The old gardener was advanced in years. Whenever he had nothing to do, he liked to drink heavily, spending his days in a drunken haze.
The people of Liang who worked in Jin Garden were, for the most part, relatively reliable.
The old gardener earned his living through his craft. The work was light and the pay high, while his own fighting ability was rather poor-he was someone with family connections.
When Wu Youren heard the news, his heart instantly turned ice-cold. How could this happen?
He was still "recuperating" at present. Aside from collecting his meals from the dining hall each day, he barely had any contact with others.
Moreover, Liang had sealed off all related news tightly, and no further information had emerged.
But supposedly, some people believed the old gardener might have been poisoned, and Jin Garden was going to conduct a thorough investigation!
His death was discovered in the morning. That afternoon, patrol guards sealed off the roads and barged into the hostage princes' quarters to search them.
Strangely, after searching only a dozen or so hostage princes, the operation was urgently halted.
Word later spread that an official from Liang's Court of State Ceremonial had arrived and stopped this rash operation.
By evening, the patrol guards stationed at Jin Garden's intersections had also withdrawn, and the hostage princes' residence returned to normal.
But Wu Youren dared not relax. When it came to underhanded tricks, these people at court were each more ruthless than the last.
He even hesitated a little over whether he should pour away the ten jars of "strong liquor" he had prepared.
The patrol guards had barely withdrawn when Shi Linyuan came looking for him.
He hurried into the room and only breathed a sigh of relief after seeing that the wine jars were unharmed. "Good, good."
Then he looked at the lord's grandson and asked in surprise, "Since when did you become so bold?"
"He couldn't have been poisoned to death," Wu Youren said, looking perfectly composed.
He still felt some lingering fear, even though he could be certain that the old gardener's direct cause of death absolutely could not have been simple poisoning.
The main cause was probably that the man was old, had been drinking heavily for years, and suffered from some underlying illnesses.
As a result, drinking a little too much strong liquor, combined with the mild toxicity of the mineral drugs, had triggered a cerebral hemorrhage.
Bleeding from all seven orifices did not necessarily mean poisoning. He still knew that much basic medicine.
Yet he remained worried, because the people of Liang might use this as a pretext to make trouble out of nothing.
Seeing him so calm, Shi Linyuan gave a soft snort. "Didn't you say strong liquor was poisonous?"
"Even if it's poisonous, it doesn't poison people like that!" Wu Youren answered firmly. "He couldn't hold his liquor. Who else could he blame?"
Drinking oneself to death was not uncommon in this world. Leaving aside those who froze to death or fell into the water after drinking, some people really could drink themselves dead.
This might have had something to do with alcohol intolerance...
"I was hoping to give you a scare with this," Shi Linyuan said, unable to help sighing regretfully.
Though he was good at playing mind games, at heart he was still a teenage boy. "Looks like that doesn't work on you."
"Don't get too careless yourself," Wu Youren could not help reminding him. "What's happening now is only what they want us to see."
A servant's death had suddenly prompted a search of the hostage princes, only for it to stop abruptly. No matter how he looked at it, this sequence of events seemed a little strange.
So he thought the other side might be planning to appear relaxed while tightening things behind the scenes, first getting them to lower their guard.
"It's not your place to remind me!" Shi Linyuan grew angry.
He had always prided himself on leaving nothing out of his calculations, and would never allow anyone else's wits to surpass his own.
"What do you know? Making such a big show of searching us was meant to embarrass whoever was behind the old gardener!"
"He was just a servant. If he's dead, he's dead... Even if we wanted to harm someone, would we bother targeting him?"
In other words, the earlier searches had been intended to make trouble for someone-even if they achieved nothing, at least they could disgust them.
As a result, an official from the Court of State Ceremonial had hurried over to call a halt to the farce.
Still, the struggles within Liang's court had actually spilled over onto foreign hostage princes. It really was... an eye-opener!
"I see." Wu Youren nodded. "Then was the old gardener drinking the strong liquor I prepared?"
Honestly, he really was quite curious. Someone else's liquor could also cause a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, couldn't it?
"You don't need to ask about that," Shi Linyuan refused to answer. "Some information isn't yours to know."
"All right." As a former Ancient Divine Poster, Wu Youren would not stoop to arguing with a child.
"These ten jars are about ready too. Take them back and leave them for another day, and that'll be enough. Don't bother me unless you need something."
"Twenty jars of strong liquor prepared for free altogether..." Shi Linyuan's gaze wandered. "You really are generous. The cost must be very low, right?"
"There's no point talking about that," Wu Youren replied unhurriedly.
In any case, he had already fulfilled his promise. Now it depended on the other party's response.
"This formula must be held in His Highness's hands," Shi Linyuan declared solemnly.
"Mm." Wu Youren merely gave a quiet grunt, with no further reaction.
Shi Linyuan suddenly grew a little interested. "Are you really not afraid of death?"
"Who isn't afraid of death?" Wu Youren asked mildly, but said nothing more.
Shi Linyuan fell silent. Only after a while did he abruptly ask, "Want to leave Jin Garden?"
"Of course," Wu Youren answered without thinking. After a pause, he added, "But I want to leave openly and aboveboard."
There was no hostage prince who did not want to leave Jin Garden, but past examples proved that the consequences of sneaking out were exceptionally miserable.
"Some of those who escaped in secret are still alive." Shi Linyuan watched him with interest. "Want to know who?"
"No." Wu Youren shook his head and said bluntly, "Even if I did, you wouldn't tell me... Doesn't doing this tire you out?"
"You really are much smarter than before." Shi Linyuan nodded with interest. "Why have you changed so much?"
"I don't want to die a second time," Wu Youren answered. "Unless you people insist on having me dead!"
"I'll stop teasing you." Shi Linyuan found this a little dull. "His Highness can recommend you for admission to the Martial Academy!"
"The Martial Academy..." Wu Youren fell silent, then asked after a pause, "Does His Highness have that authority?"
Shi Linyuan snorted coldly. "Insolence. You'd better get this straight: whose boat are you in now?"
They all depended on the Seventeenth Highness. They were his core followers!
"But His Highness hasn't entered himself, and no one else has ever gotten in either." Wu Youren looked at him thoughtfully.
"I have reason to suspect that you might have... betrayed His Highness?"
Please get this straight. You're not the only one who knows how to play the PUA game!
"You insolent fool!" Shi Linyuan's face darkened. "This is His Highness's wish!"
But his life experience ultimately fell short of the Ancient Divine Poster's. Wu Youren looked at him with the ghost of a smile.
"Then let's discuss it when the written order arrives. Don't worry, I won't breathe a word of this."
"You!" Shi Linyuan's chest heaved with anger. He really was agitated now. "That was my fucking line!"
That was no exaggeration. It was exactly what he had intended to say: a warning to the other party not to spread the word.
Having his line stolen was a small matter. What mattered was who controlled the conversation.
If he made a demand and the other party obeyed, then he was in control.
But when the other party said it first, it took on a different flavor.
It was not just a matter of controlling the conversation. More importantly, it carried a strong insinuation-you may have betrayed His Highness, but I won't tell!
Other young hostage princes might not have caught the implication, but Shi Linyuan truly understood it.
"Please head back, Brother Linyuan." The Ancient Divine Poster felt a little dispirited. He saw no glory in bullying a child.
"Next time you want liquor prepared, have the payment ready first. As for the rest, I'll pretend I never heard it."
"Damn it, it's the truth!" Shi Linyuan stamped his foot hard in anger, then turned and left.
Wu Youren watched him leave, his face expressionless, with only a hint of uncertainty in his eyes.
He was now more or less certain that the storm over the old gardener's death had most likely passed.
Shi Linyuan's explanations sounded a little absurd, but he thought they were highly plausible.
There was never a most absurd thing in this world, only something more absurd.
Between a perfectly normal-sounding explanation and an absurd one, which would be more convincing? Undoubtedly the former.
Yet precisely because of this, explanations that were harder to understand might be closer to the truth.
Then Wu Youren recalled something: in the early hours of that morning, he seemed to have... felt a faint warm current?
He was not very certain of the sensation, because he had been asleep at the time.
He had gone through a round of boxing that day and felt no obvious improvement, but for some reason, he simply felt a little different.
He did not notice that the faint dust that had clung to the Weird-Repelling Jue at his waist had quietly vanished...
Wu Youren's narrow escape from death this time was no small matter within the Hostage Prince Corps-after all, he was one of its hundred regular members.
After examining him, Jin Garden's physician had concluded that even if he survived, he would need ten days to half a month of rest.
Liang had even worked out how everyone should respond if he truly could not be saved.
And so Wu Youren had been having a fairly easy time lately, with no need to participate in any of Jin Garden's activities.
Shi Linyuan appeared again five days later. "Prepare another ten jars of strong liquor, and you'll receive the handwritten order transferring you to the Martial Academy."
"I can wait." Wu Youren paid no attention to his demand. It's just a compliance test. Do you really think no one understands?
"Looks like you've made up your mind not to trust His Highness." Shi Linyuan was getting better and better at pinning labels on people.
"I prepared twenty jars of strong liquor, and that means I don't trust His Highness?" Wu Youren gave him a cold look.
Then he smiled slightly, revealing snow-white teeth. "Brother Linyuan, you've taken such good care of me. I'll remember it!"
Who wasn't a young man? Even if it was an act, he had to show some youthful spirit.
A trace of cold severity flashed through Shi Linyuan's eyes, but he spoke without revealing anything. "Then wait."
Two days later, an official notice arrived from Liang: thirty people would be selected from Jin Garden's hostage princes to enter the Liang Martial Academy.
Some hostage princes really were tremendously excited by this. Clearly, they had known nothing about it beforehand.
Wu Youren inwardly clicked his tongue. Jin Garden might have been steeped in an air of decadence, but judging by how well-informed people were-someone really was getting things done!
But immediately afterward, an official from the Jin Protocol Office announced, "Everyone, be prepared. You may be sent to the front lines!"
The front lines... At those words, all the hostage princes present were instantly stunned.
They were not necessarily afraid of fighting. The point was that no one under heaven did things this way!
Sending hostage princes from an enemy nation to attack another enemy nation-was that really how this was going to work?
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