CH 42

The same thing was very different in Fu Zhiyu’s eyes.

If he were there now, he would have never saved Xie Ke in the first place. Let’s not mention the question of whether to protect his lover or not, Xie Ke was an actor. Only when Fu Zhiyu was in the Lord God’s space did he learn that actors were different from the indigenous data like them. They had a protection system and one of the system’s functions was very important: it was to block pain.

Xie Ke wouldn’t be hurt; the whole world had basically no sense of reality to him, it was like a game. Taking this into account, could he really take Fu Zhiyu’s dedication at that time seriously?

Fu Zhiyu didn’t believe anything Xie Ke said. Instead, he became angry because of the previous events, as if Xie Ke was reminding him how stupid he was at the time.

“Get out of here.” His face was cold as he spat out a few words stiffly. Then he turned his head away and didn’t want to say a word to Xie Ke anymore.

“I won’t get out, I won’t leave, never leave again.” Xie Ke stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to touch his face, but seeing that Fu Zhiyu was still angry, he didn’t dare. In the end, he just held the corner of his clothes, “Zhiyu, I…”

He seemed to want to say something, but there was more and more cold sweat on his forehead. Fu Zhiyu looked at his increasingly bloodless lips with some doubts in his heart.

Did Xie Ke look weak?

As if confirming Fu Zhiyu’s thoughts, Xie Ke kept holding the corner of his clothes but his head got lower and lower, and then he fell down, lying on the floor. Yet his hand was still tightly clutching Fu Zhiyu’s clothes, as if this was the only connection between them.

Fu Zhiyu had been talking to Xie Ke but only now did he notice a faint smell of blood in the air. When Xie Ke fell down, Fu Zhiyu also discovered that there was a blood-soaked mark on his back that the armour could no longer hide.

What was this, pity-fishing?

Fu Zhiyu was wary and didn’t touch Xie Ke, just pulled his clothes out of his grip. But Xie Ke did fall unconscious in front of his bed now. Fu Zhiyu couldn’t wake him up, and he didn’t want Xie Ke to stay here. He got out of bed and took out a box from the shelf next to the bed with a ring in it. He took out the ring and put it on his finger, then walked to the window, thought for a while, and made a special beckoning gesture.

After waiting for a while, Fu Zhiyu saw a flash in front of his eyes. A man in dark clothes with a mask on his face appeared in front of the window. He saluted Fu Zhiyu and said, “Please give your orders.”

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Fu Zhiyu pointed to the man next to the bed and said, “Take your master away and don’t let him come here again.”

By the way, he took off the ring from his hand and stuffed it into Xie Ke’s clothes indifferently.

The man in black was taken aback when he heard the orders. After he saw Xie Ke, he was even more surprised. It seemed that he didn’t expect Xie Ke to be here. He moved carefully but Xie Ke seemed to have really fainted. After being picked up by the man, he didn’t even groan and was quickly taken away.

The air was still filled with a faint smell of blood. That ring was the one Xie Ke had put in the red bloodstone box before he left. Fu Zhiyu didn’t care at first. When he moved to the residence, he naturally couldn’t leave this kind of thing in the palace, so he took it away together with the boxes. Only then did he realise that the ring wasn’t ordinary.

To be precise, it was an ornamental thumb ring, made of the imperial green jade. Of course, in addition to its own value, it had a more important symbolic meaning.

It was the symbol of the owner of the “Shadow”, a gift from Xie Lin to Xie Ke. A team of carefully cultivated assassins, small in number, was Xie Ke’s guard, which was also very important in the original text.

Fu Zhiyu had read the original text, and even without Xie Ke’s note, he remembered how to use the ring.

He didn’t plan to keep Xie Ke’s things. He had deliberately lost the ring a few times before, but it was brought back by the shadow guards and sent to the residence. It was boring to repeat this process, so he just returned it to Xie Ke now.

The servants of the residence were, strictly speaking, not his own people. Fu Zhiyu didn’t intend to let them know too much. In the middle of the night, a bloody man wearing what looked like a general’s armour appeared in his room; it was abnormal at first glance. There was no need to disturb Mingdao at this time either.

Fu Zhiyu knew that the shadow guards were near to him, several of them. Since Xie Ke gave this thing to him, he had naturally explained the situation to them a long time ago. They also knew that Fu Zihiyu didn’t like them and was very keen. They didn’t dare to get too close, most of them staying outside the residence.

Today was an exception. Whatever made Fu Zhiyu take the initiative to make a summoning gesture, a shadow guard surely had to appear.

The presence of the shadow guards usually had little influence on him. He would grow melons and pet fluffy animals every day. When he had free time, he went outside to sit in a restaurant and listen to the words of different storytellers. There was nothing that couldn’t be seen by others.

The only thing that needed to be hidden was the medicine, but it was easy to do with a little care. They couldn’t find anything from that far away, and everything was done by Dr. Chen, not in the residence.

As expected by Fu Zhiyu, the medicine sold well in Jiangnan. It had only been auctioned off twice. Now it was completely off the market and sold to several families. Fu Zhiyu also limited the amount, providing very little for the external distribution. He felt the money earned was almost enough; he was not greedy in this area. The money was also temporarily kept in the bank of his younger uncle, waiting for them to get to Jiangnan.

When Xie Ke was taken away by the shadow guard, it was almost dawn.

With his ears pricked up, Rongrong came to Fu Zhiyu’s room to make his usual solemn inspection. He sniffed the area in front of the bed several times, then became alert, barking so loudly that even Yuan Mingdao, who was eating breakfast, rushed over.

“What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” Yuan Mingdao forgot to put down the chopsticks, coming in in a hurry, “Did something happen?”

The smell of blood left by Xie Ke had almost dissipated. The human nose wasn’t as sharp as the dog’s nose, and it was impossible to smell it now.

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Fu Zhiyu stretched out his hand to help Yuan Mingdao wipe off the remaining rice grains on his face, stroked Rongrong’s head and said, “It’s nothing. Let’s have breakfast, I’m hungry too.”

The army didn’t return to the capital until ten days later. Xie Ke was naturally not with it. The people of the capital were ready to greet the young general but after searching for a long time, they didn’t see him. The girls hid all the flowers they had prepared, making the face of the middle-aged general Xie Lin, who had returned with the victory, stiffen a bit.

Later, there was news that Xie Ke was seriously injured in the last battle and his life was in danger. The rumours were so serious that it seemed that he would die in the next second.

This was a bit of an overstatement, Fu Zhiyu thought, how could Xie Ke be so fragile?

He didn’t believe it, but most of the people did. Recently, the storytellers in the teahouses and restaurants stopped telling new stories and only focused on the news from the Xie family, saying that the Young General Xie’s talent made Heaven jealous and unforgiving. The girls cried together, as if Xie Ke was their common husband.

Fu Zhiyu felt bored. Xie Ke must have had something up his sleeve, deceiving people.

But when he was going back to his residence, he was inexplicably stopped.

This time it wasn’t the reckless Lu Linhai, but Du Yin, who had a much calmer temperament. Fu Zhiyu didn’t expect him to do such a thing as blocking people on the street.

Du Yin and Lu Linhai had both stepped down from their positions as imperial guards and had begun to take over some of their fathers’ duties, and were now proper military generals.

Fu Zhiyu looked at Du Yin and asked politely, “What does Lord Du want?”

“Come with me, count me as begging you, go and see him, just take a look,” Du Yin said. He seemed to feel that this tone was a bit reckless, gritted his teeth, and his voice slowed down a little bit, “Xie Ke… he… hasn’t woken up for ten days.”

“You can go get a doctor, I’m not a doctor,” Fu Zhiyu blinked innocently and said, “I think Lord Du is in a hurry and has found the wrong person.”

“The whole Imperial Hospital is there! There is nothing they can do,” Du Yin became anxious, “He is delirious and only calls your name, what can I do!”

Fu Zhiyu’s expression didn’t change at all when he heard this. He wasn’t going to go. Du Yin still had some presence of mind left and didn’t do anything to take him away by force.

“…Why do you hate him so much?” Du Yin could only watch Fu Zhiyu leave in the end, saying faintly to his back, “He went to the frontier for you, and fought desperately for you. In the last battle, he was so badly injured. After winning the battle, he came back from the barbarian capital all the way here, just to see you, never resting for a moment, and now he is dying. Why do you even not want to see him?”

Lu Linhai and Du Yin saw too little and their perspective was different. It was natural that they said these things. Fu Zhiyu didn’t look back but replied coldly: “For me? Did I ask him to do this? Did I get anything out of it? Self-righteous.”

Du Yin opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.

He was never doing it for me, Fu Zhiyu thought. Xie Ke was very selfish. He could only do so much for himself.

He wondered what game Xie Ke was playing now, pretending to be sick.

The next day, Fu Zhiyu went to the palace to see Consort Yun as usual, just in time to meet Dr. Chen who came to routinely check her pulse. Consort Yun chatted with him, mentioning the Xie family.

“…The whole Imperial Hospital has been sent there and they can do nothing,” Consort Yun said. “The emperor was angry, and Dr. Chen almost got beaten up. That Xie family is really a big deal.”

Dr. Chen also echoed: “The young General Xie is indeed seriously ill, with injuries all over his body. Especially his back, the flesh is rotting there. If he wasn’t someone who practised martial arts and used to be in good health, he wouldn’t last for such a long time. If it were someone else, I’m afraid he would be dead in three days.”

Fu Zhiyu frowned. When Dr. Chen looked at his expression, he knew that his master didn’t want to hear this. After checking the pulse, he quickly withdrew.

“He is pretending,” Fu Zhiyu said to Consort Yun, “Mother Consort, don’t sympathise with him, this man is very cunning.”

“Where do I have time to sympathise with others? It’s just that the rumours outside are so fierce and the situation is so big, so I mentioned it casually. I’m not a doctor,” Consort Yun smiled and shook her head. “But some time ago, my brother sent me a letter and mentioned this man to me. He said that he didn’t expect the war to end so soon. Many caravans were able to survive thanks to him and are full of gratitude. The common people care about him.”

Fu Zhiyu knew that even if he hated Xie Ke, he didn’t want to deny Xie Ke’s merits in this matter.

Xie Ke was a natural ruler. Those in power didn’t need extra feelings. Just like Emperor Qingyuan, Xie Ke could quickly throw away those things that he thought were not that important. In the previous life, people all over the world felt that Xie Ke was right to kill a tyrant, doing a great thing. Fu Zhiyu had long accepted this fact. But Xie Ke saying that he had loved him for a long time was very strange and he really couldn’t believe it.

Fu Zhiyu lowered his head, thinking about it, and took another sip of tea, his eyes a little puzzled.

He had spent a lot of time thinking about these things in the Lord God’s space and finally figured out some of the problems between him and Xie Ke.

They were different kinds of people. If Fu Zhiyu loved someone, he couldn’t hide it. He couldn’t learn to hide his love, he wanted to hold all the good things in front of the man he loved to please him. But Xie Ke wasn’t like this; Fu Zhiyu felt that he could never love others at all. From this point of view, they didn’t suit each other.

Xie Ke was rational and selfish by nature, and Fu Zhiyu felt that he had a reason to believe that he was lying now.

He was a powerful actor, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t be so fragile, he must be pretending again, and this time Fu Zhiyu wouldn’t believe him.