Yun Guoqiang paced back and forth, then suddenly stopped and looked at Xiao Zhi, appearing to want to speak but hesitating. He then irritably raked a hand through his hair.
“You’re saying my Yun Bao also went to Yan?”
Xiao Zhi neither confirmed nor denied.
Yun Guoqiang’s expression was grim. Considering his colleagues were present, he lowered his voice: “How did you take her there? Using magic?”
“I didn’t take her. She wanted to go, so she went.” Xiao Zhi was telling the truth.
He studied Yun Guoqiang’s tightly knit brows, afraid that saying something like “Yun Yi transmigrated into the imperial seal” would upset this doting father.
Yun Guoqiang clearly didn’t accept this answer. He asked: “Then how did you get here?”
Xiao Zhi thought of Fuyun Temple.
After Temple Master Qingyuan passed away, his disciple Qingxuan grew disheartened and wandered the four directions. Xiao Zhi had sent people to search for him several times but never found any trace.
As for why he himself had appeared a thousand years later, even he had no idea.
He answered truthfully: “I don’t know.”
“You kid…” Yun Guoqiang’s voice still drew his colleagues’ attention, so he hurriedly said: “You wait. I won’t let you off.”
Yun’s father’s words sounded familiar to Xiao Zhi. These were exactly the words he often said when on the throne.
Now the situation was reversed—it was as if he had become a prisoner, awaiting disposal by the one above.
But then he thought: he had been like this since childhood, able to adapt no matter how harsh the environment. Even though he had once sat on the dragon throne.
“Alright.” Xiao Zhi smiled. “Please go easy on me, Teacher Yun. I value my life.”
“You…” Seeing the young man’s calm smile, Yun Guoqiang’s anger dissipated.
A colleague called Yun Guoqiang away.
Xiao Zhi lifted his feet and followed.
Yun Guoqiang glanced at him twice. This person’s presence was too strong, like a utility pole, never leaving his side.
“Didn’t I give you a temporary work badge? Go look around. Stop following me.”
“That won’t do. Yun Yi told me to follow you—I absolutely cannot lose you.” Before leaving, Yun Yi had exhorted him a thousand times. He had naturally heard.
Yun Guoqiang pursed his lips, inexplicably developing the illusion of “taking his grown son to tour the workplace.”
Old Yu pointed at the unearthed Yan dynasty historical records and read them word by word: “This Xiao Zhi—his methods were ruthless.”
Every deed during his reign was recorded on the yellowed pages: tongue-pulling, eye-gouging, beheading, human swine.
Yun Guoqiang’s heart pounded. He couldn’t help looking back at Xiao Zhi. That brat, however, stood calmly with crossed arms beside him, wearing a half-smile.
“Tsk, a true tyrant—he didn’t even spare relatives eight poles removed.” Old Yu sighed. “This Zhao family—the entire clan was executed by Emperor Wen of Yan.”
“Brutal.” Yun Guoqiang agreed with Old Yu.
Xiao Zhi tilted his head to Yun’s father’s ear and whispered: “Teacher Yun, Zhao Lankuo assassinated the imperial presence. Your daughter was injured protecting me. Should his nine clans be executed or not?”
Yun Guoqiang couldn’t hear anything else. He said viciously: “He deserved death! All of them deserved death!”
Old Yu: “…?”
“How was my daughter injured!” Yun Guoqiang assumed an accusatory stance. “How were you an emperor? You couldn’t even protect her?”
Xiao Zhi admitted his fault: “It was my failing. She was only like that in Yan. She’s fine once home.”
He heard Yun’s father let out a breath of relief.
Yun Guoqiang casually pointed at a name and asked again: “That person—why was he drawn and quartered?”
“Because he told the Dowager Empress that Yun Yi was hidden in Yongsu Hall.”
“What is Yongsu Hall?”
“My bedchamber.”
“You!” Yun Guoqiang grabbed his sleeve. “What did you do to my daughter!”
The room went silent. Several gazes looked over from afar.
Xiao Zhi answered truthfully: “I took her in for a while, just as she is taking me in now.”
Yun Guoqiang had spent most of his life in archaeology and counted as half a history expert. He knew very well: only the woman whose name the emperor called would go to the bedchamber to attend him.
But Xiao Zhi had directly settled Yun Yi in his own bedchamber. Then what about the other consorts?
Seeing Xiao Zhi’s clear eyes, unlike a liar, Yun Guoqiang was about to ask for further details when he heard Old Yu and his colleague’s discussion.
“The Empress Yue was the Censor’s daughter…” There were very few records about this in Yan’s history books. Even the historian seemed to harbor much dissatisfaction with this tyrant. “Emperor Wen of Yan had no sons. Before his death, he chose his nephew to succeed him.”
Yun Guoqiang’s gaze was like an eagle’s as he thoroughly examined Xiao Zhi: “You can’t?”
“…” Xiao Zhi was at a loss to defend himself.
Yun Guoqiang followed Old Yu’s words: “You married the Censor-in-Chief’s daughter. You had a wife and still weren’t content, frequently holding consort selections and taking concubines—and in the end, you had no children?”
“That’s because—”
Something in Yun Guoqiang’s pocket vibrated wildly.
Yun Yi called: “Dad, you didn’t bully Xiao Zhi, did you?”
Her clear, crisp voice, carried by the electric current, had a note of accusation.
In front of his daughter, Yun Guoqiang’s tone softened: “Who would dare bully a tyrant?”
“Let Xiao Zhi answer the phone. Hurry.”
Yun Guoqiang handed over the phone. He had somewhat accepted the premise that Xiao Zhi was an ancient person and was about to teach him how to use a phone.
But Xiao Zhi took the phone, smoothly adjusted the volume—the volume bar on screen grew shorter—and only then said “Hello” into the receiver.
In that moment, Yun Guoqiang was stunned. The kid clearly had no phone. When had he learned to use one?
“Why did you take so long to answer?” Yun Yi’s voice drilled out of the thousand-li sound transmission box.
Xiao Zhi: “Your voice is too loud. I turned it down.”
“…”
Yun Guoqiang saw Xiao Zhi standing in the corridor, hand cupped around his mouth, whispering secrets with his daughter.
“Fine, an emperor with three palaces and six courtyards certainly knows how to sweet-talk.” He simply had to sow a little discord in front of his daughter.
“I bought you clothes.”
After her dad and Xiao Zhi left, Yun Yi had gone straight to a nearby mall and picked a comfortable, stylish men’s clothing brand. At checkout, the salesperson’s mouth was practically grinning off her face.
Yun Guoqiang’s phone had been dropped once at the excavation site.
At this moment, Yun Yi’s voice was slightly distorted by the phone. Xiao Zhi held the phone farther away and pondered the screen for a second.
“Hello? Hello?” The girl’s anxious voice chased out from the receiver.
“Mm, I’m here.” He pressed the phone back to his ear and found a quiet corner to stand in.
“When are you coming back?”
“Depends on your dad.”
“Then that’s a problem,” Yun Yi muttered. “My dad’s a workaholic.”
Xiao Zhi worked out the meaning of workaholic—probably similar to how he would summon ministers for discussion even after morning court.
“That’s different.” Yun Yi quickly educated Xiao Zhi on the workhorse life of 996 and 007.
Xiao Zhi felt it was more or less the same and didn’t take it to heart. He tactfully declined Yun Yi’s offer to pick him up.
Since Yun’s father had brought him here, there must be somewhere he was needed. Fleeing at the last moment was not a gentleman’s conduct.
Yun Yi said with a trace of worry: “Are you sure?”
“Naturally.”
.
48 hours later.
Xiao Zhi finally understood the profound meaning behind that “Are you sure?”—and finally gained a substantive understanding of why Yun’s mother had divorced Yun’s father.
The staff battled in the restoration room, not only restoring that Yan dynasty history book but also searching for traces of Yan in the mountain of historical materials.
Xiao Zhi’s help was indispensable.
Xiao Zhi had read historical texts and ancient books since childhood. Those materials that seemed obscure and difficult to modern people were effortlessly at his fingertips.
With his help, work progress accelerated greatly.
Old Yu’s gaze toward him shifted from appreciation to worship.
“Old Yun, your daughter’s boyfriend is really something!”
“I said he’s not her boyfriend.”
“Not yet official?” Old Yu suddenly understood and changed his tune. “Then he needs a good vetting. But I think Xiao Xiao will do. He’s quiet and has an eye for work.”
Yun Guoqiang deliberately didn’t respond.
A group of workaholics battled until three in the morning.
Yun Guoqiang’s break room had a bed but no blanket.
He found a large tent and tossed it to Xiao Zhi.
It took Xiao Zhi a long time to pitch the camping tent. When he turned back, Yun Guoqiang handed him a sleeping bag.
“Make do with this.” Thinking he was an emperor who had probably never slept in such a shabby sleeping bag, Yun Guoqiang felt rather embarrassed. “Or you can sleep in my spot.”
“No need.” Xiao Zhi spread the sleeping bag, seemingly studying how to use it, and added: “There is order between elders and juniors. By propriety, I should yield it to the elder.”
Now it was Yun Guoqiang’s turn to be riled up: “I’m only fifty—exactly the age to be out making my mark! What does a little brat like you know!”
Little brat.
It probably meant something like “young whelp.”
In Yan, daring to insult the Son of Heaven like that warranted death by caning.
Unfortunately, this was 2026.
Xiao Zhi’s gaze shifted sideways to the poster on the break room wall reading “Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony,” and decided that the wise adapt to circumstances.
A few minutes later, he successfully stuffed himself into the sleeping bag, becoming a giant caterpillar.
The door closed, and the room fell dark.
In his drowsy haze, someone seemed to turn on the light. Xiao Zhi was forced to crack his eyes open.
There was a black shadow outside the tent.
Xiao Zhi was startled.
Then he heard Yun Guoqiang say: “For you.”
Xiao Zhi had just unzipped a section when a phone eagerly shoved its way in.
Yun Guoqiang rattled on: “Return it to me tomorrow.”
A few minutes later, the light blazed on again—Yun Guoqiang had brought a charger.
Xiao Zhi thanked him. He didn’t know how to use it, so he simply placed the charging cable by his pillow.
The phone kept popping up with WeChat messages.
Yun Bao: Dad, did you give him the phone or not?
Yun Bao: Dad?!
Yun Bao: Xiao Zhi?
The phone suddenly rang.
Yun Yi’s profile photo popped up on screen—her eyes like the deer kept in the imperial garden.
“Hello?” Xiao Zhi wasn’t very familiar with the phone interface and carefully answered the call.
The girl on the other end paused: “You’re not asleep?”
“Didn’t you have Teacher Yun give it to me?”
“My mom posted on Moments. My dad liked it, so I knew he wasn’t asleep.” Yun Guoqiang, caught working through the night by his daughter, was quite passive. Afraid of being scolded, he had no choice but to give the phone to Xiao Zhi.
“Your dad worked through the night.” Xiao Zhi had stayed up with Yun’s father and gained a deep understanding of how passionate modern people were about working.
“Never mind him,” Yun Yi changed the subject. “My dad’s been exploiting you for labor—did he pay you wages?”
Xiao Zhi savored the word: “Wages?” Probably meaning monthly stipend.
The laborer masters hired at the excavation site were all paid daily.
She said seriously: “I’m going to help you demand your pay.”
Leave a Reply