Chapter 45

Three sticks of incense burned before Jiang Yao's grave, with a few lengths of ash scattered on the ground. By Great Wei custom, only a son could offer these first three sticks.

Jiang Yi could not believe it. His lips trembled several times, and tears nearly welled up.

Was it-was it Meng Zhou...?

The only child his sister had left behind? The Meng Zhou whose last moments he had missed by half a month!

Just when he had thought he would carry that regret and remorse for the rest of his life, heaven had finally shown the Jiang Clan some mercy!

Jiang Yi seized Meng Zhou's shoulders in excitement. "You're Meng Zhou! Aren't you?"

"Yes... ow."

The strength in the veteran general's hands was no joke. Meng Zhou frowned in pain, and Jiang Yi immediately remembered that "Official Guan was so fragile he needed calming medicine after being followed for a day." Alarmed, he hurriedly let go.

He circled Meng Zhou three times. Once his excitement had passed, his face darkened. "You're so frail. Starting tomorrow, you're coming to the training grounds with me to practice horse stance."

He cherished his nephew dearly, yet remained utterly uncompromising.

Feeling guilty, Meng Zhou thought, I'm afraid I couldn't take that. "I was actually trying to scare you last time, General. Please don't take it to heart."

Jiang Yi put it together. Wasn't the physician who had played along the wet nurse's son? He raised his hand to rap Meng Zhou on the head.

Meng Zhou cleverly called out, "Mother!" Remembering that they were before Jiang Yao's grave, Jiang Yi chickened out and withdrew his hand.

"You'll call her Mother, but you won't call me Uncle?"

Meng Zhou fell silent. Could he really call him that?

"It wasn't heartlessness that kept me from revealing myself to you sooner, General. Rather..."

Meng Zhou paused. Jiang Yi instinctively felt that a story he did not want to hear was coming next.

Meng Zhou's back and legs ached a little from standing. Steadying himself, he sat on the little stone slab beneath the pine. "You don't mind if I sit, General?"

He tried to recount everything he knew without introducing any personal feelings, speaking of Jiang Yao's last words and the cold indifference the Meng Residence's servants had shown when he first arrived.

"I actually don't know much. My wet nurse was the one who stayed with her all along. If you want to know more, General, you can ask her."

Jiang Yi punched the pine's rough, cracked trunk. All this lay far beyond his understanding. Who, exactly, was his nephew?

He could only redirect his anger toward Meng Fushan and Meng Huaihan. Scum deserved death by a thousand cuts!

The trunk shook, shedding several dried pine needles. Meng Zhou looked up, feeling a faint sense of danger. The general really did have a violent temper.

Jiang Yi looked at Meng Zhou sitting obediently on the little stone slab, Meng Zhou who had put himself in danger to avenge Jiang Yao, and remembered the nephew who had struggled and drowned in the lake. He could not say which one his heart ached for more. He stared at the inscription on Jiang Yao's gravestone, fervently wishing his sister could wake and give him an answer.

"Why did you have to tell me? If you hadn't..." If he had not, no one would have discovered that Meng Zhou had a different soul inside. Whatever family or career he established in the future, the general's household would have been his greatest backing.

Meng Zhou said, "In my place, you would disdain using someone else's identity to gain anything too, wouldn't you, General?"

He had been an orphan in his previous life, striving for whatever he wanted himself. Given another life, how could he possibly go backward?

"Then do you have a father and mother of your own?" Jiang Yi sank dejectedly onto the yellow earth mound and scrubbed a hand over his face.

"No."

Just what did it mean to have elders and close family? Before this grave, through Meng Zhou's identity, he seemed able to feel a little of it. It was Jiang Yao's lingering worry and maternal love, reaching across the divide between life and death.

Jiang Yi remained silent for so long that Meng Zhou thought he should tactfully gather his things and leave, giving the Jiang family some space.

"You must never tell another person what you've told me."

"Huh?" Meng Zhou froze. He had wanted to have a word with His Majesty about it too...

"Did you hear me?" His uncle's tone turned fierce, then softened again. "I'll consider it as though my sister had twins. I arrived too late and failed to protect them. You're the one who's left. I certainly can't break my word again."

He had promised that if Meng Fushan bullied Jiang Yao, he would return to avenge her. That delay had lasted eighteen years.

Meng Zhou was taken aback. "You needn't force yourself, General..."

Jiang Yi kept a stern face. "Call me Uncle."

"...Uncle." Meng Zhou spoke softly, a cautious gratitude in his voice.

Wind swept through the pines with a rustle, and white egrets beat their wings and flew into the blue sky. Jiang Yi answered him, thinking his sister would surely have approved.

He slipped quickly into his role as an uncle. "Then when are you going to reclaim your identity? I heard a matchmaker went to the Guan household with a marriage proposal?"

His uncle was deeply worried. "Would the woman you married that way even count as your own wife?"

Meng Zhou said, "His Majesty already turned it down for me."

Jiang Yi frowned, most displeased. "So you told His Majesty the truth, but not your uncle?"

Meng Zhou scrunched up his face. I couldn't help it if His Majesty recognized me himself.

"How does His Majesty know so much?" Jiang Yi demanded sharply. "Is it because of you, or because of Guan Jiasheng?"

"Ahem." Meng Zhou nearly choked on his own spit. How could he admit before his uncle and birth mother that they had done unspeakable things? Was he supposed to label himself someone who served his sovereign with his looks?

Jiang Yi seemed disinclined to hear his answer. "You're not getting any younger. If your mother were here, she would be arranging your marriage..."

Please don't. You're more than twelve years older than me. Your marriage is more urgent.

Meng Zhou immediately began flattering him. Uncle, you were thirty and established, elegant, handsome, dashing, the man of every girl in the capital's dreams. Did he have someone he liked? Meng Zhou could help propose marriage for him. Uncle Liu had been hoping for a wedding in the general's household all this time.

Jiang Yi's gaze flickered, as though he had recalled something from long ago. Then his weathered face flushed. "No!"

Meng Zhou studied that suspicious blush. "Really?"

Jiang Yi stubbornly retorted, "Do you, then?"

Meng Zhou looked toward the faintly shifting branches in the distance. I actually might.

"Uncle, I'm going to relieve myself."

How could Meng Zhou fool Jiang Yi's unerring marksman's eyes? But he said nothing, merely giving a slight nod.

As soon as Meng Zhou entered the woods, Chu Huaiyin leaped down from the branches and gathered him into his arms, like a fish that had just surfaced to blow bubbles being caught squarely in a waiting osprey's beak.

The kiss caught him completely off guard.

His hands were locked within the other man's powerful arms, his senses effortlessly stripped away. Realizing something was wrong with Chu Huaiyin, Meng Zhou obediently relaxed his body and let him have his way, carefully protecting himself and the child.

Yet the other man only pressed his advantage, conquering more ground and kissing Meng Zhou until he could barely breathe.

That accident did not count. This was Meng Zhou and Chu Huaiyin's first real kiss.

Urgency and panic concealed his inexperience. Having heard everything, Chu Huaiyin desperately needed proof of Meng Zhou's existence. If Meng Zhou struggled now, he would surely go mad.

Fortunately, Meng Zhou did not struggle. Chu Huaiyin slowly calmed, though his arms remained tightly clasped around him, as if Kitten might slip into the woods the moment he let go.

In those tales of love and vengeance, immortals descended from heaven to clear the wrongs suffered by the unfortunate, then usually waved their sleeves and returned to the celestial court. Whether or not they left debts of love behind, mortals searched everywhere in vain.

Chu Huaiyin feared Meng Zhou was like them, here only to avenge the body's original owner. Caring so much for Meng Zhou that he forgot he was heaven's favored son, Chu Huaiyin had to admit he was only a mortal.

"Meng Zhou, Meng Zhou, will you suddenly disappear?" Chu Huaiyin's eyes were rimmed red, filled with turmoil and fear.

"Who are you asking?"

"Who? You're the only one I've ever known!" The question stung Chu Huaiyin a little. He flicked Meng Zhou's forehead. Have you no conscience?

In Chu Huaiyin's eyes, Meng Zhou saw the answer he had wanted all these days.

"No," he said decisively.

He had recently become close friends with Shen Baiqing and had thoroughly confirmed one thing: Hanlin Academician Ji and Shen Baiqing's way of being together fell within what he could accept.

Of course, things were different again when it came to him and Chu Huaiyin.

Meng Zhou was not certain how far Chu Huaiyin could go once he knew about the pregnancy. But at least now, he had the confidence to face their relationship.

Voluntarily telling Chu Huaiyin he was pregnant was impossible. Concealing it for so long had become a habit, like a layer of protective coloring. No matter how others urged him to shed it, he would not suddenly drop his guard overnight.

Only by blending into the wider world as an ordinary person would he have a way out when danger came.

At the very least, he had to conceal that he had known about the pregnancy before falling into Qianyang Lake, or Chu Huaiyin would be furious.

Meng Zhou thought himself very considerate.

As for the rest, the abbot was right: let fate take its course.

Chu Huaiyin cupped Meng Zhou's head in both hands. "Then tell me, why didn't you come to me after getting out of Qianyang Lake?"

This was the question he had always wanted to ask but had not dared. Just like Meng Zhou becoming a monk, however much Chu Huaiyin thought about it, he could only conclude that Meng Zhou wanted to leave him.

This was a crucial question. How he answered would determine Best Actor Meng's future repertoire.

He could not tell the truth.

Meng Zhou's eyes shifted. Feigning a headache, he explained that he had struck his head that day and forgotten his experiences here, leaving the city in a daze. Only several days later had he slowly begun remembering.

"Later, I met Guan Jiasheng. But when I brought his message back to the capital, I discovered you had already announced Meng Zhou's death to the world."

Chu Huaiyin could not understand. Even if it had been announced to the world, hadn't Jiang Yi returned from the dead too?

Meng Zhou gave him no chance to think. "Let me finish."

"You deployed so many people to search for me, yet I left without a word. I felt guilty. Besides, I couldn't explain why I had left the city, and I hadn't returned immediately after regaining my senses either. At the time, some madness suddenly possessed me, and I wanted to abandon the identity of Meng Zhou."

"I've never considered myself the Meng Zhou you all thought I was."

Taken together with what he had told Jiang Yi today, Meng Zhou had fashioned himself into a bundle of contradictions, lending his account considerable credibility.

Chu Huaiyin did not doubt him. He cared about only one thing. "Will there come a day when you suddenly no longer want to be Meng Zhou again?"

Surely he could not run away whenever he got upset?

He would rather have another identity document made for Meng Zhou and settle the matter once and for all.

The sun was just rising. Soft light filtered through the treetops, falling on their hair and bodies like countless stars scattered through the woods. Meng Zhou half closed his eyes, his lips curving slightly. "The people I care about know now, anyway. Does my identity still matter?"

Chu Huaiyin had been fed a sweet, and its sweetness reached his heart. The mood was just right. He lowered his head and asked tenderly, "May I kiss you?"

"No." Meng Zhou pushed him away and wiped his slightly swollen lips.

Too violent. No kissing me for at least ten days.

Meng Zhou patted Chu Huaiyin's shoulder with sober gravity. You're not very good at either skill. Get some practice first.

But not with this official.

Not with anyone else either.

Anyway... teach yourself.

Bewildered by the look Meng Zhou was giving him, Chu Huaiyin asked, "What?"

"Nothing. My uncle is still waiting. I recall Your Majesty is to discuss affairs of state with the ministers of the six ministries today. Please head back as well."

Chu Huaiyin held his hand and refused to let go.

Meng Zhou said, "I'm calling my uncle."

Feeling rather guilty about having "looked after someone's nephew all the way into bed," Chu Huaiyin could only pinch Meng Zhou's cheeks twice, then lean down and plant a gentle kiss at the corner of his mouth.

"Keep provoking me. You can owe me for now."

Would it multiply several times again overnight?

With perfect self-assurance, Meng Zhou said, "I owe no one anything."

Chu Huaiyin thought, You clearly still owe me on a contract selling yourself.

Chu Huaiyin was not kind enough to remind Meng Zhou. He was simply waiting for the year to pass, after which Kitten Meng would be his.

Even Jiang Yi would have nothing to say.

The Jiang Clan's ancestral rules did not allow anyone to renege.

At daybreak, just after the capital's gates opened, a traveler wearing a straw hat slowly entered with his head lowered, his steps unsteady and his face deathly pale.

A middle-aged man followed behind, his mouth never ceasing its chatter.

The gate guard had just been transferred from the neighboring county town. He looked at the pair with sympathy-

They must have come to the capital to spend a fortune seeking medical treatment.

The elder brother behind him looked very unwilling, too. It would probably exhaust their entire fortune.

Author's note:

To Chu Huaiyin: The examiner is going to turn a blind eye. If you fail again, drop out.

Meng Zhou: I thought, given our relationship, even if I still had to repay those seven thousand taels, you should at least let my uncle pay...