Long Xiaoyuan looked at Hu’s back with a smile. “Qingzhou, I found this man is quite shrewd. How could he be squeezed out by other ministers?”
Shi smiled. “It’s not that he doesn’t know how to talk to others, but he has some certain principles that no one can change.”
“For example?” Long got interested. In his eyes, Hu Qingyuan seemed to have done a good job.
Obviously, he doubted whether their love was true or not, but he didn’t show his true feelings.
Obviously, he was shocked, but he adjusted himself quickly. At least, he appeared to be calm.
Most importantly, in such a shock, he could still keep his composure and answered the questions very well. There was no mistake or omission in the process of his reporting.
“You’re the emperor. Naturally you don’t think there is any problem. But… Say that your superior was celebrating his birthday, but you went to the party empty handed and didn’t take any gift as a matter of course.”
“Huh?” Long was stunned.
Shi smiled again. “Say that your superior and an ordinary person were almost attacked by a wild horse at the same time, and you had the time and ability to save them. At least you could help them avoid the frontal attack of the wild horse. But you saved the ordinary person without hesitation and your superior almost died under the hooves of the horse.”
“Well…” Long blinked and touched his nose.
Shi smiled again, looking very relaxed. “Say that you and your colleagues had made an appointment to go out for a drink, but your colleagues made it at a brothel. You frowned and left without mercy. No matter what your colleagues said, you just wouldn’t stay.” Long touched his chin and laughed while visualizing that.
Shi sighed. “Say that your colleagues liked to take bribes, which weren’t a large sum of money, but just a small profit. You were also involved in that, but you were selfless and wouldn’t take a little bit. You also used your own salary to help the poor people.”
Long became silent.
Shi touched Long’s hand with his fingers. “Forget about your identity as the emperor for now. Say that you were just an ordinary minister, would you like such a person?”
Long looked at Shi significantly and then said with a wry smile, “Indeed. Only a wise emperor would like such a good official. Only a superior who likes and appreciates his goodness can give him a good future. However, I was not such an emperor in the past…
…?
Shi smiled and said softly, “Your Majesty, compared to the past, you really have changed a lot.”
Long sighed.
Shi said softly again, “Your Majesty, I wonder why you have changed so much.”
“Qingzhou, do you believe in dreams?” Long knew he’d talk about that with Shi sooner or later. Since he was using the original emperor’s body and had all his memories, he wasn’t worried about being suspected of being a fake.
However, there was a big difference between his personality in the past and that at present. So, that problem would surely be discussed someday.
Moreover, he and Shi had promised to be together for a lifetime. Thus, they’d naturally talk about that.
Others might be afraid that he was a tyrant and wouldn’t come to find fault with him, but Shi was different.
Therefore, Long had been prepared for this day and had figured out how to explain.
Now that Shi had asked, he would just tell him what he had prepared.
However, he would choose to hide his past life and the novel from Shi.
What happened in the previous life was too illusory. Long didn’t want to mention it, nor could he mention it. He also didn’t want to hurt Shi.
It was not that he distrusted him, but… He didn’t think his partner should bear such a burden.
What’s more, the previous injuries were all there. He didn’t think he had nothing to do with the original emperor. Should he say that he was not him and Shi had suffered all those injuries in vain?
He didn’t want to do that! He would rather believe that that person was actually another himself. Maybe because his soul was not complete, he was that cruel. His arrival made that soul complete and then he finally became the real him.
He liked Shi Qingzhou, so he hoped that Shi would only belong to him all the time! Only him!
“Dreams?” Shi was a little stunned, because he didn’t expect the answer was that.
“Yes.” Long smiled and fixed his eyes on Shi.
“Qingzhou, you should’ve found out. I changed so suddenly.”
Shi kept silent for a moment and then nodded. “So, I’ve been wondering.”
Long smiled bitterly again. “Not only you, I think many people must be very confused now.”
Shi was stunned.
Long stretched out his hand and touched Shi gently on the cheek.
Shi just let him do that.
A moment later, Long said slowly, “The night I lived in my own chamber… I had a dream.”
“What did you dream about?” Shi asked immediately.
“I dreamt that… because of my cruelty, I lost popular support… I was close to sycophants and alienated myself from virtuous officials. I dreamt that your father didn’t rebel, but I believed some other people’s rumors and thought he rebelled. Moreover, because of my personal selfishness, I deprived your father of his military power and also killed all your family members!”
Shi was shocked, with his pupils shrinking greatly.
Long stared at Shi and then continued, “I dreamt that you were driven to a desperate situation by me and then revolted.”
Shi was shocked again.
“You killed me and became the emperor. You were not fatuous or incompetent as me and managed the state very well. It’s just that I never saw you smile again, whether when you ascended the throne, married the empress, or took concubines. I became a ghost after I died. I didn’t know why I couldn’t go to hell and had to follow you. I just stayed by your side… and witnessed your whole life… For a lifetime… you never smiled.”
In that novel, Shi Qingzhou ascended the throne and became the emperor. Although he had one empress and seven imperial concubines, he didn’t smile even on the day of his grand wedding. No, it should be said that he didn’t really smile from the bottom of his heart.
He even ordered that no one in the nation should talk about toy-boy ever again… That could be called the only “fatuous” thing that Shi had done.
It was a novel written from the perspective of the empress Shi Qingzhou. When Shi family still existed, no matter how Long Xiaoyuan mistreated him and humiliated him, Shi would still smile when he saw his father on the rare occasions.
He would smile when he thought of his mother.
Later, after his entire family was exterminated, he became emperor and married many women soon.
Although all those women had extraordinary backgrounds, there wasn’t any love story between them and Shi.
There seemed to be such a line in that novel: The gentle, cultivated and striking empress had become an iron emperor, without tears, laughter, pain and love. But just because of such a personality, many women were attracted and threw themselves to him. They wanted to conquer this tough man.
Shi Qingzhou married those women for the sake of the stability of the court.
However, did he really love those women? Obviously not… He had seen so many women intriguing against each other in the harem, so how could he fall in love with any women easily? Moreover… he had been an empress before.
Long Xiaoyuan made up a lie about the ghost thing. Otherwise, he couldn’t explain why he’d know what had happened after his death. But all the rest things were true.
“Qingzhou, I followed you all your life and saw that you never smiled again. Then, I realized what a jerk I had been. I mistreated you and the common people. I followed you all your life and watched you making every effort to make the country prosperous… Qingzhou, I regretted it. I felt ashamed… When I woke up and found that was just a dream, and that I didn’t kill your family, nor did you kill me… I thought our relationship should be changed.”
With his lips pressed togtether tightly, Shi looked at Long and gently asked, “Since you dreamt that I killed you, why didn’t you kill me first after waking up?”
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