Chapter 21
By the time Shen Nian spoke, the anger on Qi Junmu's face had already faded, and he began to feel that the place was rather cold.
But hearing Shen Nian so eager to shake him off—as if he were some pesky fly that everyone found annoying—the Emperor's stubbornness suddenly flared up again.
He shot a sidelong glance at Shen Nian and said, "What, Marquis Shen, are you suggesting that I don't even have the right to decide whether to attend the morning court? If I wish to linger here a while longer, am I somehow offending someone's eyes?"
Shen Nian was speechless.
What's wrong with His Majesty tonight? If he had a disagreement with his own consort, it's not really fair for him to take it out on me.
I'm his subject, not a bucket of water for putting out fires.
Then he mentally spat a few times—ptui, ptui—because although that comparison was fitting enough, it somehow felt odd.
[Putting out fires in Chinese can be a euphemism for having sex (as in extinguishing a fire = satisfying a partner's desire)]
So he said, "Your Majesty, this humble subject didn't mean that, and I wouldn't dare. A minister's duty is to share the sovereign's burdens. I was only worried that you might catch a chill here, which would not only invite all sorts of wild speculation inside and outside the palace but also force you to drink bitter medicine. If you ended up suffering from the cold, wouldn't you be the one bearing the discomfort?"
Shen Nian's admonition was delivered with the earnestness of a devoted nurse—his tone both helpless and indulgent, much like a father coaxing a stubborn, tantrum-throwing child into taking his medicine.
Qi Junmu laughed at the thought. At first, it was just a soft chuckle, then it grew into a full-hearted laugh.
Perhaps the thought itself wasn't that funny, but he simply felt like laughing.
In both his lives, he had never laughed so freely, so uninhibitedly.
Shen Nian blinked, taken aback by the Emperor like this. Qi Junmu had always been composed—calm in speech and action, candid even when scheming, drawing clear lines of interest. Sometimes Shen Nian felt that the Emperor wasn't quite like a normal person.
But now, the Emperor was like a child, showing such vivid emotion before him. It was like the most beautiful flower atop the highest peak suddenly blooming right in front of his eyes—so stunning he couldn't look away.
In that moment, Shen Nian suddenly felt that the Emperor was a little pitiable.
He had his own joys and sorrows, yet he could only suppress them, never freely expressing them.
In the few days since Shen Nian entered the palace, occasionally attending at the Emperor's side, he had never once seen Qi Junmu eat a hot meal. The imperial kitchen prepared food that had to go through layers of poison-testing, and by the time it reached the Emperor, it had long gone cold.
As the most honored man under heaven, the Emperor sometimes couldn't even enjoy a proper hot meal. Who would believe that if told?
To be fair, the food the imperial kitchen offered to Ruan Jiqing was always the most suitable for consumption.
The Emperor couldn't even compare.
After a hearty bout of laughter, Qi Junmu gradually reined it in, his tone light. "Marquis Shen, walk me back."
By now, Ruan Jiqing was nowhere to be found, and Qi Junmu couldn't be bothered to stir up a commotion by summoning a crowd.
Since the Emperor had commanded it, Shen Nian naturally obeyed.
He stood up first, then instinctively reached out a hand to pull the Emperor to his feet.
The moment he did, Shen Nian froze, quickly withdrawing his hand with a trace of embarrassment. "Forgive me, Your Majesty. This humble subject picked up some lax habits in the northern border and forgot for a moment that this is the palace and you are the Emperor."
Up north, everyone had first called him "Young General," though not with genuine recognition. But later he had fought on the battlefield, earning his merits one by one.
He was young, and with his father Shen Yi shielding him, he mostly just had to focus on fighting without worrying about too much else.
In those years, he had grown used to eating with the soldiers—sometimes sitting right on the ground, occasionally trading crude jokes.
But everyone knew their limits; they never spoke of court affairs, only of things like who had married, or how their wives wouldn't recognize them after they returned home tanned black and wouldn't let them into the bed.
After a brief moment of leisure, when they'd eaten their fill and stood up, they'd reach out a hand to pull a comrade off the ground.
A clap of palms, a shoulder bump—and it was another day full of courage.
Just now, he had unconsciously treated the Emperor like a northern soldier, only realizing his breach after the fact.
The Emperor's hand—was that just a hand? That was a dragon's claw, the imperial hand. Touching it would be an offense to the imperial person, grounds for being charged with disrespect before the sovereign and impeached by officials.
Qi Junmu glanced at him. "I am human too."
Shen Nian had no idea why the Emperor suddenly made such an out-of-the-blue remark.
Perhaps he was a bit slow-witted and couldn't grasp the Emperor's meaning, so he gazed back with an even more earnest look.
Qi Junmu sighed, abandoning all circuitous talk. "Marquis Shen, would you give me a hand? My leg's gone numb, and I can't stand up for the moment."
Shen Nian truly hadn't considered that. He quickly crouched down and asked, "Your Majesty, which leg is numb?"
"The left one." Though Qi Junmu didn't understand why he asked, he answered nonetheless.
"Forgive my impertinence," Shen Nian said as he placed his hands on Qi Junmu's left leg, rubbing up and down in firm strokes. "If you try to stand and walk with a numb leg, not only is it uncomfortable, but you might even fall because you can't feel your steps."
The sensation of walking on a numb leg could only be described as heavy and prickly—a feeling almost impossible to put into words.
Sometimes it was downright terrifying because you couldn't tell if your foot could still walk.
And yes, massaging it also hurt, but with the right technique, recovery was quick.
The moment Shen Nian's hands touched his leg, Qi Junmu's entire body tensed.
He didn't like being close to others—it reminded him of being smothered to death in his previous life.
He wanted to tell Shen Nian to withdraw, but the pressing force of the massage rendered him speechless.
The sensation was too hard to describe; he feared that scolding him would only lead to further embarrassment, so he kept silent.
Shen Nian sensed the Emperor's resistance but pretended not to notice. He applied just the right pressure, moving swiftly, and before long, the Emperor's leg began to regain feeling.
Though still uncomfortable, it was bearable.
Qi Junmu shifted his leg slightly, and before he could speak, Shen Nian withdrew his hands, stood up, and pulled the Emperor to his feet. "Your Majesty, try walking now."
After taking two steps and feeling the ground clearly beneath him, Qi Junmu released Shen Nian's hand and remarked with a calm expression, "If it weren't for you today, Marquis Shen, I'd have made quite a fool of myself."
Shen Nian was about to say it was merely his duty as a subject when the Emperor added, "Luckily, there's no one around—so even if I did make a fool of myself, it doesn't matter. But then again, even if this place were packed with people, I wouldn't care either."
For a moment, Shen Nian couldn't tell if the Emperor was joking or subtly expressing displeasure at what had just happened.
When he had first returned to the capital, he'd been told that the capital was not like the northern border—full of powerful nobles and intricate rules. Especially in the palace, you could offend someone without even knowing how.
Back then, Shen Nian had thought: the new Emperor had just ascended the throne, and he had already defied imperial edicts multiple times. If the Emperor didn't hold a grudge and come after him, that would already be a blessing from heaven.
Surely the Emperor would want to take away his military command as soon as possible—so why would Shen Nian ever end up back in the palace, let alone offend people he didn't even know?
But after returning to the capital, things turned out completely different from what he had expected. Not only was his military command not taken away, but the Emperor even excused him from observing the mourning period—an extraordinary act of favor.
He did have a place in the palace, though only temporarily. Still, those words rang true: the people who dwell deep in the inner palace (the imperial harem or the emperor's inner court) have hearts that are terribly hard to read.
Especially the one standing right in front of him—stay too close and you offend, keep your distance and you still offend. This job was anything but easy.
But for now, no matter how he looked at it, Shen Nian could only take things at face value. So with a grave look, he said, "Your Majesty, with this humble subject here, how could I ever let you make a fool of yourself? Even if it means walking through blades, crossing seas of fire, or rolling in boiling oil, this humble subject will protect Your Majesty."
Qi Junmu's mouth twitched uncontrollably at those words. Still, since Shen Nian had the nerve to say such things, he let out a dry chuckle and replied with equal pretense, "Marquis Shen, this Emperor has heard your words and will keep them in his heart. See that you don't forget them yourself."
Shen Nian replied, "This humble subject would never dare to forget."
Inwardly, though, he thought: I didn't expect the Emperor to be this thick-skinned either.
No comments:
Post a Comment