Chapter 2

Slender, fair fingers waved before his eyes, but Shi Changyuan ignored them, merely lowering his gaze and continuing to place his pieces.

...At least it had let him sleep peacefully for a few nights.

"So when are you going to compensate me for my little flowerpot?" Lin Ling looked at the tyrant emperor, blinking with a sincere tone, yet the tyrant did not even lift his head.

"Why won't you say anything?"

Lin Ling stretched out his hand and waved it repeatedly before the tyrant emperor. For the first time, he felt doubtful. "Can't you see me? This is already my third time coming in!"

The first time he entered the dream, he had only appeared for a minute. He had politely expressed his request and then left.

The second time he entered the dream, he worried that the other party, as a human ruler, might forget such a minor matter, so he entered again to remind him.

"That shouldn't be right." Lin Ling frowned slightly, seeming unable to understand where things had gone wrong. He was clearly a Mushroom capable of creating illusions.

At a loss, Lin Ling scratched his head and scattered quite a few more spores, but the tyrant emperor's eyes still seemed fixed solely on the chessboard.

"Could I have learned it wrong?" Lin Ling looked at his own hands, his face filled with alarm. Then, with a flicker, he vanished from before Shi Changyuan.

The instant the youth left, the Imperial Study within the dream came crashing down.

"Your Majesty, you're awake?" Hearing movement from inside, the chief eunuch at the door asked softly. "It is still early. Your Majesty might as well rest a while longer..."

"No need." Shi Changyuan rubbed his brow and prepared to rise.

The chief eunuch at the door did not dare say anything more and hurried inside to light the lamps.

"This servant has noticed that Your Majesty has been sleeping more soundly lately. Could it be the effects of the newly offered calming incense?" As he helped Shi Changyuan change clothes, the chief eunuch watched his expression and cautiously asked.

"No."

Seeing that he had guessed wrong, the chief eunuch quickly continued with a smile, "Then it must be Heaven blessing Great Li, Heaven blessing Your Majesty."

"Heaven's blessing?"

Shi Changyuan seemed to think of the white-robed youth who had frequently appeared in his dreams lately. His features were delicate, the corners of his eyes softly rounded, and his entire bearing was clean and unworldly, unlike that of any mortal. Yet his words and actions carried an inescapable childishness.

He gave a soft, ambiguous snort. "If the Heaven protecting Great Li looked like that, Great Li would have been doomed long ago."

The chief eunuch could not understand the emperor's words, nor did he dare speak rashly. He merely lowered his head even further.

Lin Ling had originally been puzzling over the spores. After eavesdropping on the tyrant emperor's words, he felt that something was off, but he could not figure it out himself, so he quietly slipped away to seek help.

There was an Old Turtle in the lotus pond of the Imperial Garden. The Old Turtle had not yet become a spirit, but it had witnessed the rise and fall of several dynasties. It was the wisest creature the Little Mushroom knew.

Lin Ling looked left and right, and only after confirming that no one was nearby did he jump out and knock on the Old Turtle's shell as it basked atop an artificial rockery.

The Old Turtle slowly poked out its head. Its eyes curved slightly when it saw Lin Ling, and Lin Ling squatted beside the rockery and told it about the problem he had encountered.

"You mean he was insulting me?"

"No, he thought I was some kind of god or ghost, so he deliberately ignored me?" Lin Ling finally realized it and immediately widened his eyes.

The Old Turtle nodded. The new emperor of Great Li had conquered in all directions and unified the realm for generations to come, but his methods were ruthless, he acted arbitrarily, and his thoughts were difficult to fathom. That was why he had earned the title of tyrant emperor.

For someone like that to disdain gods and ghosts was perfectly normal.

Lin Ling somewhat understood, yet also did not quite understand. "But I'm not among gods or ghosts either. At best, I can barely count as a wild spirit of the mountains."

"Fine, a wild spirit of the mountains growing in the Imperial City." At that thought, Lin Ling could not help getting angry over his little flowerpot again.

Could such a formidable emperor really be unable to afford compensation for a flowerpot? He did not believe it.

The Mushroom could not make sense of it no matter how hard he tried, so he entered the emperor's dreams every day to accuse him.

Especially when the other party was playing chess, he would chatter away with his accusations while banging on the chessboard with a bang bang, shaking all the pieces flying.

"I'm not some Heaven or Earth or whatever! I'm just a Mushroom! A Mushroom whose flowerpot you smashed!"

"I asked around. The laws say I'm allowed to demand compensation."

"I also know that the teacups you smash whenever you get angry are much more expensive than my flowerpot. One cup could buy hundreds of flowerpots. It's not that you can't afford to compensate me—you're just bullying a Mushroom."

"Bullying a Mushroom! I'm going to report you to the authorities!"

Shi Changyuan lowered his eyes at the chessboard, whose pieces had been thrown completely out of place. Hearing the word Mushroom, he seemed to suddenly take an interest.

"A Mushroom?"

Shi Changyuan raised his head and looked at the youth seated across the chessboard. His gaze assessed him as he tugged lightly at the corner of his mouth and spoke slowly. "The fungi I have seen were white, stout, and plump, nothing like you—so slender and frail."

"You..."

Lin Ling froze for a few seconds. Once he understood, he immediately jumped up and interrupted the tyrant emperor. Standing atop the couch, he retorted loudly from above—

"I'm clearly a fair, plump Mushroom too!"

Seeing that the other party nearly flipped the chessboard over, Shi Changyuan found him just as easy to fool as expected. He lifted his eyes to the youth whose fur was practically standing on end and continued to bait him without changing expression.

"But words alone prove nothing. What should we do?"

Chapter 2

"Words alone prove nothing?" Lin Ling puffed up his cheeks and immediately took the bait. "Seeing is believing."

Meeting the tyrant emperor's gaze, Lin Ling's body gave off specks of glowing white light as he truly prepared to transform into his original form.

He stood there blankly for a moment, seeming to remember something. As he transformed, he pressed, "After I show you my original form, will you compensate me for my flowerpot?"

Before Shi Changyuan could answer, Lin Ling transformed into his original form and fell from the air onto the chessboard, knocking a pile of pieces flying.

He knew how to bargain and had a little cunning, though not much.

Shi Changyuan lowered his eyes and formed a new assessment of the Mushroom before him.

What had knocked the pieces flying was not actually the Mushroom, but a clay flowerpot that had fallen from the sky along with it. The Mushroom was planted inside, milky white and only the size of a thumb, short and squat, its cap already accounting for half its total height.