22. The little princess is truly adorable.

Ye Liangchen really ought to die!

The Little Commandery Princess had snuck over again before dawn, this time fully prepared. She had brought five hundred and seventy-five taels in silver notes, along with a physician from the Prince’s residence and the auntie who made the best porridge in the entire household.

The auntie set up a small brazier in the room, placed a clay pot over it, and began lighting the fire. The physician, meanwhile, rested two fingers against Xia Lin’s wrist.

“Physician Zhou, how is he?”

The physician looked to be well over sixty. A tuft of goatee hung from his chin, giving him the air of some reclusive sage. He held a highly respected position in the prince’s household and was revered by everyone there. He had also watched the Little Commandery Princess grow up, so his every word carried a blend of humor and wisdom.

After hearing her question, he let out a long sigh and said with deep feeling, “Fortunately, Commandery Princess, you called me in time. Had you waited a little longer…”

“What would have happened if I’d waited?”

“He would have recovered! It’s only a superficial injury, about the same as the one you suffered when you fell from the stage at the age of nine. This boy is simply afraid of pain. Touch him lightly and he starts shrieking as though he were being dismembered.”

Old Zhang was sitting nearby drinking water. When he heard this, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“What did I say yesterday? He was pretending!”

Young people truly did recover quickly. The two bloody marks had already faded considerably that day, and unless they were pressed hard, they no longer caused any noticeable pain. Just as Physician Zhou had said, had they waited another couple of days, the wounds might well have healed completely.

Hearing this, the Little Commandery Princess realized she had been tricked again. She planted her hands on her hips and glared at Xia Lin.

“You awful thing! You’re always bullying me, and I was worried sick about you.”

“When did I bully you? I really was in pain. I passed out from it and was carried here.”

Physician Zhou was still holding his wrist. He gave Xia Lin a profound look and said in a calm yet teasing tone, “A young man being overly sensitive to pain is perhaps not a good sign. In the ancient work *The Great Way of All Under Heaven*, this condition is recorded among the Seven Losses and Eight Benefits as ‘leakage.’ In the future, you may be prone to releasing before intercourse, or releasing the moment intercourse begins.”

“What? Releasing before intercourse?” Xia Lin sprang up from the bed. “I’m cured! There’s nothing wrong with me at all!”

The Little Commandery Princess did not understand. Curiosity filled her face.

“What does ‘releasing before intercourse’ or ‘releasing the moment it begins’ mean?”

“Children shouldn’t know about such things.”

It had always been this way, from ancient times to the present. You could call a man ugly, poor, or useless, but you absolutely could not say he was impotent or finished too quickly. For a man who had not yet reached middle age, even the slightest hint of such a problem was a tremendous humiliation.

After seeing Physician Zhou off, the Little Commandery Princess naturally stayed behind. Xia Lin was still afraid of pain, but he forced himself to sit on a stool despite the swelling ache, terrified of earning the title of “a man who could not last until intercourse.” But fear of pain was fear of pain. No matter how strong his will, sitting there still made him grimace and bare his teeth.

“How many days are you going to stay here?” the Little Commandery Princess asked.

By then, the meat porridge was ready. She took the bowl and instinctively moved to feed Xia Lin, but he glanced down at it and took the bowl and spoon from her.

“It’s not as though my hands were chopped off…”

“But yesterday you let Brother Zhongchun feed you water.”

“That was only proper. The ancients said that when Heaven intends to bestow a great responsibility upon a man, it first makes his heart suffer. He needs a little hardship, otherwise he’ll never be able to endure too much sweetness later.”

Old Zhang pointed at Xia Lin.

“You insolent brat! Today, your grandfather is going to let you taste wine fierce enough to burn your body from the inside out!”

The Little Commandery Princess could make neither head nor tail of this. She stared at the two men with wide, innocent eyes.

“What kind of wine is that?”

“Wine brewed from a man who goes all day in the height of summer without drinking water,” Old Zhang said, swaying his head. “One cup makes your heart sing. Two cups send you straight to the Hall of Eternal Life.”

Xia Lin immediately frowned and slapped him across the back of the head.

Old Zhang, who had been enjoying himself immensely, was instantly brought back to his senses. The person sitting before him was a princess of the imperial clan. That single remark about two cups sending him to the Hall of Eternal Life would be enough to leave him owing the court eight lives. Cold sweat began dripping from him at once.

What was the Hall of Eternal Life? It was where the memorial tablets of successive emperors were enshrined. From Tuoba Yilu to Tuoba Gui, and then the late Emperor Tuoba Qun, all were worshiped there. There had been one in Luoyang, the first capital, and another built after the capital was moved.

Old Zhang’s habit of speaking without thinking had struck again. He did not consider the slap a loss; it had beaten enough sweat out of him to leave him drenched from head to toe.

“Oh! No wonder Dao Sheng says you enjoy talking nonsense,” the Little Commandery Princess said nervously. “You can’t say things like that carelessly. They could get your entire family executed. They might even drag you out and cut you in half with a huge executioner’s blade.”

Old Zhang immediately admitted defeat. He hurriedly bowed, then smacked his own mouth several times before standing up.

“I’m going to use the latrine…”

At the sight of him, the Little Commandery Princess laughed so hard she could barely breathe. In the end, clutching her stomach, she waved him away.

“No more, no more! Brother Zhongchun, I’m going to die laughing.”

“You’re lucky it was you. If it had been anyone else, we couldn’t say who would be the one dying,” Xia Lin said, cold sweat covering his forehead. Once the adrenaline subsided, he realized he could no longer even feel the pain in his backside. “Speaking of which, Little Commandery Princess, you really shouldn’t keep coming here. If someone sees you, it’ll cause trouble.”

“That won’t do. The prince’s residence is unbearably boring, and Father won’t give me any money anymore. He says he’s afraid I’ll run around everywhere. I’ve nearly wasted away during the days you were gone. I came this time because I want you to take me away—to your place.”

Xia Lin clenched his buttocks so tightly they nearly locked together.

“Stop fooling around. Aren’t you afraid the prince will have me executed?”

“It’ll be fine. I don’t eat much. And if there’s nowhere for me to stay, I can squeeze in with you. I’m very good at enduring hardship.”

Was this really a question of enduring hardship?

Clearly, the Little Commandery Princess still had no firm understanding of the boundaries between men and women. That was understandable. The teachings of Cheng and Zhu had not yet emerged in this era. Although marriages between thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds were common enough, the Little Commandery Princess had obviously been well protected by her family. She probably had not yet realized what the problem was.

Xia Lin rubbed his chin. Over the past few days, he had found time to reread on his phone the dreadful novel he had written. In it, the Little Commandery Princess had been a lively, uninhibited girl. Her ending had been tragic, but before she was sent away in a political marriage, she had been everyone’s beloved ideal.

A major reason the novel had failed so badly was that he had sent her to marry a foreign prince, only for her to be beheaded and her head hung from a banner as a sacrifice.

Now that he was looking at the living girl before him, vivid and full of life, Xia Lin asked himself whether, if events unfolded in the same way again, he would still be forced by circumstances to send her away in marriage.

The answer was, of course, no.

She was simply too lovable. Even if he regarded her only as a younger sister, he could never let her suffer such a fate. But there was still one problem: if, several years from now, Xia Lin was still merely a village head, would he have the ability to influence state affairs? Would he even have the right to obstruct the political marriage?

“Dao Sheng, why have you suddenly become so gloomy?”

“I’m thinking about how to keep the prince from killing me.” Xia Lin rested his chin in both hands and let out a long sigh. “It’s so difficult. So very difficult.”

“It isn’t difficult at all. Don’t worry. My father doesn’t kill people indiscriminately. He’s even known as the Benevolent Prince.”

The Benevolent Prince? I might as well be the Dragon King.

When he said it was difficult, he was thinking about how, years from now, he could save this little girl from being abused by foreigners and then beheaded as a sacrifice.

But he could not say that now. The only solution was to act as quickly as possible.

The Little Commandery Princess had four years left. When she turned seventeen, she would be sent away in a political marriage. Judging from the course history was taking, even if the original protagonist, Ye Liangchen, never appeared at court, the entire plot would still progress in that direction.

Four years—the time it took to go from freshman to senior year at university. Xia Lin had to transform himself into someone capable of influencing the imperial court and shaping actual policy.

The difficulty was comparable to starting with nothing after graduating from high school and building a company into one of the top fifty corporations in the world within four years. No one would believe such a claim. Anyone who heard it would think he was bragging.

Yet it was something he had to do.

Once she was sent away in marriage, when he saw her again two years later, she would be nothing more than a head sealed inside a box.

Damn it. Just thinking about it was enough to make his mind explode.

“Dao Sheng, Dao Sheng! These next few days, my elder brother is going to host a banquet at the Pavilion of Prince Teng for scholars who have come from all over because of its fame. Will you go with me?”

“What would I go there for? I’m not suited to attend that sort of gathering.”

Xia Lin was actually rather reluctant to associate with those scholars and poets. It was not only because they were pedantic and sour, but also because most of them were probably jealous by nature. Scholars had hardly changed in thousands of years. Any man of letters with a truly broad heart had either taken to the hills and become a bandit or cultivated himself into a saint. Between those two extremes, nearly all the rest were narrow-minded.

The Little Commandery Princess did not see it that way. She was only thirteen; how could she have considered such things? Instead, she brought out her usual skill and began tugging on his hand.

“Dear Brother, please come with me.”

At first, Xia Lin believed he could withstand it. But after she shook him only three times, he raised his hands in surrender.

“All right, all right, I’ll go. I’ll go.”

“That’s wonderful! You must make me proud when the time comes.” The Little Commandery Princess’s face glowed with excitement. “If you distinguish yourself, I’ll give you my cousin.”

Xia Lin stared blankly.

“Who?”

“My cousin, the Princess of Xunyang. She’s coming too! A few days ago, I heard her chatting with my elder brother, and he said he would choose one of these scholars to be her husband. I thought it would be terrible if she ended up with someone else. None of those men look appealing. After thinking it over, I decided you were the best choice. So I’ll have my cousin marry you. Then I can come play with you every day! I can even live at her residence, and we can sleep together. That way, you can keep telling me the story you never finished. You still owe me the second half of the tale of Nie Xiaoqian.”

Xia Lin’s head buzzed after hearing this grand proposal. There was really no way to explain the situation to her. He could only think that if all younger sisters-in-law in the world had such admirable awareness, this truly would be paradise.

“Hey! What are you thinking about? Is it a good idea or not? With your talent, you can certainly do it.”

Xia Lin gave the Little Commandery Princess a deep look, then suddenly became furious all over again.

How could that bastard Ye Liangchen bear to push such an innocent, radiant little girl into a pit of fire?