Safe and sound?
Hearing that, Zhou Yi suddenly remembered when he had first entered the palace.
He had wolfed down three huge bowls of white rice in a row. He could still remember its sweet fragrance and taste vividly. Later, he did not know when it had begun, but no food tasted of anything anymore.
Every day, he pondered the human heart; every day, he thought through schemes and calculations.
He kept his ears pricked for conspiracies and plots, and before he knew it, he had become a different person.
Let alone being able to eat his fill—if tens of thousands of taels of silver were placed before him, he would feel no satisfaction at all. He would only want more!
Zhou Yi simply stopped standing ramrod straight. Imitating Old Lu, he lay down on the steps and looked up at the sky. Blue skies, white clouds, a clear expanse stretching ten thousand miles—his heart suddenly opened wide.
"Old Lu, have you wanted nothing at all in your life?"
"When I was young, I wanted everything."
Old Lu seemed to be recalling the past as he murmured, "Before The Former Emperor abdicated, I served in Qianqing Palace. If those foreign tribes had not besieged the capital, I might well have become the chief eunuch."
Zhou Yi asked curiously, "What happened later?"
Old Lu said, "After The Former Emperor returned to the palace, he stood needle to needle, blade to blade against His Majesty and repeatedly sought to restore the throne. Watching His Majesty's methods, I knew The Former Emperor could not win, so I secretly passed along information!"
"..."
Zhou Yi was stunned. He had thought Old Lu was one of The Former Emperor's trusted men, never imagining he was a traitor and an infiltrator.
Sure enough, no one in