Chapter 023 – His Majesty takes another type of risk

Xue Yuan, speaking into his ear, sounded like a hungry wolf or a mad dog.

The dangerous, bloody smell rushed to his head. Looking down, Gu Yuanbai saw several wounds on Xue Yuan’s hand.

Ordinary people, after being dragged for such a long time, would have died. Xue Yuan was very strong and healthy, and the strength he used to hold the reins now was terrifying. Except for the scent of blood and those wounds, he looked no different.

Gu Yuanbai’s face remained expressionless.

Just now, he had really wanted to kill Xue Yuan. Kill this man, who kept offending him and would take away his power in the future. As he dragged Xue Yuan behind him, Gu Yuanbai felt a moment of satisfaction.

How nice it’d be to have Xue Yuan die, to kill the future regent.

But when he came back to reason, he knew that he couldn’t be killed like that. Ordinary means wouldn’t be enough to kill him.

Xue Yuan’s whole body was tense. As he held the young Emperor in his arms, his fury ran deep, and the bloody scent and the pain made him angry. The madness hidden inside his depths appeared once again, and his expression was horrible, but he did nothing to hurt the young Emperor.

He sneered with a dark expression. “I’m right, am I not?”1

“‘I’m’?”2 Gu Yuanbai looked calm and composed. He turned his head and glanced at Xue Yuan, and smiled slightly. “So it turns out, Guard Xue, that you hurt the horse.”

He recriminated him leisurely. “You ruined one of Our good horses and damaged some of Our good blankets. Even if it won’t help matters, We still have to punish you, Guard Xue. Three months of salary, to set an example.”

Xue Yuan sneered. Raising his hand with the whip, he made the horse shoot out like an arrow from a string.

“Your Highness!”

The guards exclaimed at their back, and shouted angrily, “Xue Yuan, stop!”

The scenery at their back disappeared quickly, and the jolting of the horse gave him vertigo. Gu Yuanbai stretched out his hand to pull the rein, but Xue Yuan continued to stubbornly hold onto it, and Gu Yuanbai wasn’t able to take it away.

Damn it.

Gu Yuanbai’s body felt uncomfortable all over, and he shouted angrily, “Xue Yuan!”

Xue Yuan said out loud, “Your Highness, after seeing you speed up so much, this official thought that you wanted to gallop! Isn’t that right?”

Gu Yuanbai: “——We command you to stop!”

Xue Yuan pulled the reins harshly. The horse’s forelegs left the ground and it reared, making Gu Yuanbai’s back fall towards Xue Yuan’s arms. Xue Yuan’s chest and abdomen were hard, and after hitting it, his back hurt all over.

The base of his legs hurt more than his back. Gu Yuanbai, after a moment, laughed coldly.

Very well, very well.

It clearly wasn’t easy to make a mad dog feel pain.

His anger and desire to conquer rose harshly. Gu Yuanbai had an adventurous spirit, but his body wasn’t in a good enough condition that would allow him to take risks.

However, the process of taming Xue Yuan seemed to be another kind of adventure in itself.

Killing wouldn’t be exciting enough, it wouldn’t be a successful adventure. A successful adventure would be making him obedient, making him obediently prostrate at the Emperor’s feet.

Seeing him so angry, Xue Yuan smiled instead. He adjusted the hold around the young Emperor with one hand, allowing him to be comfortable in his arms, and he acted as the Emperor’s backrest. The horse slowed down, and it seemed to be leisurely walking.

“Your Highness,” Xue Yuan offered, “Today you’re going to accompany Grand Imperial Concubine Wan to visit the temple. It is really not suitable to ride a horse. Your Highness’s body is soft, it won’t be good if you wear out your skin.”

Gu Yuanbai, “Hah.”

“Of course, this official must keep it in consideration for Your Highness.” Xue Yuan pulled up his sleeve and let Gu Yuanbai see the scrapes at the hem of the fabric from being dragged for dozens of meters. The abrasions covered his entire arm, with blood oozing from the skin and flesh. It clearly looked painful. “Look, this official has such wounds on his body, and the blood on his back is still sticking to his clothes. It hurts to death to change the bandages. Your Highness, after you treat me like that, I’ve only wanted to take Your Highness to ride a horse for a moment. Am I not being thoughtful enough?”

The Emperor’s lips went up and he said slowly, “We have punished you once, and you remember it and retaliate. You’re really a good guard.”

“Your Highness must be joking again,” Xue Yuan said slowly. “Just like only a moment ago this official thought Your Highness was going to kill me. What retaliation? Your Highness is mistaken. Your Highness is the son of heaven and the Emperor of the Great Heng, how would this official dare?”

Next to them, many white butterflies and small insects fluttered above the grass. The most common one in the spring was the white butterfly. Gu Yuanbai glanced at them and thought to himself, you crushed that butterfly because no one was looking. Of course, you get to say whatever you want to say.

You retaliated against me because no one was looking. Now that your mouth is full of loyalty and integrity, it just makes me laugh.

Gu Yuanbai had no regrets about having tried to kill Xue Yuan. He was angry because of Xue Yuan’s temper. He dared to act so bold towards the Emperor, forcing him to act impulsively, and he also dared to do so openly and sincerely. What else did he dare not to do?

The guards at the rear chased them, and were relieved when they saw that Gu Yuanbai was alright. The guard captain glared at Xue Yuan for a moment and said abruptly, “If you don’t know how to ride a horse, don’t be imprudent.”

Xue Yuan was in a bad mood. When he heard the words, the corners of his lips twitched, and he said with a smile, “Mind your business.”

The guard captain went red with anger. “You—”

“That’s enough,” Gu Yuanbai said. “We command you all to shut up.”

No one dared to speak anymore. Gu Yuanbai straightened his back with no expression on his face. The atmosphere was oppressive and strange,and it stayed like that all the way to the outskirts of the capital.

Grand Imperial Concubine Wan had been looking forward to that day. The weather was good and the elderly woman was also very energetic.

Gu Yuanbai supported Grand Imperial Concubine Wan and walked slowly to the temple.

The Imperial temple was called Chengbao Temple. It covered a huge area and it had a pagoda dozens of meters tall. The winding roads were secluded, and the temple was hidden among the vegetation, giving it a special feeling of calmness.

“Your Highness.” After a while, Grand Imperial Concubine Wan could not walk anymore. She was aided to go sit in a pavilion by the side and she looked at Gu Yuanbai with a smile. “I can’t keep walking. Your Highness, please go on ahead, and burn an extra stick of incense for me.”

Gu Yuanbai smiled and said, “Then, I will go up first.”3

Grand Imperial Concubine Wan nodded with relief. She smiled and wiped the sweat from her forehead after watching the Emperor’s figure disappear among the vegetation.

Chengbao Temple was built on the mountainside, and the abbot and many monks on the mountain had already heard the news about the arrival of the Emperor and Grand Imperial Concubine Wan. When Gu Yuanbai finally arrived at the temple, he saw that it was full of monks with bald heads.

The monks, wearing uniform monk garments, were led by the abbot to salute Gu Yuanbai. Gu Yuanbai’s warm voice told them to get up, and his eyes swept over the monks in the temple.

He estimated that there were over two thousand people.

Gu Yuanbai narrowed his eyes, said nothing, and was led by the abbot to wander around the temple.

The abbot sighed. “When the late Emperor was there, he also brought Your Highness to come worship the Buddha. However, Your Highness was still young at that time, so you likely do not remember it.”

Gu Yuanbai smiled and said pleasantly, “Abbot, you have lived among the beautiful scenery of the mountains and rivers all year round, and the wild mountain forests are far from the noise of the world. From your perspective, WeI fear that those times seem just like yesterday.”

The abbot laughed and said, “Your Highness is absolutely correct. Now that I see Your Highness again, there’s a real dragon4 protecting your body. Even if this old monk seldom steps out of the temple, I know that the land will definitely become more prosperous under Your Majesty’s rule.”

During this talk, the group had already reached the pavilion towering on the side of the mountain. The wild wind in the mountain made the Emperor’s clothes swell up with air, and the abbot continued talking about some wonderful things, all of which were very profound and contained Buddhist principles.

He kept talking, and the Emperor only continued to listen with a smile. After talking for a while, the abbot’s mouth became dry, and he couldn’t help but follow the Emperor’s gaze and look down the mountain. He asked, “What is Your Highness looking at?”

“We’re looking at this greatly treasured temple,” the Emperor replied.

The abbot couldn’t help but smile. “If Your Highness wants to look at the landscape, there’s a viewing platform a bit ahead. The scenery there looks more beautiful, it makes people linger for a while.”

“I’m not looking at the scenery.”

The moment he said this, it wasn’t just the abbot that felt strange, but also the guards who followed them.

Xue Yuan, who had fallen back towards the end of the group, wiped the last bit of dirt off his robe. When he heard these words, he looked up and saw a small section of the Emperor’s face.

Blue silk flew with the wind, and, occasionally, a small section floated towards the side of his face. Xue Yuan looked at it for a while, then looked away. After a while, he gazed back again. His eyes didn’t want to look away, so he just stared openly at the Emperor.

When speaking with a smile, the corners of his lips went up slightly, and his skin looked good. The color of his lips was also light. Seeing his appearance, he probably had yet to eat a woman’s rouge.5

He was a ruthless person, neat and tidy, but his skin was very fragile.

Needless to say, Xue Yuan intuitively felt that the young Emperor would end up doing something to scare people off.

Gu Yuanbai took the initiative to ask, “Abbot, do you know what We are looking at?”

The abbot respectfully said, “Please enlighten me, Your Highness.”

“Unlike you, abbot, We are a layman,” Gu Yuanbai said. “What Our eyes see is not the scenery, but the dense fields at the foot of the mountain.”

The abbot suddenly realized. “It’s the spring sowing season, the people from our temple will also be busy.”

“The cultivated land at the foot of the mountain is all within the boundaries of Chengbao Temple,” Gu Yuanbai said with a smile. “Looking from up here, there must be hundreds of acres of land.”6

The abbot smiled without saying a word, his expression faintly proud.

Gu Yuanbai didn’t say much. After finishing the Buddha ceremony at Chengbao Temple, they ate a vegetarian meal, and then walked leisurely with the group down the mountain.

The abbot accompanied the Emperor on his way out. When the Emperor’s group disappeared, he turned around and he was about to send the monks away. Suddenly, something flashed in his mind. His entire being froze in place, and his face changed drastically.

The Emperor’s expression when he saw the number of monks, and the words the Emperor had said on the mountain flashed in his mind successively.

‘What We see is not the scenery, but the dense fields at the foot of the mountain.’

‘There must be hundreds of acres of land.’

Beads of sweat dripped from the abbot’s forehead, and the abbot, breathing heavily, exclaimed, “Not good!”

There was no land tax on the fields in the temples, and the monks in the temples were also exempted from corvee.7 The meaning of the Emperor’s words were to imply that those monks were useless!

Layers of cold sweat appeared on the top of the abbot’s head, and instantly he thought of the Three Disasters of Wu.8

There were so many idle monks in the temple and so many fields that didn’t have to pay taxes. The late Emperor had turned a blind eye to this, because he had worshipped Buddha. But the current Emperor wasn’t the same as the late Emperor. His words had been so obvious, and the abbot hated that he was only reacting to them now.

No, Chengbao Temple couldn’t be the one that was punished as a warning to others!9

“Quickly,” the abbot pulled someone over, trembling, and hurriedly said, “Quickly, check the number of the fields at the foot of the mountain, and then donate them to the government! Go!”

Make sure to hurry, hurry and let the Emperor see our sincerity.

When the fist of the Emperor came down, none of them would be able to hold it up.

Idle monks… persecuting Buddhism…

The abbot shuddered. If it was as he thought, then this would be another tragic situation for the monks. The Emperor’s hints just now were just for the sake of the dignity of the Chengbao Imperial temple.

There were over 2,000 monks in the Imperial temple, and there were hundreds of large and small temples around Great Heng. How many monks would there be altogether?

Gu Yuanbai, who was going down the mountain, was also pondering about this same question.

But before he thought about it for too long, he heard the sound of a waterfall not far away.

“Let’s go and take a look.” Gu Yuanbai set aside his work with a smile. “It’s rare to come to the mountains, how could We not go and look at the landscape?”

The group of people walked towards the water. As soon as they approached the water source, Gu Yuanbai heard a faint sound. He felt curious and walked a few steps forward. Suddenly, he was enlightened.

The water was flowing, and, on the opposite shore among the bushes, came a warm, lingering sound that made people’s ears grow warm. The guards’ faces turned red first, and then darkened. The Emperor was there, how could they let His Majesty hear such filthy sounds?

The guard captain stepped forward with a dark expression. “Your Highness, this is the Imperial temple’s location. To think that there are people doing such a rude thing here! This official will go and arrest them!”

The people on the other side of the river seemed to have heard the noise, and a bare-chested man raised his head and looked towards the group carelessly.

There was still a red dudou10 wrapped around his wrist. Gu Yuanbai stepped back, turning to the side without looking at it.

The jade pendant on his waist got stuck in the branches and leaves on the side of the way. Gu Yuanbai didn’t notice, and, after taking a step back, the jade pendant was torn away.

Standing on the side, Xue Yuan bent over in time to catch it. The delicate and smooth jade pendant fell into his hand. It felt more pleasant to the touch than a fine silk fabric.

Xue Yuan tossed the jade pendant around and kneaded it a couple times. While thinking that the jade pendant was not as soft as the feet of the young Emperor, he said, “Your Highness, you lost your jade pendant.”

Gu Yuanbai glanced at him and stretched out his hand towards Xue Yuan.

The meaning was very clear, but Xue Yuan acted as if not understanding the hand that the young Emperor had extended. He kneaded and played with the jade casually and said, “Your Highness, are you cold? Do you want this official to cover your hand?”

The left hand held the young Emperor’s jade pendant, and the right hand held the young Emperor’s cold hand. Xue Yuan said to himself, this jade pendant is not as pleasant to touch as the young Emperor’s hand.

It’s cold and strange.

Because of Xue Yuan’s kneading, the skin on Gu Yuanbai’s hand was half red again, and he withdrew his hand silently. “What We want is the jade pendant.”

What kind of mental problem did Xue Jiuyao have?11