Chong Heng woke up on the third day after they left Chuannan.
When Wang Dian opened the door, he was startled by the young man kneeling stiffly on the ground.
“Master—” Chong Heng called out halfway before realizing he had called the wrong person. He awkwardly moved his lips and lowered his head without saying anything.
The inn had been fully booked, and the secret guards were all instructed to stay outside. Wang Dian occasionally took off his mask to get some air. Seeing him kneeling silently at the door, Wang Dian rolled up his sleeves and sat on the doorstep, “Your master has taken his medicine and is sleeping right now.”
“How are Master’s injuries?” Chong Heng asked.
“His stomach was stabbed right through. Even if I said he’s better, you wouldn’t believe me,” Wang Dian said with a face identical to Liang Ye’s. “But it’s much better than last time when his heart was pierced by an arrow.”
Chong Heng lowered his head even more, “It was my fault that Master got hurt.”
“To know one’s mistake and be willing to change is the greatest good.” Taking advantage of the fact that Chong Heng’s head was wrapped like a mummy and couldn’t move, Wang Dian freely patted his bandaged head. “Young people all have moments when their heads get hot. If you don’t act impulsively at this age, you’ll never get the chance. Consider it a lesson learned.”
“I… deserve death a thousand times over,” Chong Heng sniffled.
“Stop talking about dying. We went through so much trouble to save you, and now you want to die? Who are you trying to fool?” Wang Dian said earnestly, “Love is just a momentary impulse. Once the hormones pass, it gets better. You might feel like you’d die for love now, but in a couple of years when you grow up, you’ll realize it wasn’t such a big deal.”
Chong Heng asked listlessly, “What about you and Master?”
“Me and your master?” Wang Dian hissed, making up words to fool the kid without hesitation, “See this face of mine? Your master is purely attracted to his own looks. We’re just seeking thrills based on physical attraction. A naive kid like you shouldn’t try to copy this. If someone more powerful than your master comes along, I would definitely…”
He watched Chong Heng’s eyes frantically rolling, and gradually trailed off. He stiffly turned his head to see Liang Ye squatting at the door, smiling as he watched them. “Definitely what? Continue.”
Wang Dian silently turned back to look at Chong Heng and said, “I definitely wouldn’t change my heart.”
Chong Heng carefully glanced at Liang Ye and called out softly, “Master.”
Liang Ye squeezed Wang Dian aside and sat on the doorstep just like him. He squinted at Chong Heng and said to Wang Dian, “Who wrapped his bandages like dumpling skin? Why is it so ugly?”
“Li Mu is still young after all, his skills aren’t as good as his father’s.” Wang Dian lifted his chin, “Hey, you were speaking so sincerely with me earlier, why did you become mute when your master really showed up? Speak.”
Chong Heng looked at Liang Ye with reddened eyes and knocked his head on the ground repeatedly, “Chong Heng left without permission and caused Master to be injured. Please punish me!”
Liang Ye glanced at the person kneeling before him while playing with the jade pendant tassel on Wang Dian’s waist without saying anything, letting him continue kneeling. He stood up and pulled Wang Dian up, “Didn’t you say you were hungry earlier? Come, Zhen will take you to eat buns.”
Wang Dian saw that Chong Heng’s head was bleeding from the kowtowing and glared at him in annoyance.
“If you don’t want to eat, Zhen will go alone,” Liang Ye sneered and turned to leave.
Wang Dian grabbed his waistband and pulled him back, looking at the kneeling Chong Heng and signaling with his eyes.
Liang Ye let out a light snort. “A foolish idiot without a brain doesn’t deserve to eat.”
“You think you’re so smart but you got played around too. You raised him to not even understand what’s being said and now you blame him for being brainless?” Wang Dian said angrily, “You won’t be satisfied until he kowtows himself to death?”
“…” Liang Ye leaned his head back at being scolded, raised his hand to touch his nose, and said guiltily, “It’s not like Zhen asked him to kowtow. Besides, without punishment how will he learn his lesson?”
“You have to punish him right now? His neck was almost broken by that bastard Bian Feng!” Wang Dian got increasingly angry as he spoke and pulled up the bleeding Chong Heng from the ground. “Get up!”
Chong Heng was still dazed from kowtowing when Wang Dian grabbed his arm and held him, “Rather than letting him kowtow to you, it’d be better if he didn’t. The more he kowtows the more excited you get.”
Chong Heng shook his head in terror, wanting to continue kneeling, but was half-carried half-dragged back to the room and pressed onto the bed.
Chong Heng struggled a couple times wanting to get up, but Wang Dian stared at him grimly with Liang Ye’s face, “I don’t care if you wear a hole in the ground kneeling after your injuries heal, but right now stay put and recover.”
Chong Heng instinctively wanted to argue, but when he met Wang Dian’s eyes that looked just like his master’s, he immediately lost the courage to resist. His nose even started to tingle, unable to describe the feeling in his heart.
He could even see a hint of lingering fear in Wang Dian’s eyes. He pursed his lips and said carefully, “You scolded Master like that, he will be angry.”
Master hated it most when people defied him. Even if it was Wang Dian, he would find ways to get revenge.
“Let him be.” Wang Dian’s anger hadn’t subsided yet. He used a handkerchief to wipe the blood from Chong Heng’s forehead. “What was written on that note that made you run out without leaving any message?”
Chong Heng choked for a moment, and after a long silence finally said, “It was Tan Yishuang’s handwriting. She said she had urgent matters concerning Master’s life and death to tell me before going to the Northern Border, and asked me to meet her without fail.”
“…You didn’t suspect anything?” Wang Dian couldn’t help saying, “She was under house arrest in the palace. Since she could escape smoothly, there must have been someone helping her. Why would she come to Chuannan to walk into a trap instead of leaving directly? If she really wanted to defect, she should have contacted Liang Ye. Her people knew exactly where Liang Ye went, obviously setting up a trap targeting you on purpose. Even taking a step back, what if someone was imitating her handwriting to trick you? You dared to go meet based on just a note of unknown origin?”
“I-I just wanted to capture her and send her back to the capital,” Chong Heng listened with a bewildered face and stammered, “Was very angry, didn’t think that much.”
Wang Dian sighed, “You’ve been by Liang Ye’s side but haven’t learned any of his tactics.”
“…I can’t understand them,” Chong Heng opened his mouth, “I just do whatever Master tells me to do.”
But the first time he acted on his own initiative, he almost got Master killed.
Wang Dian met the genuine confusion and innocence in his eyes and smiled helplessly, “Never mind, this is good too.”
Someone needed to balance out Liang Ye’s hornet’s nest of a mind.
“You…” Chong Heng looked at him somewhat awkwardly, “Why are you so nice to me?”
Although he wasn’t very smart, he could instinctively sense that Wang Dian didn’t actually care much about others’ lives except for his master’s, and even carried a kind of aloof indifference.
Yet Wang Dian not only took a knife for him but also didn’t blame him for the trouble he caused, and even stopped his master from punishing him. Even if it was love for his master extending to those close to him, there was no need to go to such lengths.
“Maybe because I’ve never met someone so foolish since coming here,” Wang Dian patted his mummy head lovingly, “It makes me feel a long-lost familiarity.”
Chong Heng didn’t like having his head patted and uncomfortably pushed away his hand while baring his teeth at him.
“Your temperament really learned ten tenths from your master.” Wang Dian deliberately patted his head two more times before leaving cheerfully, leaving Chong Heng alone to ponder bitterly.
He had learned, but in the wrong direction.
Wang Dian was amused by the emoji he mentally matched for the kid and strolled downstairs with his hands behind his back.
The emperor who had just been severely scolded by him was fiercely eating steamed buns on the table, looking like he was trying to stuff himself to death.
Wang Dian sat down leisurely across from him and picked up his chopsticks to eat breakfast. Just as he was about to reach for a bun, it was snatched away by another pair of chopsticks. When he tried again, Liang Ye snatched it again. In no time, all the buns in the basket were piled in his bowl.
“…How childish can you be?” Wang Dian looked up at him.
“Hmph.” Liang Ye sneered, apparently treating the buns as Wang Dian’s head, devouring them one by one with extreme ferocity.
“Chong Heng has been kneeling all morning, and you still wanted him to kowtow. Li Mu said he almost couldn’t save him. You really weren’t afraid he’d kowtow himself to death?” Wang Dian said.
Liang Ye continued eating his buns.
“If the father doesn’t teach, it’s the father’s fault,” Wang Dian quickly snatched a bun. “You don’t teach him properly usually, then blame him for being stupid when he makes mistakes. That’s really too much.”
Liang Ye swallowed the bun in his mouth and said coolly, “You protect him so much, why don’t you just adopt him as your son?”
“If I adopt him as my son and he calls me father, he’d have to call you brother,” Wang Dian said languidly. “Then what should you call me?”
The tea Liang Ye had just drunk almost sprayed out of his mouth.
