Chapter 4

After finishing the morning meal, an attendant quickly brought in the medicinal broth.

The medicine perhaps contained some calming ingredient — Ye Shu obediently drank it down, and before long felt drowsiness wash over him, his thoughts growing hazy as he drifted back to sleep.

By the time he woke again, it was already past noon.

Jin Wang was no longer in the bedchamber. Ye Shu had just finished dressing when a serving maid arrived with the midday meal.

The maid bowed to Ye Shu: "By His Majesty's order, Chancellor Ye is to present himself at the martial training grounds after finishing his noon meal."

"The martial training grounds?"

What was Jin Wang plotting this time?

Ye Shu asked: "What does His Majesty want me there for?"

"This servant does not know."

Having delivered her message, the maid stood quietly to one side. Ye Shu glanced at her, and asked nothing more.

People sent by Jin Wang rarely had anything useful to say.

Ye Shu ate this meal without any pleasure, hastily filling his stomach before instructing the maid to lead him out.

Only upon leaving the bedchamber did he realise — this was not the imperial palace in the capital.

This was Jin Wang's summer retreat palace on the outskirts of the city.

The retreat was not much smaller in scale than the imperial palace itself. Outside the bedchamber where Ye Shu had been lodged lay a sizeable lake, and he followed the serving maid along the winding covered walkway that curved around its shore. After more than ten minutes of walking and turning, they still had not reached the martial training grounds — when a thunderous boom rang out.

A gunshot.

Ye Shu's footsteps froze, and the immediate impulse to flee seized him on the spot.

He knew it. He knew Jin Wang had no good intentions!

The maid beside him also stopped: "Chancellor Ye?"

"It's — it's nothing." Ye Shu's complexion had gone somewhat pale. He shook his head.

Ye Shu entered the martial training grounds and in a single glance spotted Jin Wang standing on the elevated platform ahead. Jin Wang held in his hand a nimble foreign flintlock — silver all over, its form resembling a pistol, yet subtly different.

Bang —

A shot rang out, striking dead centre of the target.

Jin Wang lowered the flintlock and turned his head toward Ye Shu with a smile: "What are you waiting for? Come here."

Ye Shu stepped forward.

A small table had been set up on the platform. Jin Wang pulled Ye Shu down to sit beside it, and at once an attendant came forward to serve tea.

Jin Wang looked at Ye Shu: "My beloved subject looks considerably better in spirit."

Ye Shu replied: "Imperial Physician Feng has remarkable healing hands. This subject thanks Your Majesty for your concern."

Jin Wang gave a nod: "Since my beloved subject has recovered, let us continue where we left off."

Ye Shu: "……"

Would this ever end!

Ye Shu's heart surged with turbulent waves, yet his face remained calm and undisturbed. He met Jin Wang's gaze evenly, waiting for what was to come.

Jin Wang tilted his head toward the attendant at his side in a gesture.

Before long, the sound of footsteps reached them from a distance.

Ye Shu followed the sound with his eyes, and his expression instantly changed.

At the far end of the martial training grounds, a dozen or more men and women appeared — their hands bound behind them, their mouths and eyes covered.

Jin Wang's voice carried a smile within it: "My beloved subject said earlier that all those schemes were to draw out the enemy spies lurking in the capital — and that was truly no lie. Look, have I not found every last one of them?"

Ye Shu's lips pressed tight together. He had a dim inkling of what Jin Wang intended to do.

Sure enough, Jin Wang continued: "My beloved subject has rendered a great service this time. I'll give you the chance to execute them with your own hand. What do you say?"

Below the platform, the dozen or more spies were herded into the training grounds.

An attendant brought forth a flintlock on a tray.

"This silver flintlock is a rare thing — I only just got my hands on it, and it has yet to taste blood." Jin Wang rested his chin in his hand, perfectly at ease. "Use this one."

This tyrant… was actually forcing him to kill.

Ye Shu looked at the flintlock in the attendant's hands, then looked at the dozen or so young men and women below the platform, his fingers trembling.

Even if this was a world within a book, these were still living, breathing people…

"What are you waiting for? Does Chancellor Ye not wish to prove himself to me?" Jin Wang rose, took the flintlock, and placed it solemnly into Ye Shu's hands. His gaze fixed steadily upon Ye Shu's face. "Kill them, and I will believe you."

The flintlock, having just been fired, was still warm. Jin Wang laid his palm over the back of Ye Shu's hand, guiding his grip around the weapon.

The muzzle swung around, pointing at the prisoners in the training grounds.

The guards holding the prisoners in the distance took the cue, released the chains binding them together, and withdrew from the grounds.

In an instant, the dozen or more men and women began to scatter and flee in all directions.

"I can't…" Ye Shu's body began to tremble. "I can't do it."

Jin Wang gazed down at him in silence.

"You are still so soft-hearted." Slowly, he raised his hand and brushed Ye Shu's stray hair behind his ear. Word by word, his voice was gentle yet cold: "When you sent someone to assassinate me, did you suffer this same anguish?"

"Or is it that as long as you do not do it with your own hands, you feel no guilt?"

"Or perhaps — my life is worth nothing in your eyes."

"It wasn't me…" Ye Shu raised his eyes to meet that pair of dark, treacherous ones, his voice unsteady. "You still don't believe me."

"That's right. I don't believe you."

Jin Wang released Ye Shu and stepped back half a pace.

"Go on, then."

The martial training grounds fell utterly silent.

Ye Shu only felt that the flintlock in his hand weighed a thousand catties, so heavy he could barely hold on.

The prisoners in the grounds gradually realised there was nowhere to run, and slowly grew still — only soft, stifled whimpers and weeping remained.

Fear spread without a sound.

And at the same moment, a faint fragrance of young, unripened wood and fruit began to drift through the air.

It was far lighter than before — a sweet-and-tart scent that made the mouth water — drifting outward, and quickly suffusing the entire martial training grounds.

Jin Wang's expression was the first to change.

Ye Shu had only just passed through his differentiation period the previous night, and after being marked by the Qian-Jun, his allure-scent should have been temporarily suppressed. Perhaps the series of provocations today had driven it beyond control once more.

The palace attendants serving the imperial household — whether male or female — were all of ordinary constitution, and could not detect this Kun-Jun's allure-scent.

But the spies in the training grounds were another matter entirely.

Among their number, quite a few were Qian-Jun.

Their eyes were covered, yet without exception they turned to face the direction of the elevated platform ahead.

Under the tension of the moment, that enticing scent grew gradually sweeter and heavier, and the atmosphere within the training grounds began to stir with unease.

Only Ye Shu, in the grip of extreme anxiety, had not noticed what was happening.

Not until Jin Wang reached out and snatched the flintlock from his hand, his voice carrying a rough edge: "Enough."

"Come with me."

He tossed the flintlock carelessly to the attendant, then pulled Ye Shu and headed for the exit.

Jin Wang left the entire grounds — attendants and prisoners alike — where they stood, his pace swift, and quickly pulled Ye Shu back to the bedchamber.

"Why are you—" Ye Shu had just opened his mouth to ask when Jin Wang suddenly turned and shoved, pressing him hard against the doorframe.

Ye Shu furrowed his brow at the sharp pain and looked up, meeting Jin Wang's eyes — which had taken on a faint red flush.

Both of their breaths turned scalding in an instant.

Perhaps from the hurried walk just now, Ye Shu's body gradually grew warm, and the small mole beside his earlobe tingled with a strange, soft itch — he wanted… he very much wanted someone to touch it.

He turned his head aside, and had barely lifted his hand to do something when Jin Wang seized his wrist and pressed it firmly down against his side.

"Stop moving." Jin Wang's voice was low and rough, carrying a suffocating weight of pressure.

No one could endure watching the Kun-Jun they had marked release their allure-scent before others.

Especially not someone with Jin Wang's temperament.

Ye Shu's shoulders trembled lightly.

He did not know why he was like this.

The palm gripping his wrist felt as though it had turned searing hot, like a flame burning all the way to his heart. Something welled up inside his body — an impulse he had never known before — a craving to be touched, a craving for something closer, something more intimate.

And it had to be this person.

Only this person would do.

The unfamiliar sensation left Ye Shu deeply unsettled. He struggled once, but could not break free, and said with strained desperation: "Jin… Jin Wang…"

A flicker of feeling crossed Jin Wang's eyes.

The young man in his arms had a mist gathering in his gaze, his long lashes trembling faintly, his expression carrying a hint of fragility and helplessness.

Was this also an act?

From the moment Ye Shu had woken, Jin Wang had been testing him ceaselessly — yet the more he tested, the more uncertain he became.

All the evidence pointed squarely to this person, and yet it did not seem like him.

How could it be this little scatterbrain.

And why would he betray him?

Jin Wang had ruled for many years, and had always understood the logic of making an example of one to warn a hundred — yet when it came to this person alone…

It was he who had held him through the night in the cold palace in the dead of winter, warming him with his own body. It was he who had endured a beating rather than give up a bowl of hot soup he had fought to bring him. It was he who had knelt for three days and three nights outside the Imperial Physician's quarters, pleading for a physician to come and save his life.

And it was also this person who had stumbled into his arms during his differentiation period, begging him in a low voice to save him.

He simply could not bring himself to do it.

Jin Wang drew closer, his breath fanning across Ye Shu's ear, carrying the dense, heady allure-scent of strong liquor, making the body in his arms shudder in waves: "Ye Qi'an, I will ask you one final time."

"…Have you truly not betrayed me?"

He was a Kun-Jun.

A Kun-Jun could never lie under the allure-scent of the Qian-Jun who had marked them.

Ye Shu's mind was growing hazy, his gaze gradually losing focus, his lashes wet: "…No."

"It wasn't me…"

"It really wasn't me…"

Jin Wang exhaled slowly and deeply.

So be it — whether true or false, let it stand for now.

Leave him his life, and the truth would eventually come to light.

And even if it turned out in the end to be truly his doing… that was not without a solution either.

A Kun-Jun who had not even noticed he had been marked — what could he possibly accomplish?

Jin Wang pressed his fingers gently around the back of Ye Shu's neck, his fingertip lightly grazing that small cinnabar mole, and the allure-scent eased considerably.

Soothed by the scent, Ye Shu's tightly wound body gradually loosened, and his head tilted, coming to rest on Jin Wang's shoulder.

Jin Wang lifted him in his arms, strode into the inner chamber, and set him down on the bed.

"Bullying people as you please." Ye Shu murmured with his eyes closed, voice soft, as though already losing consciousness. "Faint-hearted tyrant…"

Jin Wang: "……"

By the time Ye Shu woke again, the sky had nearly darkened.

The sovereign's imperial bed was soft to just the right degree, and exceedingly comfortable — yet having slept for nearly an entire day still left him with some ache in his lower back.

Ye Shu stretched lazily and sat up, and came face to face with a strikingly handsome visage.

Jin Wang sat at the edge of the bed, holding a memorial, reading through it. Upon seeing him wake, he tilted his head and curved the corner of his mouth at him: "My beloved subject is awake."

"…Why are you still here?"

Jin Wang asked: "Does my beloved subject not remember what happened earlier?"

Ye Shu truly did not remember.

He only recalled that Jin Wang had suddenly brought him back from the training grounds to the bedchamber, and had apparently continued to interrogate him for a few more exchanges along the way.

And after that… how had he fainted?

Ye Shu thought for a long while, then it suddenly dawned on him: "You drugged me?!"

"……"

The more Ye Shu thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. He demanded: "There must have been something wrong with what I ate at noon — what did you do to me?"

Jin Wang was nearly moved to laughter by him, and pressed at his brow: "Yes, I drugged you."

"It was a secret compound newly developed within the palace. After taking it, one can only speak the truth — it is impossible to lie."

"Would you like to know what you said?"

Jin Wang tossed the memorial onto the small side table, leaned forward, and looked down at Ye Shu from above.

Ye Shu swallowed, forcing himself to appear calm as he asked: "What… what did I say?"

Jin Wang lifted a lock of his hair, his expression somewhere between a smile and not: "You called me a faint-hearted tyrant forty-three times, a dog emperor thirty-seven times, and twenty-five times you called me…"

Ye Shu listened and his face drained of all colour. He asked in a trembling voice: "…Twenty-five times what?"

"…That dog-scum Jin Wang."