The sunlight grew stronger, its vital energy flowing over the blue bricks, as the cries of street vendors at the mouth of the alley wove into a lively tapestry.
By the time the hour of Si arrived, the noon meal was fully laid out in the main hall of the Wen residence.
Wen Zhuo gave it a casual glance.
Roast duck with crispy skin, mustard seed dumplings, salt-baked abalone and conch, lamb tongue preserved in pickled ginger, and a golden honeyed date soup.
He rolled up his sleeves, revealing pale, slender wrists as he pinched the handle of a white porcelain spoon. With great delicacy, he scooped up the amber-colored soup and brought it slowly to his lips.
A moment later, another spoonful.
Then another.
Before long, the bowl was empty.
"Milord," Liu Qiying finally couldn't hold it in any longer. She rolled her eyes dramatically and teased, "If anyone wanted to harm you, they wouldn't even need to try. Just drop poison into something sweet, and you'd eat it with your eyes closed."
Wen Zhuo set down his spoon and picked up a kerchief to dab the honey residue from the corner of his mouth. "Then tomorrow, you go find someone who writes those popular pamphlets and tell them that Director Wen likes spicy food and feels nauseous at the mere sight of sweets."
Though he argued verbally, Wen Zhuo obediently took a few bites of each dish anyway—just very slowly.
Jiang Mannü devoured three bowls of rice in a whirlwind fashion, finishing with a long, satisfied burp.
By now the sun was nearly at its zenith. She looked down at her shadow, squashed low and stubby, and asked in confusion, "Why is Milord eating so slowly today?"
The dishes had gone cold twice and been reheated twice. Wen Zhuo had stopped eating altogether, but he remained seated in the main hall, picking up a book to read carefully, pretending not to hear Jiang Mannü's question.
Liu Qiying chuckled. "It's still a quarter to noon—he's obviously waiting for the Fifth Prince on purpose."
"Nonsense." A faint crease appeared on the page in his hand.
Wen Zhuo hid his face behind the book, his eyes darting covertly toward the closed courtyard gate beyond the hall. Then, with an air of nonchalance, he rose and retreated to his study.
The moment he stepped inside, he tossed the book aside, stared at the water clock by his desk for a moment, then raised his index finger and pressed down on the indicator arrow, pushing the rising marker back to the third quarter of Si.
Just then, a knock sounded at the Wen residence's front gate. Liu Qiying, sharp-eared as ever, set down the leftovers and hurried out to receive the guest.
Shen Zheng had arrived right on time. He wore a silver-gray robe with a round collar, its hem embroidered with a half-circle of interlocking vine patterns—simple yet refined, elegant yet understated.
He was still quite thin, his cheeks hollow, but the vitality in his brow and eyes was impossible to hide.
Liu Qiying immediately dropped her usual casual manner. She straightened her robes, lowered her head, and began to bow, but Shen Zheng stopped her with swift reflexes.
His voice carried a hint of laughter, but the force in his hand brooked no argument: "Don't. That kind of bow isn't something I accept casually. Besides, isn't your Director Wen planning to repay the favor you owe me?"
He seemed to already know exactly why he was here, his gaze sweeping past the gate to search for someone inside.
Liu Qiying said, "I really am a rouge thief."
Shen Zheng replied distractedly, "I know."
"Then why does Your Highness still want to save me?"
Shen Zheng, still not catching sight of Wen Zhuo, turned back to her and said politely, "You don't need to thank me. First, you got into trouble because you were guiding me on the road. Second, I'm dying to curry favor with your Director Wen anyway. And third, my father even summoned me because of this—so helping you has done me a world of good."
"Mm. Your Highness sang that little tune in the Hall of Martial Valor yesterday—our Director Wen has already heard about it."
"Oh?" Shen Zheng seemed mildly surprised. "It spreads that fast? A classic stays a classic, I suppose."
Liu Qiying: "..." What's so classic about it?
Shen Zheng's enthusiasm was roused. He used to have a hobby of hogging the karaoke mic: "Where's your Director Wen? Actually, the version I sang for His Majesty yesterday was an adaptation. In a bit, I'll perform the original for him—just for him alone."
"...Your Highness, wait. I have something to explain."
Shen Zheng was taken aback by her tone, but then Liu Qiying continued:
"Back in the day, when the great flood hit Qianzhou, it drowned the farmlands and wiped out the harvest in several villages. The able-bodied men were conscripted as laborers to build the levees, but the rations they were promised were all embezzled. People were dying on the dikes every day—within half a year, all the men in our village had died out there."
"We didn't want to just wait for death, so we turned to robbing travelers. But when we stopped merchants on the road, we only took three-tenths of their goods and never took a single life. The ones we robbed understood our suffering and never reported us. Until one time, we mistakenly robbed a servant of the Cao family, and Cao Fangzheng sent soldiers to hunt us down. A group of women and children—we had no way to fight back."
"He branded us with slave marks, intending to sell us off to various underground establishments for profit. On the way, I stabbed one of the escorting soldiers and led a band of rouge thieves to escape into Bozhou territory."
"Actually, we were caught as soon as we arrived in Bozhou. We thought it was the end of the line, but then we met Governor Wen."
At this point, Liu Qiying's gaze drifted to the blooming pear tree in the courtyard, a soft warmth clouding her eyes.
"He ordered us to be registered in the household registers, reissued us with residency documents, and allowed us to survive in Bozhou under new identities. He even gave me the name I use now. All refugees who fled from Qianzhou to Bozhou, he took them all in without exception."
Shen Zheng's brow lifted almost imperceptibly.
"Having learned from Qianzhou's lesson, he built flood barriers early to hold back the waters of Liang River, and he followed the example of Ximen Bao from the Warring States era in diverting water to irrigate the fields and reclaim the saline-alkali soil. All the food needed for these projects was funded entirely by the Bozhou government."
"The male refugees built the dikes in exchange for grain, while the women could go work in the tea fields. When Governor Wen took the imperial examinations, he once tasted the Songluo tea produced in Huizhou Prefecture in the palace—this tea is pale as a white pear, its flavor like chewing snow, and extremely expensive. He noticed that Bozhou's climate and terrain were similar to Huizhou's, and if the tea could be introduced here, even without old trees, selling it at half price could greatly improve the people's livelihoods. The tea fields have been expanding ever since—we've never been short of work."
"I once asked him whether it was worth it, to take such risks for people like us. He said, worth it or not, he'd already done it. What choice do hungry people have? No one is born wanting to do evil. Put in their shoes, he couldn't have done any better himself."
Liu Qiying turned back to face Shen Zheng, her gaze steady and fierce: "Our Governor never speaks up for himself, but he's not the useless, cold-hearted official the pamphlets make him out to be. In the three years he governed Bozhou, the land grew rich, the people lived in peace. When he left, ten thousands lined the roads, singing his praises and begging him to stay. No matter what outsiders say, in the hearts of Bozhou's people, he will always be a living bodhisattva."
Shen Zheng stood quietly, listening. The lazy smile in his eyes gradually faded, dissolving into something deep and unfathomable.
These small, stubborn traces of a man's backbone and character—they had left no mark on history.
So there was no way to know how his nature had changed, whether anything of his former self still remained.
"History really is cold and heartless."
So even this man—reviled by all as a culprit through the ages—had once had someone speak up for him, take his side. In some unnamed crevice of time, he, too, had been a savior to a region.
Twenty-seven years, compressed into two short pages of the Qian Dynasty annals, accompanied by a confession of guilt dripping with regret—and that was supposed to sum up a man's complex life.
As if he had never been a living, breathing human being, but merely a symbol of treachery, trampled into fragments by the hands of historians.
"I'm becoming more and more interested in your Governor Wen."
-
Wen Zhuo had heard the commotion at the front gate long ago. He subtly rubbed the thin book page in his hand, scanning the same line of text for the eighth time.
A book that usually absorbed him completely now left his mind wandering.
He couldn’t quite say whether he looked forward to this meeting or dreaded it, or whether he should build the same kind of connection with Shen Zheng that he’d had with Shen Chen in his past life.
After all, once bitten, twice shy—he couldn’t help but remain wary.
No matter how Shen Zheng acted now, he was still the son of Emperor Shunyuan. If he ever gained power, would he still be able to see the suffering of the common people the way he did today?
But one thing was certain: the Daqian imperial house abhorred male beauty with a passion. In this life, he would never let the man he chose to serve discover the shameful desires hidden in his heart.
Wen Zhuo braced himself once more, but outside the study, the courtyard remained eerily empty.
“…”
He raised his hand and swept the brush holder off the desk.
What kind of legs were those—a distance of seven zhang, and it took a full quarter-hour to walk!
Just then, Liu Qiying happened to step through the archway with Shen Zheng, and caught sight of Wen Zhuo deliberately poking two slender, pale fingers out from his wide sleeve to knock the brush holder onto the floor, scattering the wolf-hair brushes across the ground in a mess.
Liu Qiying was unfazed: “Getting impatient, are we? At least you had the sense not to shove the ten-tael inkstone off too.”
Shen Zheng chuckled softly: “Kitten.”
Liu Qiying turned her head: “What did you say, Your Highness?”
Shen Zheng didn’t answer.
