ITVCFITB CHAPTER 63

 Chapter 63 — Invaders at the Gate!

Shen Mingyun thought bitterly that he was neither a detective nor an officer of the law, so why did transmigrating into a book come with mandatory casework?

He’d set out to help the Fourth Prince, true, but the gulf between them wasn’t a generation or two, it was a millennium. Take “Xiaoming,” for example: Shen spared the man a little extra care and the Fourth Prince flew into a temper. When Shen had taken Xiaoming in, Li Mingchun had agreed readily enough. Now he wanted the fellow thrown out.

But since Shen had stormed off, how could he crawl back and lose face? If he didn’t, though, he wouldn’t complete the system quest. His points were thin; he couldn’t redeem anything decent. The pregnancy had already wasted months with zero missions completed. What a drain.

He hadn’t gone far, two reasons fueled his departure: pique and pride. Precisely because of pride, he couldn’t return yet.

Li Mingchun wasn’t a fool. Shen Mingyun was a pampered ger with a pretty face and tender skin, careless to a fault. Even angry, the prince quietly sent guards to shadow him, intending to let Shen take a few knocks and then apologize.

Things, of course, refused to go to plan.

Shen had been out of sight barely a moment when he was kidnapped!

The Fourth Prince now had to hunt clues and rescue Shen. Soon enough a blackmail note arrived: keep out of the investigation, or we kill your little sweetheart.

Annoyingly, he truly did need Shen’s help. On the road to Tong’an they’d run into ambush after ambush, but Shen’s golden tongue kept defusing disaster; he always seemed to predict where the enemy lay in wait, buying time to prepare or counter.

Left with no choice, Li Mingchun went alone to the rendezvous.

Bound and terrified, Shen burst into sobs the instant he saw him, pear-blossoms-in-rain.

Li Mingchun hauled him close for a terse comfort, then frowned. “Where’s Xiaoming?”

“We got separated on the street,” Shen said, describing the snatch. “I went to find him then someone grabbed me from behind. I don’t know where he went.”

Good, the prince thought darkly. Saves me the trouble of prying that limpet off you. Who knew whether the “amnesia” was even real.

Without Xiaoming in the way, the prince and Shen were tender for a few days again. Quaking from the scare, Shen drifted back and resumed his “support role.”

With the system’s tools behind him, he and the prince actually began to brush the dust off the truth slowly. Time slid by. In the south, spring clothes were giving way to summer.

---

Up north, Li Mingjin and Luo Shuyu were too far to track every turn. As predicted, the Fourth Prince’s inquiry stalled. The local yamen only went through the motions: pristine ledgers freshly re-copied, not a thread to tug for evidence.

For a time, nothing new reached Gu City.

Two months slipped past. In May, the northern chill relented; they exchanged thick winter furs for lighter layers and could finally move with ease again.

In those two months, Li Mingjin soaked in a medicinal bath every third day, water kept hot, while Lin Yuan’s detox plan ground forward: baths, decoctions, acupuncture. Each bath was followed by deep, whole-body tui na, a traditional medical massage, along the meridian charts that left the prince limp and gasping.

When Mingjin asked if he practiced martial arts, Lin Yuan admitted he did. How else could an ordinary doctor have such strength?

They even sparred now and then, and, bit by bit, spoke more freely.

On day fifteen, the prince suffered an attack. They’d prepared this time, so he wasn’t bound at first, but the frenzy rose fast, he didn’t even recognize Luo Shuyu. Only when the shadows moved in and tied him down did they stop him from smashing his head and self-harming.

It tore at Luo Shuyu, but survival in the imperial clan required ugly methods. With a princess of the Western Kingdom for a mother, Mingjin had never had much choice.

Still, there were results: the time to regain himself shortened.

After two months the prince’s gaze no longer held that dark, bottomless fury. Luo Shuyu could see the change from the inside out.

Lin Yuan warned them the early gains would slow; the deepest residue would require patience.

Also, less bedroom activity for now. Mingjin’s sulks were so blatant that Luo Shuyu had to coax him into better moods… by discovering a new world of alternatives.

With the treatment, the prince’s spirit sharpened; his authority, too. Life in the north grew not just livable, but good.

In spring they walked the fields to watch plowing and sowing. The polished dandies he’d re-schooled were cast out to break ground and plant; the seeds Luo Shuyu had prepared finally had destinations, and the idle agricultural clerks were loaded with work.

Li Mingjin never hoarded talent.

He’d almost finished mapping out Prefect Zhu’s mess: snarled, delicate, not quite ripe to cut. For now, Gu City needed the man’s balancing weight. But watchers clung to him. One wrong twitch, and the net would close.

Another month, and summer.

A letter came from the Emperor. Mingjin had been dutiful about writing, at Luo Shuyu’s quiet insistence, dwelling on the people’s livelihoods and skimming past factional chess. The Emperor could glean the rest from memorials; better that than making him suspect a young prince was “learning statecraft.” Suspicion was His Majesty’s default setting.

With Meifei out of favor and the two of them stationed far away, they kept clear of the dragon’s reverse scale.

While they were testing a honey-sweet watermelon, the capital boiled: the Eldest Prince’s wife went into labor.

He waited outside all day, sick with nerves. He had two daughters already and pinned everything on a son.

It had been miracle enough to carry to term. He’d guarded this pregnancy like a hawk. The Crown Prince was even more tightly strung, if the Eldest produced the first imperial grandson, the heir’s situation would be awkward indeed. The Emperor vacillated as it was; a crowned heir meant little when father’s gaze roamed to other sons.

At last the midwife emerged. “Congratulations, Your Highness, another princess.”

Princess… princess… why not a son?!

The Eldest Prince’s smile froze, then shattered. He didn’t look at the mother or child. He turned on his heel and left.

The Crown Prince and his wife, by contrast, exhaled. The Crown Princess even smiled, a rare thing. “Ha! Not a son. He can choke on his smugness.”

“We’ll congratulate him tomorrow,” the Crown Prince said, vindicated. “Perhaps send a gift.”

“No need to rush,” she purred. “There’s always the full-month banquet. I’ll see to it.”

For once, they were perfectly in step. The Eldest would be… unwell.

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The news earned little more than a shrug in Gu City. Luo Shuyu had long known this birth would be a girl; Li Mingjin, for his part, had no time to envy anyone. He couldn’t even give Luo Shuyu a child yet. What he felt for new fathers was not jealousy but a wry sense that people living in comfort rarely recognized it.

“Should we send a gift?” Luo Shuyu asked.

“No,” Mingjin said. “Let’s not give him a reason to remember us. In his eyes the child is only a tool and a disappointing one.”

“True,” Luo Shuyu sighed. Poor little thing.

The heat grew. The air was drier than in the capital; sleeves grew lighter by the week. The baths were now less frequent; the herbs that worked early no longer bit as deep. The oldest poison hid well.

Luo Shuyu could feel the next attack drawing near. He braced. Mingjin, maddeningly, teased him and ate heartily.

Thanks to seeds and hands from the capital, the spring planting blazed along. They traded meat stock with the nomads; one practical good deed after another.

People stayed busy for better days.

On top of that, Luo Shuyu opened a small “charity school” in Mingjin’s name: basic literacy and arithmetic only, one term every three months. This wasn’t for future exam champions, but for bread-and-butter skills. Learn to write your name and add a column of sums, and you could land work, travel with caravans, do more than survive.

He’d trim and grow based on the first term’s results: keep two primary classes, then add two advancement sections if warranted.

Tuition covered daily expenses; the school paid the teachers’ stipends. One instructor pocketed fees and “forgot” enrollment slips until a parent complained. The head teacher came to Luo Shuyu, flustered. Luo Shuyu didn’t wring his hands. He sacked the cheat on the spot. They had contracts. Principles mattered.

Some sniffed about offending scholars. He had a stronger backer: the Third Prince.

Word spread. Families who hesitated now kicked themselves. Kids learned to read their names and add and subtract; the school would recommend the best to shop owners, or to masters. With a knack, a child might even catch the prince’s eye.

There were prizes for the top three at term’s end, too.

Luo Shuyu kept a tight watch. His aim was bigger than one classroom; this was a pilot. Raise basic education, and the country grows strong, he’d read that and believed it. Try something and if it fails, change it. Time was on their side. The north was a field for experiments. One must bear fruit.

They kept at it, army and people both thriving, and Luo Shuyu noticed Mingjin’s skin had darkened by three shades. He looked even more manly for it.

Autumn came. Time for harvest.

Gu City would feast this year.

And then the yearly dread arrived.

Two days after the harvest, wolf smoke unfurled beyond the walls.

Invaders.

The tribes that had traded peacefully for half a year were coming to claw grain and seize the city.

Now he stood where the Great General had stood: a wall, a winter, and a test. Blood kindled hot in Li Mingjin’s veins.

He had waited. The fat sheep had found their own way to the slaughter pen.

No more need for masks.

He was no longer the newcomer who knew nothing of Gu City. Let them come. His whip ached to taste enemy blood.

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Author’s Note:
Third Prince: “Wife, today you’re a foreign little prince I captured. You refused the polite cup, so I’ll serve the hard one and show you my prowess!”

Luo Shuyu: “…”

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