My Gentle and Pure Sect Leader Husband - Chapter 46

The Emperor clearly had no intention of reminiscing with the two—perhaps there was nothing to reminisce about.

He gave one last look at Yan Hongyin, handed her a key, and only said, “In the future, don’t pull on the lock when you come.” Then he waved for the elite guards surrounding the hall to disappear once more.

Yan Hongyin said nothing, remaining silent as she left the palace with Shen Lang and Zhu Qiqi.

Along the way, Zhu Qiqi’s gaze kept falling on Yan Hongyin, moving away only to return again, as if looking at some curious entity.

Shen Lang patted his wife’s hand, shaking his head slightly, then smiled at Yan Hongyin. “The Commander sent someone all the way overseas, presumably not just to confirm his own origins, right?”

Yan Hongyin raised her eyes, which contained none of the confusion or bewilderment Zhu Qiqi had expected, but rather an extremely calm clarity.

“Of course not. Please go ahead, seniors. I’ll join you shortly.”

The downpour came fiercely and stopped just as abruptly.

With the Ming Dynasty poetry gathering approaching, literary talents from all provinces had gathered in the capital.

After the rain, the ring street in the outer city returned to its brilliantly lit, crowded, and lively state. A youth dressed as a servant squeezed in front of the three, bowing to Shen Lang and Zhu Qiqi with a smile:

“The tavern has prepared food and wine. Respected seniors, please follow me.”

Zhu Qiqi suddenly widened her eyes. Shen Lang gave Yan Hongyin a deep look, then chuckled and took Zhu Qiqi along, following the servant who led the way to the tavern.

Zhu Qiqi kept looking back, only to find that Yan Hongyin, who had been standing in place moments ago, had already vanished without a trace.

This completely unfathomable behavior and mindset was nearly identical to Wang Lianhua years ago.

“I was just thinking she doesn’t resemble Wang Lianhua at all!” Zhu Qiqi clutched Shen Lang’s arm, pouting.

Though she wore a married woman’s hairstyle, Zhu Qiqi had grown up as a pampered darling since childhood. After marrying Shen Lang and living in seclusion, her life became even more content and satisfying. Time seemed to particularly favor the beauty, leaving no additional marks on her.

“They are indeed different,” Shen Lang replied without further explanation, his expression still showing his characteristically mild good temper.

….

Shen Lang sat at the table sampling the dishes, while Zhu Qiqi leaned against the staircase, listening with great interest to the scholars in the hall below as they debated, citing classics and discussing grand topics.

The moment Yan Hongyin stepped into the tavern, the atmosphere in the hall became strangely quiet. The scholars all turned to look at the Jinyiwei standing by the door, their expressions indescribably odd.

They seemed both resentful and fearful, with critical words stuck in their throats, unable to rise or fall, causing their faces to redden with frustration.

Yan Hongyin had changed into Jinyiwei attire, though she hadn’t altered her disguise. Anyone who saw her would think she was simply a flawless young Jinyiwei.

The Jinyiwei walked up to the second floor with eyes straight ahead. Since her arrival, the noisy sounds from the hall below had ceased. The students who had been arguing until red-faced looked at each other awkwardly for a while, then successively left the tavern.

“Senior Shen, Senior Zhu.” Yan Hongyin bowed slightly.

Zhu Qiqi frowned unhappily. “Why did they all leave when you arrived? I was enjoying listening to them!”

Shen Lang casually picked up a wine pot and poured a cup for Yan Hongyin, smiling at the remark. “That’s because they only dare to discuss behind people’s backs, but would never dare to cause trouble in front of the Jinyiwei.”

To these scholars and intellectuals, the jianghu was an extremely distant matter. What they saw were court affairs and current events.

These students rushing to the capital from their hometowns for the poetry gathering during such a sensitive and tense period—some were concerned patriots wanting to drink and discuss matters with friends, but another portion wasn’t simply seeking fellowship through literature.

With His Majesty yet to establish a crown prince, many students who couldn’t achieve top rankings in the imperial examinations inevitably sought alternative paths. If they could become advisors to a prince before the heir was established, it might lead to instant glory for their family.

Whether they succeeded or not, being noticed by the Jinyiwei, who monitored and impeached officials, could never be considered a good thing.

“By the way,” Shen Lang looked at Yan Hongyin in her Jinyiwei uniform, somewhat uncomfortably raising his hand to press his brow before averting his gaze, “we met a young fellow on our way who also said he was living in seclusion overseas.”

Yan Hongyin wasn’t surprised. “Chu Liuxiang?”

It was obvious that Chu Liuxiang, who had run far away not wanting to get involved in these matters, must have been dragged out from some obscure corner by that Western Regions desert cat.

“Interesting juniors in the jianghu keep emerging one after another,” Shen Lang remarked.

He and Zhu Qiqi hadn’t returned to the Central Plains because of Chu Liuxiang, but because Yan Hongyin, using her position as Jinyiwei Commander, had precisely delivered a letter to their secluded island.

“Everyone in the capital is looking for you, yet you still dare to use your Jinyiwei identity?” Zhu Qiqi came over to sit beside Shen Lang, looking at Yan Hongyin sitting opposite them, finding it strangely jarring to see this face so similar to Wang Lianhua paired with the solemn, murderous black flying fish uniform.

“Previously, I concealed my identity when returning to the capital, not because I feared them, but because His Majesty’s attitude was unclear,” Yan Hongyin said calmly, sitting with a perfectly straight back.

“Others may support a prince and have explanations later, but as an imperial confidant, my loyalty can only be to His Majesty. If I rashly became involved in the succession struggle and shifted my position, regardless of which prince became the heir, my fate would only be death.”

The Dark Division Commander of the Jinyiwei was already thought to be male in many people’s eyes. Yan Hongyin’s actions clearly put the fact that she was in the capital out in the open, while reinforcing people’s existing perceptions of the Dark Division Commander.

Now that she had openly appeared before the Emperor, returning to the capital was simply to explore her origins. Although it remained unclear what had happened twenty-some years ago, at least Yan Hongyin’s return to the capital had nothing to do with the princes.

The Eldest Prince’s faction had originally planned to frame her. As long as Yan Hongyin, being an imperial confidant, could be implicated in secretly conspiring with the Second Prince, then Lu Gang, also a Jinyiwei Commander, would have cause to execute first and report afterward.

The dead cannot speak in their defense. Afterward, with complete fabricated evidence, even if the Emperor was displeased, he wouldn’t punish them for it.

But now, having lost the opportunity to frame her first, with many eyes having seen Yan Hongyin leave the palace, any attempt to move against her would be blatant contempt for imperial authority.

Yan Hongyin neither liked nor wished to participate in those insidious schemes. She didn’t have such calculations, but no one understood the Emperor’s balance of power better than she did.

The current Emperor concealed his emotions and kept his suspicions hidden in his heart. Yan Hongyin’s specialty of being straightforward and open in her actions could actually gain the Emperor’s tolerance.

“Indeed. Just those dozen or so guards in the palace with connected auras and coordinated movements would make it no difficult task to detain you,” Shen Lang said.

Yan Hongyin was naturally well aware of this.

The suspicious Emperor would never entrust his safety entirely to one person. Besides Yan Hongyin’s Jinyiwei, he had plenty of other cards up his sleeve.

Those dozen guards had grown up together, trained together, understood each other’s hearts, and practiced encirclement and killing formations. When necessary, they could even perish together with a Grandmaster peak level expert, despite being merely a dozen first-class experts.

This was also one reason why the Emperor so easily agreed to her leaving the capital when she had executed first and reported afterward using gold needles to seal acupoints.

Shen Lang gazed at Yan Hongyin for a while, then smiled. “Regardless of your unconventional father, your mother was an old friend to us back then.”

Yan Hongyin paused, then cupped her hands and bowed her head in respect, changing her form of address. “Hongyin pays respects to Uncle Shen and Aunt Zhu.”

“So, what do you want to know?” Shen Lang asked Yan Hongyin, playing with the wine cup in his hand as he thought about the list of old acquaintances in that letter.

“For years, there have been no shortage of Grandmaster realm experts in the jianghu, but most who breakthrough beyond the Grandmaster realm seclude themselves in rural areas or overseas, never to be seen again,” the beads hanging from her hat swayed slightly with her movement. “Is it that the court used the seniors’ friends or descendants as leverage to force them to leave the Central Plains?”

Not all martial artists are unattached and solely pursuing the ultimate in martial arts. Yet oddly, since the founding of the Great Ming, all recorded experts who broke through to the Grandmaster realm had successively retreated into seclusion, maintaining a delicate balance between the martial world and the court. Yan Hongyin found it hard to believe this was merely coincidence.

She didn’t want to be forever trapped at the Grandmaster realm, so she needed to understand the inside story that only those seniors and the Emperor knew.

“Actually, rather than calling it leverage… it’s more of an unspoken mutual understanding,” Shen Lang said slowly. “Throughout history, across dynasties, those who relied on martial prowess and became obsessed with power games never ended well. This may be partly due to their own temperaments, but also because those in power don’t tolerate fierce beasts eyeing them from the sidelines.”

“I did meet the current Emperor once, just once, and I knew that while he might tolerate controlled jianghu chivalry, he would absolutely not allow true ‘martial defiance of prohibitions.’ I had no intention of opposing the court, nor did I want my existence to implicate old friends. Why not travel overseas with friends and wife? Wouldn’t that be delightful?”

After answering Yan Hongyin’s question, Shen Lang changed the subject:

“Actually… before you sat down, I thought you would be more interested in the story of the previous generation.”

For the first time, Yan Hongyin’s expression showed some fluctuation. She lowered her eyelids, staring at the half of her face reflected in the wine cup’s liquid, saying nothing.

****

Jinling City had no rain, and stars adorned the sky.

After several rounds of drinking, many wine jars were scattered broken around the courtyard.

On the roof, two half-drunk men lay ungracefully on the tiles, looking up at stars that seemed both unreachably distant yet close enough to pluck.

“I never thought I would have…” Wang Lianhua’s lips moved for a while before he finally uttered the words with extreme complexity, “a child.”

Yu Luocha had much to say on this matter. He didn’t believe he could raise a blood-related child properly; in fact, blood relations might even turn violent against each other.

So he simply chose not to have children, and thus scoffed at Wang Lianhua’s statement. “Then control yourself.”

“We’re different,” Wang Lianhua was silent for a while, then said softly, “I took medicine.”

Yu Luocha took a good while to react, then suddenly sat up, turning to Wang Lianhua with an incredulous expression. “You took sterilization medicine?!”

Wang Lianhua rolled his eyes, deciding to just admit it outright. “Yes, what of it?”

The same situation can be handled differently by different people. Due to his sister and mother, Wang Lianhua found it difficult to develop genuine feelings for women. Even with Zhu Qiqi back then, he had merely seen her as a kind of warmth he yearned for, an instinct to seek comfort and avoid cold.

Wang Lianhua didn’t think he could accept a child and was well aware not to underestimate women in this world. After all, even that scoundrel Shen Lang had been drugged and taken to a dungeon to keep Bai Feifei company, wasn’t he?

So Wang Lianhua chose to take medicine, settling the matter once and for all.

His medical skills were already extraordinary in the world, and the medicine he took was potent. His intention was to permanently end any possibility.

After a moment of silence, Yu Luocha carefully asked, “…I haven’t offended you too much before, right?”

Wang Lianhua chuckled and asked in return. “What do you think?”

Yu Luocha shifted further away, distancing himself from the dangerous person beside him.

Both fell into silence for quite some time.

After a long while, Yu Luocha said dryly, “Then you’re truly a quack.”

With his forehead pressed against the cold wine jar, Wang Lianhua murmured, “…Indeed, I am truly and thoroughly a quack.”

****

The Capital

The post-rain capital was shrouded in some mist. Reaching a hand out the window, one could still feel the damp coolness in the air.

“About seven or eight years after we went to sea, the Jinyiwei found our secluded island. I thought they were coming for me,” Shen Lang said, his expression rather amused. “But that letter was actually for Wang Lianhua.”

“After reading the letter, he sank himself in our fish pond for a full three days without surfacing. I thought he had drowned,” Zhu Qiqi was clearly deeply impressed by that incident and quite excited about exposing Wang Lianhua’s embarrassment. “After Shen Lang dragged him out, he shut himself in his room for over ten days, then left for the Central Plains without even saying goodbye. Later, when we went to his room, we found it had been ransacked, with medical books trampled all over the floor.”

Calculating backwards, Shen Lang said, “The letter was sent by your mother. By my calculation… you would have been only seven years old then.”

Seven was an age when memories form, but Yan Hongyin had no recollection of ever meeting Wang Lianhua. In her memory, the appearance of another “master” occurred when she was eleven.

—Of course, Wang Lianhua had many ways to appear beside someone silently and leave without a trace.

“He didn’t stay in the Central Plains long that time, just two months before returning to ask me for a map of the overseas islands,” Shen Lang looked at Yan Hongyin. “Many reclusive masters live on those overseas islands. These people aren’t all virtuous, but as long as they remain secluded, it benefits the common people. I couldn’t possibly give him the map.”

“But he asked me for the first time, swearing he had no ulterior motives, only needing to find something.”

As Shen Lang reached this point in the story, even Zhu Qiqi pressed her lips and lowered her gaze, as if returning to the incredible feelings of that moment.

“Hongyin, I’ve known Wang Lianhua for decades. He is arrogant and self-confident, sensitive and obsessive, unrestrained yet selfish. In the eyes of the world, he might not even qualify as a good person. He doesn’t love this world, and apart from his mother, he’s never cared about anyone.”

“I never imagined he would put aside his pride and beg me for the sake of a child whose existence he had just learned about.”