WMSG Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Catching the Thief Red-Handed

Busy with matters of life and death, Ye Yueshen hadn’t been able to dine with his mother for several days. The Junzhu had sent people to urge him several times, but he felt physically and mentally exhausted and didn’t go.

He was fine when he returned today. He went to the Junzhu’s courtyard and saw Cansong and Yinjian happily eating grapes from glass bowls, and they cheerfully greeted him to join them.

It was still early in the season for grapes, but they had a bunch the size of a palm, each grape as big as a fingernail. They had been brought by someone from the estate who was delivering mountain vegetables. The ones from the sunny side of the mountain ripened earlier.

Seeing them both smiling so happily, Ye Yueshen plucked a grape and asked, “Are you two so happy you’ve forgotten where you came from?”

The Junzhu was very generous to the young maids. There were many people in the main courtyard and not much work, so after the four of them came, they basically had nothing to do and were very comfortable.

“We do want to go back, but the Junzhu hasn’t given the word,” Cansong said, her eyes Squint with laughter.

Ye Yueshen painstakingly peeled the small grape, and as soon as he put it in his mouth, the sourness made him squeeze his eyes shut. The two little maids laughed, and he refused to eat any more they offered.

Yinjian told him that the Junzhu was taking an afternoon nap in the courtyard and hadn’t woken up yet. Seeing that it would get cool after sunset, she suggested that he go over and wake the Junzhu up.

Ye Yueshen had originally wanted to return to his own courtyard to rest, but hearing what they said, he went along with them. The Junzhu was napping in the shade of a green vine. The soft couch was very spacious, and animal furs were spread underneath.

The Junzhu was lying on her back, her hands folded over her abdomen, holding a gourd-shaped fan.

Ye Yueshen walked over and scrutinized the Junzhu’s eyebrows, finding that their shape was very similar to his own. This discovery made him very happy, as if he had found evidence that the Junzhu was his mother.

He took the fan from the Junzhu’s hand and fanned away the small insects that flew near her.

He hesitated for a while but didn’t wake the Junzhu. Instead, he remembered when he was young and staying at his aunt’s house, his cousin lying in his aunt’s arms for an afternoon nap. He would mop the floor while secretly watching, feeling very envious.

He thought that if he had a mother, his mother would also hold him for an afternoon nap, and he wouldn’t have to force himself to do housework after suffering from heatstroke.

Suddenly, Ye Yueshen had a childish thought. After hesitating for a while, he succumbed to his childhood wish and carefully unfolded the Junzhu’s arm and placed it under the pillow. Then, he slowly lay down, closing his eyes in satisfaction.

He lay down very nervously, using his back to minimize his weight as much as possible, which quickly made him a little tired.

He couldn’t resist being even bolder, turning to face the Junzhu, and then closed his eyes contentedly, his lips curving upward.

He counted the seconds in his heart, planning to get up unnoticed after one hundred and twenty seconds and then wake the Junzhu as if nothing had happened.

But as soon as he counted to ninety-nine, he heard the Junzhu laugh with a “puff” sound.

Ye Yueshen turned over to run away in embarrassment, but was grabbed back by the Junzhu, who hugged him and asked with a smile, “How old are you? Haven’t you grown up yet?”

Ye Yueshen pursed his lips and didn’t dare to speak. The feeling of happiness and soreness in his heart suddenly burst out, and the excessive sourness made him want to cry a little.

“What’s wrong?” The Junzhu wiped away the tears that were about to fall into his ears.

Ye Yueshen still turned and ran away, not even bothering to put on his shoes. He returned to his room, tightly closed the door, and leaned his back against it.

The Junzhu was very considerate and didn’t chase after him to ask. A quarter of an hour later, he slid to the ground, feeling that he was so hopeless. How could a child be so old and still want his mother to hold him for an afternoon nap?

He looked at the darkening sky outside the window. He had missed his afternoon nap, and he had also missed his childhood.

Xuedong was right. The next day, the Junzhu really was going to enter the Imperial Palace, and she specifically came to ask him if he wanted to go with her. Ye Yueshen didn’t want to sit in the school hall all day, so he agreed to accompany the Junzhu into the palace.

The Empress Dowager’s palace, like the Empress Dowager herself, had a kind of old-fashioned generosity and steadiness. Everyone was doing their own chores in an orderly manner.

Although Ye Yueshen was already eighteen years old, he was still treated like a child, allowed to walk around freely, as if as long as he didn’t cry, make a fuss, or disturb the adults, no one would care if he played in the mud outside.

The inner corridors of the Empress Dowager’s palace had no doors. Ye Yueshen could still feel the sunken marks where the hinges had been removed with his fingers. A curtain made of small seashells hung on the door frame, which was probably the Empress Dowager’s personal preference.

He fiddled with the small seashells with his fingers. He slowly squatted down and found that one of the strings had an extra seashell, which had drooped to the ground.

Perhaps it was because the weather was too good and too quiet, he spent his leisure time without any mental precautions, so that a bit of an outrageous idea emerged again. Would anyone notice if he secretly removed one?

It shouldn’t be considered stealing, right? There was clearly one extra, and a longer length wasn’t very harmonious either.

But when he held the removed seashell in his hand, he felt a little uneasy again. The cleaning servants should know that there was an extra seashell, right? What would happen if one was missing? What if this was a unique design?

“If you like it, take a few more.”

Ye Yueshen was lost in thought and was really startled by the sudden voice, reflexively dodging to the side.

Gong Xunwu held his shoulder and smoothed his hair as a kind of comfort: “It’s nothing, the little princess often takes off the seashells on this, and used to stuff beads into her nose. In the end, they had to use oil to get them out.”

Ye Yueshen understood a little why there was one extra seashell on one string. It turned out that the others were missing one.

Seeing Ye Yueshen’s guarded gaze, Gong Xunwu leaned closer to him. He backed away to create distance, finally stopping when his head hit the door frame. But his head didn’t hurt, because Gong Xunwu had cushioned it with his hand.

They were very close, the tips of their noses probably only an inch apart. Gong Xunwu asked him, “Scared? Ye Er even dared to steal the Tribute Jade.”

The Tribute Jade was currently on Ye Yueshen’s body. Ye Yueshen subconsciously touched his waist, clarifying, “I didn’t steal it.”

Gong Xunwu held his wrist and brought it to his eyes, his tone slightly provocative: “Catching the thief red-handed, are you still denying it?”

Ye Yueshen glanced at Gong Xunwu’s collar, and then suddenly threw the seashell into his collar.

Gong Xunwu was stunned by his action and subconsciously reached out to touch his collar, but silently stopped his action, suddenly feeling caught between a rock and a hard place, not knowing whether he should take the seashell out or just let it rest against his chest.

Ye Yueshen was happy, and the corners of his mouth couldn’t help but turn up.

The wind blew the seashell curtain, making a rustling sound. Gong Xunwu suddenly scooped Ye Yueshen up, and the two of them hid behind a screen.

Gong Xunwu leaned against the wall, his eyebrows slightly raised, and ordered in a low voice, “Take it out.” Then he raised his chin slightly, his eyes fixed on Ye Yueshen, his gaze changing from looking down to looking down upon.

This time, Ye Yueshen was the one caught between a rock and a hard place. He took a step back and refused: “I won’t.”

Before he could entangle any further, the Junzhu came out of the room with the Empress Dowager, speaking as she walked. Ye Yueshen called out “Mother” and quickly went out to greet her, leaving Gong Xunwu behind.

Hiding behind the Junzhu’s side, Ye Yueshen looked like a child who had found an adult to support him, and his eyes showed a bit of triumph when he looked at Gong Xunwu.

The previously occasionally cold and distant, occasionally ignorant little beauty had suddenly become so lively. Gong Xunwu couldn’t bear to frighten him anymore, and looked over with a somewhat dazed expression.

When the Junzhu saw Gong Xunwu, she said to the Empress Dowager, “Recently, Xiao Yue has caught the eye of His Highness Prince Qi and often goes to the Prince’s estate to play.”

The meaning of the word “play” from the Junzhu’s mouth was completely different from what Gong Xunwu thought. The latter looked at Ye Yueshen with a smile that was not quite a smile, and Ye Yueshen’s expression cooled down, thinking, “Why doesn’t the seashell prick you to death?”

Although Gong Xunwu rarely interacted with people and wasn’t close to anyone, his etiquette was impeccable. He nodded lightly to the Junzhu: “In the past, the Empress Dowager asked me to call you Elder Sister. You call me His Highness Prince Qi, which is too distant. That’s why the younger generation is not close to me.”

Ye Yueshen had already sealed Gong Xunwu’s mouth with pig’s trotter soup in his heart.

Gong Xunwu was born after the Junzhu married, unlike the Junzhu and the Emperor who played together when they were young. The two were indeed not very familiar.

A dozen or twenty years ago, the Junzhu could still tease him when she entered the Imperial Palace, and she had also hugged him when he was a child, but since the death of the eldest prince, Gong Xunwu had rarely appeared in public, and when he met the Junzhu, he would only greet her as Elder Sister.

The Junzhu had a sense of propriety and didn’t rely on her status as the Empress Dowager’s adopted daughter to act older than the real royalty. Gradually, she called him His Highness Prince Qi.

Gong Xunwu had never said such warm words before. The sun must have risen from the west today, and he had suddenly become a good relative again.

Although she bore the title of “Elder Sister,” the Junzhu couldn’t really argue with him about this, after all, there was a difference of twenty years in age. So she smiled and said a few polite words: “You are also in your twenties or thirties. As an elder sister, I can’t call you by your childhood name. The younger generation will get angry with me if they hear it.”

Gong Xunwu showed a smile that wasn’t very sincere, but even if the performance was clumsy, it was enough to surprise the Empress Dowager. What good thing had he encountered today to be so happy?

The Junzhu changed the subject and brought up Ye Yueshen’s embarrassing incident to amuse the adults: “What’s going on recently? Xun’er is acting spoiled with me today, and yesterday Xiao Yue was lying in his mother’s arms, still needing his mother to coax him to sleep at such a big age.”

Ye Yueshen didn’t know whether to be frightened by the Junzhu’s statement that “Xun’er was acting spoiled with her” or to be embarrassed that his stupidity had been brought up.

Looking at Gong Xunwu’s face, he was as usual, without any discomfort from being teased, but instead used his eyes to laugh at him.

The Empress Dowager was also amused and laughed heartily, but only Ye Yueshen felt that he had suffered serious psychological damage.

Seeing that the Junzhu was about to leave the Imperial Palace, Gong Xunwu wanted Ye Yueshen to go to his estate to stay for two days in front of them. The Junzhu had no reason to refuse and readily agreed.

Ye Yueshen exploded in his heart and refused coldly: “I don’t want to bother His Highness. Yueshen promised the Fourth Prince to go hunting tomorrow, which is not very convenient.”

“What’s inconvenient?” Gong Xunwu sounded like a considerate elder: “I’ll send you to the hunting grounds tomorrow morning, saving your family the cost of transportation.”

The Empress Dowager also encouraged him: “There’s no need to be polite with family. Just go to Prince Qi’s estate for food and lodging, saving you from clinging to your mother at home, like a child who hasn’t been weaned.”

Ye Yueshen was speechless, watching the Junzhu leave without realizing anything, and he could only follow Gong Xunwu, like a little white rabbit delivered to his door.

When there was no one around, Gong Xunwu said to him: “So you still need someone to coax you to sleep.” He looked at the moon gate and turned to Ye Yueshen: “Let’s go, I’ll coax you.”

Ye Yueshen closed his eyes, mentally planning that if he wet the bed tonight, would Gong Xunwu dare to pester him again?

The two returned to Prince Qi’s estate early. Gong Xunwu even suggested that he go for another walk around the estate, but Ye Yueshen had no interest. He sat on the Luohan couch, propping up his chin and spacing out, trying hard to overcome the psychological hurdle of wetting the bed at eighteen.

After dinner, he read a storybook for a while. When he lay down on the bed, he warned Gong Xunwu: “I’m going hunting tomorrow, so please be gentle tonight and don’t touch me.”

“Why?” Gong Xunwu asked him.

Ye Yueshen glanced at him coldly, feeling that this person was really impossible to get along with and impossible to communicate with. But under someone else’s control, Ye Yueshen still explained patiently: “Because I don’t want to be asked if I have a limp, or if I fell off my horse while riding.”

Gong Xunwu agreed understandingly: “Okay.”

Ye Yueshen added: “I must go hunting tomorrow, because the Crown Prince, the Third Prince, the Fourth Prince, and the Fifth Prince will all be there. I’m not going to play, I’m going to investigate whether the person who wants to kill me is among them. You mustn’t hinder me tomorrow. If I wake up tomorrow and find that the sun is already high in the sky and I’ve missed the departure time, I’ll be angry, do you understand?”

Gong Xunwu was unexpectedly reasonable and replied softly: “I understand.”

Ye Yueshen was stunned instead, feeling that he had been pushed to the edge by being around Gong Xunwu for too long. There was something wrong with Gong Xunwu agreeing, so he lifted the quilt and lay down.

Gong Xunwu was like a silent dog-skin plaster, sticking to his back at once, and his arms wrapped around him, scooping him up and hugging him.

Sure enough, Gong Xunwu was abnormal. He was just acting obediently. Ye Yueshen turned over and used his arm to push him away: “What are you doing? Can’t you just sleep properly?”

Gong Xunwu looked very innocent: “Don’t you like being hugged when you sleep?”

“I’m just lacking love, lacking motherly love so I need…” Ye Yueshen stopped halfway through, thinking, “Why am I explaining this to him?”

So his tone became firm: “Back away a little. Don’t hug me.”