The vendor spotted the spark in the customer’s eyes that said, “Here I come, delicious food!”
Business was coming! The vendor, who fancies herself a “culinary creative director” and “heir to an ancient recipe,” teared up with emotion.
“Miss, the lotus leaf wrap is 7 yuan, the bamboo tube is 10.”
Yun Yi hadn’t come to buy anything. She held up the notebook. “Please pay me back.”
The vendor recognized the notebook. Tentatively, she asked, “Did my brother actually manage to scam someone with this?” The girl had bright, intelligent eyes—she didn’t look stupid.
Yun Yi’s face turned serious. “Don’t think dressing like a woman can fool me.”
Villagers gathered around. A well-meaning onlooker sympathized, “Miss, did Priest Xiao scam you? This is Priest Xiao’s sister.”
The vendor pulled out her ID. “Here, see?”
Name: Xiao Daogu.
One character different from her swindler brother.
Yun Yi looked at her in disbelief.
The vendor’s face was flushed from the steaming heat. She tucked a disobedient strand of hair behind her ear. “Ah, my brother and I are twins.”
The good-for-nothing brother was drowning in debt. The sister, doomed to support him, had no choice but to sell goods on the street.
Seeing the vendor was a woman, Yun Yi was speechless for a moment. “So… your family runs a Taoist temple?”
“Uh,” Xiao Daogu faltered. “We’re of the ‘Dao’ generation.”
Yun Yi had never seen anyone named like that before.
Xiao Daogu truly had no money. She forced that day’s entire earnings from selling rice cakes into Yun Yi’s hand, then gave her two portions of the oil-glutinous rice cakes.
Yun Yi thanked her, peeled open the lotus leaf, and took a small bite.
Her doe eyes suddenly lit up.
“Incredibly good!”
“Really?” The wrinkles on Xiao Daogu’s face smoothed out at the clear, bright compliment.
The bamboo tube was beautiful, with an old-fashioned “Xiao” character carved into its center. Delighted, Yun Yi found a cord at the market, tied it to both ends, and slanted the remaining rice cake across her chest.
The sun scattered the clouds. The owner of the leather shoes crushed the black plastic bags beneath her feet. Yun Yi bent down to discard the “waterproof shoe covers” that had served their purpose. When she looked up again, someone up ahead was setting up an antique stall.
She strolled slowly through the stalls. When she emerged, she had five fewer yuan in her pocket and a tiny gourd dangling from her cord.
Yun Yi strode briskly. The gourd clinked against the bamboo tube with a crisp, pleasant sound.
A crowd had gathered ahead. Someone shouted, “Give me back my antique!”
On one side stood villagers brandishing shovels to defend their homes. On the other side stood unarmed archaeologists.
Uncle Yu, whom Yun Yi knew, said, “That secret-colored porcelain ewer still needs further authentication.”
“You’ve even given it a name!” The villagers, now convinced it was an antique, grew even more agitated.
“Dad!” Yun Yi called out dryly.
The situation was tense. Yun Guoqiang wiped his sweat, genuinely afraid the villagers would take their anger out on her. “What are you doing here?”
Yun Yi replied, “I heard the Xiao family ancestral hall is open to tourists. I wanted to take a look.”
An antique stall vendor had kindly told her that when he saw she was a visitor.
“Today’s Monday. The ancestral hall isn’t open to the public,” someone said.
Yun Yi expressed her disappointment. “Oh, that’s too bad. I wanted to pay respects to the Xiao family ancestors.”
She had even bought incense on purpose.
The village chief, who had deliberately kept his distance, chose that moment to appear. “Young lady, why do you want to pay respects?”
Yun Yi straightened the small bamboo tube hanging on her chest. “I ate the oil-glutinous rice cake made by my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, and it was delicious. If I could light a stick of incense for my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, today would be a perfect day.”
Young people these days—their roots are so solid. The village chief signaled the crowd to stand down and called over a younger villager to escort her to the ancestral hall.
The conflict that had been about to erupt dissolved into thin air.
The graduate student whispered, “Professor Yun, Yun Yi is this capable? If we’d invited her earlier, it would have saved a lot of trouble.”
Yun Guoqiang punched him twice. “You think my daughter’s some heavenly warrior general?”
Xiao Family Village faced the mountains and backed onto water—abundant in resources. Years ago, the village established a company, and the economy took off: homestays, tourism, local specialties, heritage tie-dye, bamboo weaving… The villagers contributed their land and forests as equity, earning dividends without lifting a finger.
As a result, Xiao villagers who had left for city jobs gradually returned.
Someone like Priest Xiao, who had such a good hand and played it so badly, was an exception.
Yun Yi noticed the village chief was wearing a gauze long gown. “Village Chief, your outfit is magnificent—so ethereal and immortal-like.”
The village chief was overjoyed. He dismissed the young guide and personally opened the ancestral hall doors to welcome Yun Yi inside.
This village was rich without showing it.
If she hadn’t seen the grand ancestral hall with her own eyes, Yun Yi would have thought this was just an ordinary mountain village.
The village chief explained that the Xiao family all descended from a single lineage. Core members had branched out from this very place, yet the clan structure remained intact.
The ancestral hall stood solemn and dignified, housing countless memorial tablets.
Yun Yi quickly lit some incense and stopped before the most prominent tablet.
The village chief spoke reverently: “Young lady, this is the founding ancestor of the Xiao clan.”
Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Yun Yi bowed three times with devotion.
As she rose, her gaze fell upon the tablet.
[Memorial Tablet of Xiao Zhi, Lord and Founding Ancestor of the Xiao Clan]
“Founding Ancestor Xiao…” Yun Yi gazed at the tablet in reverence.
Most tourists breezed through with a check-in mentality, but this girl was different. Seeing how seriously she observed, the village chief grew enthusiastic. “Our founding ancestor’s given name is Zhi.”
“Xiao… Zhi?”
“I’ve always said it’s a beautiful name!” The chief was delighted for his ancestor. He pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped away dust that wasn’t even there on the tablet.
When Yun Yi looked again, her foot slipped and her body went soft.
This wasn’t like the sensation of falling asleep before a dream. Uncontrollably, she collapsed onto the kneeling cushion.
The world around her fractured and overlapped. Time seemed not to exist.
She saw countless fragments, each reflecting many eyes—some her own, some belonging to others.
Yun Yi recognized one fragment.
In it, she saw those burning eyes she had met in her dream, hidden behind thick, dark lashes—eyes shimmering with the madness of a cornered beast.
Xiao Zhi?
He was already the emperor. Why did he still look like someone about to wipe out all his enemies?
Yun Yi jolted awake.
And met Xiao Zhi’s eyes.
… Help. The dream can continue?!
He had only just fallen asleep when a noise woke him. Darkness surrounded him. Years of house arrest had long accustomed him to having no attendants.
“Your Majesty?” a young eunuch on night duty called out timidly.
“Yes.”
The door cracked open. The young eunuch saw the emperor bent over, searching under a desk, dressed only in a thin night robe.
The young eunuch’s legs gave way. A despairing sense that his head was no longer safe washed over him.
Xiao Zhi picked up the imperial seal. His thumb brushed over its four corners. Undamaged.
When a candle was lit, the young eunuch saw that what his master had picked up was the imperial seal. His entire being collapsed.
His first day on duty. And also the day he would die.
Yun Yi’s bottom had been pressed against the cold floor. Suddenly, an external force lifted her from zero meters to 180 meters in elevation—more thrilling than a roller coaster.
The next second, she saw candlelight reflecting in Xiao Zhi’s eyes.
“Almost dropped it,” he murmured, stroking the seal gently.
Yun Yi felt like a lump of old dough being kneaded and pinched by a pastry chef.
“My fault,” Xiao Zhi whispered. “It should be placed by the bedside.”
The young eunuch heard the emperor placing blame. Thud. He fainted on the spot.
Xiao Zhi held the seal tightly against his chest as he walked toward the bed.
Yun Yi: … Hey. Your personal assistant just passed out. You’re not going to do anything? Shouldn’t you give him CPR?
Ah! You damn emperor! Save him!
Her spirit was trapped inside the imperial seal like Sun Wukong trapped under the golden cymbal. Yun Yi bounced around frantically, throwing punches and kicks.
The emperor seemed to sense something. He stopped and examined the seal in the dim candlelight.
Wha— This is what they call mutual resonance?
Yun Yi froze. One, two, three—statue.
Xiao Zhi glanced at the young eunuch. “I won’t kill you. You may leave.”
The young eunuch prostrated himself, kowtowed, and wept. “Thank you, Your Majesty, for sparing my life!”
Yun Yi: Whoever works for you is unlucky.
Xiao Zhi had been under house arrest for years. The young eunuch had just arrived at the palace. After serving other masters, he would pass by the Second Prince’s residence on his way back. The two would chat through the crack in the door. Through that crack, a brush worn down from too much writing would extend—the condescending Second Prince begging for food with his brush.
The young eunuch had never dreamed that a random spark of pity would weave such a stroke of fate.
A few feet from the dragon bed, Xiao Zhi kicked something on the floor.
He was about to pick it up when the young eunuch scrambled over. “This servant will pick it up for Your Majesty—”
Yun Yi marveled. The quality of palace staff really is different.
The young eunuch tensed up again. This is absolutely not something that belongs in the palace! Guards! An assassin!
“Quiet,” Xiao Zhi said calmly. He sat on the edge of the bed and set the imperial seal on his lap.
From Yun Yi’s perspective, the emperor’s long legs, wrapped in raw silk sleep pants, hung casually over the edge of the bed, the hems loose. Perched atop the emperor’s thigh like a wisp of cloud through thin sleepwear—though she was but a spirit, it didn’t hurt to feel it, since it wasn’t against the law.
She extended a fingertip and pressed down. Mmhm. Firm, taut quadriceps.
Xiao Zhi, who likewise felt a slight warmth on his knee: “…?”
The young eunuch, terrified: “Your Majesty?”
Xiao Zhi scanned the room. Other than the eunuch, there was no one else. His gaze then fell upon the bamboo tube. At its center was carved the character “Xiao.” Both ends were tied with thick five-colored cords, and a small gourd hung from one of them.
He pried open the bamboo tube’s lid and pinched out a lotus leaf package.
The aroma of food wafted out.
Yun Yi was heartbroken: My oil-glutinous rice cake! I was saving that for tonight!
Xiao Zhi stared for a long time. The scent, the packaging, the engraving… This was exactly the oil-glutinous rice cake his grandmother used to make.
Dawn would bring the coronation ceremony. For a common folk snack to appear out of nowhere in the emperor’s bedchamber was deeply unsettling.
Yet on such a night, Xiao Zhi held in his hands the rice cake he had never tasted as a child, and on his lap sat the stone he had loved most as a boy.
The candlelight stretched his shadow long.
The young eunuch risked death to speak: “Your Majesty, you absolutely must not—”
Xiao Zhi set down the rice cake and pressed his lips together. “Enough.”
Trapped inside the imperial seal, Yun Yi fumed: Hey, it’s not poisoned! I wasn’t even willing to give it to you!
Xiao Zhi stuffed the rice cake back into the bamboo tube, untouched. He didn’t order it taken away but placed it on the small table beside the bed.
He dismissed everyone. The bedchamber grew so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Yun Yi was placed on the pillow beside him. He lay down.
Her vision suddenly dimmed—Xiao Zhi’s long hair had likely fallen over the imperial seal. His jet-black locks spread out like thick clouds. Yun Yi marveled: How many years did it take to grow this long? If he sold it to a hair buyer, he’d get several thousand yuan, right?
The person beside the pillow breathed in a deep, steady rhythm, deeply hypnotic. Yun Yi’s head wobbled like a lotus seed pod swaying in the summer breeze.
“Before I slept, I placed you on the golden dragon-carved tray,” Xiao Zhi said in a low, slow voice. “How did you fall to the floor?”
Yun Yi: “…?” All my drowsiness just fled.
“Could it be that you are a ghost?” Xiao Zhi half-sat up, cradling the imperial seal in his hand. His warm, soft fingertip found the little tail of the mythical beast carved into the seal. He gave it a pinch.
A strange sensation shot straight from her tailbone to the crown of her head. Yun Yi’s hair stood on end. You—where are you touching?!
“I found you first. My father forcibly took you and ordered you carved into this form.” His fingertip traced from the tail up to the beast’s head, stroking back and forth over its snout. “Ugly.”
Yun Yi felt like a random passerby had just called her hideous.
“I heard you had been made into the imperial seal. I snuck into the imperial study and secretly stamped you everywhere. I was just curious what the inscription was.”
How is that any different from stealing your dad’s corporate financial seal and stamping it all over the place?
“I never expected my father to grow wary and place me under house arrest.”
A father disciplining his child—nothing wrong with that.
“For fourteen full years.”
“…” Yun Yi rarely took the side of a spoiled child, but fourteen years was a bit long. The punishment didn’t fit the crime.
Xiao Zhi kept pressing harder, rubbing the seal until his fingertip turned red and raw. His voice bordered on madness: “Tomorrow, I will issue an order. I will grind away your inscription and carve new characters.”
The situation was starting to go off the rails.
Yun Yi thought for three seconds. Grind away…?
Her mind flashed to an image of Yun Guoqiang in the hospital recovering from hemorrhoid surgery. After the anesthesia wore off, Comrade Guoqiang lay on the hospital bed, weeping.
It hurt.
Yun Yi winced and clutched her own two cheeks. Phantom pain.
Thank goodness it’s a dream.
The dog emperor finally tired himself out and fell asleep, clutching the imperial seal he so hated.
—
In the deep hour of the chou (1–3 AM), Yun Yi was woken by a commotion. She mumbled a few sleepy sounds of complaint. Only then did she realize that Xiao Zhi’s neck was pressed against her. What kept pulsing was his carotid artery—throb, throb—brushing against her cheek.
Yun Yi felt like a tangyuan scalded by boiling water.
Beyond the dragon bed, palace maids and eunuchs knelt in rows, awaiting the emperor’s rising.
Three in the morning? Being number one isn’t easy. Yun Yi turned over and went back to sleep.
The young eunuch brought over a red sandalwood casket. Xiao Zhi personally placed the imperial seal inside.
From a king-size dragon bed—how many meters wide she had no idea—she was moved to a cramped little box.
The lid closed. Total darkness. Yun Yi heard the casket being locked.
Yun Yi whimpered: Don’t lock me up! I have claustrophobia! I don’t want to go to prison!
The new emperor, now in his ceremonial robes and about to ascend the throne, took one last look at the imperial seal. “Wait.”
The young eunuch reopened the lock.
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