Chapter 90

At a table full of dishes, Rong Tang only had half a bowl of soup and a few pieces of stewed goose. He dared not touch the rabbit head, which looked as if a breath of air could bring it back to life. As for the other dishes, just knowing they were sent by Sheng Chengli made him lose any appetite. If he so much as glanced at them, Su Huaijing would meet his gaze with a knowing smile and ask, “Tangtang, do you want some?”

Eat shit!

It was all spicy food!

Even if he wanted to eat, Su Huaijing wouldn’t allow it.

Rong Tang suspected that if not for the goose soup and rice, Su Huaijing would never have permitted those dishes on their table.

He shook his head vigorously, obediently sipping the soup and whispering, “I don’t want any.”

Su Huaijing gave him a few more looks but didn’t ask again. It didn’t matter whether he asked or not, the decision wouldn’t change. Giving a table full of spicy food to a patient… what could be said about Fifth Highness Sheng Chengli?

Su Huaijing fought back a smile, though there was a cold edge to his lips.

Rong Tang had said himself that he had taught Sheng Chengli the Four Books, the Five Classics, military strategy, and even imperial governance. Knowing Rong Tang’s intelligence, if he had seriously taken Sheng Chengli as a student, there was no way he could have failed.

If the dishes Sheng Chengli sent weren’t a coincidence, then it could only mean—

He really didn’t care.

He wanted to flatter, to check and balance, to manipulate, but didn’t bother to learn whether Rong Tang liked spicy food, or if he could even eat so much of it.

Such a blatant attempt at loyalty made Su Huaijing wonder if Sheng Chengli was careless only with Rong Tang or with everyone. Perhaps, knowing that Rong Tang would always indulge him, he grew careless?

Did he think a small favour enough to ensure the other party’s compliance?

Su Huaijing’s eyes narrowed. He picked the last bit of meat from the rabbit’s eye socket, reassembled the skull, and smiled at Rong Tang, who was finishing his soup. “Are you full?”

Rong Tang nodded hastily. “Yes, full!”

“Good,” Su Huaijing said with a smile, scanning around the room before raising his hand to summon Rong Zheng.

When Rong Zheng arrived, he was slightly confused. He bent down and asked, “What are your orders, Eldest Sao?”

Su Huaijing replied, “Are you hungry?”

Rong Zheng was stunned. “What?”

“Eat the dishes, don’t waste His Fifth Highness’s kind gesture,” Su Huaijing said, his voice just loud enough for the surrounding circle to hear.

The noble sons, even those who hadn’t caught the eunuch’s earlier words, now fully understood.

They had been waiting for the palace banquet, hungry, while the Fifth Prince had sent a lavish meal to Duke Ningxuan’s Shizi without concern for offending other noble families.

Su Huaijing stood after he finished speaking. He held the plate of rabbit meat in one hand and Rong Tang’s wrist in the other. “I’ll take your xiong zhang out for a walk. If you can’t finish, share it with your friends. Everyone’s probably hungry.”

Upon hearing this, some of the Second Prince’s allies beamed and saluted Su Huaijing with cupped fists from a distance.

Su Huaijing nodded in return and calmly led Rong Tang out of the hall.

In the palace, there were dogs, mostly kept by the princesses. As Su Huaijing walked under the moonlight along the palace walls, they encountered a large wolfhound, its tongue hanging out. Su Huaijing paused briefly, then walked over with a smile, setting the plate of rabbit meat down by the wall for the dog to enjoy.

Rong Tang’s eyes widened.

Su Huaijing noticed his reaction and, with a slight frown, asked coolly, “Tangtang, do you want to eat it?”

“No!” Rong Tang quickly shook his head, staring at the wolfhound… or rather, at this little master.

The Emperor of Renshou was fond of raising wild animals—hawks, peacocks, pythons, snow wolves…

Even the white tiger had only been offered to the emperor because of his peculiar interests.

Within the Dayu palace was a zoo dedicated to these beloved “pets” of Emperor Renshou’s, many of which were kept in enclosures. Every year, there were incidents of palace staff being killed while feeding them.

The wolfhound Su Huaijing fed was the descendant of a snow wolf from that zoo. It was twelve years old, the only animal in the palace not directly owned by the emperor.

Its master was the empress dowager.

When the late emperor was still alive, the wolfhound was born, its pure white fur and fierce demeanour a mix of a wolf’s killer instinct and a dog’s loyalty.

At the time, the Emperor of Renshou, still a prince governing a vassal, had travelled back to the capital to for the empress dowager’s longevity birthday celebration. He had specially gifted it to his mother, both as a token of affection and as for her protection.

This wolfhound was more effective than three or four palace guards and was ferociously loyal only to the empress dowager.

Occasionally, it would roam outside Shoukang Palace. Most palace servants stayed well away if they spotted it, fearing it might attack and bite them in a sudden fit of rage.

In his previous two lives, Rong Tang had seen this wolfhound from afar. Sheng Chengli had told him its name was Shensang, and that befriending it was akin to having one foot in the empress dowager’s inner circle.

The system’s tasks were often whimsical, and because of Sheng Chengli’s offhand comment, Rong Tang was given the task of befriending a dog.

Rong Tang wasn’t afraid of dogs, but Shensang was one enormous beast, with snow-white fur and deep, penetrating eyes. It resembled a wild wolf more than a domesticated dog.

Standing before it, its yellow-brown eyes seemed to see through every thought in Rong Tang’s mind.

Shensang had bitten and even killed people.

Both Rong Tang and the system tried to appeal to the mainframe to cancel the task, but it was futile. In the end, they were only promised double rewards.

There was no other way, so trembling, he went.

But Shensang ignored him, gave him a glance, sniffed around his trousers, and then strolled away slowly and leisurely.

Every time Rong Tang entered the palace, he would pester it. Eventually, it got tired of him and fiercely pounced, knocking him to the ground. It opened its big mouth and hovered near his neck for a long time, as though searching for a weak spot to bite and kill him. But perhaps the human beneath its paws was too feeble, and it couldn’t be bothered. In the end, it relaxed its claws, gave a howl of warning, and mercifully let its prey go.

When Rong Tang touched the side of his neck, it was covered in his own cold sweat mixed with the saliva of the wolfhound, a stark reminder of how close he’d come to death.

The system, terrified, sounded frantic alarms in his mind. Once Shensang left, it didn’t even say goodbye before rushing to complain to the main system. After three days of protests, it returned triumphantly to tell Rong Tang that the task had been cancelled, and he’d been awarded a hefty compensation!

Because of that payment, when Rong Tang later saw Shensang in the palace, although still frightened, he found its features oddly appealing—even the terrifying scar on its left foreleg no longer seemed so menacing.

But not once had he ever seen this creature eat food provided by anyone outside of Shoukang Palace.

Yet Su Huaijing had just casually placed the plate by the wall without any pretence of reverence, and Shensang, after sniffing, began to wolf it down without any sign of fuss.

Rong Tang swallowed hard, instinctively stepping back, once again imagining the rabbit’s head on the plate as his own.

Su Huaijing grabbed his hand. “Tangtang, are you afraid of dogs?”

Rong Tang didn’t know whether to nod or not.

Anyone who had come close to being eaten by a dog would naturally be afraid upon seeing it feast.

But he had already revealed too much lately. If Su Huaijing suspected he and the wolfhound were old acquaintances, he might be able to deduce that Rong Tang had been reborn.

So Rong Tang forced himself to nod. “It’s just so large, and its way of eating is a bit scary.”

“Really?” Su Huaijing smiled meaningfully at him, then lightly nudged Shensang with his foot.

The wolfhound turned its head sharply, glaring viciously at its offender.

Su Huaijing raised his chin. “Go eat over there.”

Rong Tang’s heart leapt into his throat as he clutched Su Huaijing’s hand, ready to drag him away if Shensang got angry.

But the fearsome creature that no one in the entire palace dared provoke simply raised its eyes and looked at Su Huaijing, puzzled. It seemed to wonder why it had to move when it was perfectly happy where it was. Su Huaijing patiently pointed further away. “Go eat over there.”

Shensang seemed to understand now, though still incredulous. It whined, picked up its plate and, with a wounded look, found another spot along the wall to finish off the few remaining scraps. It glanced back at Su Huaijing a few times, eyes full of sorrow.

Rong Tang’s jaw practically dropped. After a moment, he finally asked, “You know each other?”

Su Huaijing chuckled, guiding him towards a quieter area. “I raised him for two years.”

The current empress dowager is actually Emperor Mingzong’s second wife. She’s not only the birth mother of Emperor Renshou, but also the stepmother of the late emperor.

The late emperor’s biological mother, Empress Xiaorenjing, died young. So Emperor Mingzong promoted the then-noble consort Yang to imperial consort, and two years later made her empress, thus making Emperor Renshou the legitimate heir.

Shensang was brought into the palace when Su Huaijing was just six years old. The empress dowager saw how fond he was of the puppy and gave it to him. For two years, they lived and ate together. When the palace was in turmoil, Shensang nearly perished in the fire but was rescued by a eunuch and sent back to Shoukang Palace. His left foreleg had been injured to the bone, yet he was still pawing at the fire pit.

Rong Tang digested this information, bewildered. “It recognises you?”

Su Huaijing said, “If it couldn’t even recognise me, it would be an insult to its ancestry.”

Ahead of them was a sealed palace with no lights. Su Huaijing glanced at it casually, then turned back and led Rong Tang away. “Wolfhounds can smell things humans can’t, and snow wolves are even more gifted in this regard. How could it not recognise me?”

Whether it’s changing one’s appearance or body, that only fools the human eye. If you wanted to hide from all living creatures, now that would be something remarkable.

So when Xingfeng first came back from the palace and mentioned that Shensang had been observing him from the shadows, Su Huaijing had already known this wolfhound still had the spirit of the wild in its bones.

But it had also recognised its true master.

The empress dowager wasn’t its master—Su Huaijing was.

Su Huaijing smiled. “So, Tangtang, there’s no need to fear it. Even if it’s starving, it wouldn’t dare bite you.”

“Why?” Rong Tang already had a guess but couldn’t help asking.

Su Huaijing replied, “You’ve got my scent on you. If it bit you, it would be afraid I’d punish it.”

Rong Tang paused, remembering the last life when Shensang had lain on top of him, sniffing him for ages before pulling back its fangs and leaving.

Scent?

But in their previous lives, he and Su Huaijing hadn’t been this close.

“Daydreaming again.” A soft sigh came from Su Huaijing’s side. They were approaching Shaohua Palace, its lights blazing in the distance, while behind them was a vast expanse of dark silence. Shensang had finished eating, licking its paws in the corner, occasionally lifting its gaze to watch them.

Rong Tang suddenly felt anxious. He glanced at Su Huaijing, hastily denying, “I wasn’t daydreaming.”

Su Huaijing stared at him in silence for a long while before smiling. “Liar.”

Rong Tang’s face flushed with embarrassment from being caught in a lie, but it was more the breath of the person standing so close that unsettled him.

It was similar to when Shensang had sniffed him, except that at the time, it had been cautious. Now, it felt more like something dangerous marking its territory.

Su Huaijing asked, “Tangtang, you’re full, right?”

Rong Tang blinked, nearly losing track of the conversation. After a brief pause, he nodded. “Yes, full.”

—If half a bowl of soup and a few pieces of meat could really fill him.

He was lying, but he’d already told more than one. Su Huaijing, merciful, didn’t call him out.

He just leaned in, cornering Rong Tang against the nearest plum tree, the fragrant blossoms overhead.

Su Huaijing smiled. “Surely Tangtang didn’t think I wouldn’t care at all, did you?”

Rong Tang tensed. So, it was coming after all!

That table of dishes from Sheng Chengli had been meant to kill him!

Panicking, he tried to explain, but Su Huaijing gently rubbed the back of his hand, whispering, “Relax, I’m not a bad guy.”

“Let me explain…” Rong Tang stammered.

Su Huaijing nodded seriously. “Take your time, Tangtang. I’ll just take a little interest in the meantime.”

A gentle kiss skimmed down from his ear, along his cheek, brushing his neck before biting down on his Adam’s apple.

The palace attendants began filing out as the banquet started, but they, hidden beneath the plum tree, were doing something indecent, witnessed only by a loyal wolfhound.

The sudden sting made Rong Tang stifle a groan.

Su Huaijing smiled again, raising his head to ask, “Have you finished making up your story, Tangtang?”

The Adam’s apple is sensitive, and anyone would tear up if bitten. Rong Tang stared at him, his eyes brimming with unshed tears, silently accusing him.

Su Huaijing seemed to realise he’d gone too far and said, “I shouldn’t have hurt you, Tangtang.”

But in the next moment, a kiss landed at the corner of his eye, sliding down to lick away the tears that shouldn’t have fallen.

Rong Tang’s legs weakened, and his fingers dug into the bark. Su Huaijing murmured, “Tangtang, stop making things up. I won’t believe anything you say anyway, so why bother?”

Before Rong Tang could respond, the lips teasing everywhere but never quite reaching the point finally found their place.

Su Huaijing caught his lips between his own, like a beast marking its mate, his voice hoarse and lazy. “Since you’re going to lie to me anyway, you might as well sweet-talk me.”

After all, Tangtang had taught Sheng Chengli but not him.

After all, he couldn’t enter Tangtang’s dreams.

After all, it had taken him so long to figure out Tangtang’s tastes, but Sheng Chengli knew them all at a glance.

Annoying.

He wouldn’t let Tangtang speak. No matter what he said, it would only be lies.

“Ng……”

Rong Tang’s eyes widened, and another tear slid from the corner of his eye.

So what’s the point of licking it so clean!?

You’re still going to bully me!

Scoundrel!

The dog is still watching!!!