The day Yugong Ming returned to Bihan City, the weather was extraordinarily inauspicious. Fine rain drizzled steadily from morning to night, the wind bit to the bone, and tiny pellets of ice mixed with the rain stung people’s faces when they struck—rather like the mood of the royal capital’s master, who was resisting his return with every fiber of his being.
The common people had no idea that a prince who had spent years as a hostage abroad was returning home. No one paid any attention to the carriage hurrying past. There were few pedestrians on the streets, and the atmosphere was bleak, gloomy, and desolate, making Yugong Ming look like a dull-gray, soaking-wet dog fleeing miserably with its tail between its legs.
Horse hooves shattered the muddy water along the street. Yugong Ming lifted the carriage curtain and gazed at the unfamiliar stretch of towers and pavilions. Drawing a deep breath of damp, icy mist, he murmured, “Royal Uncle, look. Even Bihan City’s weather doesn’t welcome me.”
The corner of Yugong Zhaoye’s mouth twitched. So you do know your return isn’t exactly welcome. Unfortunately, it was not convenient to needle Yugong Ming with barbed remarks right now, so he merely comforted him lazily, “Rain is common in Bihan City during winter. It’s simply the season. There’s no need to invite trouble into your own heart.”
“It doesn’t matter. I never expected anyone to give me a pleasant face anyway.”
Yugong Ming reached out and caught a drop of icy rain. Slowly, he ground it apart beneath the pad of his finger as though intending to crush that coldness into dust. He laughed softly. “Rivers and mountains are like beauties. The more unwilling they are, the more satisfying they are to conquer.”
“…”
Yugong Zhaoye particularly disliked this sort of vulgar nonsense loaded with obscene insinuation. He did not answer. As his horse passed the carriage, he casually tugged the thin cord beside the window, sending the rolled bamboo blind dropping with a scrape right past Yugong Ming’s nose.
Although Yugong Lie had not ordered the entire city to line the streets in welcome, he had commanded all the civil and military officials to wait outdoors before the palace. He himself was wrapped so thoroughly that not even his fingertips showed, tucked beneath a wind-sheltered palanquin as he stared toward the palace gate.
Before Yugong Zhaoye left, Yugong Lie had still been furious enough to jump and stomp. More than ten days had passed since then. No one knew how Wei Fu had persuaded him, but at least outwardly, he had regained his composure. He had even granted Yugong Ming the courtesy of being welcomed by the assembled officials rather than truly grinding his brother’s face into the mud.
The carriage slowly arrived outside the palace gates, and inner attendants hurried forward with umbrellas. Before it had even come fully to a stop, however, Yugong Ming lifted the curtain and jumped down.
His movements were unexpectedly agile. He strode across the square surrounded by officials, rain soaking his head and face, then hurried all the way before the King and, without the slightest hesitation, dropped to his knees in a puddle with a splash.
Everyone’s gaze immediately gathered upon him. Overcome with emotion, Yugong Ming choked out:
“Royal Brother!”
Yugong Lie hurried out from beneath the gauze umbrella and caught both of his arms. The moment he spoke, his own voice was equally full of emotion.
“You’ve suffered, my brother. Quickly, get up… Someone! Bring a towel!”
The cold wind whimpered and the fine rain blurred the air, leaving everyone’s vision hazy. They could barely make out the two figures clasping hands and supporting one another.
These brothers truly ought to thank the rain.
It had spared them who knew how many tears, allowing three parts false affection to be performed as ten parts moving sincerity.
Yugong Lie personally wiped the rainwater from Yugong Ming’s face, his expression filled with tender affection as he looked him over like something precious and rare.
“You were only this tall when you left. In the blink of an eye, you’ve grown up. I almost didn’t recognize you. Father was still thinking of you even before he passed… Later, I’ll take you to pay respects to him. You must be exhausted after such a long journey. Nothing else is urgent. Rest and recover properly first. Look how thin you’ve become.”
He did not mention Yugong Ming returning without permission, nor did he utter a word about merit, rewards, or titles.
To everyone else, his words sounded like earnest concern.
To Yugong Ming, who was listening with ulterior motives, they sounded faintly like a warning.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. This younger brother has made Royal Brother worry.”
Yugong Ming looked at him through tear-filled eyes, smiling with a gaze full of childlike admiration. As though reluctant to let go, he held Yugong Lie’s sleeve and said solicitously, “State affairs are exhausting. Royal Brother must take good care of yourself as well. So long as Your Majesty remains in good health and free from harm, that will be this younger brother’s greatest blessing.”
The corner of Yugong Lie’s eye twitched.
Then he smiled.
“I understand. Don’t stand there foolishly. Come inside with me and talk.”
A large crowd of eunuchs and guards surrounded the brothers as they returned to the palace, while the assembled ministers lowered their heads and respectfully saw them off.
Yugong Zhaoye had deliberately fallen several steps behind and only now leisurely slipped into the crowd. As usual, the first thing he looked for was that tall jade tree standing below the steps.
Wei Fu had not mistreated himself today. Over his purple official robes, he wore a plain black satin cloak without any other embellishment, save for a ring of fluffy white fur around his shoulders.
The moment Yugong Zhaoye saw him, he wanted to laugh.
Now he really had turned into a fox.
These past several days, Yugong Zhaoye’s heart had been tangled into chaos. The foreseeable storms ahead had already drenched him through in advance, leaving him so chilled that even traveling through wind and rain no longer registered as cold.
Only at this moment, when he saw Wei Fu, did the invisible grip around his throat abruptly loosen.
Sensation returned to his entire body.
He suddenly wanted very much to slip a hand beneath Wei Fu’s fluffy collar and warm it there.
Relying on his height, Wei Fu spotted Yugong Zhaoye immediately among the crowd. Their gazes met, and Wei Fu had only just begun to smile when Yugong Zhaoye’s snow-white complexion frightened him so badly he nearly shed fur. He hurriedly pushed through the others and headed toward him.
But Yugong Zhaoye truly did not want to remain beneath everyone’s eyes. Right now, even saying one extra sentence to anyone made him worry that something might slip out.
From a distance, he gestured meet outside to Wei Fu, then stepped backward and melted into the crowd like a drop of water joining the curtain of rain.
In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Wei Fu: “…”
He slipped away way too fast!
No wonder he can be an assassin. Does he actually know some kind of invisibility technique?
Wei Fu caught one of his colleagues and gave him a few instructions, then followed the dispersing crowd out of the palace. He searched around but saw no sign of Yugong Zhaoye. Just as he began wondering whether His Highness had returned to the residence first, the corner of his eye caught sight of the Chancellor’s Residence carriage waiting inside a narrow alley.
Yugong Zhaoye frequently appeared inside Wei Fu’s carriage without warning, coming and going as though no walls or doors existed. Sometimes Wei Fu genuinely suspected that His Highness had made the carriage his second home.
When Wei Fu climbed aboard and lifted the curtain, the interior was dim.
Sure enough, there sat a jade statue with its eyes closed in repose.
Yugong Zhaoye’s face was so pale it had taken on a faint bluish cast. Rain had soaked his hair, leaving strands winding against his ear and neck. He could not exactly be called bedraggled, yet there was something inexplicably dispirited and desolate about him.
Wei Fu gathered his robes and climbed inside, ordered the coachman to return to the residence, then immediately leaned over and pressed the back of his hand to Yugong Zhaoye’s cheek. He felt along his clothes and came away with a palm full of damp cold.
He hurriedly took a dry towel from the cabinet, wiped Yugong Zhaoye’s face and hands, carefully tucked his hair behind his ears, stripped off his half-wet outer robe, then loosened his own cloak and wrapped His Highness completely inside it.
“What’s wrong? You look so unhappy.”
The fluffy collar crowded around Yugong Zhaoye’s narrow chin, yet Wei Fu still thought he looked too cold. He simply pulled him into his arms and held him tightly, pressing his own cheek against Yugong Zhaoye’s icy cheek and forehead while one hand gently cradled the back of his neck, as though soothing a little cat shivering after being caught in the rain.
The carriage shut the damp chill outside.
Their bodies pressed close together, warmth releasing the gentian fragrance that had soaked itself thoroughly into Wei Fu’s clothes and skin until it silently filled the space between them.
During summer, the medicinal fragrance had seemed clear and bitter.
The colder the weather became, the warmer it somehow smelled.
It had already become a scent that settled Yugong Zhaoye the instant he breathed it in.
Yugong Zhaoye let Wei Fu tug him around and fuss over him. Inside, he mocked himself for being weak—one little problem had frightened the courage out of him, leaving him somehow worse than when he had been an ignorant, fearless child.
Yet for the first time in his life, he also wanted to indulge this streak of willfulness that had sprouted in him at some unknown point.
After all, the person holding him was Wei Fu.
If he could not be completely unreasonable and unrestrained with Wei Fu, then there was no one else in this world capable of catching him.
The enormous pile of secrets Yugong Ming had revealed lodged in his throat, making even one word feel impossible to spit out.
In a daze, Yugong Zhaoye felt like the final stone in a dam, alone bearing the monstrous flood behind him.
If everything truly reached the point of no return, then the day the dam broke would probably be the day he too was smashed to pieces.
He lowered his eyes wearily and gave a muffled:
“Mhm.”
When had Wei Fu ever seen him like this?
For an instant, his heart felt as though someone had lifted it by a string, leaving it dangling painfully in midair.
And yet, watching Yugong Zhaoye curl languidly into his arms and offer him a degree of intimacy and dependence no one else in the world could rival, Wei Fu also experienced a strange, indescribable satisfaction.
“Unhappy, are you? Who upset our Highness?”
Wei Fu kissed him and coaxed softly, “Is that Third Prince going to cause trouble? Don’t worry. You saw how well the King handled himself today. Nothing will happen.”
Yugong Zhaoye sighed inwardly for what must have been the hundredth time and shoved his cold hand into Wei Fu’s collar.
“You ran away like this. Will the Cabinet be alright?”
“I asked someone to request leave for me. They’ll say I was exposed to the wind and felt a little unwell.”
Wei Fu shrank his neck from the cold hand, then retaliated by tightening his arm around Yugong Zhaoye’s waist.
“Besides, my appointment expires next month. There isn’t much for me to do lately. It’s mostly handover work.”
“…”
I forgot about that too.
Not one of these damned things lately has given me a moment’s peace.
Wei Fu helplessly watched Yugong Zhaoye’s brows, which had only just begun to relax, sink again.
His Highness was naturally steady. As he grew older, joy and anger appeared less and less often upon his face.
It was rare for his thoughts to be written this plainly there.
Rare for him to reveal his attachment without the slightest attempt to hide it.
He was so adorable that Wei Fu had no idea how he could possibly like him enough.
“You can’t bear to part with me?”
Delighted, Wei Fu pecked kisses at the tense corner of Yugong Zhaoye’s mouth and pursued him mercilessly.
“Is that it? You can’t bear to part with me? You don’t want us to separate?”
Yugong Zhaoye hated how Wei Fu deliberately chose exactly the words that stabbed deepest.
Furious, he bit him.
Inside, however, he silently answered:
Yes.
Wei Fu extracted a perfectly satisfactory answer from that tiny flash of embarrassed anger and planted a loud smack of a kiss on him.
“Not saying anything means you admit it. So since neither of us can live without the other, when I leave, I’ll steal Your Highness away with me. Alright?”
“The salary I’ve saved from these years of outside postings, together with a little ancestral property, should be enough to support Your Highness. If you want, you can find yourself some official position. If you don’t want to wander around officialdom, being a great hero is fine too. I’ll support you in founding your own sect and competing against Xie Youlan…”
That “little ancestral property” of his would have been enough not merely to support a sect, but to establish a kingdom.
Yet when Wei Fu eventually returned to Xiling, if the emperor learned that he possessed the Earth Mirror Map, would he too begin guarding against Wei Fu and suspecting him the way the King of Longsha had?
Seeing Yugong Zhaoye fall into thought without answering, Wei Fu assumed his offer simply was not attractive enough.
He redoubled his murmuring beside Yugong Zhaoye’s ear, sparing no effort in selling himself.
“My official rank will continue rising. Of course, in the short term, I can’t possibly wield as much power as I did in Longsha, but if I’m posted outside again, I should be able to govern an entire region. When I return to the capital, I can rotate through the Six Ministries. I won’t let Your Highness lose face…”
“Alright.”
The road ahead stretched endlessly into uncertainty.
Perhaps one day, Yeguang would no longer be able to shine upon the mountains and rivers of his homeland.
But perhaps using the tiny glow of a firefly to illuminate the eyes of the person he loved would also make a rather good ending.
Curled against Wei Fu’s neck, Yugong Zhaoye answered softly.
Wei Fu: “Mhm… Mhm?!”
Leave a Reply