Chapter 455 – The Yue Maiden (2/2)
”Zhexiu's injuries are too heavy and he's recuperating in the library. I was worried about disturbing him, so I came back early.”
Mo Yu looked at him, and then abruptly wrinkled her brow. ”I expected that you would be very angry right now.”
In truth, she and Chen Changsheng had not even met a few times. They couldn't be regarded as acquaintances. In that time before Chen Changsheng had exited the Mausoleum of Books, the difference in status between the two had been too great. However, for some reason unbeknownst to her, from the moment they had met in the Imperial Palace, she realized that Chen Changsheng was a person that easily provoked her ire. Anger was, in fact, a sort of emotion, and this signified that Chen Changsheng could very easily affect her emotions.
This was a matter that she could not comprehend.
She was even less able to comprehend just how Chen Changsheng, a sixteen-year-old-youth, was able to display such control over his emotions.
Chen Changsheng did not answer her.
Today's encounter in Zhou Prison, primarily Zhexiu's wretched state which had been discovered afterwards, naturally had caused problems with his emotions. But when he was small, he had learned a very simple principle from Senior Yu Ren. Later on in Xunyang City, he had comprehended this principle even more clearly. There were some matters that were perfectly fine being stored in one's heart. There was no need to display them, only to act on them. Impulse and passion were never synonyms and to be cool-headed did not in any way mean one was a coward. Even if everyone in the world believed him to be a coward, he would not care, let alone the fact that the person speaking right now was Mo Yu.
He and Mo Yu were not friends. He keenly understood just how frightening this famed beauty of the Great Zhou Dynasty was, especially after today.
The entire continent knew that Mo Yu and Zhou Tong were the two people the Divine Empress most relied on. Zhou Tong was terrifying, so how could she possibly be lacking?
”Shouldn't you be saying 'long time no see'?” Mo Yu asked.
By careful examination, it could be affirmed that after the conclusion of the Grand Examination, they had never met.
But Chen Changsheng did not believe that there was a need for this phrase because he never wanted to meet her in the first place. It was just that she would always appear before him.
Chen Changsheng had not responded to either of her two successive inquiries, causing Mo Yu's mood to grow rather sour. She narrowed her eyes until they were sharp…like the willow leaves outside the walls of the palace, very pleasing to the eye.
”You're very hostile to me,” she said.
Chen Changsheng answered, ”You should be keenly aware of the current situation in the capital.”
Mo Yu began to chuckle, and with a hint of derision said, ”Do you think you really have the qualifications for the Empress to regard you as an enemy?”
Chen Changsheng retorted, ”Even if I were qualified, I also wouldn't want to become the Empress's enemy, but it's obvious that the people on your side don't think this way.”
This was naturally speaking about the new regulation of the All-School Martial Exhibition, the suppression of the Orthodox Academy by the Tianhai clan and the new faction of the Orthodoxy.
Mo Yu's smile vanished as she said, ”What other people think and how you act have nothing to do with each other.”
Chen Changsheng said, ”I came to the capital thinking only about cultivating and studying. I've never even thought about participating in these great affairs, but do you think I can avoid it?”
Mo Yu's voice became slightly chilly. ”Why can't you avoid it? Because you are the sole successor of the old school of the Orthodoxy?”
This was naturally ample reason, because it was impossible for one to reject their own teacher and school and the years of their past. That was tantamount to a rejection of the self. But this was absolutely not the whole reason, because in the past, Chen Changsheng cared the most about cultivating quickly and defying the heavens and changing fate, but later on, he realized that he couldn't help but think about whether Luoluo's meridians could be opened, if Xuanyuan Po's right arm could be treated, if Zhexiu's Tide Rush of Blood could be cured, when Tang Thirty-Six would finally get a name that he would be satisfied with, and most importantly…if the gate of the Orthodox Academy could be kept in good condition.
He had not forgotten the words Archbishop Mei Lisha had left him before his death.
Besides pursuing what one wanted and must obtain, wasn't the thing called growing up precisely accumulating one responsibility after another?
Mo Yu stood up and looked down at him from up high. With an indifferent expression, she declared, ”The Empress can never be defeated.”
She had now returned to her everyday role of a powerful figure that could silence one hundred officials through fear. Her attitude did not bring about any changes in Chen Changsheng. He was thinking about the storm-ridden Xunyang City, thinking about those words Wang Po had flatly declared after Zhu Luo and Guan Xingke appeared together: ”…I want to try.”
It was naturally impossible for him to defeat the Divine Empress, there wasn't even a need to try.
He just wanted to try, wanted to see, if he and the Orthodox Academy could ward off this raging wave.
Mo Yu was suddenly no longer in the mood to chat. She began to make her way out of the building. Of course, she was still used to treating the window as the front door.
As she walked past, Chen Changsheng suddenly thought of a possibility. He asked uncertainly, ”Could it be that while I was in the Mausoleum of Books and the Garden of Zhou, you've always been sleeping in my bed?”
Somewhat angry and ashamed, Mo Yu yelled out, ”And so what?”
Chen Changsheng was very helpless. He had no power to decide this matter, but it must be known that even though he was young, he was still a man. It was impossible to argue this matter with anyone, and he was also no match for Mo Yu.
”Then…” He hesitated for quite a while, finally saying, ”Make sure to remember to bathe diligently in the future. It's best if you bathe before coming each time.”
The moment he said this, he knew that it was inappropriate, because it sounded very scandalous.
Just as expected, Mo Yu's slender eyebrows rose up in anger and her beautiful face became that of a fiend. In a frigid voice, she asked, ”Do you want to die?”
Chen Changsheng knew that he shouldn't have said that and repeatedly said, ”I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”
Mo Yu's expression became slightly more gentle. She asked, ”If an apology is useful, then would you be able to not kill Zhou Tong in the future?”
Chen Changsheng very sincerely replied, ”Of course not.”
Mo Yu said, ”So it is said, words are always inferior to gifts when expressing sincerity.”
Chen Changsheng was stumped for words. He thought to himself, with your status in the Great Zhou, besides a guy like Tang Thirty-Six, who would dare say they were wealthier than you? Just what could I give you?
”I hear that you have a Yue Maiden Sword here?”
Mo Yu smiled sweetly at him. ”Don't you think this is such a coincidence? When I was small, the Empress just so happened to teach me that sword style.”