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 well for several nights.

"So when are you going to compensate me for my little flowerpot?" Lin Ling looked at the tyrant and blinked, his tone sincere, yet the tyrant did not even raise his head.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

Lin Ling waved his hand before the tyrant again and again, doubt arising for the first time. "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 one minute. After politely expressing his request, he had left.

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

"That shouldn't be possible." Lin Ling frowned slightly, as though he could not understand what had gone wrong. He was clearly a mushroom capable of creating illusions.

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

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

The instant the youth left, the Imperial Study within the dream collapsed with a thunderous crash.

"Your Majesty, you're awake?" The chief eunuch at the door heard movement inside and asked softly, "It's still early. Why not rest a little longer..."

"No need." Shi Changyuan rubbed between his brows, preparing to rise.

The chief eunuch did not dare say 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 effect of the newly presented calming incense?" As he assisted Shi Changyuan in dressing, the chief eunuch carefully watched his expression and ventured the question.

"No."

Seeing that he had guessed wrong, the chief eunuch hurriedly smiled and added, "Then Heaven must be blessing Great Li, blessing Your Majesty."

"Heaven's blessing?"

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

He gave a soft snort, his meaning unclear. "If the Heaven protecting Great Li looked like that, Great Li would have met its end long ago."

The chief eunuch did not understand the emperor's words and did not dare speak rashly. He merely lowered his head even further.

Lin Ling had originally been mulling over the matter of the spores. Overhearing the tyrant's words, he felt that something was off, but he could not figure it out himself, so he secretly slipped away to seek help.

There was an Old Turtle in the lotus pond of the Imperial Garden. Old Turtle had not yet become a spirit, but he had lived through the rise and fall of several dynasties. He was the wisest creature Little Mushroom knew.

Lin Ling looked around, and only after confirming that no one was nearby did he emerge. He knocked on Old Turtle's shell as he basked on an artificial rockery.

Old Turtle slowly stretched out his head. His eyes curved when he saw Lin Ling, and Lin Ling then crouched beside the rockery and told him about his problem.

"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 his eyes widened at once.

Old Turtle nodded. Great Li's new emperor had fought in every direction and unified the realm for all ages, but his methods were ruthless, he acted alone, and his thoughts were difficult to fathom. That was why he had earned the title of tyrant.

For someone like that to look down on gods and ghosts was perfectly normal.

Lin Ling understood a little, but not entirely. "But I'm not one of the gods or ghosts either. At most, I'm 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 about his little flowerpot again.

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

Mushroom could not figure it out no matter what, so he entered the tyrant's dreams every day to protest.

Especially when the other man was playing chess. He chattered away with his accusations while hammering the chessboard with a bang, bang, sending 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 can demand compensation."

"I also know that the teacups you smash whenever you're angry are much more expensive than my flowerpot. One cup could be traded for several hundred flowerpots. It's not that you can't afford it—you're just bullying Mushroom."

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

Shi Changyuan lowered his eyes to the chessboard, whose pieces had been completely scattered out of place. Upon hearing the word "Mushroom," he seemed to suddenly become interested.

"Mushroom?"

Shi Changyuan raised his head to look at the youth seated across the chessboard. His gaze assessed him as he lightly curled his lips and spoke slowly. "The fungi I have seen were pale, plump, and sturdy, nothing like you—so slender and frail."

"You..."

Lin Ling froze for several seconds. Once he understood, he jumped up at once and cut off the tyrant. Standing on the couch and looking down at him, he retorted loudly—

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

Seeing that the other person was nearly about to flip the chessboard, Shi Changyuan found him every bit as easy to fool as expected. He looked up at the youth whose hackles were raised and continued to lure 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 took the bait at once. "Seeing is believing."

Under the tyrant's gaze, specks of fluorescent white light began to glow around Lin Ling as he truly prepared to transform into his original form.

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

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

He knew how to bargain. He had some sense, but not much.

Shi Changyuan lowered his gaze, forming a new assessment of the Mushroom before him.

What had sent the chess pieces flying was not actually the Mushroom, but a clay flowerpot that had fallen from the sky with him. The Mushroom was planted inside it, milky white and only thumb-sized, squat and round, with its cap already accounting for half its total height.