ITVCFITB CHAPTER 99

 Chapter 99 – The Cut Robe, the Broken Sleeve

The Fourth Prince’s scheme fizzled again. Publicly, he hadn’t “lost” as the cheating candidate’s “suicide” wasn’t tied to him on paper, but he still needed a new way to smear Li Mingjin before the Emperor.

Just then, newly slimmed-down Shen Mingyun planned another grand salon. Unlike his usual skincare-and-cosmetics showcases, this time he’d be the poster boy for a miracle diet pill.

He was his own success story, and he knew how lucrative weight-loss was in modern times. Why not rake it in here too? Plenty of noble ladies worried about their figures, half of them had clustered around him before out of solidarity. Now he’d “slimmed for love,” and the dramatic results sold themselves.

The formula came from the system’s exchange store. It wouldn’t kill, used as directed, and it did make one lose weight. That was good enough for Shen Mingyun’s conscience. He sent invitations all around, even to Luo Shuyu, who declined with a polite excuse about tending the baby. Truth was, he wanted as little contact with Shen Mingyun and that eerie system as possible.

Soon the capital was plastered with handbills for the diet pills. Some folks even tore them down to use as privy paper.

At the Third Prince’s estate, Chen Rong bought a bottle “for research.” He and Lin Yuan mixed the pills into food for lab mice. The chubby ones developed diarrhea and grew so wasted they could barely stand.

They brought the test results to Luo Shuyu over lunch.

“What’s in them?” Luo Shuyu asked. “I hear the little yellow pills taste sweet.” He’d shed his own postnatal weight by now.

“Sugar-coated,” Lin Yuan said. “The active is a mild purgative. One pill a dose, no more.”

Li Mingjin pinched a sample between two fingers. “Expensive, too. Half the officials can’t wait to buy and can’t get any.”

“They still haven’t learned Shen Mingyun’s scarcity game?” Luo Shuyu said. “Create a frenzy, trickle supply.”

“Thing is, they work,” Li Mingjin said.

Luo Shuyu had to admit the system’s marketing playbook was effective; Shen had piled up plenty of silver for the Fourth Prince.

Lin Yuan added quietly, “I tried two pills at once on one mouse. It died.”

“So it can kill,” Luo Shuyu said flatly.

Li Mingjin nodded. “It can.”

Chen Rong’s eyes went cool. “If so, the Fourth Prince is in real trouble.”

Prophetic words. People started dying and not commoners. If it were just the poor, hush money might have smothered it. But a Third-Rank official’s wife collapsed after habitually overusing the pills. She’d lost weight, built a dependency, upped her doses, and refused to stop even when physicians warned her. One night she took three. She never woke.

The official brought suit against the shop, everyone knew whose banner it flew under. More families piled on. The prefecture stalled, petitioners camped outside the yamen, and the case reached the Emperor.

Who could handle it?

Court officials, busy “choosing sides,” dodged the task in session. The Emperor ignored them and called the prefect privately and Li Mingjin as well.

To Li Mingjin, the case was simple, not delicate. “Follow the law,” he said. “Compensation where due. Public apology. Close the shop. The owners needn’t be jailed, but the manager who sold it? Arrest, try, and sentence. All profits go toward the victims’ treatment.”

The Emperor blinked. “That’s… it?”

“Unless you have a better plan,” Li Mingjin said.

In truth, the Emperor had wanted to shield the Fourth, one of only two presentable sons left, and the scandal embarrassed him. But the people wanted fairness, not palace favoritism. Money, an apology writ large and posted, a shuttered storefront… it could work.

It was so clean there was no angle to attack. Law upheld, faces saved as much as possible, and a human sensibility throughout.

The prefect executed the plan. The Emperor scolded both the Fourth Prince and Shen Mingyun, ordering the latter to the imperial monastery to copy sutras and fast for three days to “pray for the people.”

Shen Mingyun seethed. A couple’s business, why was he the only one punished? The Fourth Prince soothed him with a few soft words, then promptly had him bundled off to the monastery. Alone again, the Fourth felt vastly better and not at all repentant. Learning the remedy had been his third brother’s suggestion only deepened his grudge. He’d get his win back.

Even so, his reputation dipped. Some of his fair-weather officials began to drift.

Zhou’s Second Prince offered another “solution” over a game of go in the pavilion. “My troops are on your border. If you need them, say the word.”

The Fourth refused at once. “You saw my eldest brother and the former Crown Prince. Father despises princes who gather private armies.”

“But doesn’t the Third still hold command?” Zhou Er countered.

“He’s fought Ghost-Yan for years. To strip him would make no sense,” the Fourth said.

“Then use that logic against him. He’s back in the capital but still holds the reins. That’s contradiction, yes? Push to ‘send him north’ to answer a border incident. You stay here and hold the stage,” Zhou Er said, smiling.

The Fourth frowned. “Hachi’s fighting his elder brother now. He hasn’t troops to spare against us. And what do we offer for his help?”

“Promise him the throne of Ghost-Yan when you ascend,” Zhou Er said smoothly.

The Fourth’s eyes lit. “Brilliant. Let’s draft the letter today, in Shen Mingyun’s hand.”

They crafted the bait and sent it off.

Only… the letter didn’t land where they thought. It returned neatly to Li Mingjin’s desk with a query from “Hachi” asking for instructions.

Had Hachi turned coat?

Not exactly. The current “Hachi,” newly plump, wasn’t Hachi at all. The real one, slaughterer of Guzhou’s people, had been quietly executed. The “Hachi” released back to Ghost-Yan was a carefully trained stand-in who’d spent a year memorizing the original’s speech and habits, Li Mingjin and Luo Shuyu’s secret piece. He was loyal to the core.

Zhou Er and the Fourth could never have imagined it. Their “outside ally” now waited on Li Mingjin’s word.

If “Hachi” stirred trouble, Li Mingjin would be forced either to relinquish command or to return to Guzhou, both bad options. But he wasn’t budging from the capital; with a newborn at home, he wouldn’t drag his family across half the realm.

“Have ‘Hachi’ stall,” he ordered. “Negotiate terms. Trade letters for a few months.” Meanwhile, he watched the Fourth’s growing impatience. Zhou Er had opened new lanes in the Fourth’s mind, external partners, shortcuts. All the easier to guide into dead ends.

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In the fourth month of Tiancheng 27, rain fell cold on Qingming.

The Emperor slipped in his bath and never quite recovered, confined to bed and fed medicine by the day. He seemed to age ten years overnight. The imperial physicians quietly told the Third and the Fourth: three to six months, a year at best with fortune and calm.

Li Mingjin hoped for time. The Fourth worried about something else, had the Emperor written an edict of succession?

Fishing for hints, the Fourth sent Shen Mingyun (fresh from the monastery) to the palace with their son. Shen had his own dreams of becoming Empress Consort and went, however grudgingly.

Luo Shuyu brought Chongchong for a brief turn then whisked him out; he wouldn’t risk illness for a baby. By chance, he and Shen entered at the same time. Luo Shuyu deliberately kept distance; Shen couldn’t even brush a sleeve.

Just when Shen was debating a reckless lunge, Luo Shuyu’s mild voice drifted over: “I hear your Highness recently acquired a very capable guard. My lord husband envies you.”

Shen blinked, Zhou Er, and sniffed, “Envy what?”

“My lord says: one night, His Highness fell asleep drunk upon the guard’s sleeve. Rather than wake him, the ‘guard’ cut the sleeve clean off. Loyal and considerate.”

Shen frowned. “It’s only a sleeve. Cut it, buy another.”

Luo Shuyu smiled and glided away with his attendants, leaving Shen muttering to himself.

A long beat later, comprehension hit like lightning. “Wait, what do you mean?” Cut robe, broken sleeve… he was implying the Fourth and that “guard” were a pair!

But aren’t we all men who like men here? Still… the Fourth and the Second Prince of Zhou? Impossible!

…Right?

He found himself, to his own disgust, a little bothered.

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Author’s Note:

Third Prince: Darling, today I’m going to “cut your robe!” Swish, swish… robe’s gone. Looks even better off.

Luo Shuyu: …

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