Lord Yang was gravely ill, and the news even reached Shen Tang.
When he woke from his stupor, he saw a familiar figure seated not far from his bed, reading memorials. For a moment, his thoughts were swept back to that crude tent years ago. He had woken from a brush with death then, too, and she had been the one there. After all these years, nothing had changed.
It was as if fate had quietly completed a perfect cycle.
He forced his frail, sickly body to rise and pay his respects, but before the back of his head had even left the wooden pillow, he was stopped.
His young sovereign's eyes and brows were as gentle as ever. "You're still sick. Don't move around. There's no need for formalities between us."
Lord Yang said weakly, "What brings you here, my lord?"
"The Imperial Physician from the Medical Bureau has been coming to your residence three times a day. If I hadn't found out, were you planning to let Sheng Mei keep it from me until after you were carried out?" Shen Tang's voice held a trace of reproach.
"This matter... You can't blame Sheng Mei. You're so busy with state affairs, and I truly couldn't trouble you over such a trivial thing." Lord Yang spoke with a guilty conscience, while a complicated feeling he could hardly describe stirred within him. He still remembered the unrestrained young person before him, just twelve years old and already daring to intercept Tax Silver from him, even under threat of execution for nine generations. She had enraged him to the point of madness.
Back then, he never would have imagined that the little thief he'd wanted to tear apart and drink dry would become a wise ruler more than a decade later.
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