise to stay home obediently and stop involving yourself in your brother’s mess, then maybe—after I return safely, bah, that sounds unlucky… anyway, perhaps when I’m in a good mood someday, it might matter.”

Wei Fu: “……”

In a soft voice he asked, “Your Highness, with all these rules and restrictions you keep setting… are you afraid I’ll eat you?”

Yu Gong Zhao Ye brushed casually at his shoulder. “You already skipped asking my permission and went straight to biting me. Is it wrong for me to protect myself?”

Wei Fu felt slightly guilty. “Did it hurt?”

Truthfully, he had only nibbled. He had simply gone ah-woo and stayed there without even closing his teeth, and there had been clothing in between. Aside from leaving a couple shallow tooth marks, there was no real damage.

So Yu Gong Zhao Ye answered honestly, “I thought a mosquito bit me.”

Feeling underestimated, Wei Fu became furious and immediately escalated things. He grabbed Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s shoulder again, intending to leave a matching “mosquito bite.” Yet Yu Gong Zhao Ye neither dodged nor resisted. He did not press a hand to Wei Fu’s face to stop him. Instead, he even tilted his head slightly to the side, thoughtfully exposing a better place for him to bite.

And so that second bite never landed.

Instead, it became a complete and airtight embrace.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye skillfully tilted his head again, finding a comfortable position against him, and silently sighed.

Honestly, it would have been better if he had just bitten him and gone mad for a while.

Assassins spent their lives mingling among all sorts of people and disguising themselves as different identities to complete missions. Yu Gong Zhao Ye had seen every variety of love and desire there was. He could already view such things calmly. If he truly failed to notice feelings as obvious as Wei Fu’s, then he might as well stop walking the underworld entirely.

But knowing was one thing. Accepting and acknowledging it was another.

Right now, whether acceptance or rejection, both were too early. Speaking the truth aloud would only bring more trouble and nothing else.

Wei Fu’s feelings burned hot. Even hidden away, they radiated warmth endlessly. One day they would inevitably burn through the thin paper covering them.

And Yu Gong Zhao Ye was the one pouring cold water over the flames. As long as that fragile paper remained unpierced, there was still room to retreat. They could still be friends. They could avoid throwing themselves into a fire that would leave both sides burned.

“I hope…” Wei Fu wrapped both arms tightly around him, burying his nose in Yu Gong Zhao Ye’s cool hair as he whispered beside his ear, “that you’ll always stay. I don’t care about titles or labels anymore. You can be anything you want. As long as you stay by my side, that’s enough.”

Beyond a single wall and only a few steps away stood the bustling lantern-lit world. Endless joy and excitement filled the human realm. That was where Wei Fu ought to belong—not trapped in this narrow, dark alley, endlessly retreating and hurting himself for the sake of one person.

Yu Gong Zhao Ye lifted a hand and slowly stroked down Wei Fu’s back. In the quiet night came the helpless sigh he could not suppress.

“Why put yourself through this?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

Wei Fu immediately refuted him and hugged him even tighter.

“Not at all. It’s precisely because it’s too sweet that I can’t help wanting more.”

“I’ve never regretted it. Your Highness also… don’t regret it either.”

After a brief silence, he softly added:

“Okay?”

What else could Yu Gong Zhao Ye say?

“Fine then. As long as you stop crying, I’ll treat it as a sacrifice offered to the Dragon King.”

Wei Fu: ?

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