Chapter 52

Although Xue Jin'an felt that the AI voice assistant had been skewed somewhat by big data algorithms—skewed to the point where his anti-fraud center app was practically itching to trigger a warning—the Emperor himself evidently saw nothing wrong with it.

He felt that Teacher Xiao X's analysis was spot-on: he was simply someone with overly rigid boundaries who suffered from a habitual desire to please others... an ESFP with a Capricorn rising! Furthermore, he was exceptionally masculine and alpha.

The Emperor awarded five-star reviews to every single test he took, rewarding them with precious jewels, and later even came to regard Teacher Xiao X's tarot readings as infallible gospel. In gratitude, he bestowed a glowing night pearl along with Li Hechun's embroidered sachet.

That was right; previously, Xue Jin'an had stated that he did not accept pawned items and only received circulating currency. However, the AI voice assistant Xiao X had exploited a loophole in his settings, declaring that tips were exempt from this rule, and thus these treasures had miraculously materialized right on Xue Jin'an's bed.

Xue Jin'an was speechless; Xue Jin'an did not understand. But knowing that humanity possessed boundless diversity, he chose to respect it.

Xue Jin'an rolled out of bed. Just as he finished dressing, Lingzhi, who had been waiting quietly by the door for a moment, gave a timely knock and entered alongside Shouquan, both carrying washing and grooming supplies. Shouquan stayed to wait upon his master's morning ablutions, while Lingzhi went inside to tidy up the bed.

Upon seeing the bed glittering with all that dazzling wealth, Lingzhi's footsteps paused. Being well-traveled and sharp-eyed, a single sweeping glance allowed her to recognize several familiar items.

For instance, the golden carved flower belonged to the Yongchun Palace. Consort Min loved flowers, and her courtyard was filled with them; the gold and silver used for bestowing rewards to others were customarily crafted into floral shapes.

The small gold-inlaid jade pendant belonged to the Fushou Palace. Consort Shu was refined and adored writing poetry and painting; rather than vulgar, pure gold and silver, she preferred gold-inlaid jade, which was always fashioned with exquisite delicacy.

As for the night pearl, it came from the East Sea; though tiny, it was exorbitantly expensive. Unsurprisingly, it was a reward bestowed by the Emperor himself.

Among them all, the only discordant item was a string of fifty copper coins, which had likely dropped off one of the servants by accident during their duties.

In short, this bedspread of treasures had practically gathered all the masters of the imperial palace. Rather than looking like a plundering of the six palaces, it looked more like a raid on Li Hechun—after all, throughout the entire palace, only Li Hechun, who served closely by the Emperor's side, could possibly accumulate such a complete collection of imperial rewards.

It had to be said that Lingzhi was quite perceptive. With a quick turn of her mind, she hit upon the truth. These items truly all belonged to Li Hechun, though unfortunately, she failed to guess that they had circulated directly from the Emperor's hands.

Lingzhi had originally wondered what the Seventh Prince could have possibly done to Li Hechun. Reflecting on it now, the Seventh Prince's widely circulated and formidable reputation of terror—hailed as the prince most unbefitting to provoke in the entire imperial palace—was not without reason. Look at how Li Hechun had been robbed blind and yet could only suffer in silence.

Lingzhi's expression turned strange for a fleeting second. Though she was genuinely curious about the Seventh Prince's methods, considering she was still a newcomer who knew little of his temperament and had yet to build mutual trust, she ultimately refrained from asking.

After finishing his morning routine, Xue Jin'an first went to the main hall of Zhaoyang Palace to offer three sticks of incense before Zhou Yuting's memorial tablet. Only then did he return to the courtyard to prepare for his routine morning exercise, whereupon he caught sight of Little Xiuzi, battered, bruised, and moving with heavy steps, laboriously hauling water back and forth to fill a large vat. Covered in sweat and flushed red, he looked entirely like an ordinary person devoid of any martial arts.

Inside that large water vat floated a budding pair of lotus flowers sharing a single stem.

"They were delivered from the flower gardens this morning." Seeing Xue Jin'an glance in that direction and assuming he was looking at the twin lotus, Shouquan hurriedly offered an explanation, marveling as he spoke, "Who would have thought that with winter right around the corner, we'd still get to see lotus flowers? It's just a pity there's no greenhouse; I'm afraid these flowers will wither before they even have a chance to bloom."

Hearing this as she emerged from tidying the room, Lingzhi smiled and said, "I actually know a method. In Weiyang Palace, there is a hot spring pool whose waters are channeled from the imperial hot spring palace, radiating heat all four seasons of the year. If we fetch water from that hot spring to nourish them, these flowers can certainly live another three to five days."

At these words, Shouquan's face lit up with a flash of delight, which immediately gave way to hesitation. Peering at her expression, he ventured, "Sister Lingzhi, your idea is certainly wonderful, but making daily trips to fetch the water would admittedly be far too troublesome. Besides, Weiyang Palace is sealed off after all; what would happen if someone accidentally spotted us?"

How could Lingzhi not know what he was plotting? She replied, "It took a great deal of effort to channel that active spring water down from Tang Mountain, just barely enough to fill a single pool. How easy do you think it would be to divert it all the way to Zhaoyang Palace?"

"Digging trenches and routing water pipes at a time like this cannot possibly be concealed from others." Lingzhi did not explicitly state the consequences, but instead smiled, tapped him on the forehead, and said meaningfully, "How long do you intend to keep living here in Zhaoyang Palace?"

Shouquan was not embarrassed at having his motives exposed and simply grinned brazenly.

Upon seeing that stalk of twin lotus, Xue Jin'an immediately thought of the eunuch from the Imperial Horse Stall. Shortly after delivering the word about the flowers, news of the man's death had arrived. Xue Jin'an had never taken the matter to heart, yet he had not expected the flowers to actually turn up today.

Xue Jin'an examined the blossoms closely. Lotus flowers blossomed in summer and naturally craved sunlight; now that the weather was turning cold, they looked somewhat wilted and not particularly attractive.

Xue Jin'an nodded slightly and affirmed, "They look very alike."

Their half-dead appearance was identical to that young eunuch's complexion.

Shouquan and Lingzhi exchanged a glance, both completely baffled.

With the dumping of the final bucket of water, Little Xiuzi finally filled the vat to the brim. He promptly tossed the bucket aside, put his hands on his hips, and gasped for breath. Looking up at the person who had been standing there for who-knows-how-long, he spoke in a deeply aggrieved tone, "Have you all watched enough?"

"Oh! So it was you after all!" After staring for a good while, Shouquan finally recognized him and exclaimed in surprise, "What happened to your face? Did Xuan Eleven beat you up?"

"It was that woman who hit me!" Little Xiuzi raised a hand and pointed upward, actually starting to lodge a complaint.

Following his direction, the others looked toward the tree above his head, which had already shed the majority of its leaves. Only then did they realize that someone was actually sitting perched on a fork in the branches—none other than Fuling, the other of the two martial artists left behind by Madame Su.

Strange to say, Fuling had not deliberately concealed her presence; she merely sat there quietly, yet she achieved the camouflage of an autumn leaf, successfully blending into the tree and causing people to unconsciously overlook her.

Even Lingzhi had been startled, having had no inkling that she was sitting right up there.

Though Lingzhi and Fuling had been left behind together and had previously undergone training and conditioning under Lu Bingzhu, the two were not actually close. The only thing Lingzhi knew was that Fuling excelled in hidden weapons and had inherited two or three parts of Director Lu's true teachings, putting her on a completely different path from Lingzhi, whose specialty was internal energy.

Currently, the two of them were still in a phase of mutual adjustment and did not interfere much with each other's actions.

Only Xue Jin'an remained utterly calm regarding Fuling's appearance; his high-definition camera had located her long ago, and the device's facial recognition software had successfully outlined her face in an instant.

It was just that Xue Jin'an hadn't been interested in looking at her, so he had simply ignored her.

Upon being discovered, Fuling prepared to descend from the tree to offer a salute, but was stopped by a wave of Xue Jin'an's hand. Without a second thought, she simply sat back down with stubborn directness.

It was fortunate that Xue Jin'an himself was a half-dabbler when it came to etiquette and cared little for pomp and circumstance, so he naturally wouldn't grow angry or displeased over such a trivial matter.

Shouquan had spent quite some time by Xue Jin'an's side and had long since grown accustomed to his master's temperament, seeing nothing major in it.

Instead, Lingzhi—who had broken out in a cold sweat on behalf of Fuling's rashness—grew perplexed and quietly observed them all without giving herself away.

She watched as Shouquan spoke up without the slightest hesitation, casting all the blame squarely onto Little Xiuzi: "She must have had a reason for hitting you. It's definitely your fault."

Although they had only spent a little over a day together with Lingzhi and Fuling and had not yet built any emotional foundation, Shouquan's emotional foundation toward Little Xiuzi, a malicious spy, was a negative number.

Little Xiuzi's attempt to file a complaint was truly an act of courting humiliation.

However, Shouquan was actually right; Little Xiuzi's beating was hardly unjustified.

Knocked unconscious by Xuan Eleven the previous day, he had woken up to find himself in an unfamiliar place with the ropes on his body untied. He had listened, looked, and observed carefully, sensing no presence of anyone monitoring him.

Little Xiuzi had been ecstatic on the spot. Of course, he had considered that this might be a trap, but at that point, nothing else mattered anymore.

He had been locked up in this place, poorly fed and inadequately clothed, and most crucially, he felt that the Xuan Eleven who guarded him was strange.

At first, Little Xiuzi had simply thought that this Xuan Eleven didn't look like a proper eunuch; he never wore sachets, yet never smelled of the typical musk of the inner court. Still, he hadn't harbored much suspicion, assuming the man was simply in cahoots with the shadow guard who was impersonating the Seventh Prince.

Little Xiuzi had discovered the clues on the night the substitute guard had remained absent for a long period. Starving for quite some time, he had finally received a meal, but never expected that the food would leave him feeling utterly dazed. Although he remembered nothing upon waking, his intuition told him the food had been drugged.

He began consciously observing the man. Something major must have happened within the palace; the substitute had been missing for days, leaving the two junior eunuchs Fulu and Shouquan somewhat anxious. Caught in such an environment, Xuan Eleven was inevitably affected. Involuntarily tensing up, his movements in walking, sitting, and lying down unwittingly exposed some habits peculiar to spies from the Bureau of Imperial Attire.

For instance, he always walked silently on tiptoe close to the walls; for instance, one of his hands would habitually hang limp by his side while the other remained tucked inside his sleeve, maintaining a posture ready to draw a hidden weapon and kill at a moment's notice... and there were many other details that made Little Xiuzi realize he was a spy from the Bureau of Imperial Attire.

Feigning dazed confusion from the drug, Little Xiuzi pretended to be listless, acting equally listless during meals and allowing Xuan Eleven to knock him out while secretly plotting how to escape.

He hadn't expected the opportunity to arrive so soon.

As the saying went, opportunity knocked but once. Since he finally had a chance to escape this mortal coil, Little Xiuzi prepared to run for it right then and there.

Midway, he even wrestled with the dilemma of whether he should seek out that substitute shadow guard. After all, even if he managed to flee now, he would still have to live in hiding without a way to leave the palace, and there was no telling when he might be captured. If he truly wanted to escape for good, he would still need the help of that high-level mastermind behind the scenes.

Having endured so much suffering only to fail to make contact with a single person in the end, he was ultimately unwilling to let go, trapped by the sunk-cost fallacy.

The only difference was that Little Xiuzi ultimately gave up; the substitute shadow guard was simply too uncanny, so he decided to escape first and figure out other ways to make contact later—or so he told himself.

Little Xiuzi's plan had been wonderful, but what he hadn't anticipated was that not only had the location changed, but the people had too. The moment he scaled the courtyard wall, he was smacked straight down with a single palm, subsequently pinned to the ground and subjected to a ruthless beating, after which his acupoints were sealed so that he couldn't muster a shred of internal energy.

Thus, things had turned out as they were now.

Naturally, Little Xiuzi wasn't about to recount all of this verbatim, so he attempted to smear Fuling instead: "Your Highness, this servant told her at the time that I am your person, but she pretended not to hear and continued to deal murderous blows—she is clearly looking down on you! It doesn't matter if this servant gets a little hurt, but your majesty and dignity brook no infringement!"