Chapter 24 - 4#

If the gift couldn’t impress on account of its value, then the only option left was to make it impress through sheer effort.

And so, somehow, Jingzhe found himself at the eleventh hour, begging someone to teach him how to stitch a sole.

Of course, his actual gift wasn’t a shoe sole.

That was just how he was training himself. Grinding away at a skill he didn’t have.

*

On the fifteenth, Rong Jiu came to find him.

He brought something with him, as had become customary.

When exactly this had become customary, Jingzhe wasn’t sure — perhaps it had started after his illness, but Rong Jiu never arrived empty-handed anymore.

Sometimes it was pastries. Once it was a bracelet. Another time, a Luban interlocking puzzle. Jingzhe sincerely wondered whether Rong Jiu had decided to raise him like a small child.

He didn’t want that!

This time, the gift was not outrageous. Or — well. The word “not” was doing some heavy lifting. It was perhaps more accurate to say it was outrageous in a less obvious way.

Rong Jiu produced a small box of incense.

Inside were twelve sticks, neatly arranged.

“For sleep,” he said.

Jingzhe considered this. “Is it expensive?”

Rong Jiu: “Would you refuse it if it were?”

Jingzhe sighed and tucked it into his front. “I’ll take it. Of course I’ll take it. I’m just thinking — you keep sending things, and even if I sold myself, I don’t know how many coins I’d fetch to pay you back.”

Rong Jiu: “You don’t need to.”

Jingzhe raised an eyebrow. “And if I want to?”

A faint light shifted in those dark eyes. The man said, with perfect calm, “Am I going to stop you?”

The tone was nearly identical to Jingzhe’s own, and despite himself, the corner of his mouth curved up.

When they’d first met, Rong Jiu’s face had been closed off — always cold, with only the rarest flicker of anything beneath the surface. But now, Jingzhe couldn’t tell whether he’d just gotten better at reading him, or whether Rong Jiu had genuinely begun to let more show. Either way, he was glad for it.

Though — presenting a gift every single time he came was still a fairly dramatic change regardless of which it was.

Jingzhe found himself curious. “Why do you bring something every time?”

Rong Jiu was quiet for a moment, looking down at him.

Everyone who had ever orbited around him had wanted one of the same few things — money, power, status. The specific form varied; the underlying want did not.

But Jingzhe was the exception.

An oblivious, living exception. Here was someone whose position, if used with even a shred of cunning, could be leveraged for considerable gain — and the idiot simply hadn’t noticed. Or if he had, he didn’t care.

Even setting ambition aside entirely, a little self-interest, a little comfort, a better quality of life — these were things Rong Jiu could arrange without effort.

And yet Jingzhe seemed to want for nothing.

Or rather — he wanted to see Rong Jiu. That was all he’d ever asked for.

Was he playing the long game? Feigning indifference to reel him in?

Rong Jiu had looked at this from every angle. No.

Which left only one explanation.

He was just that dense. Too dense to even recognize an opportunity for exploitation.

There was something particular in Rong Jiu’s expression — cold and faintly hard — as he gazed down at Jingzhe. His finger reached out and brushed the stray hair back from Jingzhe’s forehead. His voice, with its slight curling lilt, moved like something slow and gliding. “You frustrate me.”

Jingzhe blinked at him in confusion.

They’d been talking about gifts just now — how had they arrived at frustration? What had he done to frustrate Rong Jiu?

Jingzhe abruptly turned serious. Was he not showing enough affection? Did Rong Jiu feel he didn’t like him enough?

But — he was trying. He’d gone from thinking about him once a day to three times a day. That was as far as he could go!

Rong Jiu said, impassively, “You don’t know how to take advantage of things. Prey walks in front of you and you don’t go for it. You can’t even seem to manufacture desire. How have you survived this long?”

Oh. That. Jingzhe let his head creep back out, cautiously.

“A bit of… luck?”

He ventured this tentatively.

Rong Jiu: “You should be more ruthless.” Even as he said it, his hand dropped to the back of Jingzhe’s neck and closed around it — pressing lightly at the pulse point.

The oblivious little creature didn’t register this at all, and in fact leaned into it.

Rong Jiu’s expression was blank.

…Hopeless.

No defensive instincts whatsoever.

Anyone could deceive him.

Rong Jiu felt a strange, restless irritation rise up — he couldn’t name what it was exactly — and took it out on Jingzhe’s head, rubbing it hard enough to knock the cap sideways.

Jingzhe scrambled to catch it with both hands, and it was at that moment that a sharp voice split the air: “It’s him!”

Who?

Jingzhe’s head snapped up. He found himself looking at a face that was simultaneously familiar and foreign — foreign because it had been some days since he’d seen it, but familiar enough that it was hard to place him as anything but: the young eunuch who had blocked Jiang Jinming’s path the day they’d gone to confront Wufu.

Alongside the eunuch was a eunuch Jingzhe didn’t recognize, and several other young attendants. The others barely registered — but this eunuch, the one standing in front, had three or four features in common with Wufu despite being far leaner.

“Grandpa Wu — it’s him! He was there that day, following behind Head Jiang, when they came to see Head Wufu!”

The words confirmed Jingzhe’s suspicion.

He narrowed his eyes. So Wude had come looking for revenge — with no evidence, no proof, on nothing more than guesswork. The kind of person who showed up at your door on speculation alone, with a retinue behind him…

Well. No wonder the Chief Eunuch chose to keep a safe distance.

Jingzhe pressed his hand lightly against Rong Jiu’s chest. “Don’t turn around,” he said quietly. “They haven’t seen you.” Then, raising his voice: “May I ask what that statement was meant to imply?”

Their position was just right — the tree was enough to keep Rong Jiu hidden. Jingzhe had turned out at an angle, which was why he’d been spotted first.

The young eunuch, puffed up with borrowed authority, yelled, “You’re standing before Grandpa Wu of Qianming Palace! Get on your knees and confess what you did — or you’ll regret it!”

Wude approached steadily, studying Jingzhe’s face for a moment. He saw, without much surprise, why his brother would have been interested.

“You’re the one who broke my brother’s leg?”

Jingzhe met his gaze without flinching. “With respect, you may be mistaken. On what basis could you make that claim?”

Wude smiled, cold and slow. “Whether it’s you or not — if it is, I’ll call it repayment for my brother’s sake. And if it isn’t — well. You’re the type he likes anyway. I’ll send you to keep him company for a few days. Help him relax. Keep him from getting into trouble.”

Jingzhe felt a surge of revulsion, though not quite fear.

This was the Directorate. Not Qianming Palace.

Wude was a second-rank eunuch, not a head administrator like Ning Hongrú. He didn’t have that kind of reach here.

Jingzhe and Yunkui had already planned for the possibility of retaliation. But the timing was unexpected, and waiting for Yunkui and the others to arrive meant bracing for a rough few minutes…

More importantly — Rong Jiu was here.

Jingzhe didn’t mind taking a bit of a beating. What he couldn’t have was Rong Jiu being caught up in it.

With this in mind, the part of him still half-hidden behind the tree shifted slightly, gesturing discreetly for Rong Jiu to go over the wall.

For someone with Rong Jiu’s ability, that should have been trivial.

Instead, Rong Jiu grabbed his hand, yanked him back — and in the next instant they had vanished from Wude’s line of sight entirely.

Before Jingzhe could speak, his mouth was caught in a sharp bite. The skin broke. The man bit down and tore, and then something wrapped across Jingzhe’s eyes, plunging his world into darkness.

He reached up instinctively.

“Don’t touch it.”

Rong Jiu’s voice was ice-cold.

Jingzhe slowly lowered his hand and stood in place, looking toward where the voice had come from, vision gone — not saying anything, but with every nerve straining toward the hope that he’d come back and take it off. There was something pitiful about the way he stood.

…Rong Jiu was angry.

That bite had really hurt.

Rong Jiu had his fill of Jingzhe’s forlorn expression before turning back, and came face to face with Wude — whose expression had gone white as a sheet, as if he’d looked upon something that shouldn’t exist.

Whatever trace of softness had been there a moment ago stripped away in an instant, replaced by a consuming, predatory malice. The black of his pupils had gone deep and still, like dead water.

This was a cruel and brooding tyrant.

Wude’s hand trembled as he raised it. He tried several times to speak and produced nothing. His terror pushed him to his knees, head hitting the ground in desperate repetition.

“No one’s even gotten around to threatening him yet, and these gutter-born rats still have the nerve to swagger in here threatening mine…” The man’s voice carried a quiet, almost mournful note. “They should die.”

“I — please — mercy — I know my offense, I know my offense, I beg — Your—”

The word “Your” didn’t even fully form — only the faintest breath of it escaped before Rong Jiu’s hand closed around his face, and the force was such that the bones underneath produced a sound of something yielding.

His cheekbone caved. Something sharp drove in.

The sword cleared its scabbard faster than Wude could track. He didn’t register what had happened until the pain arrived in his mouth — by which point the soft flesh had already fallen free through the gaping hole.

A wet, strangled sound.

Wude pressed both hands over his mouth, but blood ran between his fingers without stopping.

That wouldn’t do.

Rong Jiu sighed.

Jingzhe, that oblivious little fool, wasn’t yet prepared. Wasn’t yet ready to know.

If he heard — he would run.

Rong Jiu thought this through, and drove the tip of the blade cleanly through Wude’s throat.

He pushed the entire length in.

The blood that splattered across his sleeve made him step aside with distaste. A thick, liquid sound. Wude was still alive, face contorted in a final struggle — run clean through, and unable to move.

“AAAAAAGH—”

The young eunuchs who had followed Wude here had lost their minds entirely. They spun and fled, consumed by animal terror, every last trace of reason gone.

Rong Jiu raised an eyebrow. He drew his sword and followed after them at an unhurried pace.

One step. Then another. Red bloomed with each one.

Best to finish it quickly. He had to get back and hold Jingzhe.

Poor thing — he hoped he hadn’t been too frightened.

*

Author’s note:

Jingzhe: …I have a question. Which of us is frightening which, exactly?

(Minor fixes, and having read the comments — yes, of course Jingzhe can hear everything perfectly clearly. But Rong Jiu is very good at misdirection:

Rong Jiu: Do you trust me or him? Jingzhe: You, of course, but— Rong Jiu: What do you mean, “but”? You don’t trust me? (leans in, deploying face) Jingzhe: I trust you I trust you! (vigorous nodding)

Lesson learned: to deceive Jingzhe, all you need is a sufficiently attractive face.)