If Your Highness Would Not Come, I Would Come Myself

The Imperial Preceptor, Zhang Lanhe, moved quickly. He sent six or seven carriages just to collect Xie Huizhou.

It was such a grand procession that everyone under heaven knew the Imperial Preceptor stood on the side of the Ninth Prince, Xie Huizhou. Quite a few people keeping watch nearby hurried to send word to their masters.

The Imperial Preceptor valued the Ninth Prince, Xie Huizhou, highly, and the Ninth Prince had a good chance of ascending the throne.

The guards from the National Preceptor's Residence dared not slight him and explained things to Xie Huizhou in the most courteous tones.

"Your Highness, the journey is long, and the Imperial Preceptor fears you would tire yourself traveling back and forth every day. He sent us with plenty of servants so that we can move all your valuables over today."

Many princes had visited the National Preceptor's Residence in hopes of gaining his support. Who could have imagined that the one who finally succeeded would be Xie Huizhou, who barely had any presence at all?

Several princes had already lost their composure in their own residences upon hearing the news.

A wave of schemes targeting Xie Huizhou was brewing.

The moment Xie Huizhou thought of the secret he was hiding in the Detached Palace, he refused flatly. "No! I cannot leave this place. I sleepwalk, and I have a taste for men. I like getting handsy with handsome men in the middle of the night, kissing their lips and stroking their hands. What would I do if I defiled the Imperial Preceptor in the dead of night?"

He hurriedly made up an excuse.

In Xie Huizhou's eyes, the National Preceptor's Residence was a den of danger. Going there would be like throwing a meat bun to a dog-there would be no coming back.

Everyone already took his reputation as a debauched libertine as fact anyway. He might as well confirm it and use it as a shield.

Surely someone as fastidious about cleanliness as Zhang Lanhe would not appreciate anyone coming over in the middle of the night to feel him up?

It was the first time the guard from the National Preceptor's Residence had heard such an excuse. Looking at Xie Huizhou, whose ethereal bearing resembled an ink painting, he was rather surprised. "Sleepwalking and groping men? Your Highness, you have a hobby like that?"

You really could not judge a person by appearances.

Although the Imperial Preceptor's fearsome reputation kept anyone from harboring irreverent thoughts about him, he was indeed handsome. The possibility could not be ruled out.

Xie Huizhou's resistance made perfect sense, too. Offending the Imperial Preceptor could very well get him killed, and they deeply sympathized.

The Eighth Prince, who had offended the Imperial Preceptor not long ago, was still in a miserable state.

"It is absolutely true. This illness of mine clashes with the Imperial Preceptor. Please decline Father's arrangement for the Imperial Preceptor to teach me personally."

What Xie Huizhou said was not entirely a lie. It was seventy percent truth and thirty percent falsehood; mixing truth with lies was all the more misleading.

After returning from the Spring Hunt, he had often dreamed again of the enormous white snake coiled within Capital City, its scales gleaming silver in the moonlight as they scraped against the floor with a rustling hiss.

Its seemingly endless body wound around the entire imperial city, as though the city were already its possession.

Its green eyes fixed on Xie Huizhou as it voiced an invitation, its voice bewitching.

[Come here. Come to me. I have been waiting for you all along.]

Xie Huizhou felt he ought to fear a snake so enormous that it surpassed his imagination. He ought to run, but his feet would not obey him.

As though hypnotized, he would unconsciously rise in his sleep and walk outside, wanting to rush to the white snake's side, his eyes full of yearning.

Only when the palace attendants serving him noticed that he was sleepwalking did they stop him, keeping him from running around improperly dressed.

After waking, Xie Huizhou broke into a cold sweat.

Zhang Lanhe had not given up on finding him. He was luring him!

That enormous snake was Zhang Lanhe!

Xie Huizhou did not doubt the connection between the white snake and Zhang Lanhe in the slightest. He had guessed that the white snake was Zhang Lanhe's manifestation in his dreams, and that Zhang Lanhe was trying to use the Snake Pattern to control him and make him run to him.

He had nearly fallen for it several times.

To be safe, Xie Huizhou had told his Shadow Guards to keep an eye on him and stop him whenever he walked outside without his wits about him. Only then had he avoided trouble.

If he moved into the National Preceptor's Residence, his Shadow Guards would have trouble hiding there in the first place. With them so close together, what would he do if he ran straight into Zhang Lanhe's arms in the middle of the night?

That would be walking straight into a trap.

It could also be called throwing himself into Zhang Lanhe's arms.

Besides, he had his hobby of painting those vulgar, erotic pictures, and lately he had been smearing Zhang Lanhe's name. He would not dare work freely over there.

The National Preceptor's Residence was not his territory, after all. He feared someone else's spies would be watching him constantly.

After weighing the pros and cons inwardly, Xie Huizhou decisively began feigning illness under the guards' astonished gazes.

"Cough, cough, cough, cough. Besides, worry and fear have weighed on my heart lately, and my illness has grown worse and worse. I fear I cannot endure the rigors of travel. Why not leave it for today? Please report back to the Imperial Preceptor for me. Once I recover, I will certainly visit him in person."

Xie Huizhou refused outright, unwilling to go. If anyone asked, he had been frightened into illness, had developed a serious psychological aversion to going out, and was so plagued by sickness that he was preparing for his death.

Xie Huizhou put on a convincing act. His face was pale, and he even looked on the verge of coughing up blood, as though he were about to breathe his last.

"His Highness has always been frail and must not become too agitated. Are you trying to murder him by being so aggressive?" Taking the cue from Xie Huizhou's eyes, Li Xu played along, even putting a sob into his voice. "Hurry up and withdraw! If anything happens, you cannot bear the responsibility."

The people from the National Preceptor's Residence looked at one another helplessly. They could hardly force Xie Huizhou, much less tie him up and take him back. If his frail little body gave out and he died on the way, they could not bear that responsibility either.

They went back to report to the Imperial Preceptor, Zhang Lanhe.

Only after the people from the National Preceptor's Residence left did the two stop pretending.

"I'm going to the bookshop first. Be careful on your own."

"It's fine. The Imperial Preceptor wasn't very pleased with me when he visited last time. He probably won't come."

Xie Huizhou went to the little garden to barbecue, thoroughly enjoying his comfortable life.

When Zhang Lanhe heard his subordinate's report, he recalled how Xie Huizhou had feigned illness last time and had a fair idea that he was avoiding him. "Oh? Ill again."

What a disobedient little kitten. He simply had to make Zhang Lanhe come and catch him himself.

Zhang Lanhe soon arrived at the gates of Xie Huizhou's Detached Palace. He had barely reached the entrance when he caught a mouthwatering aroma.

It was food he had never tasted before.

"Hmph. His household is certainly lively for someone who has not long to live."

He followed the aroma inside and saw Xie Huizhou eating grilled meat in the little garden. He was eating with gusto, looking nothing like someone at death's door, as the others had claimed.

Zhang Lanhe walked over to Xie Huizhou, bent down beside him, and asked, "Your Highness, is this a dying rally in the midst of your grave illness?"

At the sound of his voice, Xie Huizhou turned his head and saw that Zhang Lanhe had already come up beside him and was regarding him meaningfully.

Xie Huizhou's mouth was glistening with grease. Seeing him, he gave an awkward laugh, still reluctant to put down the grilled meat in his hand. "Imperial Preceptor, what brings you here? Someone, bring the Imperial Preceptor a seat."

He had only just lied to Zhang Lanhe about being gravely ill, yet when the man came to visit his sickbed, he found him feasting heartily, looking energetic and perfectly healthy.

Zhang Lanhe's gaze moved from his rosy lips to the grilled meat in his hand, his eyes seeming to ask why he was eating when he was supposedly gravely ill.

Caught red-handed.

"Since Your Highness would not come, I had no choice but to come myself."