WWC | Chapter 19

“Forget it.”

The emperor glanced once more at his minister, whose face was like a lotus bloom, and thought to himself, This boy looks like an imperial treasure on the outside, but inside he is nothing more than a little rogue.

Tonight, he had cast aside all grace and left his own safety behind. He was even willing to be smashed to pieces if it meant preserving the lives of the men under him.

Perhaps he really had reached the end of the road.

“Your injuries matter. Su Qing, have Lianzhong go summon the imperial physician to treat you first.”

Su Tingyan was drenched through his undergarment with sweat. He had no time to wait any longer, and tightly seized the emperor’s hand when the other moved to help him up himself. He still said, “Your Majesty, please grant this subject three days. Delay the interrogation of Cui Hong for now and allow me to uncover the truth with my own hands!”

Candlelight cast his gaunt figure and sickly posture into a silhouette, making him look like an ink-wash painting of jade and autumn frost.

The emperor finally shook his head helplessly, patted the back of his hand, and most of his pity rose at once. He gave in. “It has come to this, what more can I say? Su Qing, I’ll give you three days. But after three days, if you cannot clear Cui Hong of suspicion, then even if you truly spill blood across the court, I will never soften again.”

Since Su Tingyan had achieved his goal, he hurriedly climbed back up and knelt straight again. He kowtowed one last time, then rose with difficulty as though in a storm, preparing to take his leave.

The emperor rested his right hand on the armrest of the ba xian chair and studied his beloved and capable minister. Only when the other was almost out of the imperial study did he ask again in a slow voice, “Su Qing, for that one Cui Hong, was it really worth it?”

Su Tingyan’s body stiffened at once.

In truth, he knew very well that as a powerful official, he should not have exposed himself like this before the emperor. He should not have let the emperor see that gentle and righteous side of his soul, and he should not have allowed the other man to so easily figure out his bottom line.

If you asked once, there would be a second time. If there was once, there would be leverage. In the future, the other side would only know more and more clearly where his bottom line was, and the places where he could be controlled would grow more and more.

He was not ignorant of imperial schemes, but when he turned back around, he still chose to bow deeply.

“Your Majesty, this subject did not do this only for Cui Hong, but for myself.”

“This matter implicates many people. If this subject only cares about preserving himself and lets the wrongful case go unexamined, allowing loyal and worthy men to be buried in dust, then even if I am innocent, I will be nailed down as guilty before long. I own nothing outside myself. What I have is only this head upon my shoulders, so I dare to use this official robe soaked in blood to speak blood appeals before heaven and earth, before the common people, and before Your Majesty. I ask for nothing more than a clear conscience, and even in death I would have no regrets!”

The exalted ruler atop the throne, the Emperor Jingwu, was dazed for a moment. His expression could not be read, and in the end it only became one soft sigh. “Go then. I… will wait three days for you.”

Su Tingyan bowed once more. Only then did he let the inner attendant Lianzhong support his nearly falling-apart body and slowly drag himself out of the imperial study, step by step.

System: [Congratulations, player. You handled this crisis perfectly, secured a chance of survival for the gifted talent Cui Hong, and gained 500 charm points. You have unlocked the [Blood to Prove My Resolve] achievement! If you successfully rescue Cui Hong, there will be even more charm points to settle later!]

Su Tingyan let out a long breath, and at least his heart loosened a little. After all, getting hit by a real object hurt like hell. Saying it didn’t would have been a lie.

His forehead had not been bandaged. Blood seeped endlessly through the fingers covering the wound. Under the waning moon’s eastward light, it almost looked as if paint had been smeared across his face, gentle and luxuriant.

But just after he stepped outside the imperial study, he found an unexpected visitor standing in the distance, Lu Xuan.

The other man stood quietly in the shadows, wrapped in a black cloak, nearly blending into the heavy winter night like part of the painting.

He had brought no attendants, standing alone as if he had been waiting for a long time. Even the dark fur collar of his cloak was damp with the cold night dew.

Dim palace lantern light flowed down the cold beauty of his profile. His gaze was like a lurking snake or scorpion, fixed tightly on Su Tingyan as he staggered out from the door.

When he saw the glaring red mark on the other man’s forehead and the dried blood, his five fingers immediately clenched, his nails nearly piercing through his palm.

Eunuch Lianzhong, seeing Lu Xuan, shivered so hard that even the hand supporting Su Tingyan trembled.

Su Tingyan paused, then continued walking as if he had not seen him at all.

At this moment, he was mentally and physically exhausted. He truly had no energy left to deal with this already mutated venomous snake.

However, Lu Xuan stepped forward and blocked his path.

“What happened to your forehead?”

Su Tingyan looked up. Blood beads had gathered at the side of his cheek. Too lazy to keep up the act, he smiled with open mockery. “Was this not thanks to Lord Lu?”

Eunuch Lianzhong felt two streaks of cold lightning suddenly burst from the depths of the other man’s eyes, as severe and ruthless as autumn’s killing chill, icy to the bone, and he could not help shuddering again.

When he blinked, it seemed like only an illusion.

Seeing that Su Tingyan did not answer him, Lu Xuan turned to the inner attendant and asked, “Eunuch Lianzhong, did His Majesty throw this injury on Lord Su?”

This was a bitter ploy that the emperor and Su Tingyan had agreed to without words. As an inner attendant, Lianzhong naturally understood the imperial will, so he nodded and sighed, sweat fake and cold on his brow.

“Lord Lu, please do not ask any more. Lord Su’s injuries are serious. It would be better to let him leave the palace and be treated as soon as possible.”

Seizing the moment, Su Tingyan gently pushed away Lianzhong’s supporting hand and faced Lu Xuan directly.

“Lord Lu came here late at night, surely to see this cabinet minister make a joke of himself. Now that you’ve seen the joke, are you still not going to move aside?”

His whole body was soaked in sweat. Just now he had knelt and argued in a frenzy, and his clothes were already in complete disarray. Even his usually neatly tied long hair had been twisted into a mess. He looked utterly wretched, yet heartbreakingly beautiful, as though even the grace of the moon had been ground into mud.

Lu Xuan took it all in. There was not the slightest trace of disgust or schadenfreude in his eyes. He was almost unbearably distressed.

If they had not been outside the imperial study and if the chief inner attendant had not still been standing nearby, he probably would have already stepped forward and pulled the man into his arms.

“Su Tingyan,” he held back his emotions. The eyes that had always carried warmth, smiles, or deep calculation were now burned to ash, leaving only blackness. “I was only trying to care about you. Why must you anger me, and treat yourself like this?”

“Treat myself like this?”

Su Tingyan laughed. The movement tugged at his wound, and his brows tightened slightly. “Compared to Lord Lu’s usual methods of ruining families and destroying lives, what is this little injury of mine worth?”

He paused, then continued, “Besides, the blood on my forehead is for seeking justice, for protecting someone who should not die! Tell me, Lord Lu, what were the bloodstains on your hands shed for?!”

Thinking of Cui Hong still suffering in the Northern Investigation Bureau, Su Tingyan was furious beyond reason and did not want to give him even a decent expression.

The two of them traded sharp words, neither willing to yield an inch, nearly frightening Lianzhong into collapsing to the ground beside them.

Lu Xuan had this jab stabbed straight into his heart, and he laughed in rage. “Su Zhao! You think this kind of bitter self-injury will win the emperor’s pity, make me soften, let you uncover the so-called truth, and save Cui Hong?!”

“With that tiny bit of cleverness of yours, you want to protect everything you care about in this cannibal court? How naive!”

Even though his body was weak, Su Tingyan’s spine could not bend even a little.

He looked at Lu Xuan and said only, “Whether I can or cannot is not for you to decide. Lu Xuan, warriors die in battle, scholars die in remonstrance. If you want to take a knife to the people under me, then first find a way to kill me. Otherwise, as long as I can still breathe and still speak, I will never admit defeat, and I will absolutely not let you go. It doesn’t matter if you yell at me or threaten me, I’m not afraid of dogs!”

Lu Xuan’s pupils contracted. He immediately stepped forward and, without another word, seized Su Tingyan by the wrist, nearly making Eunuch Lianzhong cry out.

“Lord Lu! Lord Su is still injured, please be gentler!”

Su Tingyan did not want Lianzhong to watch the joke either, so he said to him, “Thank you for your trouble, Eunuch. Please see me only this far, then return.”

Hearing that, Lianzhong felt as if he had been granted amnesty. He had already been standing on edge, afraid he had heard too much that he should not have heard. Taking the opening, he hurriedly answered, “Then this one will not disturb the two lords. Lord Su, you should really have that injury treated as soon as possible!”

After the chief inner attendant left, Lu Xuan no longer restrained himself. He simply dragged Su Tingyan into a dark corner.

Beautiful-faced yet tall and broad-shouldered, with long legs, he clamped one hand around Su Tingyan’s shoulder and gripped the back of his hand with the other, nearly wrapping the man completely in his arms.

“Su Tingyan, you really think I can’t bear to kill you?”

“So what if you ask for three days? Never mind three days, even if His Majesty gives you thirty more, do you really think you can still turn this around? From the very beginning, you already lost the first move. Right now you’re only struggling in vain!”

Su Tingyan let him hold on and did not mind the pain. His eyes still shone like cold stars.

“What kind of chess game is Lord Lu talking about? The one where you form cliques, embezzle state funds, and treat lives like grass?”

He took a breath. The cold wind entered his mouth and provoked a fit of coughing, loud and clear in the silent palace road.

“Remember this, from the moment I, Su Tingyan, entered the game, I was never here to beat you at your filthy little chess. I was here to flip the board!”

Hearing him cough so hard, Lu Xuan’s hand loosened a little on its own. Clearly he wanted to lower his head and say something caring, but every word was blocked back by the other man’s clashing, iron-and-steel gaze before it could leave his throat.

At last, he could not stop himself from releasing the hand on Su Tingyan’s shoulder and reaching toward the wound on his forehead. “Doesn’t it hurt like this?”

Su Tingyan turned his head away, then looked at him with a half-smile. “If you’re so curious about whether it hurts, why don’t you take a hit next time?”

Since he had been thrown into this game, he had not suffered such a huge loss before. In his heart, Su Tingyan silently vowed that he would make Lu Xuan pay it back, absolutely. Today the one who got smashed was him, and next time the one getting smashed would definitely be Lu Xuan. Better yet, it would be the emperor himself who smashed him!

Lu Xuan never had a pleasant word to say, so when he heard this, he did not retreat but instead leaned closer, wedging one leg between Su Tingyan’s legs and saying indifferently, “If you don’t learn how to speak properly, I’ll teach you properly today.”

Su Tingyan froze. Warily, he tried to pull his wrist back, but his injuries were too serious and his body too weak, so he could not break free at all. Only then did he realize how wrong this posture was.

He was on guard. “Lu Xuan, what the hell are you doing? This is the palace!”

“What am I doing crazy? Su Tingyan, wasn’t it you who came to provoke me first!”

“Aren’t you very good at seducing people?”

Lu Xuan steadied his waist. At first, he had merely wanted to soothe the pain and ask after him properly, but once the jade-like beauty had fallen into his arms, the blazing fire in his chest immediately surged.

He simply decided to go all the way and lowered his head, intending to kiss him. “Don’t move. If you make your wound hurt, the one who suffers is you…”

Su Tingyan directly opened the system and cursed, “Didn’t you say no one could force me?!!”

The system gave a faint, gloomy response: [A forced kiss does not count as coercion.]

Su Tingyan: “Why the hell didn’t you say that earlier?!”

System: [You didn’t ask, player?]

“Tingyan, I’ll only kiss you once, nothing else. If you behave, I’ll let that Cui Hong go… Whatever you want, I can give you. If you want me to stop forming cliques in the future, I’ll listen to you. Okay? Don’t move anymore…”

The breath of one who abstained was the most intense aphrodisiac. Lu Xuan smelled the rich thousand-mountain silence of his scent, and even the sound of the other man’s breathing carried a gilded brilliance. He felt as if fire had been lit in the cracks of his bones.

He was no longer Lu Xuan, but Lu Xuan with the first character of his name swapped for fire.

Su Tingyan’s head hurt so badly that sweat ran coldly down his face. He tilted his head and dodged in panic, only to feel Lu Xuan’s scorching breath already on his neck.

With no other choice, he could only smash his bleeding forehead straight into Lu Xuan’s chest.

Lu Xuan caught the gust of air in front of him in alarm. Su Tingyan’s forehead was truly as hard as a stone, harder than any weapon, and the impact made him stagger. It was as though he had been struck by a heavy object, his chest tightening so violently that he could not even speak from the pain.

At last, Su Tingyan’s hands broke free. Without another thought, he slapped him hard across the face. The wind of the blow cut through the air. He had gathered all his strength into that one strike, and after it landed, he was nearly spent.

He stumbled back several steps, thinking he would be forced to crash to the ground in a miserable heap.

In the spinning blur, all he smelled was a fierce, unmistakably masculine burst of pheromone-like heat at his nose. When he lifted his head, he crashed straight into a pair of eyes looking down at him.

It was Li Xun. At some point, the other man had also appeared on the palace road, still wearing his signature flying-fish uniform, a xiuchun saber at his waist.

That dragon-patterned robe, which had originally hung loose and easy, was pulled taut by the embrace, revealing a weathered, tanned stretch of wrist bone beneath it, crisscrossed with scars.

The other man held him steady. “Lord Su.”

Su Tingyan gritted his teeth. “Let go!”

Right now he was burning with anger, and he wanted nothing more than to slap Lu Xuan a hundred more times to vent it.

Yet Li Xun still said, “Lord Su, this is palace ground. Such pulling and tugging may be improper.”

Lu Xuan had been slapped and did not feel humiliated at all. As long as it was Su Tingyan, his temper softened by at least ten parts and could be pushed three zhang by the wind.

Besides, the more he looked, the more he found Su Tingyan’s reaction adorable. He only took all of this as flirtation, intending to play some game of push and pull, and he did not take Su Tingyan’s threat to leave off seriously at all.

But when Li Xun interrupted him like this, he could not help but let out a cold laugh. Inside him there seemed to be an indescribable ferocity, like a flood surging through a narrow riverbed, about to break the dam.

“Commander Li? At this time, shouldn’t you be in the Northern Investigation Bureau interrogating the criminal Cui Hong? What are you doing here?”

Li Xun ignored him and only said to Su Tingyan, “Lord Su, there are still details concerning the Cui Hong case at the Northern Investigation Bureau. We would like you to come verify them.”

Su Tingyan said, “Then let me slap him a few more times, or you can slap him for me a few more times. Otherwise, I’m not going!”

Li Xun: “That would be meaningless, Lord Su.”

Su Tingyan still wanted to force the matter, but he did not know if it was because he had just hit his forehead too hard or because his fever had flared again. His vision kept going dark, and though he still could not break free from Li Xun’s arms, the other man only held him tighter.

Even Lu Xuan, such a powerful and corrupt official who could cover the sky with one hand, could hardly maintain his dignified mask at this sight.

At that moment, the system popped up: [Detected that the player’s mistreatment by Lu Xuan, combined with his extremely battle-worn beauty, has triggered a strong protective instinct in Li Xun. Li Xun’s affection has increased by 100! Charm points +1000!]

[Lu Xuan has developed hostility due to Li Xun’s interference. Congratulations, player, on achieving the [Three-Way Shura Field] achievement. Additional charm points +1000!! Keep it up. The more shura fields you experience, the sooner you can unlock the [Rightly Deserved Heartthrob] achievement, and unlock the skill “The Filter of the Court’s Civil and Military Officials”!]

Listening to that long string, even Su Tingyan had to marvel at himself. Truly, Heaven had fed him a shura field banquet.

He had not properly pursued a single target, and yet somehow he had fallen into a shura field for no reason at all.

Lu Xuan kept staring fixedly at the sight of Li Xun holding Su Tingyan tightly, his gaze dark and vicious beyond reason.

Li Xun’s appearance had interrupted his rhythm, and it also meant the emperor might have another arrangement. He knew well that Li Xun was a claw of the imperial house, loyal only to the emperor. His interference now was highly significant.

He asked, “Li Xun, are you really going to make yourself my enemy?”

Li Xun’s expression did not change. He even drew Su Tingyan a little closer to his side. “Lord Lu, if you truly care for Lord Su, then you should not keep blocking him now.”

Li Xun had done no less cruel and ruthless things than Lu Xuan. If Lu Xuan was a venomous snake or scorpion, then Li Xun was a jackal or tiger.

So he had never feared anything, not even Lu Xuan, and showed no intention of retreating.

The more Su Tingyan struggled, the tighter Li Xun held him. The greener Lu Xuan’s face became. If it were not for the fact that hurting the enemy by a thousand would cost him ten thousand, Su Tingyan really would have liked to keep admiring Lu Xuan’s spectacular expression work a little longer.

He relied on a vague memory to find the place on Li Xun’s arm that had been injured last time, and fiercely twisted it.

Li Xun finally gave a low grunt and let him go.

“Still not leaving?” Su Tingyan said coldly.

Lu Xuan was stabbed by that indifferent gaze. He had still wanted to say something, but then heard Su Tingyan speak to him again. “Lu Xuan, I once took you for a person, and I also viewed you as an opponent worth facing properly. But what you did today, you truly did not treat me like a person, and you did not even treat yourself like one either. Since that’s the case, then go on and be a beast in the future. Don’t let me catch an opening, because I will absolutely make you understand what happens when you profane a senior minister!”

With Li Xun nearby, even though Lu Xuan still had many things he wanted to say, none of them could come out anymore.

To Lu Xuan, Su Tingyan was like the bright moon to the one who had hurt him, and like demons and wraiths to the one who had cured him.

Could his hatred and obsession for him really be so incomprehensible to the other man?

But further words were pointless. Seeing that the other man was dead set on ignoring him, Lu Xuan did not continue entangling himself. His gaze darkened slightly, then he turned and vanished into the shadows of the palace wall.

Once he left, Su Tingyan finally let out a breath.

He turned to Li Xun and suddenly smiled. That smile, appearing at a time like this, was like a begonia blossom blooming for a single instant over a field of snow. “Commander Li is very brave, to dare offend Lord Lu like this.”

“If the Lu faction takes revenge on you later, I won’t help you.”

Only then did Li Xun look at him seriously, unable to tell why this cabinet grand secretary, who had always seemed so refined and elegant, had managed to ruin himself into such a ghostly state.

“And yet you can still laugh?”

“Cough, cough…” Su Tingyan only smiled deeper. “Why wouldn’t I laugh? What, are you also here to watch me cry?”

“If Lord Su is not crying now, you’re probably going to cry later anyway.”

Li Xun suddenly reached out and gripped his already thin shoulder. The sensation beneath his palm was so sharp that it hurt. This man was so thin that even the joints of his bones seemed ready to pierce through that thin layer of bluish skin.

He said coldly, “You should be grateful that you once saved Li’s life.”

Su Tingyan lifted a brow, utterly casual. “What, do you think that was some kind of hero rescuing a beauty scene just now?”

“Without you, Lu Xuan still wouldn’t have been able to do anything to me.”

Li Xun let go and said, “That is not what I meant.”

“If not for remembering your kindness back then, Cui Hong would absolutely not live through tonight.”

Su Tingyan’s smile vanished at once. “What happened to Cui Hong?”

Li Xun had never seen him this agitated before, as if the frail man who had needed to be supported just now had only been an illusion.

He said, “To have come out of the Northern Investigation Bureau’s prison alive is already great fortune. Does Lord Su think we, the Jinyiwei, take people in as if inviting them for tea and conversation?”

Su Tingyan instantly understood what Li Xun meant.

Cui Hong had already been tortured, and probably not lightly.

His thoughts became a mess. It was as if a bell had been tied to his heart, and with a clang it rang, making his head even heavier.

Could it be that after all this trouble, Cui Hong’s life still could not be saved?

He said, “I want to see Cui Hong!”

“Naturally.” Seeing how worried he was over nothing more than a subordinate, Li Xun could not help saying, “I came specifically to take you to see him.”

That one sentence was like rain after a drought. Su Tingyan did not hesitate even for a moment. “Then let’s go now!”

Li Xun looked at the shocking wound on his forehead and had originally wanted him to deal with it first, but in the end said nothing more, walking silently to the front.

When the two of them left the deep palace through a side gate, a black carriage without any markings was already waiting in the night.

Inside the carriage, Li Xun seemed to think of something and suddenly spoke in the middle of the silence, “I didn’t expect Lord Su, who looks so delicate, to be unexpectedly fierce.”

Su Tingyan’s forehead had already suffered enough tonight. He was dizzy and seeing double, and really did not want to respond to this inexplicable mockery.

He stayed silent, and instead the system prompted, [The攻略对象 Li Xun has discovered the hidden ruthless side of the player and has become intensely interested. He really likes beauties with a conquering instinct and does not like the high-minded ones. Congratulations, player. Li Xun’s affection +200, charm points +1000!]

Su Tingyan could not help blurting out, “Fuck you.”

He had always believed that if curse words were not spoken aloud and were instead buried in the heart, then the heart itself would become filthy.

Lu Xuan’s actions tonight had already disgusted him enough, and now Li Xun had appeared too. He only hoped no more filthy plot lines would be mixed in.

After a long while, the carriage finally stopped. Li Xun got out first, and Su Tingyan followed, leaning out.

What stood before him was not the grand entrance of an official bureau, but a narrow iron gate beneath a high wall.

There were no guards in sight, only two dim yellow lanterns swaying in the night wind.

This was the back gate of the Northern Investigation Bureau, a place ordinary people would never dare approach, and one that made civil and military officials alike turn pale at the mere mention of it.

The iron gate slid open without a sound, revealing a bottomless darkness beyond it. Li Xun turned slightly and motioned for Su Tingyan to go in.

The moment he stepped inside, the temperature dropped, cold seeping into his marrow as if sunlight had never favored this place.

The passage was narrow and long. Water droplets had condensed on the walls, and the air was thick with the smell of blood and despair, pressing so hard that it was difficult to breathe.

There was only one oil lamp at long intervals along the walls. Its flame burned fiercely, throwing out a pale glow and stretching the shadows into clusters of ghostly shapes.

It should have been quiet enough to make one panic, but if you listened closely, you could catch the faint, muffled wails from deeper inside, mixed with the harsh sound of chains dragging across the floor.

The wound on Su Tingyan’s forehead throbbed violently in this environment. He endured the discomfort and followed Li Xun through the maze-like passage until they stopped before a heavy iron door with only a palm-sized peephole.

Li Xun did not open it immediately. Instead, he turned to look at Su Tingyan. Even the firelight could not dispel the gloom on his handsome face. “Lord Su, prepare yourself mentally.”

Su Tingyan breathed in the ominous air and nodded.

When the iron door was pushed open, a stronger stench of blood, scorched flesh, and filth surged out, nearly smothering Su Tingyan to death.

The cell was not large, with stone walls on all sides and a full rack of torture instruments.

At the center of the room stood a wooden frame, and someone was suspended from it in a spread-eagle position by iron chains.

It was Cui Hong.

Su Tingyan nearly failed to recognize him at once.

Cui Hong’s official robes had already been torn into tatters and soaked through with dark red blood.

His hair hung disheveled, covering most of his face. The features visible beneath were swollen and bruised purple, and black-red clots had formed around his nose and mouth.

His head hung low, his breathing so faint it was almost impossible to feel. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest proved that he was still alive.

The most horrifying sight was his hands. All ten fingers were swollen and black, the nail beds stuffed with dark purple blood clots, and at the tips faint bone-white was even visible. They were the traces left by the finger-squeezing torture.

His lower legs were soaked in an ice bucket, the water murky and giving off a foul smell.

The exposed chest and back were also covered with crisscrossing lash marks. Some wounds had split open, the flesh turned outward and no longer bleeding, while others still slowly seeped blood beads.

On the arm nearest the brazier, there was even a blackened brand mark.

Su Tingyan froze in place, feeling ice-cold all over.

He was a modern person. He had seen every kind of storm on television and had already anticipated that Cui Hong would suffer torture.

But seeing such a scene with his own eyes, under the double assault of sight and smell, still made his whole heart ache so hard he could hardly breathe.

He could be cruel to himself for the sake of the path in his heart, but when he saw the people who followed him reduced to this state, the intense guilt and rage nearly swallowed him whole.

He took a step forward, his voice trembling so badly he could not even hold back a cough. “…Old Cui?”

Hearing that familiar voice, the body that seemed to have already lost consciousness finally moved a little.

Cui Hong did not know whether he was already dead. He struggled to lift his head. It was as if he saw a shaft of light shining down from the thirty-third heaven into the underworld, penetrating through his disordered hair and into eyes that hurt too much to open.

Those eyes had once been full of caution. At this moment there was only emptiness, and only when they recognized Su Tingyan did a glimmer like fireflies suddenly flare up.

He opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, but only a broken, blurred breath came out, mixed with flecks of blood.

Su Tingyan could no longer care about anything else. He rushed forward. He wanted to reach out and touch Cui Hong, but feared making his pain worse, so his hands could only freeze in place.

“That… letter…”

The words seemed to be squeezed out from the deepest pain.

Hearing the other man’s weak breaths, Su Tingyan nodded hurriedly. “I know… that confidential letter was fake, you were framed, I know… My lord believes you, I believe you…!”

Li Xun leaned by the door and had originally been sneering at this master-servant devotion, but the next moment he heard Cui Hong actually start to laugh.

The laughter was eerie, strange, and even the pitch no longer sounded human. Like the cry of an owl or the shriek of a ghost, it echoed again and again.

Cui Hong laughed in broken bursts. “…Th…ank… you… Lo…rd…”

Su Tingyan, lying beside the torture rack, laughed too, hoarsely following him. Even now he still had the energy to be a little cheeky. “Old Cui, your lord’s surname is Su, not Xie…”

It was an extremely cold joke, but the two of them laughed so hard they could not stop. This pair of superior and subordinate held their heads and laughed together like lunatics, while Li Xun watched silently from the side.

Only after they had been laughing in misery for a long while, until the bloodied and broken civil official was almost out of breath, did Su Tingyan turn around and ask Li Xun, “Commander Li, do you have anything to eat here?”

Looking at Cui Hong’s cracked, bloodstained lips, Su Tingyan thought he had probably been taken away for a full day and had not had a drop of water. After such torture, even an iron body could not endure.

What mattered most right now was keeping him alive.

Li Xun did not answer. Instead, he turned and made a gesture toward a point deeper in the dim corridor.

At the very moment he turned, Cui Hong used all his strength to quickly say three words into Su Tingyan’s ear. When Li Xun turned back, the two of them were once again like before, laughing madly and gasping for breath.

Not long after, a jailer appeared carrying a bowl of thin porridge whose color could not even be distinguished. There was no warmth rising from it, and beside it was a small piece of steamed bun, as if it had been left over by someone else.

“Only this,” Li Xun’s voice was barely warmer than the interrogation room. “The prison is not a tavern.”

Su Tingyan made no complaint. He took the rough clay bowl. The porridge was cloudy and sour, but he could not care about that now. He gave Li Xun a light nod as thanks.

He carefully leaned closer to Cui Hong, trying to feed the porridge into his mouth.

However, Cui Hong’s teeth were clenched tight, his consciousness drifting in and out. The grains of porridge he managed to get in just ran down the corner of his mouth and mixed with blood, making him look even more miserable.

Su Tingyan tried several times, but it worked only poorly. Sweat rose on his forehead with anxiety, and because he himself was also injured and sick, his arms had begun to tremble.

At that moment, a clearly defined hand reached over and took the bowl from him.

Su Tingyan froze.

He saw Li Xun pinch Cui Hong’s chin without any gentleness, forcing the other man’s mouth open slightly. With the other hand, he pressed the rim of the bowl against it and directly forced half a bowl of cold porridge down his throat.

Cui Hong choked and coughed hard, but at least some of it went down.

Su Tingyan’s brows furrowed as he watched. “Be gentler!”

“If you feed him like this, he won’t die.” Li Xun tossed the empty bowl aside carelessly, his tone indifferent. He did not even glance at the beauty glaring at him from the side.

After eating a little, Cui Hong at least had more strength in his breathing. Su Tingyan then broke the dry, hard bun into little pieces and fed them to him bit by bit.

As Cui Hong swallowed the dry ration with difficulty, he looked at the focused and worried eyes of the person before him.

The fever and pain made his mind drift between clarity and haze, but this refined, blood-stained face in front of him somehow overlapped with the warmest and most painful image deep in his memory.

His body shuddered between hot and cold. His cheeks burned like fire, yet he still joked incoherently with his superior, “My lord looks… just like my mother.”

“When I was little… and got beaten, she would… feed me like this too.”

He remembered how, when he was young and got into trouble and was beaten by his father, his mother would also feed him spoonful by spoonful like this.

Su Tingyan’s hand holding the bun suddenly stopped. Something seemed to seize his chest hard. Looking at Cui Hong’s battered state, the phrase “got beaten” sounded especially pitiful.

If his mother saw him like this, how heartbroken would she be.

What he did not know was that Cui Hong had long since lost his mother.

He was silent for a long while before suppressing the lump in his throat and answering lightly, “Then call me father, and I’ll feed you like this every day from now on.”

From now on……

Cui Hong’s pupils loosened. Yet he did not know whether this frail little life of his still had the luxury of a future.

As if guessing what he was thinking, Su Tingyan fed the last bit of food into his mouth, then tightly gripped the cold torture frame. His gaze cut through clouds and night, like a shaft of heavenly light sinking into Cui Hong’s dying eyes and splitting open the darkness.

“Cui Hong, listen to me. Since you followed me, your life is mine. The King of Hell is not your superior, I am!”

“I said you won’t be in trouble, so you absolutely won’t be in trouble! Even if I can’t save you, if a life must be paid for with another life, the one who dies will only be me. It will never be you!”

This vow, spoken forcefully into the ground, made Cui Hong recall some old things.

He had not suffered pain like this for far too long. When his parents were still alive, his home had never been this gloomy prison, but a bright little house in Jiangnan.

The inside was always warm, and food always smelled fragrant.

His father was a well-known upright scholar of the pure stream. Though not wealthy, he was honest and straight. His mother was gentle and virtuous, managing the household well, and he was the only son in the family, dearly cherished.

He remembered that when he had been mischievous and knocked over his father’s beloved inkstone, the furious father had struck his palms with a ruler until he cried so hard he could barely catch his breath. Then his mother had done exactly this, shedding tears with heartache as she gently blew on and warmed the rice porridge with a small spoon, feeding him one bite at a time. “Hong’er, don’t cry. Are you hungry? Mother is here…”

His father had once taught him to read and write, and told him that “a gentleman loves wealth, but takes it by the proper path,” and that an official should have “only the wind in his sleeves, only the moon in his heart.”

Later, because he refused to go along with corruption and insisted on exposing the local prefect’s embezzlement, the prefect instead colluded with his superiors, framed him with false charges, and sent him to prison.

His family property was confiscated in an instant, and the once-warm home was nailed shut with seals.

His mother took him from place to place, begging for help, enduring contempt and threats. On one snowy night, she used the last bit of silver to buy a bowl of hot porridge, and fed him as she had in the past, while tears flowed nonstop. “Hong’er, remember what your father said. To live in this world, even in death, you must be worthy of your conscience!”

That bowl of porridge became the last meal his mother ever fed him. The next morning, he found that she had hanged herself from a beam in a ruined hut outside the city, using death to prove her resolve and voicing every grievance.

Since her death, no one had ever looked at him with such concern again, and no one had ever fed him like this again.

At this very moment, through the gaps between blood-soaked strands of hair, he vaguely looked at the person before him.

This was his superior, and also a good official who was willing to smash his own head and lose all dignity before the emperor just to preserve his subordinate.

Looking at Su Tingyan, Cui Hong finally could not smile anymore.

Those long-suppressed memories, in this near-death state, surged and roiled like seas and rivers, shaking heaven and earth.

Tears, mixed with blood and filth, poured from between his swollen eyelids.

Using the last of his strength, he choked out the long-buried pain in his heart in broken threads:

“My lord… I… even if I die now, I won’t be ashamed… ashamed to see my father and mother…”

“My lord… you do not need to feel guilty. This subordinate will die… without regrets… Following you, I already wrote out my final memorial… It is on the desk at the Audit Office…”

On the night he agreed to join the Audit Office, Cui Hong had already written his farewell document.

In truth, everyone in their Audit Office had already written their final memorials. No one regretted it, and no one was afraid.

To deal with the Lu faction, one had to not fear death.

After saying all this, he was like a candle burning through its last drop of wax, his head tilting aside as he completely lost consciousness.

Su Tingyan said nothing. The interrogation chamber was sealed tight. Even if the sun was rising in the east outside, inside it was still pitch-black.

He slowly reached out with his fingertips. Several times he nearly lost control, and only after quite a while did he wipe away the blood tears from the corner of Cui Hong’s eyes.

Li Xun stood with folded arms against the wall. Seeing that the other man was preparing to leave, he spoke up. “Only three days. Can you really save him?”

Su Tingyan paused. He wanted to answer, but in the end he did not say a single word.

Because right now he could not speak. He was afraid that the moment he opened his mouth, he would burst into tears.

Only after he finally left that place like a human hell and boarded his own carriage did he shut his eyes tightly and lose control at last.

He had already altered the system settings, so unless he took the initiative to check, it would not suddenly jump out and disrupt his gameplay.

But this was the first time the system had seen him like this, and it could not help asking, [Player, why are you crying?]

In truth, he was not crying. He had simply covered his eyes with the handkerchief he carried.

He was not crying. The handkerchief was not wet either.

It was only a game. He had always been very clear about that. This whole group, whether they were NPCs or just passerby A, B, C, D, were nothing more than data in his eyes.

But this was the first time, the very first time, he had felt as if they were all living, breathing people.

If he could not save Cui Hong, at most it would mean a failed game route, an achievement impossible to complete, the loss of one talented person, and at worst all his charm points would be wiped clean.

But for Cui Hong, it was different. He had ideals and ambitions. He was a good official. Whether or not he truly existed, he was still a real, living person in this game world.

This was not data, this was a human life…

Su Tingyan leaned against the carriage wall, gripping the handkerchief so tightly his fingers loosened and tightened, tightened and loosened. The knuckles pulled white, like flesh made of wax, not at all like that of a living person.

His breathing was fast. Everything before his eyes was blurred. He swallowed several mouthfuls of saliva before he finally managed to calm his trembling heart.

“I have to save Cui Hong. I absolutely have to save him! If I can’t save him this time, then I’ll die and restart. If one restart doesn’t work, then I’ll restart a hundred times. If a hundred times doesn’t work, then a thousand!”

“I don’t care whether this game has a perfect ending or not. I swear, I’m going to clear it no matter what. I will never let anyone under me die!”

To hell with charm points, to hell with this broken game!

He did not believe he could not even handle a little BL eroge like this!

After calming down for a long time, Su Tingyan recalled the three words Cui Hong had secretly told him in the prison just now, together with the message he had found before.

National Academy.

His muddled brain suddenly started working again.

Wait…

National Academy?

The characters he had seen on that scrap of iron before, something like huo, zi, chen, min…

Weren’t those the traditional characters for National Academy when put together?!

The traditional form of National Academy was “國子監”. As a modern person, no wonder he had not been able to think of it for so long!

That was it. How had he not thought of this before? Zhao Shuyan also came from the National Academy, so he must be very familiar with that place!

Cui Hong must also have discovered the characters on the iron piece, which was why he had desperately told him this message. If Zhao Shuyan really had some incredible evidence, and if home was unsafe, then the first place he would likely hide it would be the National Academy!

“Qinghai!” Su Tingyan immediately shouted outside the carriage.

Qinghai asked from outside, “What are your orders, my lord?”

Su Tingyan said, “Change course. Go to the National Academy now!”

The National Academy was closed at night, but for Su Tingyan, the Imperial Academy Jijiu, that was naturally not a problem.

Qinghai carried a lantern and led the way in front. The first place Su Tingyan went was the library tower.

There were rows upon rows of shelves there, and the collection of classics was vast. It was the most likely place to hide something.

Remembering Zhao Shuyan’s background, Su Tingyan thought of how the other man had come from humble origins. Back when he was at the National Academy, it was said he often slept late at night in a tiny duty room beside the library tower, studying by the weak lamplight.

“Let’s look in the duty room,” Su Tingyan said softly.

That duty room had long been abandoned and was filled with junk. Su Tingyan motioned for Qinghai to wait outside the door, and then he himself held a candlestick and searched the spiderweb-covered room.

He looked carefully. Where would Zhao Shuyan have hidden it?

A cautious person would never place it somewhere obvious.

He looked over the walls, then the floor, and at last his gaze fell on the chest-and-cabinet pushed against the wall and stuffed full of old books.

The chest itself was ordinary enough, but its position seemed a little too neat, somewhat out of place amid this cluttered mess.

He walked over and tried to move it, only to find it unusually heavy.

After he struggled to shove the chest aside, the mottled wall behind it was revealed, but there was nothing unusual there.

Su Tingyan refused to give up. He curled his knuckles and began knocking everywhere.

Tap, tap, tap. The sound was dull.

Only when he knocked on a brick near the corner did the sound seem to become faintly hollow.

This was it!

He found a broken piece of wood and carefully pried at it.

The stone seemed to have been loosened before and was not very secure. After a few tries, it came loose.

Behind the brick was a small, dark hidden compartment.

So there really was a hidden compartment? The plot of novels did not lie to me!

As Su Tingyan thought this, he brought the candlestick closer. Inside the compartment, there was none of the account books or secret letters he had expected, only a palm-sized hard object wrapped tightly in oilcloth.

He took out the oilcloth bundle. It felt a bit heavy in his hand. After unwrapping layer after layer, the object inside finally came into view. It was a private seal.

The material was ordinary, just common blue stone, and the carving was very rough. It was not the style of an official seal, but the seal knob had been carved into a crouching civet shape.

A civet?

Su Tingyan frowned and flipped the seal over, reading the inscription in the candlelight.

It was neither a name nor an official title.

Only four big characters were carved there:

“Meow meow meow meow.”

Su Tingyan: “…………….”

This was the thing Zhao Shuyan had risked his life to hide?

Meow meow meow meow???

Meow your damn head!

———————–

Author’s Note: Actually, this game does have an easy mode, and that is to sleep with Lu Xuan, sleep with Xie Zheng, sleep with the Sixth Prince, and then sleep with Li Xun. If you take the romance route, clearing the game is very easy, and your charm points can keep skyrocketing.

But unfortunately, our Yanbao chose the hardest mode of all, not pursuing any romance route at all, so his charm points rise very slowly.

And the game keeps trying every possible way to drain his charm points and force him onto a romance route.

At a time like this, wanting to spend charm points while also saving up charm points, and then still saving up enough one million to clear the game and go home, becomes extremely difficult. Let us bless this Yanyan [dog head][dog head]