Chapter 37

Once he entered the palace, there were naturally all manner of delicacies again. Kitten Meng sat before the fish basket, his kitty paws itching to move several times, but held himself back with tremendous self-control.

He dared not eat Chu Huaiyin's fish indiscriminately. It could easily put meat on his bones.

Throughout the meal, Chu Huaiyin watched Meng Zhou shovel down rice and greens with a miserable face, wishing he could stay eight hundred miles away from the meat dishes and even stop himself from breathing.

What was this about now?

Meng Zhou volunteered an explanation. He had intended to say that he had been bloated and had no appetite lately, but Chu Huaiyin summoned imperial physicians at the drop of a hat, so he said, "My family is holding a funeral. Both propriety and reason dictate that I should eat vegetarian for a few days."

Chu Huaiyin: "..."

Fine, then. A lighter dinner would do.

Chu Huaiyin changed seats, sitting beside Meng Zhou. A bite of meat, a bite of fish-under Meng Zhou's envious gaze, he put them all into his own bowl, deliberately picking food from the plates in front of Meng Zhou.

Watching the last piece of fish get taken away, Meng Zhou: ...He nearly cried with anger.

Meng Zhou ate quite a lot of rice, but without any meat, his stomach still felt terribly empty, as though he had eaten nothing.

His hungry belly rumbled; his angry cheeks puffed out.

Smiling, Chu Huaiyin poked Meng Zhou's cheek, making a soft little dent. Finding this very amusing, he gave it a pinch as well.

He reached over and swapped their bowls and chopsticks, staring into Meng Zhou's eyes as he teased, "Not angry anymore, my dear subject, hmm?"

Meng Zhou swiftly picked up Chu Huaiyin's bowl. I wasn't angry in the first place.

Dieting was a long-term undertaking. A day more or less hardly mattered.

"Come pay respects to an old acquaintance with me tomorrow." Chu Huaiyin picked up the unfinished greens in Meng Zhou's bowl, finding them quite delicious.

Which old acquaintance? Surely not Wang Junyang, who was buried under Meng Zhou's name?

Chu Huaiyin did not say who it was. He ruffled Meng Zhou's hair. "Go bathe after you finish eating, my dear subject, and get some rest early."

Meng Zhou ventured, "Where will I be sleeping?"

"Didn't I say I wanted to watch you sleep with my own eyes? Also, you are not to use Guan Jiasheng's voice when speaking to me." Otherwise, even taking liberties feels strange.

"Oh," he said in Guan Jiasheng's voice.

Worried that someone might barge in while he bathed, Meng Zhou sent the eunuchs away and locked the door. Like a duckling entering the water for the first time without its mother, he splashed about wildly for a bit before climbing out, without even giving his down time to get wet.

When Chu Huaiyin knocked on the door and saw Meng Zhou fully dressed, he was astonished. "Have you bathed or not, my dear subject?"

"I have." Meng Zhou's voice held a note of triumph. I was guarding against this very move of yours.

Chu Huaiyin was full of admiration. "I have never seen anyone as quick and efficient as you, my dear subject. I attend to countless affairs every day. If I could spend less time on trivial matters, I would have more time for state affairs. As it happens, I have yet to bathe today. Why not show me your skills? It would be a great blessing to both the nation and its people."

What???

It took Meng Zhou quite a while to process this before he confirmed that His Majesty wanted him to help him bathe.

Meng Zhou looked at Chu Huaiyin with a gaze that said, "You weren't like this before," hoping to awaken his conscience.

Clearly, emperors had no conscience.

Meng Zhou held the scrubbing cloth, feeling that life held nothing more for him, and secretly looked him over.

Standing above him, he could see His Majesty's eight-pack every time he lowered his head. Above were shoulders with smooth lines of muscle; below was somewhere he dared not look.

Although Chu Huaiyin was not good in bed, his physique was unquestionably one in ten thousand. Every part of him was astonishing.

Meng Zhou sank into thought. All things considered, I'm still getting the worse end of the deal.

"What are you thinking about, my dear subject?" Chu Huaiyin's voice was hoarse, and he discreetly shifted his position to conceal certain changes that might frighten the kitten.

"Nothing!" Meng Zhou turned his head to look at the sky, only making himself more conspicuous. His hands never stopped moving. He had no idea where he was scrubbing, simply treating Chu Huaiyin like a washboard and scrubbing away at random.

He heard Chu Huaiyin hiss and hurriedly turned back, meeting a gaze filled with frustrated desire.

His legs went a little weak.

With a plop, the scrubbing cloth fell into the water. Without the cloth between them, his palm pressed straight against a warm, pulsing chest.

The placement was particularly frightening.

Meng Zhou pulled his hand back as though scalded, accidentally catching sight of a scar two fingers long on Chu Huaiyin's left shoulder. It looked rather old, but it definitely had not been a minor injury.

Even a god of war was a novice when he first went to battle. If I'd come earlier, perhaps I could have been your crackpot strategist and earned myself some meals.

Meng Zhou felt as though his own shoulder hurt too. He asked, "How did you get this injury?"

Chu Huaiyin hesitated between telling the truth-"A traitor slashed my shoulder and nearly killed me"-and brushing it off. In the end, he said sincerely, "An unruly kitten scratched me three months ago."

Meng Zhou curled the five fingers resting on Chu Huaiyin's shoulder and angrily scratched five faint nail marks into it.

This is outright slander!

I'm a perfectly innocent cat. At most, I could only leave marks like these, all right?

They'll disappear with a splash of water!

Any more teasing and Meng Zhou's fur would bristle. Chu Huaiyin changed the subject. "If the evidence ultimately points to Meng Fushan, my dear subject, do you think I should punish him according to the law?"

However inhuman Meng Fushan was, he was still Meng Zhou's biological father. Chu Huaiyin could not be sure how Meng Zhou regarded him. He knew Meng Zhou disliked Meng Fushan, but this was a grave matter. Once convicted, he would face death. In the face of life and death, perhaps Meng Zhou would remember the debt he owed for his birth?

Meng Zhou, however, was thinking that Meng Fushan's treason would implicate his family under the law. His surname was Meng too, and when the time came, it would inevitably put Chu Huaiyin in a difficult position. There was no need to wait until then-Chu Huaiyin was already asking about it now.

Meng Zhou felt more and more that Guan Jiasheng's identity was a good one. It could save his life. Once everything in the capital was settled, he would follow his original plan, resign, and return to Suzhou. Or if Guan Jiasheng woke up in the meantime and took his place, things would be even easier.

He told Chu Huaiyin firmly, "Punishment should convince the people of its justice. Treason is a grave crime. Without severe punishment, how could one deter the people of the realm?"

"I understand."

The two, whose trains of thought had never intersected, unanimously approved two different answers.

As soon as he got into bed, Meng Zhou rolled to the inner side of the dragon bed, wrapped himself into a caterpillar, and closed his eyes, refusing to share a quilt with His Majesty.

Chu Huaiyin was utterly speechless at this person who "obediently did whatever he was told, but simply refused to admit he was Meng Zhou."

He grasped two corners of the quilt and lifted it, dropping out a disheveled kitten.

Chu Huaiyin approached Meng Zhou with ill intent. "You reminded me of someone again tonight, my dear subject. I still think you are him. If I don't verify it again, I probably won't be able to sleep tonight. For tomorrow's morning court to proceed smoothly, you are duty-bound to help."

Beneath him lay bright yellow sheets, embroidered with two dragons playing with a pearl in slightly darker yellow silk thread. Meng Zhou lay on his back, his eyes very bright, like the stars above the Hall of Supreme Harmony, swaying with the upturned eaves in the night breeze.

Meng Zhou shrank back. He had thought that he and Chu Huaiyin now had a tacit understanding. Why was this still happening?

Those words sounded terribly familiar. If Chu Huaiyin continued with his claims about where he had a birthmark, he would definitely...

"Four inches below Meng Zhou's waist, there is a unique birthmark. Let me have a look."

...definitely have to think hard about how to refuse.

Ten thousand horses thundered through Meng Zhou's mind. Four inches below the waist-isn't that the butt? I checked last time. There was nothing there! He trusted that Chu Huaiyin would definitely not misremember that spot. He was plainly toying with him.

The undisguised amusement in Chu Huaiyin's eyes proved it.

But what could he do...

Meng Zhou plunged headfirst into the quilt. I can't keep surrendering my sovereignty and humiliating the nation like this. Here today, there tomorrow-sooner or later, Chu Huaiyin will get the sudden urge to look at "Meng Zhou's belly."

He himself had not noticed that all his refusals stemmed from his fear of Chu Huaiyin discovering his pregnancy, rather than resistance to the act itself.

"Does Your Majesty treat your other ministers this way too?" Meng Zhou asked indignantly.

"Of course not," Chu Huaiyin immediately denied. I only treat you this way.

Three minutes later.

Meng Zhou lay face down in the soft quilt and pulled up his trousers in humiliation, shutting out Chu Huaiyin's burning gaze.

In truth, he had only exposed an area the size of a palm. Chu Huaiyin was deeply disappointed. But not particularly disappointed, either. Keep pretending all you like, my dear subject. I have plenty of ways to make it impossible for you not to keep pretending.

A muffled voice came from beneath the quilt as Meng Zhou reminded Chu Huaiyin, "Your Majesty must not forget what you just promised me. Lift the restrictions on Qianyang Lake starting tomorrow."

The Lake Tai stones in Qianyang Lake had already been dredged up. It was time for the affected people on both shores to resume earning their livelihoods.

Chu Huaiyin, who had previously sworn that he would never lift the restrictions unless Meng Zhou asked him in person, said, "A sovereign does not speak in jest."

Even in a moment of peril, I still worry about whether the capital's people can eat cheap, plump lake fish. Meng Zhou shamelessly praised himself inwardly.

It's not just this official who wants to eat them.

After all that fuss, he could finally sleep. Meng Zhou snatched away the quilt and boldly instructed, "I sleep poorly. Your Majesty, please fetch another quilt."

The tips of his ears were red enough to drip blood, yet his face was very composed. They were two completely different shades.

Something was very wrong.

Chu Huaiyin frowned. "Aren't you going to wipe that stuff off your face?"

Meng Zhou pretended not to understand what he was saying.

Chu Huaiyin felt very satisfied tonight, not merely because he had found an excuse to cop a feel, but even more because of Meng Zhou's attitude. There had been no rejection, resistance, or other adverse reaction. This showed that Meng Zhou was not entirely without feelings for him.

For all the above reasons, His Majesty was very amenable tonight. "Wash it off, and I'll pretend I didn't see." He even took the initiative to fetch another quilt.

Early the next morning, an uninvited visitor arrived at the Guan Residence: Meng Fushan.

His expression was calm and unconcerned, yet his tea was refilled cup after cup.

"Our master isn't home." Afu politely tried to send him away, very worried that this man would drink up all the tea leaves in the house.

"I am here to see the old madam." Meng Fushan assumed the air of someone who would not leave until he saw her.

"The old madam is not awake at this hour."

"I have important matters to discuss with her. Go about your business."

In the rear courtyard, Old Madam Guan combed her hair before a mirror, undisguised loathing in her eyes.

"He still hasn't left?"

Afu nodded, reflecting that the higher an official's rank, the thicker his skin really was. The Left Chancellor must have held his position so firmly through sheer thick skin.

He meant no veiled criticism of his own master.

Author's note:

Meng Zhou: I've reported this. I think the title is making a veiled insinuation.