Married Thrice to Salted Fish

Chapter 82

There was a small house in the western side of the capital city, only one street away from the bustling Yongxing Street. Just after midnight, a sedan chair stopped at the door of the house. A man dressed as a guard lifted the curtain of the sedan chair and helped down the person inside. “Your Highness.”

Xiao Cheng coughed. He asked, “Have you investigated thoroughly?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Wu Ya, the former servant from the Shangyi Bureau, lives here.”

Xiao Chen looked at the closed door and his eyes darkened. “Let’s go in.”

It was long past curfew and ordinary people were already sleeping peacefully. It was a moonless windy night. A faint light came from inside the house, casting a thin silhouette on the window; a silhouette that seemed to have been waiting for Xiao Cheng for a long time.

Reason told Xiao Cheng that this was most likely a trap. But right now, he didn’t care at all about anything else. Even if it was a trap, for a clue as to Shen Huaishi’s whereabouts, he had to jump into it. Fortunately, he brought a group of guards with him tonight. If the one inside this house wanted to assassinate him, it would a task more difficult that climbing to Heaven. He had nothing to worry about.

Xiao Cheng motioned for the guard to open the door. The two guards. one hand on the hilt of their swords, pushed the door open. Amidst the silence, the creaking of the door was particularly grating.

They were met with the sight of a man in white, standing in the room with the light behind him; with a beautiful appearance but a temperament as clear as icy jade. He bowed towards Xiao Cheng. “Your Highness.”

Xiao Cheng’s eyes deepened. “Cough… it’s you, Lin Qingyu.”

Lin Qingyu smiled slightly and said mockingly, “Why does Your Highness no longer call me ‘Little Qingyu’?”

Xiao Chen raised his hand. “All of you, step back.”

A guard hesitated. “Your Highness…”

Maybe it was due to the damage left by Shen Huashi’s sword or because he heard Lin Qingyu’s mocking tone, despite how pale Xiao Cheng’s face was, he did not forget to display a confident smirk.  “He is nothing more than a doctor without even the strenght to truss a chicken. Does it look like he can thrust another sword through Gu’s chest? You can just wait outside.”

After the guards withdrew, only Lin Qingyu and Xiao Cheng were left in the room. Xiao Cheng stared straight at Lin Qingyu’s face. He used to be tempted by Lin Qingyu’s eyes that looked so much like Jingchun’s. But now he realized how ridiculous he had been.

The man in front of him was scheming, sinister and trecherous. The only things that lay hidden beaneath that peerless face was schemes and calculations. Didn’t Lin Qingyu’s presense her now signify that he had been the driving force behind everything?

How could such a person be like Jingchun?

They had met in Changsheng Temple — a noble prince, a bodyguard from a shadow guard organization and a motherless fatherless little monk. The three had very different personalities — the prince was arrogant and contemptuous, the guard was loyal and honest and the little monk was guileless and innocent. Their identities were vastly different, they never should have crossed paths much less become close. His concubine mother had even instructed him, saying he would crown prince someday and then emperor and an emperor had no need for friends. But at that time, he had been too young. No matter how accomplished, he was nothing more than a child after all.

The time he spent in Changsheng Temple as a child, sheltering from illness, was the most relaxed and content he had ever been in this life. He didn’t have have to fight and scheme against his half-brothers; he didn’t have to remained solemn and composed in front of his Imperial mother; he didn’t have to wrack his brains thinking of ways to gain his father’s favor. He was just a child from an ordinary family with two good friends he got along with.