Chapter 13#

“If I hear you call him a cripple again, I’ll make you one too.” Chapter Number: 7214963#

Rong Yu turned his back to Chu Tan not only because he found the sight of Chu Tan irritating, but more because he’d discovered that his body had a reaction to Chu Tan.

Just like last time in the bathroom, seeing Chu Tan’s smooth, beautiful muscles made his body give off signals of intense craving and a wet, aroused reaction.

He’d probably held it in too long. His intersex body was naturally lustful by nature, and since he’d transmigrated here, it had already been over two months without release.

Mo Shu had discreetly asked a few times, but Rong Yu refused every time. He didn’t want to take care of it himself, and he couldn’t get used to someone else helping, so he could only endure.

Now he’d probably reached his limit—the slightest stimulus could get him roused.

Rong Yu lay down facing away from Chu Tan. A damp, itchy sensation spread between his legs, and his penis had grown erect, tenting his trousers. He couldn’t help but tense the muscles of his thighs, pressing them together, yet that slippery feeling only grew stronger.

Rong Yu frowned hard, silently reciting a calming mantra in his mind, forcing himself to settle down.

After who knew how long, Rong Yu gradually drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up, Chu Tan was still kneeling there.

His expression was perfectly composed, without a shred of shame at being naked. Rong Yu instinctively glanced down at his lower body—his penis was half-erect. Though it hadn’t gone soft, it wasn’t rudely jutting upward either.

Rong Yu felt a bizarre trace of comfort in his heart.

…He thought he might be going crazy from dealing with this pervert.

Rong Yu lay on his side, propping his head up with one hand, and asked lazily, “Do you know what you did wrong?”

His voice was slightly hoarse, carrying a hint of languor, and his eyes were hazy, veiled with a thin mist of moisture.

So Chu Tan’s dick immediately perked up like it had been electrocuted, even wagging left and right with great enthusiasm.

What was most infuriating was that Chu Tan said without changing his expression, “This servant knows he was wrong.”

Rong Yu was so angry he hurled a pillow at his face. “You don’t know shit!”

Rong Yu massaged his temples. He really didn’t want to look at this man’s dick. “Put your clothes on, get out, and send Mo Shu in!”

“Yes.” Chu Tan dressed himself, picked up the string of prayer beads he’d removed, and presented them with both hands.

Rong Yu frowned. “Why are you giving me something that has your filthy stuff on it? Throw it away.”

Chu Tan pressed his lips together, his brows lowering slightly.

Seeing his expression, Rong Yu narrowed his eyes dangerously. “You’re upset now?”

Chu Tan shook his head and walked out, tucking the prayer beads into his chest like a treasured prize.

He just thought—if he’d known Rong Yu wouldn’t want them anymore, he should have kept them strung on his dick the whole time. After all, the young master had put them on him with his own hands.

What a terrible waste.

Mo Shu was far more competent as a servant than that slave Chu Tan. The moment he came in, he first handed Rong Yu a hand warmer, then poured hot tea, and while Rong Yu drank it, he helped him get dressed.

“Master, why did you take your socks off? Be careful not to catch a cold.” Mo Shu knelt half-kneeling at the foot of the bed, placing Rong Yu’s feet on his knees. When he was about to pull the socks on, his movements suddenly froze.

He stared in confusion at Rong Yu’s fair, lustrous toes, then lifted Rong Yu’s foot slightly, tilting his head to look at the sole. His eyes slowly widened.

“Young master, th-this…” Mo Shu was so shocked he couldn’t finish his words. He was a man himself—how could he not guess what that substance was.

“What are you making a fuss about?” Rong Yu followed Mo Shu’s gaze to his own foot, and saw a smear of already-dried white liquid nestled between his toes. He looked at the sole of his foot next.

Because he’d never walked on the ground, the bottom of his foot was extremely delicate and soft, and in the hollow of his most tender sole was a large patch of milky white turbid fluid—sticky and wanton, like the obscene shamelessness of a certain someone.

Rong Yu’s eyes slowly widened too, disbelief flashing in them. He’d thought he’d already imagined Chu Tan as depraved as possible, but Chu Tan could still give him “surprises”?

Rong Yu had no feeling below his knees, so even if Chu Tan had done something like this to him, he couldn’t have felt it at all. If Mo Shu hadn’t noticed, he probably would never have found out.

The thought of Chu Tan secretly using his feet to jerk off while he was asleep made Rong Yu fly into a rage. He wanted to chop off that dog dick of his that got hard anywhere, anytime!

“Young master, did Chu Tan do this?” Mo Shu asked indignantly. He’d been standing guard in the outer room the whole time—nobody else had come in except Chu Tan.

Rong Yu gritted his teeth. “Call him back here for me!”

So that evening, Biying Pavilion summoned the physician again.

Chu Tan’s room.

“Shizi, your treatment’s been upgraded—this room is much nicer than the one I saw last time with Cai Shu.”

The speaker was a young man around twenty, with handsome, masculine features and a pair of small tiger fangs when he smiled.

“Why didn’t Cai Shu come?” Chu Tan asked.

He lay face-up on the bed, two bruised purple “X” marks on his chest, with fresh red blood seeping from the whip welts, looking quite ghastly. There were also two whip marks on his abdomen, barely an inch from striking a vital spot—clearly his attacker bore a great deal of resentment.

“Oh, a patient came into the clinic and Cai Shu’s taking care of it. He said he guessed you’d gotten beaten again, and that you don’t need any real treatment—just have me bring the medicine over.” Jiang Qi poured the wound medicine onto Chu Tan’s injuries, clicking his tongue. “I’m telling you, Shizi, you’ve been getting beaten way too often lately. At this rate, I’m afraid you’ll be crippled before you ever get your hands on that thing.”

Chu Tan toyed with a string of prayer beads in his hand. At the thought of something, a smile appeared on his face, which happened to pull at the corner of his mouth, making him hiss involuntarily.

Jiang Qi looked over in surprise and burst out laughing. “Shizi, there’s a handprint on your face too. Did that young master hit you with that as well?”

Chu Tan didn’t answer, asking instead, “Do you have anything else? If not, hurry up and go.”

“I do.” Jiang Qi’s playful expression suddenly turned serious as he pulled a paper packet from his clothes and opened it. “Take a look at this.”

Chu Tan squinted at the fine snow-white granules in the paper packet. He dabbed a bit with his fingertip, rubbed it gently, then put it in his mouth to taste.

He raised an eyebrow. “Salt.”

Jiang Qi nodded hard, his eyes unable to hide his excitement.

“Last time you gave Cai Shu a piece of paper with methods for refining crude salt into fine salt. After we went back, we studied it with the strategists and advisors for a long time. We also found several old salt workers who were skilled in salt-making and tried to make it according to the methods on the paper. After half a month of trial and error, we finally got this.”

Jiang Qi was extremely excited. “Many of the characters and symbols are hard to understand—if we could figure them out, the salt we produce would surely be even finer than this. But even this is already a hundred times finer than the salt we eat now. If we can mass-produce and sell it, the soldiers’ pay will be secured!”

“The imperial court has very strict control over salt. Mass-producing and selling salt would probably attract attention.” Chu Tan narrowed his eyes in thought, flashes of sharp light passing through his dark pupils. “But the current court is corrupt, the emperor only seeks immortality, and the government is unstable—this is actually a good opportunity to take advantage of the chaos.”

At this moment, he was different from the shameless, thick-skinned man he showed Rong Yu. He fit the image of the resourceful and formidable boss character quite well.

“Exactly—that’s the second thing I wanted to mention.” Jiang Qi licked his lips and lowered his voice. “We discovered that the Third Prince is selling private salt in Jiangnan.”

Speaking of which, this had a little something to do with Rong Yu.

His braised food shop had been a booming success since opening, directly siphoning away over half of Shixuanzhai’s customers. And aside from selling in his own shop, the braised goods from Juewei Braised Shop were only supplied to another restaurant also owned by Rong Yu, called Xile Tower.

Coincidentally, the Third Prince also owned a restaurant, called Zhen Tower.

Xile Tower offered lodging, food, song-and-dance performances, and storytellers. It had already been thriving, and with the addition of the braised goods, many people who couldn’t get their hands on the braised food after waiting in line would come here to drink instead. This further took away over half of Zhen Tower’s business.

All at once, Shixuanzhai and Zhen Tower were left with hardly any customers.

But the Third Prince wasn’t actually relying on the braised food shop or the restaurant to make money anyway. His real purpose in opening these establishments was to gather intelligence from the common folk and to serve as a private trading venue for his less-than-legal business ventures.

Originally, both establishments had excellent foot traffic and large numbers of customers, which could hide many secrets. Now with customers suddenly thinning out, those foreign merchants with suspicious movements instantly stood out.

But since the capital was the most prosperous place, merchants with regional accents coming and going every day wasn’t anything unusual. Yet Chu Tan’s people happened to pay special attention to these things. They gathered information everywhere, followed the trail, and traced it all the way to Jiangnan.

That was when they discovered that the Third Prince—the most low-key among all the princes—was actually doing something as major as selling private salt.

“This really was an accidental discovery,” Jiang Qi laughed. “That young master really did us a big favor.”

Chu Tan’s eyes flickered, his slender fingers playing with the prayer beads. “Accidental? I don’t think so.”

“Shizi means he did it on purpose?” Jiang Qi didn’t believe it. “He’s a cripple who never leaves his house—how could he have that kind of foresight?”

Chu Tan’s gaze suddenly turned icy and terrifying, making Jiang Qi shiver. “Wh-what’s wrong, Shizi?”

Had he said something wrong?

Chu Tan’s thin lips parted slightly, his voice calm yet laced with bone-deep danger and coldness. “If I hear you call him a cripple again, I’ll make you one too.”

Jiang Qi’s hair stood on end. He had personally witnessed Chu Tan’s ruthlessness.

He swallowed, nodding silently. Still, he couldn’t understand why the Shizi was so protective of someone so vicious who constantly beat and abused him. In the past, those who had angered the Shizi had all been skinned, dismembered, or burned in oil by his hand.

What was so special about this exception?

【Author’s note:】

I wanted Chu Tan to lick Rong Yu’s feet, worried it would be too good for him, so I’ll hold off for now.

PS: The political intrigue parts are all made up by me, full of logic holes, don’t overthink it.