Gu She and Tao Mo descended the mountain, with Lu Zhenxue following them the entire way.
“Brother Gu.” Seeing that Gu She and Tao Mo were about to board the carriage and leave him behind in a cloud of dust, Lu Zhenxue finally could not help calling out, “Please wait.”
Gu She turned around.
Lu Zhenxue said, “Brother Gu, would it be convenient to speak somewhere more private?”
Gu She remained exactly where he was. “Brother Lu may speak here.”
Lu Zhenxue glanced at the people coming and going around them, then lowered his voice. “I wonder whether Brother Gu has found a litigation master willing to overturn the woodcutter’s case in the neighboring county?”
“No.”
“If Brother Gu does not think me unsuitable, I am willing to take the case.”
Gu She remained completely unruffled. “What made Brother Lu change his mind?”
“If I said it was to uphold justice, would Brother Gu believe me?”
“Do you believe that yourself?”
Lu Zhenxue merely smiled and said nothing.
“In that case, Brother Lu may come to the county yamen tomorrow, and we can discuss it then.”
Lu Zhenxue cupped his hands. “Then I shall look forward to our meeting tomorrow.”
Gu She climbed into the carriage. Tao Mo was sitting there with the skewer of candied hawthorn in his hand, staring blankly at his knees. A sweet, contented smile hung at the corners of his mouth, as though he were completely lost in some beautiful memory.
Gu Xiaojia poked his head inside and jerked his chin toward Tao Mo. “What’s wrong with him? Did he find money on the road?”
Gu She looked at him with a faint, inscrutable smile.
Gu Xiaojia stuck out his tongue, quickly sat back down on the driver’s bench, and urged the carriage toward home.
The jolting of the road gradually brought Tao Mo back to himself. His eyes shifted, and when he noticed Gu She sitting so close beside him, his face abruptly reddened. “When did we start heading back?”
“Just now.”
Tao Mo flushed even more deeply. “Was I… was I staring into space just now?”
“What were you thinking about?”
Tao Mo turned his head away, his gaze wandering all over the carriage. “Nothing. I wasn’t thinking about anything.” If Gu She knew that ever since leaving the temple, Tao Mo had been replaying his conversation with the novice monk over and over in his head, surely he would look down on him for it.
“Perhaps you’re tired.” Gu She kindly gave him an excuse.
Tao Mo hurriedly nodded. He secretly lifted a corner of the window curtain, letting the breeze along the road brush across his face and clear his muddled head a little. “Oh, right. Where is Young Master Lu?” Only then did he suddenly realize that someone was missing.
“He went back.”
Tao Mo said guiltily, “I didn’t even say goodbye. That was terribly rude of me.”
“He will come to the county yamen tomorrow.”
Tao Mo looked puzzled. “He’s coming to the yamen? Why?” Since Lu Zhenxue was a litigation master, Tao Mo’s first thought was that another lawsuit had arisen in Tanyang County. “Has something happened again?”
“He wants to take the woodcutter’s case.”
Tao Mo froze for a moment, then brightened. “Really? He truly agreed to take the case?”
“He said it himself, and I heard it with my own ears.”
Tao Mo drew a deep breath. “Then that’s wonderful.” He knew Gu She disliked appearing in court, so although he hoped the woodcutter’s conviction could be overturned, he had never wanted to force Gu She into handling the case himself. Now that Lu Zhenxue had volunteered, nothing could have been better.
“It’s melting,” Gu She said.
Tao Mo stared at him. “What is?”
“The candied hawthorn.”
Tao Mo looked down and saw that the sugar coating was indeed beginning to run, leaving sticky syrup over his fingers. Without thinking, he raised his hand toward his mouth to lick it clean, then remembered Gu She was sitting beside him and sheepishly lowered it again.
Gu She took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the syrup from Tao Mo’s fingers.
Watching the white handkerchief become stained red, Tao Mo said awkwardly, “I’ll wash it clean for you.”
Gu She folded the handkerchief so that the stained portion was tucked inside, then handed it to him. “All right.”
Tao Mo accepted it and clutched it tightly in his hand, but what kept replaying in his mind was the gentle expression Gu She had worn while wiping his fingers. The places Gu She had touched seemed faintly warm.
After getting out of the carriage, Tao Mo forced himself to remain calm as he said goodbye to Gu She and arranged to meet him again the next day. He watched until Gu She’s carriage disappeared around the end of the lane, then immediately rushed into the county yamen, stopping everyone he saw to ask, “Where is Old Tao?”
By the third person he asked, he suddenly realized that the person standing in front of him was Old Tao himself.
“Young Master?” Old Tao saw him standing there with candied hawthorn in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, staring at him with such excitement that his eyes were almost unnervingly bright. Old Tao immediately had a fairly good idea what this was about and said calmly, “Adviser Jin has already gone home. If you have something to say, why don’t we go to the study?”
Tao Mo followed him to the study without objection.
“Young Master, you and—”
“Xianzhi bought me candied hawthorn,” Tao Mo blurted out excitedly.
Old Tao: “…” If he remembered correctly, he himself had bought Tao Mo plenty of snacks over the years.
“And he wiped my hands with his handkerchief.”
Old Tao: “…” He had done far more than wipe Tao Mo’s hands. He had practically spent half his life cleaning up after the entire household.
“And he gave the little monk a silver note and asked him to pray for my safety every day.”
Old Tao: “…” That one did sound rather good.
Tao Mo steadied himself, then suddenly looked at Old Tao with complete seriousness. “Why do you think he treats me so well?”
“Why doesn’t Young Master ask Gu She directly?”
Tao Mo looked troubled. “I’m afraid he might not know either.”
Old Tao: “…” He really should not think this way about his young master, but if one of the two of them did not know what he was doing, that person was certainly not Gu She.
Tao Mo said, “What if I ask him, and then he realizes how well he’s been treating me and decides he doesn’t want to treat me well anymore?”
“I do not think Young Master Gu is that sort of person.”
A spark of happiness flashed through Tao Mo’s eyes. “You mean he knows he’s being good to me?”
“Mm. Young Master Gu is neither warmhearted by nature nor someone who scatters his affections freely. If he did not regard Young Master… differently from others, there is no possibility he would ever have gone to court for your sake.” For the first time, when it came to Gu She and Tao Mo, Old Tao found himself subtly siding with Gu She.
A smile rested at the corners of Tao Mo’s mouth, but a faint sadness showed between his brows. “I know. That’s why I’m afraid.”
Old Tao raised an eyebrow.
“The way he is good to me isn’t the kind of ‘good’ I want,” Tao Mo said softly. “But the way he is good to me is also so much like the kind I want. I’m afraid that one day, when he finds the person he truly wants to treat this way, he’ll take all of this back from me. I know I shouldn’t hope for so much, but now that I’ve had a taste of being treated like this, I can’t help wishing it could last forever. I… am I being insatiable with greed?”
“Insatiably greedy.”
Tao Mo’s face fell.
Old Tao coughed dryly. “I was only correcting your phrasing.”
Tao Mo became even more dejected. “He is the foremost literary talent in the realm, while I can’t even recognize the two characters that make up the words ‘literary talent.’”
Old Tao was silent for a moment before saying, “If Young Master never tries, how can you know that you aren’t the person he truly wants to treat this way? Perhaps Gu She does not care in the slightest whether you can recognize those two characters.”
Tao Mo trembled and lifted his head, looking as helpless and uncertain as a child. “But… I’m a man.”
“So is Gu She.”
“Then how could he…?”
“Before Young Master realized it about yourself, did you ever imagine that you would be this way?”
Tao Mo fell silent. He could not answer that question. He had discovered it too early—so early that before then, he had never even thought about matters between men and women. And the very first time he did think about them, he realized that he felt no interest in women at all.
Old Tao remained fairly optimistic about the two of them. As long as Gu She truly had such feelings, all of Tao Mo’s worries would cease to matter. The only thing left to determine was whether Gu She’s interest was truly that kind of interest.
Footsteps sounded outside the door.
Before the other person could knock, Old Tao opened it first.
The gatekeeper froze, then held out a letter. “It’s from the Prefect of Qincheng.”
“Him?” Old Tao frowned, accepted the letter, and opened it.
Tao Mo shook his still-dazed head and leaned closer. “What is it?”
“The letter says that Grand Preceptor Shi’s nephew is coming.”
Tao Mo looked blank. “Which Grand Preceptor Shi?”
“Grand Preceptor Shi is the father of the current Noble Consort. He enjoys the emperor’s deep trust and is one of the most powerful officials at court.”
“Then who is his nephew?”
“I have heard that Grand Preceptor Shi once had a son, but the young man met with a tragic accident. Now, with no son to inherit from him, Grand Preceptor Shi intends to adopt someone from among his relatives to carry on the family line and inherit the estate. This nephew is most likely the person he has chosen.”
Tao Mo asked, “Then what does his coming to Tanyang County have to do with us?”
Old Tao folded the letter and sighed. “If nothing happens, then it has nothing to do with us. But if something does…” He paused. “Then it will have everything to do with us.”
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