Chapter 26#

Mm. I took it in the end.

Then I passed out and slept for three days.

But I woke up.

No slap in the face. Not dead.

Afterward, I went to ask Doctor Jiang about this “Broken Fate.”

Doctor Jiang thought for a long time before finally remembering. He said it was a rare medicine from the southern frontier, capable of breaking the love-gu used by the royal house of the Southern Kingdom.

However, “Broken Fate” has a side effect. The problem is… the copy of The Classic of Southern Poisons and Medicines he had was missing pages—precisely the section that described it.

After hearing that, I was completely baffled. I genuinely could not understand Chu Ruiyuan’s train of thought.

Did he think someone was going to plant a love-gu on me?

The more I thought about how paranoid he’d been acting, the more annoyed I felt.

As it turned out, someone really was planning to plant a love-gu on me.

And it was an exceptionally beautiful young boy.

Here’s what happened.

That day, after returning to the Tea Classic Pavilion from Doctor Jiang’s place, I found my head steward waiting for me with a troubled expression.

Apparently, a guest insisted on staying at the Pavilion—not just booking a private room overnight, but actually demanding a room in the rear courtyard, as if we were an inn.

I laughed when I heard this. My business was backed by the Prime Minister of the dynasty, the Vice Minister of Personnel, and the CEO himself. Causing trouble in my establishment—was this person trying to ascend to heaven?

So I led a few attendants over to confront this guest.

And I discovered he really could ascend to heaven.

That stunningly beautiful little face, paired with silver hair of exotic charm, dressed in the distinctive attire of the southern frontier…

The troublemaker in my shop looked truly like a celestial child descended from the heavens.

The celestial child—who looked no more than twelve or thirteen—lifted his watery eyes to me and said softly, “Gege, won’t you let Ruilin stay?”

I melted instantly. All that remained of me was, “Stay, stay, stay.”

Let me state again: I have boundaries. I’m not into children.

But faced with a face even more breathtaking than Chu Ruiyuan’s had been back then, I truly couldn’t resist.

In my personal opinion, this self-proclaimed “Mu Ruilin” was even more beautiful than the CEO of our dynasty.

Of course, that might be because I’ve been looking at the CEO’s face for years and have developed immunity.

Mu Ruilin said he was the young master of the Mu family from the southern frontier. He had come to the capital with his uncle for sightseeing, but they were separated three days ago.

He hadn’t carried much money with him; once he ran out, the innkeeper where he’d been staying kicked him out. He’d heard that the owner of the Tea Classic Pavilion was a kind and charitable man, so he hoped he might stay here for a time until his uncle found him and could repay me.

The holes in that story were so large I couldn’t even begin to plug them.

But he was young, pitiful, burdened with that white hair considered “inauspicious” in the Central Plains… and beautiful.

So I agreed to let him stay until he reunited with his family.

The free-spirited people of the southern frontier really are different from the propriety-bound folk of the Central Plains. The moment I agreed, the dewy-eyed Mu Ruilin suddenly leaned forward and kissed me without hesitation.

I had been sitting across from him, completely unguarded. He caught me squarely, even slipping his tongue into my mouth for a moment before I realized what was happening.

When he pulled away, I was stunned.

To be forcefully kissed by a beautiful youth—what merit did I have to deserve this?

Yet he seemed stunned too, pointing at me and stammering, “You… you…”

We were both standing there, mutually dumbfounded, when Chu Ruiyuan arrived from the palace.

“Dugu Yan?!” The CEO of our dynasty, upon seeing Mu Ruilin, called out a completely different name.

Before I could make sense of anything, he stepped in front of me protectively.

“I heard that five years ago the king of the Southern Kingdom recovered a lost imperial grandson. So it really is you,” Chu Ruiyuan sneered. “You calculated well—but you were one step too late.”

Mu Ruilin—no, Dugu Yan—shed his earlier innocent demeanor. On that twelve- or thirteen-year-old face appeared a sharpness and chill belonging to an adult. He said, word by word, “So—it—was—you. You’ve already made him take ‘Broken Fate’?”

“So you know your love-gu won’t work anymore?” Chu Ruiyuan replied from in front of me. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

Dugu Yan did not look defeated. Instead, he suddenly burst into laughter. “Very good, very good! You calculated well too—but unfortunately… hahaha!”

Hearing his laughter, and remembering Doctor Jiang’s mention of the missing side-effect page, I felt a chill.

Even Chu Ruiyuan frowned at the laughter and immediately ordered the soldiers accompanying him to seize Dugu Yan.

He escaped.

Yes—under the very eyes of the Son of Heaven, with over a hundred imperial guards present, a foreign imperial grandson escaped.

His escape was partly my fault.

When renovating the Tea Classic Pavilion and its rear courtyard, I had ordered several secret passageways constructed for emergencies.

I have no idea how Dugu Yan obtained the information, but he knew exactly where those passages led outside. He had already stationed his men within them, waiting to extract him if anything went wrong.

A carefully laid trap met an unguarded defense. The CEO’s men fell for it, and he truly got away.

And that wasn’t all. Before safely departing, the extraordinarily beautiful youth shouted from afar that he would return to rescue me once he grew up—told me to endure for a few years.

I felt the temperature around Emperor Chenghe drop several degrees.

A foreign royal not only tried to plant a love-gu on me, but knew about my secret passages, and even promised to return and “rescue” me…

If I said I had no suspicion of treason hanging over me, I wouldn’t even believe it myself.

So I promptly knelt before Chu Ruiyuan.

“Mingzhi has never known that person and does not know why he would do such things, nor how he learned of the secret passages in my establishment. I beg Your Majesty to see clearly.”

To my surprise, the CEO did not suspect me at all.

Instead, after dismissing everyone else, he pulled me up from the ground and held me tightly, sighing. “This is not Mingzhi’s fault. It is mine for not being cautious enough. That person bears resentment toward me. I failed to eliminate the threat early, and thus you were implicated. Fortunately I obtained the antidote a few days ago. Otherwise, wouldn’t he truly have planted a gu on my Mingzhi?”

I cannot fathom how a sovereign ruler could harbor such deep enmity with a twelve- or thirteen-year-old foreign imperial grandson.

But when I realized how completely he trusted me—shouldering all responsibility himself—

What I felt in my heart was not relief.

It was an indescribable irritation.