Chapter 18
Shen Nian had a belly full of questions he wanted to ask, but when he saw the look on Qi Junmu's face, he suddenly didn't want to ask anything at all.
He understood perfectly well—the Emperor was doing this solely to pile hatred onto him, while keeping his own hands completely clean of the matter. In the end, the Emperor would be blameless, and he would be the one everyone thought deserved to be struck by lightning.
With things having turned out this way, the only person he could rely on was the Emperor, and the only person he could be loyal to was the Emperor. The Emperor was acting this way entirely on the assumption that he would be willing to be used.
What Shen Nian found puzzling was—where did the Emperor get such confidence that he would play along so readily? Wasn't the Emperor afraid that going too far might backfire?
If he, Shen Nian, were to develop second thoughts because of all this and seek alliances with others to find a way out, surely many people—even if they hated his guts—would be more than willing to cooperate on the surface.
Was the Emperor truly not afraid at all?
Thinking these thoughts, Shen Nian felt a rare moment of bewilderment. He couldn't tell whether the Emperor's using him came with absolute trust, or whether the Emperor was simply certain that he could never escape his grasp.
If it was the former, then after he had been used up, the Emperor would likely let him live. If it was the latter, things became far more complicated—the Emperor clearly wanted his life.
The saying that the minds of emperors have always been unfathomable certainly proved true. Looking at the Emperor—young as he was, yet with such deep cunning—being born into the imperial family was truly a terrifying thing.
"What are you thinking about?" Qi Junmu waited patiently and with genuine sincerity for a while, then couldn't help but ask. He noticed Shen Nian had been quiet for a long time, his eyes shifting with unreadable expressions before finally staring at him strangely, like he was looking at an unsolvable riddle.
Startled back to his senses by the question, Shen Nian lowered his gaze and said, "Your Majesty, this humble subject was merely thinking about Censor Guan."
"Oh?" This was the last answer Qi Junmu had expected. A rare flicker of puzzlement crossed his face. He had assumed Shen Nian would ask why he was doing this—yet the man was completely unpredictable, saying something entirely unrelated to the current situation.
But Qi Junmu was an emperor after all; the bewilderment lasted only a moment before he reined it in. Following Shen Nian's lead, he said, "How is the investigation into Censor Guan's case progressing?"
Shen Nian caught that brief lapse in the Emperor's composure. Seeing him now slip back into that flawless, aloof mask, Shen Nian couldn't help but think that being an emperor was rather pitiful—at the very least, living like that must be exhausting.
But then he quickly chided himself for being foolish. His very life was held in the hands of this pitiful, exhausted man, who could crush him at any moment. And here he was, worrying about useless things instead of his own neck.
So Shen Nian said, "Censor Guan died too long ago. The scene was very clean—this humble subject found nothing suspicious."
"If there's nothing suspicious, then what's the point of bringing it up?" Qi Junmu said flatly.
Shen Nian smiled faintly, his eyes glinting. "It's precisely because it's so clean that it's suspicious." When he smiled genuinely, his eyes seemed to hold a deep warmth—sincere and blazing.
Qi Junmu gazed at him with an impassive face, but inwardly he thought: What a pity—those peach-blossom eyes of his, yet in his last life he never attracted a single one.
The thought flashed through his mind, then Qi Junmu thought with annoyance—he himself wasn't much better off. In his previous life, he had successfully plucked a peach blossom, but that blossom had somehow turned green somewhere along the way.
[In Chinese culture, the concept of "turning green" is directly linked to being cuckolded]
For a moment, Qi Junmu couldn't tell which of them—he or Shen Nian—was more pitiable.
Shen Nian found the Emperor's thoughts very hard to read. He had no idea what the Emperor was thinking, but his expression carried a mix of schadenfreude, sighing, and a sense of shared misfortune.
After much deliberation, Shen Nian still couldn't figure out what exactly made him and the Emperor worthy of such sympathy.
Fortunately, the Emperor soon put away that expression and turned to the matter of Guan Han.
Putting his mind back on business, Shen Nian said, "Guan Han came from a poor family, had no wife or children, and his parents were not in the capital. He was, however, quite proud—he yearned to rise above others and win their respect. This humble subject looked into his life and read his poetry—he did not strike me as the type to seek death over some trivial matter.
Qi Junmu nodded. Guan Han was a man of great flexibility and adaptability—not one who would readily choose death. So he said, "Anything else?"
Seeing that the Emperor agreed with him, Shen Nian continued: "Censor Guan showed no signs of struggle at the time of his death—this has puzzled this humble subject greatly. Even if a man is hanged willingly, at the moment of death he would instinctively struggle uncontrollably. But his hands hung naturally at his sides—he must have been quite calm."
Qi Junmu gave a sound of acknowledgement. "Someone wanted to use Guan Han to slander me and pin the label of a brutal, incompetent tyrant on me. Those who stand to gain from this—there are only a few in the capital."
"This humble subject believes it may be more than just a few," Shen Nian said, glancing at the Emperor cautiously. "Your Majesty, please permit this humble subject to speak words that may be treasonous. Back when the Late Emperor's brothers were still alive—some died, some fled—but they all had loyal followers who protected their masters. Your Majesty himself suffered losses on that front, did you not?"
Several of Emperor Jing's brothers had been killed, but they had left behind descendants scattered in exile across the realm. Those people inevitably had connections in the capital, and there were still old retainers within the palace. There would always be those who believed that Emperor Jing's throne was illegitimate, that he was too brutal to be emperor, and that those who had died were the ones who truly deserved to sit on the dragon throne.
Qi Junmu raised his eyes to Shen Nian. His clear gaze suddenly turned razor-sharp, and he said coldly, "What do you mean by that? Are you criticizing Imperial Father?"
"This humble subject would never dare," Shen Nian replied without fear, his face earnest. "When those events took place, this humble subject was still young. Not knowing the full rights and wrongs of it all, and being no historian, this humble subject would not dare to make any judgment."
Qi Junmu was not the sort to punish someone for such words. What Emperor Jing had done—everyone in the world had their own scale and their own judgment. But very few people dared to speak of it before him as Shen Nian just had. Even Lin Xiao had never said a word about Emperor Jing.
After a moment's thought, Qi Junmu said, "Since you have such suspicions, investigate this matter slowly. But Guan Han's death still requires an explanation from you. I cannot continue bearing the blame for what he accused me of."
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