Chapter 26

As they descended the mountain, the farther the carriage went, the more Meng Zhou realized how many forks there were. Without a servant to guide him, he doubted he could find his way out even in two days.

Guan Jiasheng had most likely encountered plenty of obstacles along the way and chosen this more confusing route as a result.

At every intersection, the servant looked around to check the way. Meng Zhou noticed that he spent too long looking.

The carriage had already turned, yet the servant was not watching the road ahead. His gaze still lingered by the roadside, as though something there deserved his attention.

Meng Zhou paid closer attention and actually discovered a kind of marker. There was one at every intersection, and they had clearly been placed recently. Guan Jiasheng had no reason to mark the route he had taken here, so the servant must have left them in secret.

"Talk!" Meng Zhou pressed down harder with his foot.

The servant laughed, black blood spilling from his mouth. "Guan Jiasheng is already dead. Why do you still care about this?"

Meng Zhou's expression changed, and he stumbled half a step back. Someone had been following Guan Jiasheng to kill him!

Kicking aside the servant who had taken poison to kill himself, Meng Zhou cut the horse free of the carriage and mounted it to ride off alone. He tightened his grip on the reins, then thought of something and ran into the clinic from earlier. He grabbed the physician and pulled him along. "An urgent emergency. One hundred taels!"

The physician's eyes lit up. He really was rich. "Wait, I have a horse."

In his youth, the physician had been a free-spirited traveling doctor who roamed far and wide, seeking teachers wherever he went. Even when he met an herb farmer whose herbs dried faster than anyone else's, he stubbornly pestered the man to teach him. Unfortunately, he had never encountered any divine physician. He returned home in defeat, and once he grew older, his mother dragged him by the ear into opening a clinic and settling down.

Once mounted, he rode even faster than Meng Zhou, who shouted himself hoarse behind him. "Not that road! Left!"

Before they even reached the ruined temple, a gust of wind carried over the heavy stench of blood. Meng Zhou's throat tightened and his stomach churned. He nearly fell off his horse.

He had no time to spare for his body's reaction. Jumping down, he ran into the temple in a few strides.

The bodhisattva, its features blurred by weathering, still looked down with solemn dignity. A few drops of fresh blood spattered its lotus pedestal. Guan Jiasheng and his wife lay in a pool of blood, surrounded by the bodies of several men in black.

Meng Zhou was consumed with regret. He should have thought of Guan Jiasheng's predicament sooner. The perpetrators of the Suzhou garden massacre were cruel and bloodthirsty. How could they let Guan Jiasheng go so easily? He should have turned back as soon as he saw those markers!

He blamed himself bitterly, forgetting that their enemies had come prepared. Returning would only have meant throwing his life away.

The physician had never seen anything like this. Despite considering himself a hero of the jianghu, his legs went a little weak. "A jianghu vendetta?"

"An imperial official. Hurry and examine him." Meng Zhou held no hope. He closed his eyes briefly, the blood throughout his body running cold.

"A sword through the abdomen, a heavy blow to the back of the head." The physician carefully separated Guan Jiasheng and his wife, who were holding each other. "He's still breathing."

"Then hurry and save him!"

The physician spread his hands. "There's no saving him. I'm no divine physician."

Just then, Guan Jiasheng slowly opened his eyes. During their conversation last night, Meng Zhou had shown familiarity with and concern for the crown prince. It had kept him clinging to his last breath, gambling that Meng Zhou would return.

Meng Zhou carefully supported Guan Jiasheng's upper body, not daring to touch the bloody back of his head.

"Take... take my place." Guan Jiasheng's failing gaze swept over Meng Zhou's face, so similar to his own. He looked at his wife one last time, then closed his eyes.

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye and fell to the ground, merging with the blood that had yet to dry. He knew what Guan Jiasheng meant.

Because Meng Zhou had fled the capital, Guan Jiasheng was willing to give him his identity. But along with it came responsibility and dangers lurking on every side.

The choice was Meng Zhou's.

Meng Zhou clenched his fists, resolve flashing in his eyes.

Hunting down a fifth-rank imperial official-these people truly were vicious criminals. More frightening still were the spies hidden within the court. The entire route from Suzhou to the capital was compromised.

Meng Zhou was not afraid of encountering Chu Huaiyin in the capital and having his identity recognized. He could simply deny everything. He could claim, for instance, that he had struck his head against a rock underwater, damaged his brain, gotten water in it, and lost his memory. A quick search of his mind could turn up seven or eight such scripts.

But he was afraid of his pregnancy being discovered.

The only difference between Meng Zhou's identity and Guan Jiasheng's was that Guan Jiasheng could not get pregnant. Even if he could, Chu Huaiyin would not think the child was his.

He had to resolve this whole series of matters quickly and request another transfer to Suzhou before his belly grew beyond the size of a beer belly.

He had traveled the road between the town and the ruined temple several times now. Standing before the temple, Meng Zhou glanced at the little road leading south, murmured something under his breath, and resolutely turned north.

He had only gone a short distance when he suddenly heard a faint cry for help.

Meng Zhou's ears pricked up. He recognized the voice as Guan Jiasheng's other servant, fat Afu.

He had not seen his body at the ruined temple and had thought he was in league with the men in black, too.

Following the voice, he came to a deep natural pit. Meng Zhou peered over the edge. There he was inside, filthy and disheveled from his fall.

When the men in black attacked, Guan Jiasheng had told Afu to take his wife and run first. Afu had pulled his mistress into the woods and run blindly, but halfway there, she came to her senses and said that even if she died, she would die with Guan Jiasheng. Who knew where such a frail woman had found the strength? She broke free of Afu and ran back toward the ruined temple.

Afu thought his mistress's declaration, "Share a quilt in life, share a grave in death," sounded very impressive, so he followed her back. Who could have known that when they crossed a patch of level ground covered in dead branches, she would pass safely over it, while his foot would find nothing beneath it and he would fall straight in?

Meng Zhou tied vines together and tossed them down to pull him up.

He had to admit that, given Afu's weight, his falling in had been inevitable.

Meng Zhou sat on the ground and waited for the hundred-and-eighty-jin fatty to finish crying before asking, "Do you want to avenge your master?"

"Yes."

"Then we're going to the capital. From today onward, I am Guan Jiasheng, whether anyone else is present or not." Meng Zhou imitated Guan Jiasheng's voice as he spoke these words.

Afu's small, tearful eyes suddenly went round. "Y-you, you..."

"Get up."

On the way to the capital, Guan Jiasheng's face itself posed a danger. Meng Zhou made himself up to look hideous and chose the busiest, hottest places to travel through.

He wanted to tan a little darker and look more like Guan Jiasheng.

Afu kept out of the sun as they traveled, but Meng Zhou insisted on walking right beneath it. His little face burned red, and his skin peeled several times.

Before he could torment himself into heatstroke, Meng Zhou finally gave up.

He simply would not tan, just as Jiang Yao, before marrying, had spent every day exposed to the wind and sun in the military camp, yet her skin had remained like that of a sheltered young lady.

Still, it was at least a little better than before. Meng Zhou refused to admit that he had spent half a month baking in the sun for nothing.

Afu did not quite understand. "Why can't Master have gotten paler? You're not as tall as him either. What are you going to do about that?"

Meng Zhou stuffed a steamed bun into his mouth.

Shut up. I've already prepared height-increasing insoles.

The capital came into view, looking just as it always had.

Meng Zhou had been gone for over a month, and the child in his belly was three months along.

Beneath a poplar tree, Afu dug an enormously deep pit as Meng Zhou instructed, panting as he asked, "M-Master, are we... are we burying a body?"

"No."

Then, before Afu's very eyes, Meng Zhou closed his eyes and threw into the pit that dagger he treasured so dearly, probably a gift from his beloved.

"Fill it in." Meng Zhou stole a few reluctant glances.

He hoped that one day he could personally bring it back into the light.

Afu: ???

Then why had he needed to dig such a huge pit?

Meng Zhou rapped him on the head. "There are wild dogs digging around here. Last time, they dug up five hundred taels of mine!"

Even now, the thought pained Meng Zhou deeply.

Someone had picked up his milk money.

After throwing away all the pregnancy-stabilizing medicine left over from the journey, Meng Zhou added lifts to his boots and made himself up to look like Guan Jiasheng.

Under Afu's astonished gaze, Meng Zhou warned him one last time. "Afu, you don't know Meng Zhou. You only know Guan Jiasheng. Even if His Majesty himself asks..."

"Even if His Majesty asks, you are still my master. I've served at Master's side since I was little. You could beat me to death and I still wouldn't mistake him for anyone else." Afu had it down pat.

Ever since he had heard during the journey that Chu Huaiyin had ascended the throne, the words "deceiving the sovereign" had been stamped firmly across Meng Zhou's forehead. That changed the nature of things completely. If his identity were exposed, even if Chu Huaiyin did not convict him, a whole crowd of ministers would remonstrate on pain of death: "By law, he must be executed, Your Majesty!"

Afu did not understand Meng Zhou's worries. He even wondered why Meng Zhou reminded him three times a day-His Majesty could hardly concern himself with so much.

He did not yet know that not only did His Majesty concern himself with a great deal, he was also very strict. Every few days, he would haul someone over for questioning.

With Afu in tow, Meng Zhou put on a disheveled, travel-worn appearance.

Still several dozen meters from the city gate, Meng Zhou recognized the man directing the patrol at a glance. It was Ji Yang.

The uniform of the commander of the Five-City Military Command looked very familiar. Meng Zhou remembered that Ji Yang had still been commander of the Imperial Guard when he left.

You really get promoted fast following Chu Huaiyin.

I'm the only one back at the starting line.

A sound of envy.