Shen Zheng gently caressed his cheek, lingering over it with undisguised affection for quite some time before taking out his phone and teaching him how to select the dishes.
The cuisine of the modern world was vastly different from that of Da Qian. However, Shen Zheng noticed that Wen Zhuo seemed to favor Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai cuisine, so the two of them ultimately ordered a basket of crab roe soup dumplings, two bowls of steamed yellow croaker, a plate of stir-fried mustard greens, a roast duck with crisp red skin, Longjing shrimp, and noodles with sizzling eel.
Shen Zheng found it quite remarkable. He truly could not understand how Wen Zhuo had managed to single out the sweeter dishes at a glance from among so many different cuisines.
He also remembered that it was Thursday and casually ordered a box of egg tarts.
They had selected the one-on-one delivery service, and in less than half an hour, the food had arrived at their door.
Wen Zhuo found this equally astonishing. He could not understand how, when they had merely peered into the little iron box at home, the restaurant’s workers had somehow received the message.
Shen Zheng explained that it was called food delivery service. A phone could send messages through the air, allowing someone thousands of miles away to receive them in an instant.
Wen Zhuo was deeply shaken. He suddenly realized that the later generations still held countless marvelous kinds of knowledge waiting for him to uncover.
After putting a mouthful of egg tart into his mouth, Wen Zhuo privately decided that the delicacies of the modern world surpassed those of Da Qian by a fair margin.
For example, this pastry was sweet without being cloying, rich with the fragrance of milk, and soft and melting on the tongue. Its flavor was truly difficult to describe.
He enjoyed it immensely. His only regret was that there were six in the box, while Shen Zheng allowed him to eat only two.
Fortunately, the remaining dishes were all delicious and far superior to the cooking of Liu Qiying and Jiang Mannü.
Though Wen Zhuo favored fresh and sweet flavors, his constitution was weak and he had always had a small appetite. He could not eat very much.
Back at the Wen residence, there had never been any leftovers, all because Jiang Mannü had taken care of them. Now, with so much food left between him and Shen Zheng, Wen Zhuo could not help feeling distressed as he looked at it.
Shen Zheng, however, remained perfectly calm. He picked up the leftover dishes, walked into another room, opened a cupboard, and placed all the food inside.
Wen Zhuo tactfully reminded him, “Your Majesty, if you put food in the cupboard, I’m afraid insects and ants will get into it.”
“This is called a refrigerator,” Shen Zheng said. “It’s cold inside, much like the ice cellars we used in Da Qian. Things won’t spoil once they’re put in there. You can simply heat them up before eating.”
Wen Zhuo walked over and gently opened the cupboard door. When he reached inside, he found that it was indeed refreshingly cold.
“Is this the place where we took out the ice cream today?”
“That’s right.” Shen Zheng nodded. “That one is called a freezer. The principle is the same.”
Wen Zhuo pondered this and silently committed it to memory.
After they had eaten their fill, night had already fallen.
If they had been in Da Qian, it would have been time to retire for the night. Wen Zhuo rinsed his mouth, then took Shen Zheng by the hand and tried to lead him toward the bedroom.
Shen Zheng, however, said, “Wanshan, go to sleep first. I still have an essay to finish.”
Wen Zhuo was so sleepy that his eyelids were practically sticking together. He asked in confusion, “Why does Your Majesty have to submit to others in the modern world? It is already so late, yet you still have to labor over your writing?”
“Here, I’m only an ordinary student. I still have assignments to complete, and teachers to answer to.” Shen Zheng sounded helpless.
“Had Your Majesty not already taken the modern world’s imperial examination?”
When Shen Zheng had introduced joint examinations for men and women in Da Qian, he had once said that later generations did things the same way. They called the imperial examination the gaokao, and held it once every year.
“I have.”
“If you have already taken the imperial examination, why must you still enter a school to study? Should you not be taking up an official post instead? Only scholars who failed the examination would continue studying.”
Shen Zheng laughed. “The later generations are different from Da Qian. The knowledge they require is as vast as a sea of smoke. If one wishes to advance further, one must continue one’s education. Doing well on the gaokao does not mean entering government service directly. It only gives you the opportunity to study at one of the best universities.”
“So the road of learning is even longer for students of the later generations.” Wen Zhuo sighed with feeling.
He insisted on seeing what Shen Zheng had written, so he accompanied him to the study. Despite struggling to keep his eyes open, he saw that everything on the page concerned Da Qian. However, the arrangement of the writing was as strange as that in the videos, and the characters were actually written horizontally from left to right.
“It’s something like a policy essay. I have to write it well enough to graduate from university, but there’s really nothing interesting about it. Teacher, you should go to bed first.” Seeing how exhausted he was, Shen Zheng felt a pang of tenderness.
Wen Zhuo leaned lightly over the desk, inclining toward him as he focused on the words beneath Shen Zheng’s brush. His dark hair slid from his shoulder and spread across Shen Zheng’s lap.
“If it is similar to a policy essay, why must Your Majesty write it personally? Let me do it instead.”
Shen Zheng rubbed the back of his neck and kissed his cheek lightly. With a laugh, he shook his head. “That won’t do. This cannot be written by someone else.”
He could not bear to let a piece written personally by Wen Zhuo be casually judged by those later-generation scholars who understood only a fraction of the subject.
“Why not?” Wen Zhuo turned his head and met his eyes. “I am the Director of the Hanlin Academy, after all. It is my duty to write on Your Majesty’s behalf.”
Shen Zheng toyed with his earlobe. “I can’t bear to, and I don’t want to. What I’m writing is nothing more than shallow, crude prose. Every word Wanshan writes is a pearl. Why would an insignificant graduation thesis require the Imperial Tutor to lift his brush?”
Unable to bear leaving Shen Zheng to toil alone, Wen Zhuo curled up on the soft sofa in the study and kept him company.
Shen Zheng worked at his desk through the entire night. At last, he finished organizing the new outline for his thesis and sent it to his advisor.
It was just beginning to grow light when he finally and carefully picked up Wen Zhuo from the sofa and carried him to the bedroom, where he held him in his arms and fell asleep with him.
When they woke again, the sun was already shining brightly.
Wen Zhuo had actually been awake for quite some time, but he could not bring himself to disturb Shen Zheng’s sleep. He simply rested quietly against Shen Zheng’s arm without moving a muscle.
Half-asleep, Shen Zheng raised a hand to shield his eyes and instinctively said, “Chen Ping, is court being held today?”
Wen Zhuo gently moved his hand aside. “Your Majesty, we are not in Da Qian.”
Only then did Shen Zheng wake completely. He pulled Wen Zhuo into his arms and ruffled him affectionately.
He reached for his phone and saw that his advisor had replied an hour earlier, saying that the outline was acceptable and asking him to write a first draft.
Shen Zheng finally relaxed. Fortunately, he was not an engineering student and did not have to spend his energy on a graduation project. Since his thesis direction had been approved, he could complete the draft quickly.
Since there was no immediate rush, he decided to take care of more important matters first.
He promptly took Wen Zhuo to the shopping mall to buy him some new clothes.
Every item of modern clothing seemed strange to Wen Zhuo, yet he was not at all picky. Whenever a sales assistant praised his exceptional looks, he would gaze at her seriously and say, “Thank you.”
Shen Zheng felt that the sales assistants had gotten to experience the same kind of miraculous, adorable Wen Zhuo he had.
Trying on clothes was physically exhausting as well. Shen Zheng had only spent a hundred thousand yuan when Wen Zhuo was already too tired to go on, feeling that changing clothes required even more effort than arguing in court.
Seeing this, Shen Zheng bought him an avocado yogurt to replenish his strength, then took him straight home.
Though Wen Zhuo did not understand the modern world, he was both intelligent and perceptive. He had long since realized that Shen Zheng was not from a poor family, though he had no concept of exactly how wealthy Shen Zheng was.
Asking the emperor for rewards and secretly stashing away a private little treasury had already become a habit of Wen Zhuo’s. When he saw an object by the roadside that produced a bright flame with a simple flick and extinguished it when closed—something far more convenient than a fire starter and incapable of running out after only a few hours—he took a liking to it and asked Shen Zheng for one. He then carefully hid it in the bedside table.
Shen Zheng found this amusing and did not point it out. The next day, however, he replaced the one-yuan plastic lighter with a S.T. Dupont.
Over the following days, Shen Zheng buried himself in his work and frantically rushed to complete his thesis, producing a first draft of ten thousand words in one go.
Wen Zhuo, meanwhile, summoned the same determination he had possessed during his years of hard study and preparation for the imperial examination, devouring all kinds of modern books.
Once Shen Zheng sent the first draft of his thesis to his advisor, he immediately closed his computer, forcibly pulled Wen Zhuo away from his desk, and took him outside to relax.
“Your calligraphy and paintings have all been passed down through the ages. There’s an exhibition of your works in the present day, open for everyone to admire. Would you like to go see it?” Shen Zheng asked with a smile.
Wen Zhuo’s curiosity was instantly piqued, and he nodded without hesitation.
Worried that his beloved’s breathtaking beauty might cause a commotion at the museum, Shen Zheng prepared a mask for him to cover most of his face.
When they arrived at the museum entrance, Wen Zhuo gazed up at the towering, magnificent building, deeply shaken.
Just as he was about to step inside, Shen Zheng reached out and teased, “Hold on to your husband. It’s enormous inside—you might get lost.”
Wen Zhuo obediently placed his hand in Shen Zheng’s palm.
As they entered the museum, a blast of air-conditioning hit them. Wen Zhuo hurriedly pulled the object called a “zipper” on his clothes all the way up to his neck.
He looked around from side to side. His raven-black hair was loosely tied with a simple silk ribbon, swaying gently whenever he turned his head.
Whenever he encountered something he didn’t understand, he would point at it, and Shen Zheng would quietly explain it to him.
The museum was extremely spacious. There was a long flight of steps that resembled the imperial staircase in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, except that the people here showed far less decorum. Groups of two or three had actually sat down on the steps, clutching little metal boxes and staring blankly ahead.
Amid the listless, slumped visitors, one group stood out in particular. Every one of them was brimming with excitement as they called to one another.
“This is our Zheng-Zhuo supertopic’s first offline gathering! Let’s take a group photo in the main hall!”
At once, more than a dozen young women gathered together, tidying their hair and clothes with bright smiles.
Wen Zhuo stopped, drawn by the commotion.
Once everyone had arranged themselves, the girl leading the group glanced around. At once, she spotted Shen Zheng and Wen Zhuo, whose presence was strikingly different from everyone else’s.
The male university student was already tall, handsome, and exceptionally poised, yet her gaze kept drifting toward the person beside him.
Perhaps because he was wearing a mask and only his clear, lovely eyes were visible, that person possessed an air of refined nobility so imposing that she didn’t dare approach too boldly, and could only admire him from afar.
After steadying herself, she mustered her courage and walked over to Shen Zheng.
“Excuse me, could you take a photo for us?”
Shen Zheng accepted her phone, then turned to Wen Zhuo. “I’ll be right back. Wait here, and don’t wander off.”
“Mm.” Wen Zhuo responded softly through his mask, his voice clear and smooth.
The girl immediately recognized that he was a man from his voice, and the corners of her lips curled up unconsciously.
Shen Zheng released Wen Zhuo’s hand and casually asked, “Are you a university club?”
The girl answered frankly, “No, we’re from the Zheng-Zhuo CP supertopic. There happens to be a special exhibition for Zhuozhuo today, so everyone from Beijing came to check in.”
Shen Zheng’s movements paused slightly.
“Zhuozhuo?” Wen Zhuo had sharp ears and caught the unfamiliar name. He repeated it softly without thinking.
The girl assumed they didn’t understand, so she hurriedly explained, “It means the Grand Chancellor Wen Zhuo of the Great Qian Dynasty. His husband was Emperor Hongyu.”
“His husband?” Wen Zhuo repeated again. What strange term was this?
A hidden smile gleamed in Shen Zheng’s eyes. “I see.”
Seeing the doubt in Wen Zhuo’s eyes, the girl worried that she might have offended him and hastily added, “Well, although some scholars believe the Emperor and the Chancellor were merely confidants, we firmly believe they were truly in love, which is why we call him that. Of course, we respect other people’s opinions too.”
Wen Zhuo frowned and corrected her solemnly, “They were not merely confidants. Emperor Hongyu was Wen Zhuo’s husband.”
The girl froze for a moment. Seeing how firmly he spoke, she immediately became ecstatic.
“Oh my gosh, you’re one of us!”
Wen Zhuo didn’t understand that phrase either, so he simply fell silent.
The corners of Shen Zheng’s lips rose high as he walked over to take the group’s photo.
The girl called out, “Everyone, answer together—Is the Jade Chancellor beautiful?”
“Beautiful!”
Click.
“Is the Jade Chancellor’s literary talent unmatched?”
“Absolutely!”
Click.
“Mountains and rivers as the betrothal gift, the whole world as their witness—the Imperial Chancellor—”
“Forever!”
Several more photos were taken. When Shen Zheng returned the phone, he didn’t let go immediately. Instead, he asked mischievously, “Would you like a photo with him too?”
The girl secretly glanced at Wen Zhuo. He was standing quietly where he was, his amorous eyes fixed on Shen Zheng.
She answered politely, “We’ve already looked at your boyfriend so many times—it feels a little rude. We won’t bother you two with a photo. Here’s to you both being together forever.”
“All right, then.” Shen Zheng didn’t insist.
The girl took the phone and hurried away, embarrassed. Inside, she secretly rejoiced: We Zheng-Zhuo fans did ourselves proud again! I’m practically the definition of tact!
Shen Zheng returned to Wen Zhuo’s side. Wen Zhuo asked softly, “Your Majesty, what does ‘husband’ mean?”
“It means ‘your husband.’” Shen Zheng leaned close to his ear and chuckled. “Wanshan, why don’t you say it once?”
