Chapter 4

After listening, Shi Changyuan merely let out a cold snort and said nothing more.

Lin Ling keenly sensed that the other man seemed angry. Just as he wanted to say something, the dream vanished, and Shi Changyuan woke up.

For the first time, Lin Ling had been forcibly expelled from a dream. Sitting on the roof beam, he could not understand it. Why had he suddenly gotten angry for no reason?

Mushroom was a very inquisitive mushroom. After observing and pondering for two days without reaching a conclusion, he decided to enter the dream again and talk to Shi Changyuan.

When he saw Shi Changyuan lie down and was about to enter his dream, he suddenly heard faint rustling.

He raised his head. The sound came from above the roof beam, accompanied by tiles knocking and scraping against each other. Only then did he realize that the entire room was filled with sleeping gas.

Then the roof tiles were broken apart, revealing a masked human's eyes. They met Lin Ling's gaze on the beam, and Lin Ling was startled out of his wits.

"An assassin!!!"

Lin Ling had never seen anything like this before. Terrified, he began shrieking incoherently and toppled straight off the roof beam.

The assassin reacted at once, sending a concealed weapon flying toward Lin Ling.

Clang—

The concealed weapon was blocked by a sword. A strong hand caught Lin Ling directly, pulling him into an embrace.

Very light. Very soft.

That was Shi Changyuan's first impression.

As expected of a mushroom.

He had never imagined that the mushroom he had painstakingly tried to lure out had been hiding directly above his head.

"Your Majesty!!!"

The Imperial Guard immediately streamed in. They had clearly been prepared and had deliberately set a trap. The assassin also seemed not to have expected that he would be caught the moment he revealed himself.

Just as he tried to bite down on poison and kill himself, an Imperial Guard soldier swiftly dislocated his jaw.

"The one hundred and forty-third spy hidden at my side. Interrogate him."

"Yes!"

Seeing the usually quiet Imperial Study suddenly packed with so many people, Lin Ling panicked and did not know what to do. He kept trying to hide himself.

Shi Changyuan noticed Lin Ling's movements and instantly understood what he was thinking. He took the initiative to explain to the palace servants, eunuchs, and Imperial Guard soldiers kneeling all over the floor, none of whom dared raise their heads.

"This is my hidden guard."

"He has rendered merit in protecting me."

With his head buried in Shi Changyuan's arms, Lin Ling's heart pounded like a drum as he considered whether he should vanish on the spot. Then he suddenly heard Shi Changyuan's deliberately lowered voice beside his ear.

"If I give you a human identity, no one will know you are a spirit creature."

"Except me."

Chapter 4

A human identity...?

Lin Ling suddenly felt as though the door to a new world had opened.

He was truly a very gullible mushroom, and very easy to persuade. Human cunning and trickery could sometimes be very useful indeed.

"If you tell them that, will they believe it?" Lin Ling seemed to think it was a good idea too. His eyes darted about as he asked cautiously.

"Believe it?" Shi Changyuan seemed to chuckle. "They have no choice but to."

The mushroom before him seemed not to have a clear understanding of mortal emperors and monarchs.

In fact, one did not even need to be an emperor. Anyone who held power could call a deer a horse and turn black into white.

Whether they believed it or not was no longer up to them. What those in power said was the truth, and they could only believe it.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard soon escorted the spy away. The other palace servants and eunuchs also withdrew at Shi Changyuan's command. Only the chief eunuch, Shunde, remained, his eyes lowered as he stood to one side, doing his utmost to diminish his presence and serve as a pillar in the Imperial Study with neither eyes nor ears.

The pillar hid himself very successfully. Seeing that no one else remained, Lin Ling immediately broke free from Shi Changyuan's embrace. The two put some distance between themselves and sized each other up.

Lin Ling suddenly realized that Shi Changyuan outside the dream looked even fiercer and more oppressive than he had in the dream. He was the sort of person Lin Ling would go out of his way to avoid.

It was a creature's instinct to seek benefits and avoid harm.

Although he had secretly observed Shi Changyuan from the roof beam before, seeing him from a human's perspective while standing before him felt especially different.

"...What exactly is different?" Lin Ling became so lost in thought that he quietly muttered his thoughts aloud.

Hearing Lin Ling's muttering, Shi Changyuan lowered his gaze and looked deeply at him.

The youth before him seemed to be comparing his present self with his dream self, trying to determine what was different. Yet the youth himself was almost no different from how he had been in the dream—delicate brows and eyes, a beautiful face, and youthful mannerisms...

Only everything was more real.

Without that layer of illusory white light from the dream, the youth before him did not resemble a spirit creature from the mountains and wilderness at all. He looked more like the pampered youngest son of an aristocratic family, bright-eyed and fine-toothed, full of youthful spirit—perhaps a little spoiled, but not ill-intentioned.

Shi Changyuan shifted his gaze from Lin Ling's face and noticed that he wore only a white robe with gold patterns in a distinctly foreign style. His hair hung loose, his feet were bare, and a small braid rested over his right shoulder.

"Shunde."

"This servant is here." The chief eunuch took two steps forward and knelt behind Shi Changyuan.

"Prepare a set of clothes."

The chief eunuch said nothing more. Accepting the order, he went off to make preparations.

Lin Ling watched Shunde leave, looked at his retreating figure, then at Shi Changyuan before him, and finally lowered his head to look at what he was wearing. His eyes immediately widened.

"Heavens." Lin Ling instantly panicked. "Have I been exposed?! What should I do?"

The mushroom's white robe had an unusual style and stood out completely among the other humans.

"No."

Shi Changyuan pressed a hand onto the mushroom's head. "Great Li has open customs. After unification, the people of every region retained their own clothing styles. It is nothing unusual."

"It's just..." Shi Changyuan glanced at Lin Ling's robe again, seeming to hesitate before speaking and stopping himself several times. "It would be best to keep a low profile."