Words from the Heart
“What is Your Highness saying? Of course this official is your man.” Pei Yanci smiled awkwardly, squeezing out two tears from his eyes. “Your Highness, you’re hurting me.”
Gu Jiuqing stared at him, his eyes turning cold. “Yet this prince somehow feels that you’ve repeatedly used this prince’s name to move among the officials, with some unspeakable purpose.”
“This official is simply to help Your Highness, isn’t it?” Pei Yanci’s eyes surged with emotion. “Must Your Highness make this official lose face in such a setting?”
Gu Jiuqing’s eyes flickered, and he slowly released his hand.
Pei Yanci swiftly withdrew his wrist, lowering his face with an expression both aggrieved yet unyielding.
“Your Highness, who told you this?”
“Does this prince need anyone to tell me?” Gu Jiuqing ground his teeth. “This prince is no fool.”
“Then why didn’t Your Highness expose this official earlier?” Pei Yanci looked at him heartbrokenly. “Your Highness already knew the answer, didn’t you?”
Gu Jiuqing grabbed his arm. “What answer could I know?”
“Your Highness, I’ve been secretly cultivating my own forces under Your Highness’s wings.” Facing someone so suspicious, he decided to be frank. “Don’t you know why this official wanted to do this? Or are you pretending to be deaf and dumb, enjoying my devotion on one hand, working tirelessly on your behalf, while harboring wariness and defensiveness toward this official on the other?”
“This prince hasn’t…” Gu Jiuqing’s expression began to turn chaotic. “Why did you do all this…”
“When I did all this, was I guarding against you?” Pei Yanci directly cut off his words. “Making contact with colleagues, saying those things, doing those deeds—don’t I know they’d turn around and tell Your Highness?”
Seeing how close he was to tears, Gu Jiuqing’s heart completely fell into chaos. “This prince knows. They deliberately said those things trying to drive a wedge between us.”
Hmph, that’s not what you were saying just now.
Pei Yanci had won over too many people; it was impossible every single one was done in Gu Jiuqing’s name. Over time, Gu Jiuqing couldn’t help but know he was cultivating his own forces. Better to simply stop concealing it—yes, he was cultivating his own power base.
“This official did all this,” he spoke softly, with a fragile undertone, “so that when the day comes that this official stands beside Your Highness, no one can use my former status to attack you through me. This official wants to help Your Highness, I want to have my own identity, rather than becoming Your Highness’s appendage, Your Highness’s… concubine.”
When those two words were spoken, Gu Jiuqing’s face inevitably flashed with embarrassment.
The rift between them had begun when he proposed making Pei Yanci a concubine.
“This prince didn’t originally want you to be a concubine, but a secondary consort. If not for Minister Zheng interfering, forcing this prince to only be able to take you as a concubine…” He spoke with difficulty.
Pei Yanci’s eyes showed not a ripple of emotion, though his face showed moved feelings. “This official knows, Minister Zheng has never approved of me. But Your Highness, you understand me—rather than become someone’s concubine, I’d rather die.”
Gu Jiuqing’s eyes filled with calculation. Pushing the blame onto a dead man left himself clean and innocent, and the one he liked was also a person of clean and proud character.
Putting it this way, the pity in his eyes grew even heavier.
Pei Yanci was about to say more when Chen Sihong, who had something in his belly at the same table, began to move over to toast the Crown Prince.
He was like a short-necked, big-bellied vase wrapped in a purple cloth sleeve—roughly made but beautifully packaged. He laboriously extracted himself from between his chair and the table, the smile on his face unbroken since entering the room, maintaining both the dignity of a high official and appropriately displaying familiarity with Gu Jiuqing.
Pei Yanci was pushed to the side and simply took his own cup to retreat to one corner, where he was promptly caught by Liu Yan and Xu Jiao.
“Brother Pei, what you’ve done isn’t quite proper.”
“Please enlighten me, elder brothers.” Pei Yanci feigned ignorance.
“Your family opened a printing house, handling official business and selling to the public—making money fair and square.”
“The Imperial Academy does have such an enterprise.” Pei Yanci said. “Originally it was meant to be state-run, but His Majesty never approved it, so it became a public-private partnership, registered under the Imperial Academy. The managers inside aren’t court officials—at most they’re minor clerks.”
“With such a good business, why didn’t you think more of us?” Liu Yan smiled. “This old brother’s household is about to go hungry.”
This was true for those officials who truly relied on court salaries to live. Since the southern uprising began last year, rice and salt prices had started soaring. What used to cost five copper coins for one hu of rice suddenly jumped to twenty or thirty coins, and salt merchants raised prices even more outrageously. It wasn’t until the illegal salt trade in the north was investigated that salt prices fell back. Not because there were fewer illegal salt channels and more official salt, but because those salt merchants feared the investigation above would implicate them and they’d all be prosecuted together. So the salt price drop wouldn’t last long either.
This year the imperial treasury was depleted. At the year’s start, it was announced that cuts would begin from the palace itself. The Ministry of Revenue and Ministry of Personnel together proposed reducing officials’ salaries, winning His Majesty’s praise but causing hardship for honest officials. Pei Yanci had several times seen fifth-rank officials hesitating at the meat stalls.
If officials were like this, the common people’s circumstances were even worse.
“Younger brother thinks of you elder brothers too, but alas, His Highness the Crown Prince won’t give me the opportunity.” Pei Yanci smiled bitterly.
Gu Jiuqing had long noticed his private maneuvers. The Ministry of Revenue and Ministry of Personnel were unlike other offices—he held them firmly in hand, not tolerating any mistakes. Moreover, the two ministers were die-hard loyalists of the Crown Prince and Minister Zheng, only recognizing those two. How could they give him any opening? Pei Yanci had tried to sow discord before, but without success, which had been troubling him.
Now the two had come to him on their own.
“There are too many eyes and ears here. If you two are interested, we can find another time and discuss it later.” Pei Yanci smiled.
The two daren left satisfied.
An opportunity to make money fairly was better than any other scheming path.
The banquet ended with host and guests all pleased. Pei Yanci had been forced to drink quite a bit and walked unsteadily.
Most of those present outranked him. He struggled to maintain his composure, bidding farewell to everyone one by one and seeing them onto their carriages. By the time Wushu helped him onto his own carriage, he was so drunk he couldn’t tell people apart.
“Who are you? Why are you grabbing this lord’s hand?” He turned to look at the person warily.
Wushu had a headache. “Big brother, how can you not even recognize me? Just how much did you drink?”
“Not much.” Pei Yanci obediently shook his head, making himself even dizzier and nearly falling off the carriage step.
A withered pale, slender hand reached out from the carriage curtain, firmly catching Pei Yanci and pulling him inside with one tug.
Wushu wiped his sweat and sat next to the driver. “Good thing I reported my whereabouts to sister-in-law when school let out. With you this drunk and confused, how could I control you?”
“Sister-in-law? Who’s sister-in-law?” Pei Yanci wondered, about to lift the curtain to ask, when someone pulled him backward, making him fall into a firm chest.
“Mm… How dare you be so rude to this lord!” He blinked his eyes, trying to see clearly, but his finger pointed toward the small window at the side.
Tangxi Zhui, who had once again come to collect someone from the tavern entrance, sighed and silently moved that finger to point at himself.
This alcohol tolerance—it seemed he’d need more practice at home.
Of course, as the drinking companion, he should collect some interest.
“Why are you here again?” Pei Yanci looked at the small window, then at him. As he looked, he became entranced again.
“What’s your name? How old are you? Who’s in your family? Do you hold office at court?”
Pei Yanci’s eyes sparkled brightly, his gaze practically glued to his face. His body maintained a slight reserve, his hand bashfully resting on his shoulder, not daring to get too close.
Seeing him swallow, Tangxi Zhui found it secretly amusing. “Am I that beautiful?”
Even drunk, still a lecher lusting after my beauty.
Pei Yanci nodded blankly.
“Do you want to marry me?” Tangxi Zhui lowered his voice enticingly, lightly licking his burning earlobe. “I want to be your empress. Is that alright?”
“What about Tangxi?” Pei Yanci frowned. “Tangxi also wants to be empress. He looks better in bright red than you.”
As he spoke, he looked disdainfully at the robes Tangxi Zhui wore. Looking and looking, he became mesmerized again.
These clothes look good too.
Tangxi Zhui rubbed his head and continued teasing him. “Then if both Tangxi and I want to be empress, choose one.”
“Tangxi.” Pei Yanci answered without hesitation. “If I don’t choose him, he’ll make a fuss.”
The smile at the corner of Tangxi Zhui’s mouth froze. “Only because of that?”
He frowned and shook his head, looking troubled. “It’s very troublesome—I can only indulge him. Beauty, you’ll have to settle for less. This lord will enfeoff you as Noble Consort and visit your bedchamber more often.”
“Is that so?” Tangxi Zhui ground his teeth, so angry his eyes reddened.
“Don’t be angry, don’t be angry.” Pei Yanci tried to comfort him, his hand inadvertently slipping from the collar into his chest, sliding around a few times, exposing the pale skin of his chest.
Pei Yanci’s eyes lit up. He embraced the person and began kissing his chest, instantly covering it with a patch of light moisture.
“Go kiss your Tangxi.” Tangxi Zhui, flustered by his nuzzling, lost his temper but still felt wronged. He pushed his head away, closed his collar, and leaned to one side.
Seeing the scenery before him disappear, Pei Yanci’s face fell. Puffing with anger, he poked at his chest, enunciating each word. “This lord doesn’t want to see Tangxi get hurt, because it makes my heart ache, so I indulge his fussing. If you keep fussing, this lord won’t have such good patience—I’ll have you executed directly.”
He raised his head and told him solemnly, “Executed. Anyone who dares defy this lord will all be executed.”
Tangxi Zhui looked self-destructive. “Execute me then. Die at your hands and be done with it once and for all.”
So the favoritism I received was just because I made a fuss.
Wait, did he miss hearing something? Something about… heartache?
He perked up, wanting to ask more carefully, but was happily embraced at the waist by Pei Yanci and knocked down again, his head bumping the carriage wall with a clear sound.
Then a soft, warm lip with the scent of wine pressed against his, blocking his question.
This drunken lecher.
Tangxi Zhui tore the person off his mouth and shoved the spittoon into his hands.
Pei Yanci blinked confusedly. “How did the great beauty turn into this? This lord wants the great beauty.”
As soon as the words fell, his abdomen received several heavy finger strikes. Immediately his stomach churned, and he vomited with a “wah.”
After expelling the wine he’d drunk, when Pei Yanci raised his head again, he was much more sober.
“Where is this… are we home?”
“Mm, still on the road.” Tangxi Zhui attended to him, helping him rinse his mouth and wipe his face, ordering the people outside to stop the carriage and having Wushu take the spittoon to discard by the roadside.
Pei Yanci rubbed his temples in chagrin. “I drank too much tonight. Those people were so enthusiastic, and I’m a lowly official—the Crown Prince didn’t care if I lived or died, just sat to the side watching me get force-fed alcohol. I even blocked quite a few drinks for him.”
He then rolled into Tangxi Zhui’s embrace to act coquettish. “If only you’d been there, they wouldn’t have dared be so presumptuous with me.”
Tangxi Zhui’s mind was currently preoccupied with other matters, so he absently responded with a couple of remarks.
“Tangxi, my stomach really hurts. Help me rub it… Why is your collar pulled open?” Pei Yanci narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I was that drunk and you still had such interest?”
Tangxi Zhui suffered a great injustice and laughed in anger. “How are you two different people when you’re drunk and when you’re sober? Think carefully—just now who insisted on pulling open my collar and smeared their disgusting saliva all over me?”
Pei Yanci frowned and recalled carefully, then smiled apologetically. “Seems like it was me. Don’t be angry. I was drunk, wasn’t I? Let me wipe the saliva off for you.”
Noisy sounds came from outside the carriage.
“Since you remember what you said just now, I have something to ask you.” Tangxi Zhui grabbed his busy wrist.
“Yanci, you’re alright……”
Gu Jiuqing lifted the carriage curtain and instantly froze in place.
Pei Yanci was urgently pulling open Tangxi Zhui’s disheveled collar, while the latter gripped his wrist, looking as if trying to prevent his violation.
Wushu’s timid voice sounded not far from the carriage. “…Sorry, I didn’t have time to stop him.”