ITVCFITB CHAPTER 51

 Chapter 51 — The Mine’s Location

The moment Luo Shuyu realized he and Li Mingjin would have to part, his mood plunged.

In their past life they’d never truly opened their hearts to each other, yet Li Mingjin had almost never left the capital. Even when Luo Shuyu didn’t know where he was, he knew at least that the man was still in the city.

Now Li Mingjin would head north. Luo Shuyu had no idea how to cope, only that he’d worry every hour of every day.

He knew, rationally, that going north was a huge opportunity for Li Mingjin’s future. But selfishly, he didn’t want him to go.

The frontier meant war, and on the battlefield blades had no eyes. Who could promise he wouldn’t be injured?

Luo Shuyu wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t even know how good Li Mingjin’s martial skills truly were. If war cost him even a single hair, Luo Shuyu felt he’d fall apart.

From the moment the Emperor ordered Li Mingjin to prepare for the northern command, Luo Shuyu had been tied in knots. He hadn’t slept properly for three nights.

Li Mingjin understood. Since their wedding they hadn’t spent even one night apart; all he could do was hold Luo Shuyu close in the dark and soothe him.

By morning Luo Shuyu was exhausted but sleepless. Snow hadn’t fallen that day. He stood in the doorway and watched Li Mingjin practice in the courtyard, now cleared of ice.

Li worked up a sweat, and for Luo Shuyu’s sake he went on an extra quarter of an hour, even sparring with Shadow Three to make the routine more entertaining.

Shadow Three cooperated gamely. The two traded blows with enough flourish that the set looked almost like a show. Luo Shuyu stared, entranced; morning drills were starting to resemble street performance.

His appetite returned over breakfast. Having steadied himself a little, he faced the topic of the northern campaign head-on.

In the study he asked, “Your Highness, are you leaving at the start of spring or right after the New Year?”

Li Mingjin said, “No set date yet. Once the Northern General returns to the capital, I’ll have to get ready. Likely after the New Year.”

“When will he arrive?”

“Rumor says before year’s end, wants to be home for the festival.”

“If only I could go north with you,” Luo Shuyu sighed. “I want to see it.”

“It’s colder than the capital, so they say the snow reaches your calves and the wind cuts like knives.” Li Mingjin glanced at him. “You’d run at the first gust. Be good and stay in the city. Shuyu, wait for me to come back.”

“You underestimate me. I don’t blow away that easily,” Luo Shuyu protested.

“With this waist?” Mingjin pinched the narrow span of Shuyu’s waist that stubbornly refused to gain flesh. “Then look at mine. See who’s suited to go fight and who’s suited to wait at home.”

“Your Highness, be serious.” Luo set to grinding ink. “By the way, has Mister Chen found that physician yet?”

“Not yet.” Mingjin eyed the inkstone. “Planning to write?”

Luo Shuyu smiled. “One hundred and eight taboos for Your Highness when traveling.”

Li Mingjin’s face paused. “One hundred and eight… what?” Heaven knew what scheme his spouse was hatching now.

“I’ve heard the folkways up north are rather… free. If a ger or a lady fancies a man, they’ll turn up at his door with their bundle.” Luo Shuyu raised a brow. “Your Highness is handsome and heroic, a prime prey. So-”

“So what are these taboos exactly?”

“First: when bored, don’t look at other ladies or gers. Only think of me.”

“That one I can do. Second?”

“Don’t go to any disreputable places, lest you be ‘tempted.’”

“And third?”

“Don’t rescue strangers of unclear background. That’s how you get caught in a honey trap.”

Li Mingjin rested a hand at his waist. “Shuyu, you’re full of ideas today. Why would anyone send beauties to tempt me?”

“There’s not only beauty traps, there’s sowing discord, too. There are more tricks you haven’t even thought of.”

Mingjin brushed a kiss across the pale nape before him. “Then come with me to the border, and I won’t have to worry about any of the thirty-six stratagems.”

“I want to,” Shuyu said seriously, “but I doubt Father Emperor will allow it. You’ll face not just external threats but internal ones. Suppose someone sends letters slandering me, realistic and detailed. Do you believe them or not? It’s meant to shake your heart. If you falter, the army falters. That’s how lives are lost. You can dodge a spear you see; it’s the dark arrow that kills. Be careful about everything.”

“You’re overthinking,” Mingjin said gently. “I’ll be acting for Father, not commanding men who swear to me alone. The army won’t shatter because my heart does.”

“I believe they’ll pledge themselves to you,” Shuyu insisted.

“You trust me that much?” Mingjin’s hand at his waist tightened.

“In this world,” Luo said, turning to meet his eyes, “you’re the only one I can trust. If not you, then who?”

Li pulled him into a fierce embrace. “And you’re the only one for me.”

They held on, neither willing to let go. Only from Luo Shuyu had Li Mingjin ever felt this kind of warmth. If Luo couldn’t bear to part, how could he? And who knew how long this separation would be?

Mingjin kissed him; Shuyu rose to meet it. “Don’t worry about me,” Mingjin murmured. “I’ll live well and write to you on schedule.”

When the kiss ended, Shuyu forced them back to business.

“Your Highness, the road north is long and hard,” he said, “but there’s opportunity in it.”

“I know. Any merit I earn will be credited to me.”

Luo smiled. “That’s just the surface. The real prize is here.” He tapped his temple, then the desk.

Li Mingjin straightened. Another one of Shuyu’s “prizes”?

“How so?”

“Sit. Give me a moment.” Luo guided him into the chair, then spread fresh paper and began to draw.

Li, obedient, watched.

At first he assumed it was a landscape. Gradually, his expression sobered. This wasn’t a painting for walls, it was a map. Symbols sprouted across the page.

He held his questions and waited.

Only at the end did Luo layer in mountains and streams, turning the chart into an elegant landscape, covering the marks in plain sight.

Each peak’s shape was different, deliberately so. Secrets hid between the brushstrokes. Li Mingjin was burning to know.

Luo laid down the brush but didn’t stamp the piece. “Your Highness, do you remember where the triangles are?”

“I do.” He’d had a near-photographic memory since childhood, an ability he rarely revealed and that others had long forgotten.

One thing he could not reconcile: how did Shuyu draw this map when he’d never left the capital?

Shuyu saw the question on his face. “You’re wondering how I know.”

“Your mysterious ‘high person’ again?” He asked mildly.

“I would never harm you,” Mingjin said simply.

“I know.” The “high person” was too convenient and too hidden. Li had sent people searching more than once and found nothing. Sometimes he wondered if the wisdom was simply Luo Shuyu’s own and “the high person” a polite fiction to make it easier to accept. Intelligence that borders on the uncanny often breeds suspicion. Perhaps Shuyu feared that.

He didn’t understand Shen Mingyun’s “uniqueness,” but he knew precisely how extraordinary his own spouse was.

If Shuyu didn’t want to say, he wouldn’t force it. He’d ask when Shuyu was ready.

As long as it wasn’t an immortal, he had no desire to be some cowherd separated from his weaver.

“Remember the largest mountain?” Luo asked.

Li pointed. “This one, the peakless hill.”

Luo’s mountain forms were similar in size but varied in shape, each alive beneath his brush. The scene made Li want to ride there and see it for himself.

“Fix the location in your mind,” Luo said quietly. “If you have a chance, go in person. It’s a mine.”

What an iron mine meant hardly needed saying.

Li stared at the paper, fist clenching. “Truly a mine?”

Luo nodded. “I wouldn’t deceive you. It’s hidden and won’t be easy to find. I only know it lies to the north, called Peakless Mountain. At its foot is a Yang clan village. You might pass it on your route. Exactly how to locate it, I don’t know.”

In the book, Shen Mingyun and the Fourth stumbled on it by accident. The army was encamped; they slipped out at night to tryst, got caught by a storm and an ambush, and tumbled down a slope.

No kindly villagers that time.

But protagonists don’t die. With the system’s help, they found a cave stocked by hunters with food and warm clothes.

The Fourth was no monk; in that cave, sparks flew.

When the rain stopped they climbed for fruit, discovered Peakless Mountain and its ore by chance, and were later rescued by villagers of Yangjia Village. They made it to town, reported to the yamen, and rejoined the army.

Once back in the capital, the Fourth secretly sent men to verify. It was indeed a rich iron deposit, enough to forge weapons and lay the foundation for a throne.

If Li Mingjin got there first, the future would write itself.

By mentioning the mine, Luo Shuyu showed his choice: the road ahead would be brambles and knives, and he would walk it with Li Mingjin, hand in hand.

“Remember when you said you had nothing?” Mingjin’s voice went low. “You have everything. You’re my lucky star. With you, I have the will to move forward.”

Shuyu threw his arms around him. “This journey will be perilous. Promise me you’ll guard yourself.”

Mingjin kissed his forehead. “I will.”

Peril was a given.

At such a moment, if he took command that neither Crown Prince nor Eldest possessed, both he and Shuyu would be in danger. Leaving his consort alone in the capital made his heart itch with worry.

The more he thought, the more the capital felt worse than the frontier.

There was still time before departure, though. They would at least see the New Year in together.

---

New Year’s Eve arrived. As royals, they would dine with the Emperor, a rare imperial “family dinner.”

Court had been dismissed till the tenth day of the first month.

Luo Shuyu had prepared the festival goods days ago. That morning he and Li Mingjin were in the courtyard putting up couplets.

Mingjin had brushed the couplets himself.

To make up for past regrets, Shuyu made a point of savoring every festival this life. He wanted to fill them with memories together.

“Left a little,” he called from the foot of the bamboo ladder.

“Like this?” Mingjin asked.

“Perfect. Now they mirror.”

Climbing down, Mingjin said, “Every year from now on, we hang them together.”

“Deal.” Shuyu held up the paste brush.

The servants swapped out the old lanterns for new, red globes bobbing under the eaves.

Housecleaning had begun on the twenty-sixth; by now every surface shone.

Because of the cold, they set out for the palace early and at the gate ran into the Fourth Prince.

Since Shen Mingyun’s pregnancy he’d gone out less, but at court his hands had only been busier. He’d spent money and effort on the northern command, and the Emperor had hesitated between him and Li Mingjin until Shen’s sudden pregnancy and the memory of Shuyu’s near abduction tipped the scales to the Third.

Though he’d missed the northern slot, the Fourth didn’t sulk. The Eldest still blocked his path, and he’d been chiseling away at the Crown Prince’s support in the meantime.

Just before the court recess a crisis had boiled over: in one southern prefecture, the people had risen. The rebellion was quickly stamped out, but the problem was exposed.

The south was richer than the north. How had a snow disaster driven the people to revolt? Hadn’t the court sent relief grain? Where had it gone?

Investigate thoroughly.

And whose base was the south? The Eldest’s maternal clan held that ground.

The Eldest’s faction quietly pushed the Fourth to head south and investigate. The Emperor agreed. The Crown Prince complained as everyone knew the Fourth and Eldest were allies. What could he “investigate”? But the Emperor had decided.

No one but Luo Shuyu and Li Mingjin knew what the Fourth truly intended.

“Ally” was the Eldest’s wishful thinking. He had no idea how much the Fourth had gained over the years by riding his coattails. He’d never really counted Li Mingchun as his man. As for this southern errand, fulfilling the Eldest’s wish would be… difficult.

One brother would go north after the New Year; the other would head south.

The Third and the Fourth looked at each other with polite wariness.

“Third Brother,” the Fourth greeted.

“Fourth,” Li Mingjin answered.

“I hear the north is bitter cold,” the Fourth said smoothly. “Be sure to bring enough furs.”

“I hear the south is crawling with restless tribes,” Mingjin said just as smoothly. “Take care.”

Though Mingjin repeated what he just said, his tone is still bland as water.

Luo Shuyu slid in a needle. “Fourth Brother, I heard Cousin Shen had a close call. How is he?”

“…” The Fourth’s smile froze.

It was a sore spot. During Shen’s bed rest, a few brainless women in the inner court had nearly cost him the child. The physician had doubled his prescribed rest, another full month.

---

Author’s Note:
Third Prince: Sweetheart, I ache.
Luo Shuyu: Where?
Third Prince: Here. It’s… overfull.
Luo Shuyu: …

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