The people outside the carriage lowered their heads and continued pretending to be deaf and blind, turning a deaf ear to the sounds inside. Each was better at reading the situation than the last.
The pressure fell on Xie Huizhou inside the carriage.
The Imperial Preceptor's face was right beside him, his eyes tightly shut. With his eyes closed, he looked less uncanny, his ethereal beauty more like that of a banished immortal roaming the highest heavens.
They were wrapped tightly in each other's arms, as close as inseparable lovers. Xie Huizhou felt as though a giant snake had coiled around him, leaving him struggling to breathe.
This was a very dangerous and intimate distance.
"Imperial Preceptor. I'm sorry, I was muddled from sleep."
Xie Huizhou hurriedly climbed off Zhang Lanhe, wondering when he had become such a restless sleeper that he had ended up sleeping on the Imperial Preceptor.
He felt as though he had deliberately been lusting after the Imperial Preceptor's body. What would the Imperial Preceptor think of him now?
The moment his arms were empty, Zhang Lanhe opened his eyes. That emptiness made him feel as though a piece of his heart had gone missing, and he looked toward Xie Huizhou without betraying anything.
"Your Highness, you're awake. Let's enter the National Preceptor's Residence, then."
What a shame. They had reached the National Preceptor's Residence so soon.
For the first time in his life, Zhang Lanhe hated how close his National Preceptor's Residence was.
They entered the National Preceptor's Residence, keeping close to each other.
The National Preceptor's Residence was enormous, exceptionally lavish for a place of secluded cultivation. From time to time, his colleagues poked their heads out to observe Xie Huizhou secretly, occasionally talking in low voices about who knew what.
To put the awkwardness out of their minds, the two formally began their days of teaching and learning.
Xie Huizhou had held out no hope for this, but the sun must have risen in the west: Zhang Lanhe was actually teaching him seriously.
Zhang Lanhe was an unconventional imperial tutor. Much of what he taught Xie Huizhou differed from conventional thinking, but it was very practical.
Xie Huizhou sensed the forcefulness beneath Zhang Lanhe's usual gentle exterior. He wanted to turn Xie Huizhou into the person he envisioned, with a strange sort of possessiveness.
He did not spell it out.
Xie Huizhou was not someone who could be easily changed.
Studying was out of the question. Slacking off was the only way to get through the days.
Taking advantage of Zhang Lanhe's temporary absence, Xie Huizhou began wandering around his study.
The study was clean and tidy, with books from all over the world collected there. The dazzling selection would make any book lover envious, and Xie Huizhou thought that he ought to get himself a bookshelf this big someday.
He spotted some familiar books, and an ominous feeling rose in him. "These books look familiar. I think I've seen them somewhere."
With no one around, Xie Huizhou secretly opened them. Seeing his own drawings in the National Preceptor's Residence, he immediately felt his face burn.
They really were all his drawings!
His works were all collected on the bookshelf, with three copies of each, and there were even handwritten comments. This looked less like a hater and more like a diehard fan.
Xie Huizhou began wondering whether the Imperial Preceptor had discovered that he was the one spreading rumors.
Suddenly, he spotted a book he had never seen before on the shelf, one about the myths and legends of the Great Xia Dynasty.
Oh, I haven't seen this one. Let's open it.
It was said that the founding emperor had once encountered a white snake while on a military march. After saving it, he had gained the aura of the Son of Heaven and founded this dynasty.
Rumor had it that a Snake-Locking Formation in the Capital City trapped the white snake there. Ever since then, legends of the white snake wreaking havoc had circulated in the Capital City.
Xie Huizhou recalled the giant snake coiled around the Capital City in his dream. Suddenly, he felt there might be some truth to this legend. Perhaps such a snake really existed?
Could there be a connection between the white snake and the Imperial Preceptor?
But didn't the Imperial Preceptor have a cousin? Li Xu was human, so the Imperial Preceptor ought to be human too.
Xie Huizhou leafed through it for quite a while. Most of it consisted of bizarre supernatural tales and legends, making it difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.
He simply treated it as material for his own creative work.
He turned to the final page. It held only bold, forceful handwriting left by some unknown person, a striking sentence standing out plainly.
[There have never been monsters in this world. Everything is illusion; the forms of all beings arise from their own hearts.]
What did that mean?
Did the white snake exist or not?
Schrödinger's snake demon?
Xie Huizhou sank into thought. This world did not seem as simple as he had imagined.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He turned and nearly bumped into Zhang Lanhe's chest.
At some point, Zhang Lanhe had appeared beside him. His gaze fell on the picture of the white snake in the book in Xie Huizhou's hands, his tone unreadable. "Your Highness, what are you doing?"
Just as he had expected, Xie Huizhou had found the book he had deliberately placed on the shelf.
The Imperial Preceptor, Zhang Lanhe, wanted to know what Xie Huizhou thought of it. There had been many people whose answers he disliked, and in the end, they had all died.
"I was bored and looking around when I found an interesting book. It says there's a white snake trapped in the Capital City. Imperial Preceptor, do you think it's true?"
Xie Huizhou looked at the silver-haired, green-eyed beauty, who reminded him of that white snake. It was as though he were speaking to the white snake through Zhang Lanhe.
The Imperial Preceptor dealt in mysticism and prayed for the nation's blessings in the first place. Surely he would have some idea whether there were spirits in the Capital City.
The Imperial Preceptor was silent for a moment. Instead of answering, he asked, "Then do you think there is one, Your Highness?"
No one knew better whether there was a white snake in the Capital City than Xie Huizhou, who had been entangled with it for so long.
Xie Huizhou joked, "Once I catch it, I'll tell you whether there is one, Imperial Preceptor. Unfortunately, I can't catch it."
What Xie Huizhou did not say was that when Zhang Lanhe was unsmiling, he resembled a demon devoid of humanity, acting as he pleased, unconstrained by worldly conventions.
Zhang Lanhe pressed, "Then what do you think of it, Your Highness?"
Did he dislike him?
Loathe him?
Xie Huizhou thought this was a case of the farmer and the snake. "Then he's terribly unlucky. He saved someone and ended up trapped here for so long. A fine example of repaying kindness with malice. Don't just pick up anyone you find on the road. You might pick up a huge problem."
If he had done nothing wrong and spent centuries in prison because of someone else's ambition, then he was the unluckiest soul Xie Huizhou had ever seen.
Xie Huizhou felt a considerable sense of kinship: a home he could not return to, family he could not see. Being in this world was hardly any different from being in prison.
Just thinking about it made him feel that both he and that snake, which might or might not exist, were pitiful.
Zhang Lanhe heard the sympathy and pity in his words. "You're sympathizing with it? You're sympathizing with a snake demon."
He did not need sympathy.
Xie Huizhou sighed. "He must be so lonely. I'd rather this were only a legend."
In an era with so little entertainment, being imprisoned for nothing was truly cruel beyond measure, enough to drive someone mad.
Besides, he had never heard of any other supernatural beings appearing. The white snake did not even have companions.
"According to the legend, if it weren't here, the dynasty might cease to exist." Zhang Lanhe asked tentatively, "You wouldn't be a prince anymore, either. Would you still pity him?"
"I only feel for the common people who would suffer because of it. It's not as though I love the throne."
He did not care whether those siblings who saw him as a rival and could not wait to get rid of him lived or died.
Later in the story, natural disasters and man-made calamities struck this dynasty one after another. The powerful fought for power and profit, heedless of the common people's lives. Behind vermilion gates, wine and meat went to waste, while frozen corpses lay along the roads.
Otherwise, Fang Yuan would never have successfully risen in revolt and established a new dynasty.
Zhang Lanhe fell silent, his thoughts unknown.
Xie Huizhou spotted a flash of yellow in the Imperial Preceptor's hand. It was so glaring, and looked so much like trouble.
"Imperial Preceptor, why are you holding an imperial edict?"
Before you continue