While ill, Shu Changyu had a long, drawn-out dream.
In the dream, he drifted in a daze, watching every member of the Shu family die. As for himself, he didn’t even know whom he was trying to take revenge on. He only knew that by the time he came back to his senses, he held dominion over the empire, with mountains and rivers under his grasp, and countless corpses beneath his feet.
The mountain of corpses was bitterly cold in the howling wind.
His legs trembled, but he dared not lower his head. The moment he looked down, the faces of the dead at his feet would come into view. Enemies, family, friends—and countless strangers, all dead beneath him.
Later, someone dragged him down from that mountain of blood and bones.
It was the civil and military officials of the court, along with the palace eunuchs and attendants. Holding high the banner of justice, they placed Jing Mu under house arrest and executed him.
Shu Changyu had originally felt relieved.
But then he fell from the freezing winds atop the mountain into an icy abyss.
The abyss seemed bottomless. He kept falling, never reaching the end. The cold around him grew sharper and sharper until all five senses turned numb.
His limbs could not move. Only his trembling lips remained, unconsciously whispering for help.
At that moment, a source of warmth approached him.
It was Jing Mu.
Shu Changyu thought, This foolish boy—why did he come here? He wanted to reach out and push him away from this freezing abyss.
But he couldn’t move.
He could only let Jing Mu, carrying boundless warmth, grab hold of him and pull him into an embrace.
Then, right before his eyes, Jing Mu closed his eyes, reverent and devout, and leaned forward to kiss him.
Time seemed to freeze.
The icy abyss vanished instantly.
And Shu Changyu, as though possessed, responded to the kiss, instinctively seeking more, drawing warmth from the other’s lips.
That was when Shu Changyu woke.
He gasped for breath, his throat burning with pain.
Yet for some reason, his lips felt moist.
He opened his eyes to a blurred world. Through the haze, he saw someone sitting by his bedside.
It seemed to be Jing Mu.
The dream came crashing back into his mind with startling clarity.
That kiss had been warm and damp, carrying endless tenderness, melting the freezing abyss into nothingness.
Warm.
Lingering.
So warm it wrapped his heart in heat.
Shu Changyu suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit, his voice hoarse and rough.
The person at his bedside immediately stood and gently helped him sit up, softly patting his back.
At closer range, through his blurry vision, Shu Changyu could see clearly.
It really was Jing Mu.
He was dressed in a ridiculous little eunuch’s outfit.
Shu Changyu’s gaze unconsciously dropped to Jing Mu’s lips.
He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but Jing Mu’s lips also looked damp, and his face held a faint flush.
After coughing for a while, Shu Changyu felt dizzy and lightheaded, his throat burning as he took deep breaths.
Jing Mu had already brought a cup of hot tea to his lips.
Shu Changyu drank two sips before finally catching his breath.
He looked at Jing Mu in the eunuch’s outfit and asked in a hoarse voice,
“Why is Your Highness here?”
Shu Changyu had no idea how pitifully attractive he looked at that moment.
His long, silky hair hung loose around him.
He wore only an inner robe.
His eyes were rimmed red, his chest rising and falling with lingering breaths after coughing.
To Jing Mu, the sight was devastating.
Something in him twitched so sharply he nearly stood at attention.
Counting both lives, it had been over ten years.
Never had he seen Shu Changyu like this.
And just moments ago, seeing Shu Changyu murmur in his nightmare with trembling lips, he had acted on impulse and stolen a kiss.
Even now, the cool softness of those lips lingered on his own.
And now Shu Changyu sat there, eyes red and glistening with moisture, looking at him.
Jing Mu’s ears rang.
He could barely hear what Shu Changyu was saying.
He put the tea aside and half-wrapped an arm around Shu Changyu’s shoulders, trying to help him lie back down.
“Grand Tutor, you’re awake?”
At such close range, the dream flashed through Shu Changyu’s mind again.
As if electrocuted, he jerked back and shoved Jing Mu away, repeating,
“Why is Your Highness here in my room?”
Sick and weak, Shu Changyu had no strength.
He couldn’t actually push Jing Mu away.
Jing Mu froze, then slowly straightened.
“…Grand Tutor is ill. Jing Mu was worried, so I sneaked out to see you.”
That obedient, pitiful look on his face threw Shu Changyu into even greater turmoil.
In the past, Shu Changyu had never been able to resist Jing Mu when he looked like this.
But now things were different.
He didn’t know why he had dreamed such a thing.
It was something he had never experienced in either life.
In that dream—
He had kissed Jing Mu.
Shu Changyu shut his eyes and stopped looking at him.
“Go back.”
The sun was setting.
Warm orange-red sunlight filtered through the window, bathing the room in soft amber.
Earlier, Jing Mu had dismissed all the servants.
Now only the two of them remained.
The room should have felt warm, intimate, almost romantic.
Instead, the atmosphere turned strangely cold.
“…Grand Tutor.”
Jing Mu didn’t understand why Shu Changyu’s expression changed the instant he saw him.
Now he had simply shut his eyes, as if even looking at Jing Mu was unbearable.
Jing Mu knew Shu Changyu was always unreadable—a smiling fox whose thoughts no one could see.
But he had always known he was different in Shu Changyu’s heart.
Different in one way or another.
Yet now, in illness, when people were weakest and most genuine—
Shu Changyu was treating him coldly.
Could it be…
In Shu Changyu’s heart, he was no different from anyone else?
The only difference was that he was the future emperor Shu Changyu intended to place upon the throne.
Thus he was merely someone worth extra effort and calculated attention?
Jing Mu forcefully suppressed that thought.
Shu Changyu kept his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heart while rebuking him.
“Your Highness, you are always doing things I explicitly forbid.”
Jing Mu’s heart jumped.
Had Shu Changyu noticed that kiss?
Then he heard Shu Changyu continue in his hoarse voice:
“You already met privately with Minister Ye. His Majesty is suspicious of you. Afterward, you clashed with the Seventh Prince, whom His Majesty favors, angering him and earning a beating. And now you sneak out of the palace again. Jing Mu—do you understand the consequences if His Majesty finds out?”
…So it wasn’t about the kiss.
Jing Mu let out a quiet breath.
Yet strangely, his chest felt even tighter.
Deep down, he still wanted Shu Changyu to know how he felt.
“But…”
He began with difficulty.
“What ‘but’ is there?” Shu Changyu snapped, his voice hoarse but firm. “Your Highness, you’ve spent enough time in the palace to understand this much. Once you lose imperial favor, you lose everything. If you yourself don’t care about your future or your life, then there is nothing I can do.”
At this point, Shu Changyu’s throat burned and itched again, sending him into another violent coughing fit.
Jing Mu endured the ache in his chest and offered tea again.
Shu Changyu shoved it aside.
“Your Highness. Go back.”
Everything he said was for Jing Mu’s own good.
To Emperor Qianning, princes raised in the palace were little different from concubines—personal possessions.
The moment they formed improper ties with the outside world, it was no different from betrayal.
“Jing Mu was only worried about Grand Tutor.”
Shu Changyu heard Jing Mu’s muffled voice.
Worried about me? Why are you worried about me?
A sudden fire ignited in Shu Changyu’s chest.
He only saw Jing Mu as a foolish boy who didn’t understand the dangers of the world.
The dream still felt painfully real.
Most of it had blurred.
Only the kiss remained vivid, branded deep into his mind.
What kind of normal teacher and student would embrace and kiss each other?
A terrifying thought surfaced in Shu Changyu’s mind—
The reason he dreamed that… was because somewhere along the way, he himself had developed improper feelings for Jing Mu.
Perhaps when Jing Mu silently obeyed all his commands in the previous life.
Perhaps when Jing Mu charged toward him with a bloodstained sword before death.
Perhaps when Jing Mu clung to him in sickness, calling for his Grand Tutor.
Perhaps at some unnoticed moment during all their days together.
Memories flooded his mind.
Shu Changyu’s heart descended into chaos.
“Why are you worried about me?” Shu Changyu said.
Burning with fever, his thoughts muddled by panic and anger, he spoke without restraint.
“You and I are nothing more than teacher and student. I merely happen to be a few years older and have read a few more books, so I teach you what I know. You were born into the imperial family. You are ruler, and I am subject. One day when your studies are complete, there will be nothing left between us.”
His voice was weak and hoarse, soft from illness.
But every word struck Jing Mu like a blunt weapon.
“If you allow yourself to be entangled by such childish emotions, you will never achieve great things. You would be unworthy of being my student.”
Jing Mu had once thought he had already suffered every kind of heartbreak in his previous life.
But he was wrong.
The greatest pain was not life and death separating them.
It was hearing Shu Changyu personally say:
You and I are nothing more than teacher and student.
Shu Changyu was saying those words as much to himself as to Jing Mu.
He knew Jing Mu already had someone in his heart—the palace maid Handan.
Jing Mu had even opposed him for her sake.
And yet somehow, shamelessly, he himself had developed feelings for Jing Mu.
After speaking, though his heart ached, his breathing felt easier.
There was even a twisted sense of relief in hurting himself like this.
He no longer cared about Jing Mu’s reaction.
“Go back, Your Highness,” he said. “Once I recover, I will return to teach you.”
Jing Mu wanted to say something.
He didn’t know what.
But he desperately wanted to say something.
Anything.
Yet no words came.
“…Yes. Jing Mu takes his leave.”
In the end, that was all he said before turning and walking out.
The moment he turned away, Shu Changyu opened his eyes and stared at his retreating figure.
…Why?
Why had he unknowingly developed feelings for his own student?
After a moment, he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes again.
Meanwhile, Jing Mu returned to the palace expressionless.
As expected, when he returned to Zhongli Palace, every servant stood frozen in silence, not daring to even glance at him.
When he entered the main hall, he saw Empress and Emperor Qianning seated at the front, clearly waiting to interrogate him.
Jing Mu’s expression did not change.
Calmly, he knelt.
“My son still remembers how to return,” he heard Emperor Qianning say coldly, his tone thick with mockery. “That outfit suits you quite well. Tell me—was the tea at Minister Ye’s residence more to your liking than what we serve in the palace?”
Jing Mu said nothing.
He only raised his head and looked at him.
For a fleeting moment, it felt as though he had returned to the days after Shu Changyu’s death in the previous life.
The whole world stood against him.
At his side was only emptiness.
Not a single person remained.
He drifted like a walking corpse, no longer knowing what reason he had to live.
Author’s Note:
Ahem… feels like I tricked you all a little.
Thought this was sweet fluff?
Turns out the sweetness came with shards of glass hidden inside.
After all, our Prime Minister here—
is a man devoted to great ambitions!
He has no time for romance!
…Alright fine, he’s just tsundere.