Don’t Be a Kept Man

h made those who were involved in the situation, unable to keep calm as well.
The moment the curtains were down, Xie Yu Zhi suddenly twisted the lock and pressed Chen Miao Ping against the wall of the carriage.

The horse carriage started moving, rocking side to side from the bumps on the road.
Xie Yu Zhi leaned closer to Chen Miao Ping and carefully looked at him with an expression that was difficult to tell if he was happy or mad.

Xie Yu Zhi judged him with a weird voice, 

“You must have been a player in the past.”

A statement and not a questioning one.

Chen Miao Ping did not agree, 

“Second Master, you are one huge treasure trove yourself.
A handsome young fellow, with your powerful family background and one with authority at that, you must be more attractive than me, much more of a player than me.”

Xie Yu Zhi locked his hand onto Chen Miao Ping’s throat upon hearing this and lightly chuckled, 

“Do you know what I like the most about you? I like that you have a lot of courage.”

In the capital, if one was to talk about the ranks in authority, right underneath the imperial family was the Chang Guo Gong family.
And as the first and only main son of the Xie family, even if he had a disability, he should still be considered a hot attraction, with numerous people willing to offer themselves up to him.
It shouldn’t fall to the point where it came down to Chen Miao Ping, a person with no background, no authority or power to be his marriage partner.

The most probable root of this issue then, came down to his reputation being too terrible, making people scared out of their minds.

According to the word on the street, when they lost their battle at Dong Xia, it was because of Xie Yu Zhi’s close associate who betrayed them to the enemy army.
Because of this betrayal, it resulted in more than 60 000 deaths.
It was a to-the-death situation and it was only because of Xie Yu Zhi pushing on despite his injured body and going crazy to barely win over Dong Xia.

And that betrayer, in the end, was caught alive.

In front of all the soldiers that were left, Xie Yu Zhi ordered someone to heat up an enormous pot of oil and drop it onto a burning pile of lumber.
When the pot boiled to the point of crackling pops, he threw the betrayer into that pot in front of everyone and that body was fried for the entirety of ten days, until the flesh was burnt to charcoal, until the bones scorched black, until it could not be considered a human shape anymore.

When word of this was passed back to the capital, there were people who admired the act of revenge, and there were people who were terrified to the point of being unable to sleep without nightmares.
But at the same time, it confirmed one thing: Xie Yu Zhi was a good military leader, an intelligent man with many skills, a person that you could call brother, but he could not be considered a good man.

Ruthless, vicious with no mercy, a taker of many lives; this is the appraisal of the public towards him.
To be with such a person for the rest of your life, even if you don’t die, the date of your death would not be far.

Xie Yu Zhi said that Chen Miao Ping was bolder than the average man, and Chen Miao Ping thought that this was true.
At least for the original host, as if he wasn’t courageous enough, how could he have dared to give you a green hat on the wedding night?

The two of them were very close to each other and Chen Miao Ping could reach out to hold on to his waist.
With a little push, he could make the other lie in his embrace.
He lowered his eyes and said very lowly, 

“Miao Ping is actually not only bold, but in some other place……”

He never finished the sentence, but the hidden implications could be tasted in the air.

Xie Yu Zhi slanted his eyes, coldly laughing,

“You spitting out flowery words to me, that’s fine, but if I find out that you do this to other people, I will cut your tongue off.”

And then narrowed his eyes and loosened the hand on his neck.

Chen Miao Ping smiled and said, 

“Second Master, please do not worry.
I will only treat you like this.”

And then lowered his head to kiss him on his lips, slowly and gently invading him, bringing a different kind of dominance that was not normally present in his aura.
Xie Yu Zhi was surprised. 

But he closed his eyes from his actions and wrapped his arms around Chen Miao Ping’s neck.
Taking the initiative to flip them around, he pressed Chen Miao Ping down to kiss harder.

The two were so focused on kissing each other that they somehow fell into the middle of the seating area.
Xie Yu Zhi could only feel that his entire body was dazed, as if he was as light as air, being like an air molecule being blown away in the wind. 

He tightened his fingers to grasp onto the person on top of him as Chen Miao Ping bit his earlobe and muttered, 

“Second Master must pay attention now, this robe is not better than my back.
It’s so thin and flimsy.
What if it leaves an imprint mark?”

The curtains were covering the windows of the carriage, making it so that Chen Miao Ping could not see the pedestrians hurriedly walking to do their daily tasks.
The peddlers on the streets were stopping to call out their trade wares and the commoners were clustered in small groups talking occasionally and chatting their ears off. 

A group of budding scholars were in the teahouse with their hands holding stacks of scrolls, participating in a heated discussion as if they met something unfair.
These literary scholars were starting to group up into multiple groups of three to five people in the midst of the heated arguments and head together towards the heart of the city.

The Noble Consort of Brightness lived in Zhi Feng Dian.
She entered the palace at seventeen years of age, and it has been at least five years since then.
She was born with a face of indescribable beauty, holding the majority of the attention and pampering indulgence from the emperor, especially since the empress had passed away from illness. 

The throne next to the emperor has been empty ever since the empress’ death.
People speculate that if anyone was to be appointed the next empress, it must be her at the front of the line.

“Yu Zhi just got married yesterday, and I, as the noble consort, was not able to give him my celebratory greetings.
I do not even know what kind of person the Flower Seeker is, whether he would be able to stand his personality.”

Xie Su Zhi lifted up her tea cup with her eyes slightly furrowed, in a posture that was so worried it made anyone who saw it fret for her.
Her words were also another obvious show of the worry she had towards her little brother’s marriage.

Her close personal maid received her already cold tea and smiled, comforting her with a gentle voice, 

“This maid has already asked around.
This Gu-Ye is a very handsome and competent person.
He could even reach the rank of Flower Seeker, so he must be an overly excellent scholar of the literary arts, a person of high standards and excellence.”

Xie Su Zhi immediately gave her a stern glance after hearing this, 

“There is no use to handsomeness.
After a hundred years, it all becomes a pile of bones.
There are numerous and uncountable wealthy young men out there with a face that could be considered pretty.
But look at each one of them closely and they can’t lift their brushes or fight to protect their families.
They should be considered as leeches and parasites of their father’s achievements, never achieving glory by themselves.”

 

And as if she could not vent enough, she pointed a finger at the table, 

“Just look at the main son of that Wu An Hou1, Liu Zhen Hu.
This consort in her youth has seen him in a social gathering for poetry, and his face was full of pervertedness.
One look at him and you could see that he is not a good human being.
When he was picking out one of the flower papers to create a rhyming poem, what do you think happened?”

The maid guessed, 

“Did he create a poem that did not rhyme or make any sense?”

Xie Su Zhi mockingly laughed and shook her head, 

“He couldn’t even recognize half the words on the flower paper, how could he even make up a poem?”

“Ah?!” 

The maid couldn’t help but gasp and cover her mouth in shock, 

“But that prince of Wu An Hou is the second ranking examinee!”

 

Notes:
*1 Wu An Hou: Wu An as one who leads an army to protect its citizens of the country, and winning battles and wars to keep its citizens safe, and Hou as considered to be like the title of Marquis

>>Fixed an error for the last sentence there: Liu Zhen Hu, the son of Wu An Hou, is the second ranking examinee, not the top (*´･Д･)