Chapter 58: Chopped Chili Fish Head (Part 9)
Although the word "suspect" appeared in Leng Yue's statement, her tone left no room for doubt.
Jing Yi's hand, which had been rubbing his ear, paused mid-air. He looked somewhat startled at his wife, who was clearly drowsy yet still sharp-minded. "Shenxiu?"
Leng Yue silently yawned again and nodded leisurely. "Last night, Shenxiu was covering someone else’s duty at the hall. I checked the daily routine schedule of the monks at Anguo Temple. Night duty ends at the fifth watch, after which the monks who weren’t on duty go to the main hall for morning lessons, while those who were on duty must return to their quarters immediately to rest. They aren’t allowed to roam freely around the temple until the morning lessons end at mao hour."
Jing Yi glanced out the window at the sky.
It was just past mao hour.
Leng Yue pointed vaguely toward the table, where she had accidentally spilled a large patch of tea. "That pot of tea was brewed about half an hour ago, which means it was brewed roughly half an hour after his night duty ended. There was hot water ready in the room—I left it on the small stove before I went out. Tell me, if you were him, would you wait half an hour after returning to your room, thirsty after reciting scriptures all night, with hot water readily available, before brewing tea?"
Jing Yi understood what Leng Yue meant.
If Shenxiu wanted to leave the temple, he couldn’t do it during his night duty. Besides the monks on duty in the hall, there were also patrolling monks moving around the temple at night. Especially now, with a defenseless Goryeo prince staying there, nighttime patrols would undoubtedly be more frequent. If anyone noticed that the scripture recitation had stopped or that no one was in the main hall, his absence would be exposed immediately.
The tea was brewed about half an hour ago, meaning Shenxiu had been in the room for at least half an hour before Leng Yue’s shout woke the two of them up. If he wanted to leave the temple, he only had the half-hour window between the end of his night duty and the time he brewed the tea.
Indeed, given Shenxiu’s martial arts skills, it would be entirely possible for him to slip out of the temple unnoticed within half an hour, avoiding all the guards, deliver the letter quietly to the Goryeo delegation’s residence, and return to the temple without a sound. As long as he didn’t run into anyone directly, in a temple with no tradition of martial arts, it would be difficult for anyone to detect any clues.
However...
"Even if he had the time and the ability..." Jing Yi withdrew his gaze from the tea-stained table, frowning slightly. "Why would he help Wang Tuo deliver the letter?"
Leng Yue shot him a glance.
If she knew the answer to that, she would have dragged Shenxiu out of bed the moment she entered the room.
"You’re asking me?" Leng Yue narrowed her phoenix eyes slightly, slowly scanning Jing Yi’s still-bare upper body. She poked his tense abdomen twice with her finger. "Shouldn’t I be the one asking you? You two haven’t even been martial brothers for a full day, yet you’re already so close you’re sleeping in each other’s arms. Shouldn’t you be able to get the answer out of him with just a simple question?"
Her poking made his stomach itch, and he wanted to laugh, but her words made him feel like crying. Caught between laughter and tears, his expression twisted awkwardly.
From the moment he leaped out of bed, he knew this matter wouldn’t be easily resolved. As for how long it would last...
Amitabha.
"Xiao Yue... I think," Jing Yi pursed his lips, trying hard to maintain a serious expression, "there might be more to Shenxiu’s situation than meets the eye."Leng Yue gently raised her delicate brows. "Hmm?"
"First, he chanted scriptures all night in the main hall... Assuming he did deliver a letter for Wang Tuo at the guesthouse after finishing the chanting, as you said, he'd be parched upon returning. With hot water readily available in his room, why would he need to brew tea instead of just drinking the hot water?"
Leng Yue watched Jing Yi, who looked utterly serious, and lazily yawned before playing along. "What if he just felt like drinking tea? Is that not allowed?"
"Allowed... But if he really wanted tea, why did he go to bed right after brewing it without drinking any?"
Leng Yue had no argument about Shenxiu brewing tea but not drinking a single drop. When she picked up the teapot earlier, she noticed it was full—so full that the slightest tilt caused tea to spill from both the spout and the lid gap. It was clear he hadn't taken a sip.
Leng Yue glanced at Jing Yi's jade-smooth chest, her gaze lingering on the particularly enticing red mark over his heart, and replied nonchalantly, "Perhaps the moment he saw you, he lost his desire for tea."
"Then why did he go to bed without even taking off his outer robe?"
Before Jing Yi finished speaking, he felt the room suddenly turn cold.
"Wait—"
Seeing Leng Yue sit upright in bed, Jing Yi didn't bother with futile resistance. He hugged his head, rolled to the corner against the wall at the foot of the bed, and obediently curled into a ball.
Leng Yue didn't pursue him. She simply sat straight at the head of the bed, calmly looking at Jing Yi in the opposite corner. "Do you want to know why?"
Jing Yi looked up in surprise. Seeing genuine serenity in Leng Yue's expression, he silently sighed in relief, uncurled himself, and replied earnestly, "Yes."
"So do I."
"..."
"Since we both want to know, why don't you go ask Shenxiu to clarify this matter?" Leng Yue leisurely got out of bed, grabbing the sword she had left on the table. "I'll go talk to Wang Tuo about his intention to capture the Bodhisattva."
"...!"
When Leng Yue leaped through the window into Wang Tuo's room, he was still curled on the floor, sound asleep while clutching a stack of exam papers. Leng Yue cleared her throat three times in succession before Wang Tuo groggily awoke.
"Bo... Bodhisattva!"
Leng Yue held her long sword in the crook of her arm, chin slightly raised, eyes lowered, and stared impassively at Wang Tuo, who had tossed the exam papers aside and scrambled to kneel. She resembled an imperial envoy holding the Emperor's Sword, ready to announce an edict.
"You still remember I'm the Bodhisattva?"
Wang Tuo forced his bleary eyes open, quickly wiped the drool still clinging to the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, and stared blankly at Leng Yue.
It was the same face from last night, but without the soft glow of the oil lamp, it appeared excessively cold and devoid of warmth. Coupled with the fact that she held a sword in her arm instead of a food box...
Wang Tuo didn't dare respond immediately.
Leng Yue didn't seem to expect an answer either. After coldly posing the previous question, she took a slow breath and followed with an even sharper tone. "Then do you remember what you promised me last night?"
Leng Yue's voice was naturally deeper than most women's, and combined with her considerable Inner Cultivation, it carried a unique authority when suddenly sharpened. This startled Wang Tuo, who had just shaken off his drowsiness, into a panicked series of nods.
"Remember?"Leng Yue arched a delicate eyebrow, slowly shifting the sword from one arm to the other. The morning light streaming through the window fell upon the metal patterns of the scabbard, flashing so brightly it dazzled Wang Tuo’s eyes and sent a chill through his heart.
“Then you must still remember—last night, you promised me not to breathe a single word about seeing me in the temple.”
Wang Tuo nodded vigorously again, so forcefully that Leng Yue momentarily worried he might snap his slender neck. Before Wang Tuo could speak, Leng Yue drew a blank envelope from her sleeve, held it out before him, and gave it a light shake.
“Since you remember everything, then what is this?”
Wang Tuo stared blankly at the envelope for a moment, then abruptly froze.
Watching his face instantly turn deathly pale, Leng Yue curled her lips into a faint, cold smile. “You are a prince of your country. It is your duty to always consider your people. I can understand your desire to capture me and take me back to Goryeo for the benefit of your subjects. But you went back on your word—you agreed to it right in front of me, yet the moment I left, you wrote a letter to the Goryeo envoy, and even wrote it in Goryeo script… Did you think that just because you wrote it in Goryeo, the Buddha wouldn’t recognize it?”
Before Leng Yue had even finished speaking, Wang Tuo began frantically waving his hands, sweating profusely in his panic, as if he could think of no other word besides “no.”
“Still won’t admit it, is that it?”
Leng Yue raised an eyebrow, tucked the sword under her arm, and reached out to shake the letter from the envelope. Just as she was about to unfold it and thrust it in front of Wang Tuo, her gaze fell upon the twice-folded letter, and she froze in shock as she clearly saw the handwriting.
This letter… it seemed…
She had taken the wrong one.
Earlier, angered by Shenxiu, she hadn’t paid attention when pulling the letter from her sleeve and had inadvertently handed Wang Tuo’s letter from last night to Shenxiu. This one, though also unsealed, was filled with Chinese characters—it was Shenxiu’s.
Oh, merciful Buddha…
As Leng Yue stood frozen, on the verge of tears, Wang Tuo had already recovered his wits and found his Chinese again. He straightened up on his knees, wiped the sweat from his brow, and said with utmost reverence, “Bodhisattva, I know I was wrong.”
Leng Yue sighed silently to herself.
I know I was wrong, too…
“Bodhisattva…” Wang Tuo bowed formally, pressing his forehead to the floor before Leng Yue, whose expression was now indescribably complex. Slowly but earnestly, in his halting Chinese, he said, “I shouldn’t have written it, but… I didn’t write it to anyone else. I wrote it to myself.”
Leng Yue was taken aback for a moment, her brow furrowing slightly as she looked at Wang Tuo’s devout face. “You mean, this letter was written by you, to yourself?”
A look of relief flashed in Wang Tuo’s eyes, and he nodded quickly, then, remembering something, shook his head. “Not a letter. I just wrote it for myself.”
Reading people had never been Leng Yue’s strong suit, and faced with someone like Wang Tuo, who wasn’t even sure what he was saying, she suddenly missed the person she had sent to question Shenxiu.
“What do you mean? Explain it more clearly…” After saying this, she felt it might be somewhat inappropriate, so she added nonchalantly, “I don’t quite understand the way you mortals speak.”
“I have an illness…” Wang Tuo gently pressed his pale lips together, raised his hand, and pointed a finger at his own head. “My mind isn’t very good. If I don’t write down what I think, I’ll forget it quickly.”
Leng Yue stared at him, stunned.
Recording things…Indeed, the letter's content neither specified to whom it was addressed nor bore the sender's signature.
When Prince An reviewed the Ministry of Rites' translation of this letter, he raised this very point to Jing Qian. Jing Qian explained that since there were only a few Koreans currently residing in the capital, the Korean envoy delegation would undoubtedly recognize their own master's handwriting. Omitting the identities of both sender and recipient would make it easier to deny responsibility should the letter fall into the wrong hands.
Prince An neither affirmed nor refuted Jing Qian's explanation. At the time, Leng Yue found the reasoning sound—if Jing Qian was correct, then Wang Tuo's current words were likely just such an evasion.
However...
Leng Yue lowered her gaze to skim the monastic examination papers Wang Tuo had set aside on the floor.
Instead of conducting oral inquiries, he had fabricated the pretext of selecting scripture copyists, making all the temple monks go through this roundabout process of writing lengthy responses, then staying up all night to scrutinize every character... This truly resembled the desperate measure of someone with limited intellect who had run out of options.
But if Wang Tuo was telling the truth, it meant there truly was someone in Anguo Temple intensely interested in him—someone who knew he had written such a document, stole the letter while he was unaware, delivered it to the envoy residence, and intentionally let the Ministry of Rites discover it...
If that were the case, this matter likely couldn't be handled as casually as Prince An had promised her—that she could deal with it however she saw fit.
In such matters, it was better to believe it possible.
Leng Yue imperceptibly furrowed her brows, her expression softening slightly as she tucked the letter that should belong to Shenxiu back into her sleeve. She addressed Wang Tuo with detached calm, "Stop kneeling. Rise and speak."
Wang Tuo observed Leng Yue's noticeably gentler countenance, hesitated briefly, but remained kneeling. "Bodhisattva, I have more to say. I wish to kneel while speaking."
"Speak then."
Wang Tuo's narrow eyes remained fixed on Leng Yue's dazzlingly beautiful face, his lips pressed into a tight line. After a long pause, as if mustering tremendous resolve, he uttered each word with deliberate emphasis:
"Bodhisattva, I truly desire you."
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