After Being Mistakenly Taken for a Fellow Traveler by Emperor Long Aotian - Chapter 56

The amber medicinal wine was served in crystal goblets. Dozens of identical goblets were stacked into a tower on the table, glimmering with a golden light under the lamps.

 

Along with the wine came many brightly dressed young women. Some held zithers, others held lutes or flutes, their eyes smoky and filled with tender affection, casting hook-like glances one after another towards the Emperor.

 

The Emperor ignored their looks, and only after the last servant carrying cotton cloth and ointment entered did he finally breathe a sigh of relief. “You, come here.”

 

He took the cotton cloth and ointment from the servant, along with a basin. With all these items in hand, he turned his gaze to Zhou Xun, who was seated beside him.

 

Zhou Xun: …

 

Zhou Xun noticed the Emperor staring at his ankle for a long time, as if contemplating something. A woman dressed in a red dancing skirt took a goblet of medicinal wine from the tower and gracefully approached him. The other women holding wine goblets, seeing her get ahead, couldn’t help but grind their silver teeth in frustration.

 

“Your Lordship,” the woman said coyly, “This humble one offers this wine to you…”

 

“You’re just in time,” the Emperor said as she approached, waving his hand.

 

Before the woman could display a more seductive smile, the Emperor added, “Pour this goblet into this basin.”

 

Woman: ??

 

The Emperor, impatient, said, “Ah, stop bumping into me, hurry up. If you can’t stand steady, don’t wear such high heels.”

 

Woman: ??

 

The woman was taken aback, then silently poured the wine into the basin. The Emperor soaked the cotton cloth in the wine but found the liquid depth insufficient, so he called to the other women holding wine goblets, “You all, come here too.”

 

Women: …

 

After more than a dozen goblets of wine were poured, the cotton cloth was finally soaked through. The Emperor fished the wine-soaked cloth out of the basin and examined it, then…

 

The Emperor clearly had no idea how to treat the injury, but he continued to study the cloth, as if he intended to scrutinize every fiber. Zhou Xun, seeing this, felt somewhat helpless.

 

I’ll do it myself, he thought.

 

“Your… Your Majesty…”

 

He almost blurted out “Your Majesty,” but was startled into a cold sweat halfway through the words.

 

He must not reveal the Emperor’s name here!

 

“…Ah Xuan,” he finally whispered very quietly, “I… I can do it myself.”

 

Ah Xuan.

 

But the Emperor seemed not to hear him. After a while, the Emperor suddenly looked up in surprise. “Oh, oh, were you calling me?”

 

Zhou Xun: …

 

He suddenly realized that the Emperor’s real name wasn’t Rong Xuan. After all, he wasn’t a person of this world, so he naturally wouldn’t respond quickly to that name.

 

The Emperor’s real name wasn’t Rong Xuan… So what was the Emperor’s true name?

 

Who was he when he came here, what did he do every day?

 

In that other world… did he treat everyone as well as he treated him? Or in that world, was there someone else by his side whom he treated the same way?

 

Zhou Xun was startled into a cold sweat by his own thoughts.

 

Suddenly, a sentence he had ignored during his conversation with Shen Huijun earlier flashed back into his mind.

 

‘Falling in love with an idealist is no easy task.’

 

Falling in love…

 

Shen Huijun was talking about falling in love.

 

When Shen Huijun said this earlier, Zhou Xun didn’t argue. One reason was that Shen Huijun’s voice was unclear, and the other was… at that moment, he surprisingly didn’t want to argue. As if at that moment… he hadn’t fully grasped the meaning of those words.

 

Why didn’t he refute?

 

Zhou Xun sat on the bed, suddenly feeling very frightened—not of Shen Huijun, not of those words, but of himself…

 

How could he not refute those words?

 

But the Emperor… the Emperor was the kind of person who only saw him as a friend… If the Emperor knew about these words, what would he think of him?

 

“I… I don’t have much experience…” The Emperor, seemingly oblivious to his turmoil, was still scratching his nose, “Let me think some more…”

 

“…No need to think about it,” Zhou Xun said, “I’ll do it myself.”

 

He snatched the cloth from the Emperor’s hand, his movements almost frantic. He could clearly feel that the Emperor was startled by his actions, as he had never behaved so… out of control.

 

But at this moment, he couldn’t care less about the Emperor. His mind was a stormy sea.

 

He applied the medicine to himself, the sounds of musical instruments playing in the background—it was the young women performing. Then, the Emperor’s voice came again, “Zhou… Zhou Xun…”

 

Zhou Xun’s mind was in chaos, and he did not respond.

 

He heard the Emperor call his name twice, then the Emperor’s voice addressing the women nearby, “Stop playing, stop playing! All of you, leave!”

 

“Your Lordship, this humble one was playing to entertain you while you apply the medicine…”

 

“I’m applying medicine, not holding a funeral! What are you all doing, playing instruments like this? Even playing the erhu… do you want me to get a suona horn so you can play ‘Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix’ too? I can’t even hear myself speak, stop it, all of you leave.”

 

His words were firm. After that, there was the sound of footsteps—several young women seemed to pout and reluctantly left the room.

 

Once again, the once-crowded room was left with only Zhou Xun and the Emperor, with the air filled only with the rich scent of warm pear blossoms. Zhou Xun kept his head down, quietly bandaging himself.

 

His movements were skillful, seemingly effortless, as if he knew exactly how to handle his own injuries better than anyone else. He was aware that the Emperor was watching him, likely surprised at his expertise.

 

Sure enough, the Emperor spoke. Zhou Xun heard the Emperor’s voice: “How… how are you so skilled at this?”

 

Zhou Xun didn’t lift his head or speak, his mind a tangled mess like a ball of yarn. Then he heard the Emperor again: “Damn, that sounded a bit weird just now… I, I just mean, you seem really good at this? Did you study medicine before and then switch to literature? …That also sounds weird. Anyway, just… how are you so good at everything?”

 

The Emperor was trying to make conversation—perhaps because the quiet in the room made him uneasy, or maybe he was just bored. He wanted to talk to Zhou Xun.

 

“Nothing special, just familiar with it,” Zhou Xun didn’t stop his actions and replied, “I often had to bandage myself, so I got used to it.”

 

After he said this, the Emperor remained silent for a long time. Finally, Zhou Xun heard the Emperor say, “Were you very poor before? …Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, damn, I keep saying the wrong thing…”

 

Zhou Xun shook his head.

 

He couldn’t deny that as he bandaged his ankle, memories of the past—some that made him feel low—came to mind. But he also realized that the Emperor was asking him, trying to engage with him—he didn’t want to make the Emperor worry, nor did he want to punish him with his own misfortune.

 

“When I was a child, if I got hurt and needed a physician… the inner quarters were managed by Lady Zhou, so it had to go through her, which wasn’t very convenient,” he explained succinctly.

 

The Emperor: “Oh… was she very harsh to you?”

 

“Not really. She was my legal mother on the surface, so she had to be fair. If I really needed a doctor, I wouldn’t have been afraid to go through her—it was only proper.” Zhou Xun smiled slightly. “Mostly, I was worried about my mother.”

 

“My mother was a very gentle, timid woman, always afraid of causing trouble for others. She feared that calling a doctor would lead to conflicts with Lady Zhou, so she learned some basic medical skills herself… though it was really just amateur stuff. She would secretly treat me herself. I heard that she was quite headstrong when she was young, but later she became this person who didn’t dare disturb others.” Zhou Xun said, “I didn’t like her treating me.”

 

The Emperor asked, “Was your mother… not very good at it? Did she hurt you?”

 

Zhou Xun shook his head.

 

“I wasn’t afraid of her hurting me,” he replied succinctly, “I was afraid of her crying.”

 

He was never afraid of being hurt by the people he loved.

 

When he was young and still living in the Zhou household, he couldn’t avoid getting injured sometimes—whether by falling himself or by others.

 

The Zhou family always thought that the bumps and scrapes between children were minor things—when it happened to him, it was even more trivial. Of course, Zhou Cai was different. If he got even a small cut from a rock, it would cause a huge uproar in the household, with everyone rushing to find out who was responsible.

 

Zhou Xun naturally didn’t receive that kind of treatment. He was just an illegitimate son.

 

But even when an illegitimate son got hurt, it still hurt. When he was younger and less mature, he would cry and run to his mother—his mother, who always stayed in her own courtyard, reading a book or staring at the evening sky in a daze. When she saw him return crying, she would drop everything and rush to him, find medicinal wine and cloth to bandage him, or apply ointment.

 

Her hands were soft and warm, but the tears she shed on him were hot and wet. Even though the tears on his palms were light, young Zhou Xun felt they weighed heavier than any punishment from a teacher’s cane.

 

Zhou Xun didn’t want to see his mother’s tears, so he eventually stopped going back to her with his injuries, choosing instead to treat them himself and always being careful to cover them when he dressed. Over time, he became proficient, and now he was exceptionally skilled at bandaging himself.

 

“Zhou Xun…”

 

The Emperor’s voice broke the silence, but there was an unusual hesitancy in it.

 

A hesitancy that was rare for him.

 

“…What’s wrong?” Zhou Xun asked him.

 

The Emperor remained silent for a long time.

 

“Are you crying right now?” Zhou Xun heard the Emperor’s cautious voice. “Can I take off your mask?”

 

His voice, usually so bold and carefree, had never been so careful before.

 

Zhou Xun: …

 

“I want to try bandaging you. You can tell me how to do it, and I’ll help you,” the Emperor said, his voice different from usual, gentle and slow. “I may not know how, but if you teach me, I’ll learn. I did really well in school, I pick things up quickly… You don’t have to…”

 

You don’t have to be alone.

 

The Emperor waited for a long time but didn’t hear Zhou Xun respond. He even stopped his own actions, drawing his legs up and burying his face in his knees.

 

He seemed to be very tired, needing a break, or perhaps he just wanted to curl up into himself.

 

“…What is your name?”

 

That was the next thing Zhou Xun said, the first words he uttered with his face buried in his knees.