WMSG Chapter 26

Chapter 26: The Forced Consensus Between Us…

Ye Yueshen returned to the Ye residence and saw someone from You Su Brothel talking to the gatekeeper. The attendant behind him was carrying two huge food boxes, which looked like they had at least three layers.

As soon as the man from You Su Brothel saw Ye Yueshen getting out of the sedan, he hurriedly stepped forward, approaching him with an ingratiating gait, calling out, “Young Master Yue, Young Master Yue!” After a flattering bow, he reached out as if to help Ye Yueshen.

Xuedong quickly blocked him, his tone unfriendly, “Where did this beggar come from, daring to touch our Second Master.”

Knowing that Xuedong was still annoyed at being stopped at the gate, the man from You Su Brothel said with a smile, “This humble one has eyes but failed to recognize Mount Tai.”

“Small minds have no capacity, and skewed hearts harbor treachery.” Ye Yueshen passed him, leaving a sentence, “Since the West Tower can’t be seen, why should I lower myself into the sewage, disdaining the filth.”

The man from You Su Brothel, backed by Consort Xian and the Fourth Prince, rarely heard such blatant insults, and was momentarily dumbfounded.

Seeing that Ye Yueshen was about to enter the door, he hurriedly squeezed out a smile and approached him, “Young Master Yue, this humble one admits his mistake, you are a magnanimous man, our owner is innocent, the owner ordered this humble one to relieve your anger, and to invite you to patronize our You Su Brothel again, the owner said he would personally accompany you.”

Ye Yueshen stopped, “Is your owner a prince?” Seeing the wary look on the face of the man from You Su Brothel, Ye Yueshen added the second half of the sentence, “Or some princess consort? To think they are worthy to accompany me, it sounds more like they are honoring me, what big words.”

The man from You Su Brothel had just smiled, but was seized by Ye Yueshen, “Who were you scowling at just now?”

The man from You Su Brothel almost didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, regretting not sending someone else to do this errand, the Ye family’s Young Master Yue was really difficult to serve.

“Don’t… How dare this humble one scowl at Young Master Yue.” The man from You Su Brothel’s tone was a bit desperate, “Please come again tomorrow, you’ll know who our owner is when you come, if you don’t grace us with your presence, aren’t you deliberately trying to get this humble one spanked, please have mercy on this humble one, this humble one will kowtow to you.”

The man from You Su Brothel really knelt down, and Ye Yueshen finally relented, “Don’t kneel, if people see it, they’ll think I’m bullying you, alright, if I’m free tomorrow, I’ll take a look around, if I’m feeling lazy, I won’t go.”

“Yes, yes, yes, that’s natural.” The man from You Su Brothel eagerly went forward to help Ye Yueshen open the door wider, “Please Young Master Yue grace us with your presence tomorrow, this humble one thanks you in advance.”

As if afraid that Ye Yueshen would go back on his word, several people quickly left.

Ye Yueshen walked into the door, and was grabbed by the shoulders by Ye Lingshen, who came out of nowhere, “Yo, what a big airs, am I worthy to hook up with Young Master Yue?”

“Not worthy.” Ye Yueshen glared at him, “You get away too.”

“Who taught you to talk to your older brother like that.” Ye Lingshen flicked him on the forehead, and pinched his cheeks, “You look like you’re easy to bully, who would have thought you would bully people outside, what a rarity.”

No one took the joking words seriously, and Ye Lingshen asked him, “How did those people offend you?”

“Didn’t offend.” Ye Yueshen smelled the alcohol on him, and asked him, “Where did you go to play the profligate son again? I don’t want to go to the academy either, tell me, how many years do I have to be like you.”

“You can’t be like me in a few years, mother will skin you alive.” Ye Lingshen waved his hand at him and went back to his own courtyard.

He saw Ye Lingshen again two days later, still the smell of alcohol arrived before the person, and he also shared a piece of gossip he heard at the dinner table: the coroner said that Du Ruxiang was not crushed to death.

Meaning that the cause of Du Ruxiang’s death was still under investigation, and he was afraid it would be traced to him, Ye Yueshen was inevitably afraid, the imperial palace and inner court were full of guards, maybe what he did was not a secret at all.

Ye Yueshen, who was originally holding himself aloof, called Xuedong and went to You Su Brothel, the shopkeeper looked at him with a kind of bright-eyed surprise, left a errand boy of who knows what family, and came out from behind the counter to bow, “Young Master Yue graced us with your presence, this humble one’s heart is finally at ease.”

“Lowly thing.” As he spoke, the errand boy who was left behind was unhappy, “I haven’t finished talking, and you’re going to serve the famous courtesan.”

Before Ye Yueshen could react, Xuedong had already kicked the person over. The shopkeeper had been instructed, naturally stood on Ye Yueshen’s side, and rebuked, “Presumptuous! How dare you speak dirty words in front of Young Master Yue! Someone, beat him up and throw him out.”

The errand boy cursed angrily, “You dog bastards! When my young master came, which time didn’t you call him young master this, young master that, who is this cheap young master, waiting to be thrown out by the snobbish waiters next time!”

The shopkeeper had already stepped forward and slapped the person twice, knocking his head to the side, “I don’t care if your family is Zhang San or Li Si, that’s Young Master Yue, bah! Aren’t you going to shut up and get out?”

It took Ye Yueshen a while to realize that “famous courtesan” meant that he was being sold in a brothel, he came today to contact the Fourth Prince Gong Xuyin, and thus become familiar with the princes, he didn’t want to bother about these things.

“Forget it, your owner…”

“Third Yue!”

Ye Yueshen was interrupted, turned around and saw Ye Lingshen overlooking him from the second floor railing, his arm hanging down from the railing, half of his body leaning against the carved floating platform, his eyes blurred with drunkenness, his posture lazy.

The shopkeeper stopped talking, seeing Ye Lingshen here, Ye Yueshen also felt a little surprised.

“How did you know I was in You Su Brothel?” Ye Lingshen thought he was coming to find him.

Ye Yueshen glanced at the shopkeeper, and went upstairs, today Ye Lingshen was here, there were too many people, it was not easy to speak, it would easily arouse Gong Xuyin’s wariness.

“I just passed by.” Ye Yueshen avoided the important and took the light, was stopped by Ye Lingshen, who put his arm around his shoulder and took him into a spacious private room, introducing him to a room full of people, “Let you see, this is my third brother.”

He patted a delicate-looking young man on the shoulder, and sneered, “What, I said my brother is a thousand times more handsome than you, you thought I was putting on airs and looking down on you, do you believe it now?”

Ye Yueshen unexpectedly met someone’s eyes, and heard Ye Lingshen’s impolite words, and didn’t know how to react for a moment.

But his bewilderment was seen by others as coldness and alienation, and thus he received a disdainful snort. So Ye Yueshen simply shut his mouth and turned his head away, simply confirming the arrogance.

Ye Lingshen threw the unknown outer garment and belt that were on the chair next to him onto the ground, considerately letting Ye Yueshen sit down.

Ye Yueshen looked at the stains on the chair, whether it was tea or something else, and retreated speechlessly, “I’ll go out and say a word to Xuedong first.”

Ye Lingshen was a little drunk, and told him to come back quickly.

Ye Yueshen originally wanted to go downstairs and tell the shopkeeper to come again tomorrow, and then take the opportunity to slip away, just past the corner of the stairs, he heard urgent footsteps chasing from behind.

Hearing the sound, Ye Yueshen subconsciously turned around, and a huge force pushed him backwards, in an instant Ye Yueshen’s forehead and back were startled with cold sweat, helplessly letting his body fall down the stairs.

The wooden stairs rang out with a series of thumping footsteps, Ye Yueshen crashed into a solid embrace, Gong Xunwu supported his waist to stand firm, and gloomily looked up at the top of the stairs, “Stop.”

The footsteps that wanted to escape quietly paused, and then accelerated to run away, Sha Ou didn’t know where he came from, darted up in a few steps and caught the person.

In the hall, no one had noticed the slight movement here, Sha Ou kicked open a door, and twisted the person in. Gong Xunwu took Ye Yueshen upstairs, “Can you still walk?”

Ye Yueshen gently pushed away the hand supporting his waist, took a deep breath and walked up the stairs, in the private room Sha Ou had already tied the person to the chair neatly, it was the delicate young man that Ye Lingshen had just squeezed out.

Sha Ou threw out a dagger, with such skillful force that the sharp blade pierced into the back of the chair, making a smaller and smaller sharp buzzing sound, the person on the chair seemed to have suffered a lot of stimulation to his ears, the muscles at the corners of his mouth and eyes twitched to one side.

“Say, who told you…” Sha Ou was halfway through the interrogation when Ye Yueshen stopped him in time, “It’s not him, he should have acted on a whim.”

Gong Xunwu looked at Ye Yueshen, he always maintained a distance where he could reach out and pull Ye Yueshen into his arms, looking down slightly at Ye Yueshen’s profile, his tone was very casual, as if he had known for a long time, “Why?”

“He’s my second brother’s…” Ye Yueshen didn’t want to define their relationship, so he skipped the introduction, “Anyway, it’s not him.”

Too much interrogation would instead spread the news that he was being hunted down, now Ye Yueshen couldn’t tell whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, and planned not to act rashly for now.

Ye Yueshen took a step forward, wanting to get away from Gong Xunwu’s empty space, “What’s your name, why did you push me?”

“No need to ask.” Gong Xunwu also followed up a step, as if he didn’t know how annoying he was, pretending to be kind to explain, “He has a tag hanging on his waist, although the color is not strong, but the water head is not bad. Being able to do something like pushing you down the stairs, without considering the commotion it would cause and whether he would have a chance to escape, he should be a good-for-nothing ‘Yamen’.”

Gong Xunwu caught his fist, and casually asked him, “What makes you angry?”

“In the past, you had my handle, so I had no choice but to send myself to be humiliated by you.” Ye Yueshen wanted to take back his hand, but it was grabbed forcefully.

His fingers were slender, his skin fair and delicate, and Gong Xunwu’s thick palm with thin calluses just happened to wrap them up.

Ye Yueshen said, “I believe that the handle is gone, and the forced consensus between us no longer exists, if you touch me again, it will be the limit of bullying with power, dare you do that?”

“Don’t be angry.” Gong Xunwu’s mouth still had a smile, and he put his hand into a natural drooping posture, considerately opening the door for him, making a gesture of invitation, “I don’t plan to do that.”

Ye Yueshen coldly withdrew his gaze, and quickly left to find Ye Lingshen.

Ye Lingshen was still drinking heavily, but his state was not as drunk as before, only vaguely increasing his aura of troublemaking.

The table was full of people clinking glasses, no one noticed that someone had quietly left, and even less people noticed that there was an extra person in the private room, slapping his thigh and sharing a piece of gossip with everyone, “I heard from the coroner that Du Ruxiang was not crushed to death by a boulder at all, but died in another way, and now they are investigating again.”

“Hey? Really?”

“I said, why did he run to the mountain suburbs for no reason, this matter is very strange.”

“Hey, when did Young Master Mo come?”

Ye Yueshen’s face was ashen, and he took a sip of hot wine from Ye Lingshen’s cup.

The man called Young Master Mo stood up, looking at the screen door of the private room as if he had expected it, and immediately bowed his head in salute when the door opened.

The drunken and dreamy people didn’t notice what was going on, the sober Ye Yueshen’s heart sank, and he looked in the direction he was facing.

Gong Xunwu walked in with his hands behind his back, and a bit of barren smile appeared on his cold face when someone looked at him, his eyes fell on Ye Yueshen’s body, and he said faintly, “Zherong is also here.”

Hearing someone call his younger brother’s nickname, Ye Lingshen looked back, only to see Gong Xunwu wearing casual clothes, barely considered to be looking at them warmly.

When did his younger brother become so familiar with Prince Qi? Ye Lingshen and everyone else stood up and saluted.

Gong Xunwu walked over without being an outsider, only he had the qualification to not talk about etiquette in front of a group of young masters, not knowing whether it was a coincidence or intentional, he sat down rightfully on the chair where Ye Yueshen had just sat.

He raised his hand slightly towards everyone, and everyone stood up uneasily, until he said to sit down, everyone uneasily returned to their seats, the atmosphere that was just drunk and hazy, was now all sobered up.

Taking advantage of the time when everyone sat down, Gong Xunwu looked at Ye Yueshen, Ye Yueshen’s brain was like an alarm, a bad feeling made his head blank for a moment.

Gong Xunwu ignored his fear, and calmly asked him, “Does the consensus between us still exist?”