The Slacker Gets into Character

Chapter 37

The moment he finished speaking, his entire back collided with the cool wooden wall.

Jiang Hansheng braced one hand against the wall, trapping Li Wenchuan within the cage formed by his arm. Looking down at him, he scrutinized him. "Who allowed you to address this prince by name?"

Li Wenchuan was thin, and when the two shoulder blades on his back slammed into the wall, he could not help hissing in pain.

Jiang Hansheng's expression changed at once. He could no longer maintain his cold aloofness and hurriedly supported the man before him by the shoulders, panic entering his voice. "What's wrong? Where did you hit yourself?"

"No, I just hit it hard..." Li Wenchuan had been thinking that this man was sick right now. Though he did not know what sort of hallucination he was having, at least he still had some conscience.

But Jiang Hansheng's next words and actions nearly made Li Wenchuan put him in a chokehold.

Jiang Hansheng placed a hand on Li Wenchuan's lower abdomen and gently stroked it. Before Li Wenchuan could react, he bent down and sniffed the top of his hair. "It was my fault. I had a few too many drinks while enjoying myself earlier and frightened you and the child."

The prince's residence had gone a hundred years without an heir, yet Chuan'er was so fertile. He continued, "Let's have a daughter for our second child. One like you. I'd like that very much."

Enough was enough. Li Wenchuan smacked Jiang Hansheng across the forehead.

"Are you blind?! Where the hell do you see a first child?!"

No, why was he even arguing with this guy over whether there was a first or second child?

"They say pregnancy makes you silly for three years. Chuan'er, have you forgotten that you took Coo Coo out to play today?" His face was full of tender affection and indulgence.

Then he seemed to realize something and straightened his expression again.

How could he, a prince, wear his emotions so openly? Every time he wanted to establish his authority, he could not help doting on the man beside him...

He was a prince who could command the winds and clouds in Chang'an City, impartial and iron-faced, cold-blooded and ruthless. Yet now, he had a weakness.

Thinking it over carefully, he felt a warm current flowing through his heart. This enormous prince's residence had finally become lively.

It was a feeling he had never experienced before. His former life had been like a dry well, stagnant and still.

Watching Jiang Hansheng's eyes shift from tender affection to lonely desolation, then to gentle warmth again, Li Wenchuan felt certain that a whole roller-coaster drama he knew nothing about was playing out in this man's mind.

Damn, this was so over-the-top it made his scalp tingle.

"Can't you tell Coo Coo is a chicken?" Were his eyes just decorations, handsome guy?

"That is Phoenix Bloodline, carrying the noble blood of ancient ancestors just like this prince."

Fine, so they were a family of pheasants passed down through the same lineage.

"When this prince was first born, I also spent many years in this form."

"..." Since when could hallucinations even explain themselves so neatly?

But was Jiang Hansheng holding a period-drama script or a fantasy script? Why did it also feel a little like one of those men-having-babies scripts... This was way too complicated.

"Don't worry. When Coo Coo grows up, he'll be a boy who stands tall between heaven and earth."

"..."

No, never in this lifetime. She was a girl, and she had even laid an egg today that he had eaten.

"Weren't you going to wash up? Let's go together." Jiang Hansheng finally remembered the matter at hand and made the suggestion as if it were only natural.

Li Wenchuan was truly grateful that his hands had been fast enough to cut off the camera. Otherwise, people would have sniped him on Weibo and pinned him up for public display like strips of cured meat.

"No need..." He had to find a way to refuse. "I'll go check on Coo Coo first. You wash up first. That bathroom's really small—it'll be crowded."

"Small? Isn't that perfect?"

He flashed a confident, composed smile like the Yellow Leader, with a hint of husky-king energy.

"..." This guy was definitely not Jiang Chengyu. How could Jiang Chengyu possibly be this flirtatious?

Li Wenchuan had actually thought this person was Jiang Chengyu before. What a joke! If he really was, then Li Wenchuan would remain childless for the rest of his life and never find a wife.

Li Wenchuan: I swear a poisonous oath :).

After much coaxing and persuasion, he finally got Jiang Hansheng to go away. Li Wenchuan had not even been sweating before, but now he was drenched in sweat and felt sticky all over.

As he walked toward Old Man Chen's house, the cool evening breeze eased his discomfort a little.

The moment Old Man Chen heard that the man had eaten Hand-Blue Mushroom, he stopped fanning himself. "How much did he eat? What's his condition now?"

"Probably not much. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken this long to act up. He was perfectly normal after dinner."

Li Wenchuan suddenly recalled Jiang Hansheng's half-smiling expression as he leaned against the doorway when they were about to leave.

"Or maybe something happened not long after dinner," Li Wenchuan added.

"Other than a few hallucinations, nothing else is wrong with him, right?"

"Nothing. You can't tell anything from the way he walks. It's just that his understanding of... people, and of himself, is a little off." Li Wenchuan truly did not know how to put it into words.

Other people who hallucinated either saw ghosts or gained some kind of celestial sight. Jiang Hansheng had given himself an entire script.

"That's nothing serious. He probably only ate a little of the batch you'd already cooked. After a night's sleep, he'll be fine by morning. Have him drink more hot water to clear out his stomach and intestines." Old Man Chen spoke from experience and offered a conservative recommendation.

Mushrooms grew in the village, especially Hand-Blue Mushroom. It was delicious, and everyone loved eating it.

Every year, it was quite common for a few households to get poisoned. Usually, though, they would become disoriented, ignore anyone who called them, and immerse themselves in their own worlds. In that case, they had to be taken to the hospital at once for an IV, stomach pumping, or something similar. In serious cases, they might fall unconscious and need emergency treatment.

Someone like Jiang Hansheng, who still knew his own name and everyone else's, was only mildly mentally confused. It was like taking a hallucinogen. He would be fine after one night.

Before Li Wenchuan left, Old Man Chen even comforted him. "Young man, don't worry. He'll be fine after one night. You know, a few years ago, a writer came to our village looking for inspiration. He wanted to eat Hand-Blue Mushroom and hallucinate, then write it down as, well, writing material."

"And then? Did he succeed?"

"He ate it several times, but he couldn't remember anything afterward. The last time, he stubbornly managed to write something down. Guess what he wrote in his notebook?" Old Man Chen said cheerfully.

"Did he draw pictures instead of writing?" He must have eaten more than Jiang Hansheng. How could he still write?

Old Man Chen waved a hand. "No, he wrote something down. Just one sentence—'These mushrooms are poisonous. Don't eat them.' Hahahaha! Isn't that especially funny?"

The facts proved that Hand-Blue Mushroom poisoning could give you incomprehensible hallucinations and even threaten your life, but it could not bring you anything good.

Li Wenchuan felt rather annoyed. When he had gone out to pick vegetables, he had forgotten to tell Jiang Hansheng not to touch those mushrooms.

Jiang Hansheng did not know about it and had treated them like ordinary mushrooms. They had already been cooked, so he had not paid much attention to them.

The moment Li Wenchuan entered the courtyard, he heard the sound of tables and chairs bumping together, along with faint retching.

"Jiang Hansheng, what's wrong?!" Li Wenchuan hurriedly stepped over the threshold to look for him and found Jiang Hansheng collapsed on the floor of his room, dry-heaving.

He rushed to find a trash can and placed it beside Jiang Hansheng, patting his shoulder to help him catch his breath. "Wait here. I'll get you some water."

There was a smell of alcohol in the vomit. Jiang Hansheng must have drunk too much while no one was paying attention today.

It was actually fruit beer, so it should not have been a problem. But Jiang Hansheng had a bad stomach. After drinking beer and eating fruit, his stomach rebelled in the middle of the night.

"Here, rinse your mouth." Li Wenchuan helped him up, and most of Jiang Hansheng's body leaned against him. "Where's your luggage? Do you have medicine in there? You should carry some around with your condition."

Then it occurred to him that Jiang Hansheng, hallucinating as he was, would not be able to answer accurately. Li Wenchuan sighed, helped him rinse his mouth, then moved him to the bed to lie down. He was exhausted enough to break out in sweat again.

He turned around, cleaned out the trash can and took it outside, then went to Jiang Hansheng's room to look for medicine.

After turning on the light and walking to the bed, he noticed a book lying there—History of Qing.

As if possessed, he reached over and picked it up.