What I want is the master
Study.
The steward carefully served a bowl of decoction.
“Grand Duke, His Little Highness returned all the maidservants yesterday. The booklets… the booklets were burned.”
Duke Wei looked at the “art of war” book in his hand without even raising his eyelids.
“Stinky brat, truly getting more and more daring.”
Although he said this, there was no trace of reprimand on the man’s face. He drank the decoction on the table in one gulp and wrinkled his eyebrows slightly.
“What do you think about the Wang family’s affairs?”
“This subordinate does not dare to speak carelessly.”
Duke Wei snorted lightly.
After investigating for so long, he has already figured it out. The princes had already secretly prepared their troops for the battle to win the heir.
The matter with the third prince was just the beginning.
Since the former crown prince passed away when he was ten years old, the position in the Eastern Palace has been vacant. Now the second, third, fourth, and eighth princes have all reached the coming of age. Each of these princes was eyeing the position of the crown prince like a tiger watching its prey.
As soon as the New Year Festival is over, Huaiyan will be nineteen. Only the thirteenth prince in the palace was still a child.
The princes were not much different in age, and they were all in their prime of life. Perhaps there will be another bloody storm in the future…
“Cough, cough…”
Duke Wei made a fist with one hand and couldn’t help but cough. He waved away the steward’s hand, who wanted to step forward. He had suffered countless internal injuries throughout his whole military life. Now that he’s old, he has suffered from all kinds of ailments.
“Go and call Huaiyan to come for me. I have something to tell him.”
“Yes.”
The steward respectfully withdrew.
Not long after, the young man’s voice sounded outside.
“Uncle.”
“Come in.”
The young man poked his head in with a smile,
“I guess Uncle must’ve missed me.”
Duke Wei raised his head and glanced at him, his expression not very good.
“Humph, don’t you like those flowers and willows? Why don’t you want them anymore?”
Zhou Huaiyan came over.
“Aiya, Uncle. How can domestic flowers be as fragrant as wild flowers?”
“Absurd!”
Duke Wei slapped the table.
Zhou Huaiyan hastily sneaked behind the man, pressed his shoulders diligently, and then took advantage of this opportunity to restrain him.
“Uncle, Huaiyan is just joking.”
The young man pounded Duke Wei’s shoulders skillfully and continued,
“If Huaiyan gets married in the future, Huaiyan will definitely be as devoted and doting as Uncle is to Aunt. Huaiyan will give her all the best things in the world, and Huaiyan will definitely ignore any other temptations.”
Duke Wei thought of his late wife, and his eyes softened a lot.
“You brat, you might not excel at anything good, but your glib tongue sure is something else…”
Zhou Huaiyan didn’t feel bad at all. Instead, it seemed as if he was being praised.
“As long as I can make Uncle laugh and be happy, then it’s a good thing.”
Duke Wei couldn’t maintain his dark expression any longer. He stroked his long beard, and a hint of a smile appeared in his eyes.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Then tell me, which family’s woman do you want to dote on and be devoted to?”
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“Nonsense!”
Duke Wei was so angry that his beard was even puffing.
Everyone knew that since the new emperor ascended the throne, he had strictly prohibited women from joining the army. Zhou Huaiyan’s words simply meant that he didn’t want to marry.
“Uncle, if you want me to marry a wife and have a happy family, you must let Huaiyan choose the one he loves. Otherwise, what’s the difference between those arranged marriages for me and those flowers and willows outside?
It’s just forcibly uprooting the carefully nurtured famous flowers from someone else’s home and throwing them into my yard to waste.”
Duke Wei: “……”
Although it was fallacious reasoning, when he thought about it carefully, he had no way to refute it. In the end, the man waved his hand,
“Well, well. I can’t control your marriage, but if His Majesty decides to arrange a marriage for you in the future, what will you do then?”
“The Emperor… Emperor Father himself is reluctant to arrange a marriage for me.”
Zhou Huaiyan shrugged his shoulders,
“I already have a big and powerful maternal clan like Uncle, which he was already wary of. If there’s another alliance through marriage, it will surely give Emperor Father a headache.”
Therefore, Zhou Huaiyan’s current reputation as a licentious person was the result that the emperor most wanted to see. Duke Wei’s eyes were complicated.
“Huaiyan, do you want that seat?”
Zhou Huaiyan’s tone was filled with extreme disdain.
“I, by no means, want to be an emperor. It’s tiring and hard. You have to deal with thousands of memorials to the throne during the day and produce children at night, even having to bear children to different women. I’m afraid even a donkey in the production team can’t withstand such consumption.”
Duke Wei: “……???”
Jiang Yi was so shocked by these words that he couldn’t recover for a long time.
“Don’t speak nonsense! How dare you speak such absurd remarks about His Majesty!”
After a pause, he asked again,
“Then didn’t you keep that foreign… book servant just to make use of the Yun family’s power?”
“Who said that?”
Zhou Huaiyan was surprised,
“Doesn’t Uncle understand me yet? I’m just simply greedy for his beautiful eyes.”
“What’s more, the legitimate daughter of the Yun family has been dead for more than ten years, and Ah Fei has no tokens. How could the Yun family recognize him? Even if they recognized him, how could the Yun family hand over the family to Ah Fei, who has the blood of a foreigner?”
Jiang Yi carefully identified the young man’s expression and confirmed that he was really not lying.
The man sighed.
On the day that he returned to the capital, he thought about returning his military power. This might allow Huaiyan to stay away from the fight for the throne and live a mediocre and peaceful life as an idle prince. But the sudden assassination completely shattered Jiang Yi’s fantasy.
Was it possible to avoid this fight for the right to inherit the line of succession?
He was old and was now anxious to get Zhou Huaiyan engaged because he wanted to give his younger sister’s child more support and protection.
“Uncle,”
The young man hugged his neck and acted coquettishly, as if he had already guessed his worries.
“As long as you live well, have a strong and healthy body, and are in a good mood, Huaiyan will definitely have a safe, smooth, wealthy, and glorious life!”
“Alright, why are you clinging to me like a little girl and not feeling ashamed about it?”
Duke Wei pretended to be grumpy and drove him away. Zhou Huaiyan still clung to him, not loosening his grip.
“Uncle, Huaiyan still needs your help with something.”
“Oh?”
“You said that day that Ah Fei’s body had extraordinary root bones. How about letting him learn martial arts so that Huaiyan could have more people to protect him?”
Duke Wei immediately knew what he was planning. He wanted that foreign slave to practice martial arts, but he didn’t want him to be treated and trained as a death warrior.
“You want to get an important person from Laofu again?”
“Oh, no. Uncle’s people belong to Uncle. Huaiyan is just borrowing them for his own use.”
Duke Wei glanced at him and said,
“Who do you want?”
“Wei He!”
Zhou Huaiyan had long known that the personal guard by his uncle’s side remained deeply undercover. In his prime, he had accompanied Duke Wei on expeditions against foreign tribes on the snowy plains, where he proved to be a fierce general. It was only later, after retiring due to injury and not having a family, that he became a bodyguard.
“You sure know how to choose.”
Duke Wei scolded jokingly, then gave it to him anyway.
“Many thanks, Grand Duke!”
The young man performed a shaky military salute and slipped away with a grin. As soon as he walked out of the study, the smile on Zhou Huaiyan’s face faded.
“Hongdou, go check if there’s any medicine in Uncle’s small kitchen and what kind of medicine it is.”
The eldest maid was slightly surprised,
“Yes.”
Ah Fei followed behind the young man sullenly. He had just vaguely heard the Grand Duke and his master talking about marrying a wife.
But he hasn’t drawn out the gu larvae from the master’s body yet. If the master takes a wife, then he can no longer sleep with the master.
Also, he didn’t know which family’s young lady the master would marry in the future. What if the future mistress can’t tolerate him and throws him into the market to be sold?
The more Ah Fei thought about it, the more scared he became.
Walking all the way back into the room, the kitten didn’t come back to his senses until Zhou Huaiyan’s index finger poked him backwards.
“What are you thinking about, being so entranced like this?”
“Master…”
Ah Fei held his reddish forehead and looked up at him anxiously.
“Hmm? Why don’t you speak?”
“Is the Master… going to take a wife?”
Zhou Huaiyan poured himself a cup of wine. He was still thinking about the faint medicinal smell in his uncle’s study.
“Taking a wife? Uncle is indeed interested, but he hasn’t decided yet. What’s wrong?”
Ah Fei lowered his head, his voice sounding a bit melancholic,
“Then, what kind of wife does the master want?”
The young man didn’t expect that Ah Fei would actually ask the same question as his uncle. Zhou Huaiyan didn’t know what kind of woman he liked. In his previous life, he was always alone. At most, he had kept a cat by his side.
His one and only… long-haired black cat with pale green eyes.
He cherished old friendships, so when he came to this era, he raised another Cuicui with the same appearance. Later, Cuicui died, and he met Ah Fei.
As his uncle said, people always live longer than cats.
Zhou Huaiyan had experienced long periods of loneliness, so he especially cherished this opportunity to have familial love in his life. As for getting married, his identity as a prince involved too many complications, and his marriage was destined to be intertwined with various other factors.
Now that murderous intentions were hidden in the capital, Zhou Huaiyan was unwilling to take the throne, but he also wanted to protect his uncle. He was already in a difficult situation, so how could he still have the energy to deal with a woman with unpredictable thoughts?
Hence, he drank a cup and said half-jokingly,
“Oh, this… of course they have to be capable of fighting three ways in and three ways out of chaotic battles.”
He winked at the kitten,
“My body is inherently weak and I cannot practice martial arts. Naturally, I need to find someone with excellent martial arts skills to personally protect me well.”
To fight three ways in and three ways out of chaotic battles…?
Excellent martial arts skills…
The kitten stared at him blankly,
“The master’s requirement… is indeed extraordinary.”
If it was just this, an unspeakable ambition grew in Ah Fei’s heart.
——He can, too.
Although this body was lowly, Ah Fei can do the best in martial arts, using poisons, and even everything that was trained to him in that hell. Even Hongdou, whose background was a death warrior, never noticed that he was eavesdropping outside the room when she was talking to Zhou Huaiyan that day.
But soon after that, Ah Fei remembered the burned booklet,
“But Master, there has never been a legitimate daughter from an aristocratic family who is good at martial arts in the capital.”
“Who said I wanted to marry a legitimate daughter of a noble family?”
Zhou Huaiyan laughed heartily. He drank a bottle of wine and went to look for the jin dagger again. It was naturally forged of the same iron meteorite as the Sky-shattering halberd and was something left behind by Jiang Min.
He lazily leaned on the soft couch, stroking a piece of sunken wood and carving something. Ah Fei stared blankly, then leaned in beside the young man’s feet, whispering softly,
“But if she’s not a legitimate daughter of a noble family, how can she be worthy of the master’s status?”
Zhou Huaiyan carefully carved something on the wood.
“Ah Fei, remember that everyone in this world is born of a father and a mother. They are made of flesh and blood, experiencing seven emotions and six sensory pleasures. Even you and I are not fundamentally different.”
At this point, the young man stopped and looked down at the shocked kitten.
“There is no real distinction between noble and lowly bloodlines. Those are all deceptions. The reason why I am the prince and you are the so-called slave is merely because my ancestors gained power and wealth.”
“Princes, marquises, generals, and ministers hold power, so they elevate themselves by proclaiming noble bloodlines. They delimit others as commoners or slaves solely for their own benefit, ensuring that their descendants can continue to exploit and oppress others.”
“Do you know the founding emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty? At the beginning, he was just a so-called… commoner.”
Zhou Huaiyan stroked the kitten’s soft, curly hair, his slightly cool fingertips dyed with the fragrance of sunken wood.
“So, Ah Fei, there’s no need to feel inferior to your bloodline or origin. You are not dirtier than anyone else, nor are you inferior to anyone else. If you want something, just work hard and go strive for it.”
The kitten was stunned.
He had never… never heard such shocking words throughout his lifetime. In just a few sentences, his worldview, which had been established for more than ten years, collapsed in an instant.
For the first time, someone said to him,
We are no different. Your blood is not inferior at all.
Even his mother, the only person who ever loved Ah Fei, never said such a thing. She would only let Ah Fei hide, dodge, endure, and endure once more.
Just… survive!
But the master told him——
If you want something, just work hard and go strive for it…
Strive for it…
He thought in a daze.
But, if what he wants is…
Ah Fei raised his eyes, reflecting the gentle and beautiful face of the young man in them. His beautiful peach blossom eyes were slightly tipsy, brimming with a somewhat reddish hue.
——Truly an unrivaled beauty in the world.
Ah Fei heard his own heart beating wildly.
“But will the master really… be willing to spend his life with a person of low status?”
“Low…?”
The young man played with the beautiful dagger in his hand. The silvery reflection of light flashed across the side of his face, suddenly giving rise to a breathtaking charm.
Ah Fei clearly heard his unrestrained laugh——
“If Dianxia likes them, even if they’re a slave, why not?”
Even if they’re a slave, why not?
Why not, ah…
In that moment, the shadow that once engulfed Ah Fei instantly dispersed, turning into endless shattered fluorescence before finally condensing altogether.
——Transforming into the gentle brows and eyes of a young man.
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