If it weren't for the housekeeper's help, Mu Lingsu couldn't guarantee that she could take Yu Linzhi back to his room.
"Miss Mu, I'll leave the young master to you." The housekeeper took Mu Lingsu's box from her pharmacy and looked at Yu Linzhi, who was drunk on the bed, with worry. "The young master drank recklessly today. I'm really sorry to bother you, young lady."
Mu Lingsu was about to speak to the housekeeper when Yu Linzhi, who was lying on the bed, waved his hand and said, "Housekeeper, I want some water. Ice water. Go to the cellar and get it."
"What kind of ice water do you want to drink?" Mu Lingsu picked up the teacup beside the bed and poured some tea into her palm, splashing it onto Yu Linzhi's face, which was flushed from drunkenness. "Lie down and I'll make you some sobering soup."
The housekeeper had other matters to attend to, so he left first.
Because Yu Linzhi had been ill for many years, a green gauze cupboard was specially set up in his room to store commonly used medicines and a stove . This was to facilitate treatment and to ensure that the medicine was delivered in time.
Mu Lingsu was busy in the green gauze cupboard, cutting herbs and cooking soup. Yu Linzhi was drunk on the bed. He vaguely remembered that Mu Lingsu came in with him, so he sat up and looked for her everywhere.
"Xiao Mu..." Yu Linzhi lowered his head to look for his shoes. Due to the effect of alcohol, he felt dizzy and fell back on the bed, "Xiao Mu..."
When Mu Lingsu heard Yu Linzhi calling her, she didn't even bother to light the stove. She hurried out of the green gauze cupboard and ran to the bed: "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
How could Mu Lingsu know that Yu Linzhi just wanted to call her over?
Although Yu Linzhi was drunk, he knew that he couldn't call someone over when they were busy, and there was nothing serious to do. He thought for a moment and said, "Well...Princess Yongjia asked me to chase you away, and I gave her a cold shoulder. Will she report me and arrest me?"
In fact, he was never afraid of Shen Hanyan, the brainless woman, he just felt embarrassed to ask Mu Lingsu to come and sit here and do nothing, so he had nothing to say.
"Don't worry about this. Your grandfather may not really want to arrest you." Mu Lingsu took Yu Linzhi's wrist and felt his pulse. After confirming that he was fine, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Everyone knows that you are still living in Yu Mansion. It would be easy for the court to exchange you for a reward. Even if Shen Hanyan is angry with you and wants to arrest you, your grandfather will definitely let you go."
Yu Linzhi didn't continue what she said, and said to himself: "That silly girl Shen Hanyan is really outspoken. She actually said bad things about you..." He burped violently, and the stink made Mu Lingsu turn her head to the side. "She said that you still have feelings for Prince Yi Yang, and you want to climb up to his high position and become the Princess of Yi Yang."
Hearing the words "Princess Yiyang", Mu Lingsu was overwhelmed. She hated to hear others mention this matter. She was obviously not a woman who depended on men, but she was misunderstood repeatedly. She didn't want to defend herself anymore.
Mu Lingsu was a little upset and pushed Yu Linzhi, causing him to press down on his hair and scream in pain. Mu Lingsu quickly helped him to fix his hair and explained, "If I wanted to be a princess, why would I leave the capital? When I left the palace, it was Shen Qingyu who saw me off in person. If I had that idea, I would have taken the opportunity to get into his bed. How could I be so unlucky as to be robbed by bandits?"
Shen Qingyu already liked her, and it was effortless for her to encourage Shen Qingyu to go against the queen. But she did not choose to do so, but bid farewell to the palace and cut off contact with Shen Qingyu, and started a new life in the martial arts world. The reason for this was that she did not want to put Shen Qingyu in a dilemma, and she did not want to become someone who could flatter men for the sake of profit. If she wanted to follow Shen Qingyu, she would not even need to be a concubine, let alone a princess. It would be enough to be a concubine.
However, she didn't want to.
"With your personality, if you become the Princess of Yi Yang, it will be a disaster for the capital." After listening to Mu Lingsu's explanation, Yu Linzhi teased.
Yu Linzhi rarely showed any expression, and he would only laugh when he was drunk. He had always known Mu Lingsu's character, and he also knew that she was different from her sister Mu Yaoguang, and was used to being free and easy. Although she had a sense of responsibility, she would not sacrifice herself for the benefit of the family.
He said, "I just can't bear to see Shen Hanyan say that you are greedy and have impure motives."
At this point, he suddenly remembered that he was very angry when Shen Hanyan said this before. Of course, what Shen Hanyan said was not true, he also knew it, but why was he so angry?
"Xiao Mu, I seem to be sick." Yu Linzhi thought about it and was sure of the result. "Tell me, I am so angry for no reason. Do I have any mental illness?"
Mu Lingsu thought he was just talking nonsense and responded perfunctorily: "I'll make a pill for you to eat. One dose will cure your illness."
Under the influence of alcohol, Yu Linzhi's brain was thinking slowly. He racked his brains and denied in a low voice: "If it's not a mental illness, then why am I angry?" He couldn't think of an answer that would convince himself, so he asked Mu Lingsu, "Xiao Mu, what's wrong with me?" He couldn't tell the feeling in his heart, but he vaguely felt that his reaction was not right and he was a little too excited.
I couldn't tell what was wrong.
"The medicine is still waiting in the stove of the green gauze cabinet. Please wait for me." Seeing that he was very drunk, Mu Lingsu was anxious to make him some sobering soup and wanted to go to the green gauze cabinet. However, the drunk Yu Linzhi was unusually persistent. She wanted to leave but was held back. Mu Lingsu had no choice but to coax him patiently, "I'll be back after a few dozen strokes."
Yu Linzhi then let her go and counted carefully, word by word, saying: "Ten...nine...eight..."
Mu Lingsu was very distressed by him, and hurried back to the green gauze cabinet, poured water and lit the fire, but ten times was far from enough. As expected, from , Yu Linzhi started to make trouble again after counting ten times: "Tell me quickly, why am I angry!"
He was now increasingly distraught and desperately wanted to know the answer.
Mu Lingsu prepared the ingredients for the hangover soup and put them into a jar. She made sure the jar was placed on the stove before leaving. Unexpectedly, Yu Linzhi got out of bed and staggered towards her.
She didn't care about anything else, and walked over to help him back to bed: "Why are you so drunk?"
"I... I feel..." Yu Linzhi was helped by Mu Lingsu to lie back on the bed. He was afraid that Mu Lingsu would go back to the green gauze cabinet again, so he grabbed her arm and refused to let go, "I feel like something is wrong with me."
It was obvious that Yu Linzhi had a lot to say, but Mu Lingsu was only thinking about the stove in the green gauze cupboard, afraid that the fire would be overheated, so she had no intention of listening to him.
She said, "I'll go to the green gauze cabinet first..." Before she could finish her words, Yu Linzhi suddenly exerted force on his hand and pulled her into his arms.
The moment she bumped into Yu Linzhi's chest, Mu Lingsu could clearly hear her own heartbeat, which was not as smooth as usual, but rapid and flustered. This feeling was like when she accompanied the queen to ride a horse in the Nanyuan training ground when she was a child. After a long time, she finally learned how to ride a horse by herself, and she could ride fast on the horse.
Perhaps riding a horse cannot fully reflect her current mood.
It was as if thousands of orioles flew out of the valley and chirped crisply in her ears.
"…Why are you wandering around? Listen to me." Yu Linzhi was still drunk. He wanted to talk to Mu Lingsu, but Mu Lingsu kept going to the green gauze cabinet and didn't listen to him at all. He called Mu Lingsu a few times and got annoyed, so he simply pulled her over and locked her in his arms so that she couldn't run away.
He was about to speak when he suddenly felt dizzy, so he subconsciously hugged the person in his arms tightly: "Why would I be angry when others say that you are none of my business?"
He wanted to know the answer, the answer that would convince him to stop worrying about the question.
"Yu Linzhi," Mu Lingsu tried to break free from his embrace, but he held her down tightly after she moved a bit, "Let me get up first."
She felt uncomfortable with this sudden intimacy and couldn't be as calm as usual. She wanted to reach out and push Yu Linzhi away, but when she touched his clothes, his body temperature seemed to penetrate her skin through the clothes, making her feel a little guilty.
She suddenly felt a little scared, as if she was burned by fire, and put her hands behind her back.
"My life is really hard..." A surge of bitterness suddenly rose in Yu Linzhi's heart. He held the soft person in his arms, his nose against her forehead, smelling her body fragrance, "When I first entered the palace, I went to Fengzao Palace to pay homage to the Queen Mother, and I met my biological mother for the first time. She knew that I was her son, but she was indifferent. I walked around Fengzao Palace every day, but she never asked about it, and she didn't even have time to be polite when we met..."
When Yu Linzhi was young, he grew up in the Prime Minister's Mansion. When his grandfather talked about his life experience, he always said with regret that "too much love ruins things". At that time, he was still ignorant of the world and always thought that his parents were brave people who broke through the prejudice of family background, but they had to separate because of the impermanence of the world. In his heart, his parents' feelings were firm and unchanging, but his mother's strange indifference made him doubt. He kept doubting and guessing, and even blamed himself for the mistakes: Was it because of his weak and sickly body that led to the breakdown of his parents' relationship?
Years have proven that it doesn't seem to be the case.
When he grew up, he gradually understood all this. Gu Cheng's sons - his uncles, were frequently recommended by Concubine De under the operation of his mother, and the Queen's power in the harem was repeatedly challenged by Concubine De. Even the Queen could no longer prevent the princes and princesses born to Concubine De from being granted titles and favors. At one point, the Emperor was only willing to see the sons born to Concubine De. If the Queen had not been unaware of the existence of such a person around her, his mother might have died long ago.
His mother always seemed to be obsessed with the power struggles in the harem and the previous dynasty, and had no time to care about the mother-son relationship. He went in and out of Fengzao Palace for several years and saw with his own eyes that she paved the way for Concubine De.
Yu Linzhi sometimes worshipped his mother, thinking that she was extremely successful and had achieved all her goals without exception. But on second thought, she had sacrificed her responsibilities as a mother to gain these.
He once blamed himself, thinking that he asked for too much, and that there were many things he wanted but didn't deserve. For example, health, a complete family, and maternal love. He spent most of his teenage years in painful and repressed self-blame, and it was not until he went to the Tang Sect to learn martial arts that he felt much better.
Yu Linzhi's voice trembled as he recalled every bit of the past few years. The past events were vivid in his mind: "I tried to fight back against fate, but in the end I exhausted all my energy and still couldn't fulfill my wish. I'm really tired, but I can't just die like this."
Sometimes he even thought that living in this world might be a blessing for others, but it was a purgatory for him. He often struggled between life and death due to his illness, and was lonely and lonely when he was safe. In short, there was nothing good to live.
But there are so many responsibilities falling on his shoulders.
"Xiao Mu, actually..." Actually, when he saved her, he didn't want her to stay in the Yu Mansion as a doctor, but he was afraid that she would have nowhere to go, so he kept her. He didn't want to rely on others to treat her and prolong her life every time, just waiting to die if he couldn't save her. But God didn't give him this opportunity.
He said, “I don’t want to live anymore.”
Don't want to live .
These three words dealt a heavy blow to Mu Lingsu's heart. She suddenly felt soft in her heart and couldn't help but hug the person on the bed tightly.
She had a miserable life, and so did Yu Linzhi. He had been living under someone else's roof since birth, and although he grew up in his maternal grandfather's home, his parents were not around, so he had been lonely since childhood. His frail health had kept him bedridden for years, and even if he was alive, he was in much more pain than a healthy person.
Later, Yu Linzhi broke up with his grandfather and returned to Lin'an to reunite with his father, and only then did he truly taste the love of family. Even in the past few years when he was studying with Prince Yiyang, the queen sent people to send snacks to Shen Qingyu every day, and he was extremely envious.
Although Yu Linzhi knew that the queen could not make cakes for Shen Qingyu herself, he was very happy to receive such care. Even if it was through someone else's hands, the queen, the mother of the world, could do it, but his biological mother Gu Ru'an had never thought of it.
Later, when he had time to return to the Prime Minister's Mansion, he hesitated for a long time before asking his grandfather why his mother refused to recognize him even though she knew who he was.
After he asked, Gu Cheng was silent for a long time, so long that he was a little nervous and afraid to get an answer. He was afraid that his grandfather would ridicule him for being indecisive and say that he could not decisively do big things.
Yu Linzhi waited for a long time before Gu Cheng finally diverted his attention from the official documents and praised him with a smile: "Your mother is very capable, but it's a pity that she is a girl. Otherwise, she would have taken my place sooner or later."
Yu Linzhi felt that his grandfather's praise was inexplicable and sudden, and he couldn't understand it for a while. Later, Gu Cheng told him that a real man should cut off human emotions and concentrate on doing great things. Gu Cheng also said that he was not decisive enough in his actions, unlike his mother. He was deeply touched and wanted to be a heartless person and get closer to his mother, but he didn't get his mother's attention.
Later, he found out that his grandfather wanted to kill his father, and he finally became discouraged.
"Now, my grandfather is eager to kill my father. I am caught in the middle and don't know what to do." Yu Linzhi took a deep breath and held back the tears in front of her eyes. "It's really hard for me."
"It's okay." Mu Lingsu said softly, "No one's life in the world is easy, just take it one step at a time..."
Before Mu Lingsu finished speaking, Yu Linzhi interrupted her: "I know."
His voice was as light as a mosquito, yet full of helplessness and sighs.
That's pretty much how life is.
No matter how unwilling you are, you can't resist and can only be pushed forward step by step. Nothing in the world can be decided by humans.
On the other side, the banquet ended after the You hour.
Shen Qingyu had been drinking non-stop since Mu Lingsu followed Yu Linzhi and passed out drunk on the table. When the palace attendants carried him away, Shen Hanyan wanted to go with them, but she hadn't eaten yet, so she stayed to continue eating. The housekeeper of the Yu Mansion was shocked to see that Her Highness Princess was going to eat so many leftovers and said, "Your Highness Princess, I will order the kitchen to cook some hot dishes right away."
"No need for that. In the palace, my mother hates me wasting food the most." Although Shen Hanyan behaved in a spoiled and unrestrained manner, her daily habits were strictly controlled and the queen never allowed her to be extravagant.
Shen Hanyan said so, and the housekeeper did not dare to force it. He sent the servant to the kitchen and asked the princess, "Your Highness, if you have any instructions, please tell me to do it."
Sutijia watched from the side, calmly asked the servant to move the newly served hot dishes to Shen Hanyan's table, and said humbly: "Princess, please enjoy! This is what the kitchen just gave me. I haven't eaten it yet, so I'm offering it to you, princess. I'm offering it to you."
Shen Hanyan then looked at the man who had come from afar and found that he was very handsome and well-mannered. He was a man who was deeply educated. The man was wearing clothes made of fine silk. Considering that he came from the Western Regions, he was most likely rich or noble, and most likely not from an ordinary merchant family.
Shen Hanyan nodded in return: "Thank you, Mr. Su."
"You are so polite, Princess." Sutijia was still being polite to her, but the next sentence changed the subject, "The princess seems to dislike Miss Mu very much, I wonder why?"
As soon as he saw Shen Hanyan, he had a strong interest in her and wanted to know more about her. He felt that Shen Hanyan was very different from other noble ladies, she was cute, innocent and straightforward, and he liked her sincerely.
Shen Hanyan was particularly unhappy when she heard the words related to Mu Lingsu, and her expression turned ugly in an instant: "What do you mean? Could it be that this prince is not as good as the daughter of a lowly criminal?"
She hated to see her eleventh brother being close to Mu Lingsu. Now, a stranger came to ask her questions, which made her even more dissatisfied.
In Sutija's eyes, Shen Hanyan's expression was only cute. He looked at the sulking girl in front of him with a smile: "Apologize to His Highness."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Shen Hanyan was still furious. She puffed up her cheeks and glared at Su Tijia. She wanted to intimidate him, but unexpectedly made him laugh instead. "You! You are a bold barbarian. How dare you neglect the princess of the Celestial Empire? What crime should you be punished for?"
However, no matter how hard Sutijia tried, he couldn't stop laughing, and he coughed repeatedly: "Ahem, I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Your Highness. I know I was wrong..."
Shen Hanyan became angry and left in anger.
Shen Hanyan walked around the Yu Mansion in anger and inexplicably walked into the Bagua formation that Yu Linzhi had set up many years ago. The formation of this Bagua formation was recorded in the book brought by Su Tijia. Yu Linzhi thought it was quite interesting at the time, so he borrowed the book and set up an identical one at home.
Shen Hanyan walked around inside but couldn't get out. She was so anxious that she was about to cry.
It was almost midnight, and although the lights were on, Shen Hanyan was still afraid. She didn't dare to call for help, fearing that someone would find something strange . She could only cry in a corner. She didn't know how long she had been crying. She was almost asleep. She felt someone coming over and thought it was Shen Qingyu who came to see her. She opened her eyes expectantly, only to see that it was Su Tijia standing in front of her.
"Princess, how did you get into this Bagua formation?" Sutijia came over with a lantern painted with the story of Xue Dingshan and Fan Lihua, and squatted in front of her. "I heard the maids beside you say that you were missing, and I looked everywhere for you but couldn't find you, so I guessed that you came here."
"me……"
Shen Hanyan was not full and was also very frightened. When she saw Su Tijia, she fainted before she could finish her words.
Sutija hugged the delicate beauty in his arms, looked at her pale face, and suddenly an idea came to his mind.