Wei Ying looks through the second book again, the heavier one.
"Why would the best friend of the Emperor have two copies of the same book?" Wei Ying muses, rifling through it again and finding that some of the pages were stuck together rather inconveniently. He rummages about in the secret drawers of Lan Zhan's table and pulls out a sharp blade.
"Either I can slice through these thin layers, or we could melt whatever adhesive was used...but that might endanger the contents..." his tongue peeks out from the corner of his mouth and Lan Zhan has to smile.
Watching his husband working was simply the best feeling, to know that Wei Ying was sorting through a puzzle just because he could, in the safety and security of having a choice, made Lan Zhan extremely happy.
"Do you think the Emperor had one of these as well?" Lan Zhan asks him off-handedly, playing with a lock of Wei Ying's hair.
Wei Ying stops. Slowly, he turns around and his huge eyes are shining ever so brightly as he grabs Lan Zhan's face and plants the noisiest kiss on his lips.
"You Genius! Lan Zhan! Sweetheart! That's the key! Why didn't I think of that? It must be in that secret office thingy, the room which we never entered. You know, that door hidden behind the curtains. We should go and check now," he says, standing up.
"Wei Ying wants to go now?" Lan Zhan also stands up, his golden eyes searching Wei Ying's face for his answer. A part of him is disappointed that they're not going to sleep any time soon, but it's okay. This sounds like a short trip.
"Yeah, but we'll have to be careful. The First Prince could be there or any of his slimy advisors. Let's take Hui Gai with us so he can make us invisible." Wei Ying reached up to kiss his cheek. "I'm not saying thank you," he warned Lan Zhan, "but I really appreciate how I can suggest anything and you're like, so ready to do it. It means a lot to me."
"That sounds suspiciously like a thank you. And for the record, I will go anywhere Wei Ying wants to. Without question. Shall we go?"
"Yep?! Hui Gai!"
*****************
The Emperor's bedroom is a mess. His bed has been overturned, pillows slashed leaving a mess of feathers drowning in sheets around them. Precious artifacts including the huge porcelain vases are smashed on the ground and it's pretty clear that someone was very angry that the Emperor is no longer here.
For a few moments, no one moves, too shocked at seeing the orderly room of before changed so dramatically into this. There is nothing left intact.
"Wow!" Wei Ying mutters, not even bothering to check the debris and rubble for anything to survive the wrath of whoever caused this much destruction.
Hui Gai opens the door of the office and they find it in a similar state. Papers are strewn everywhere, records and documents flung into every corner, brushes broken and inkstones smashed.
"Do you think the Emperor has a table like ours?" Wei Ying says, going towards the only piece of furniture here that has endured the wrecking.
He uses his sleeve to remove the dust and rubble from its surface and then his finger traces the bottom edge, looking for the spring. His idea works and a drawer pops out, revealing another Poetry book.
"Alright, let's go back to the Jingshi and see what we can make of this." Wei Ying looks incredibly happy.
**************
This time, Wei Ying attacks the poetry book with gusto, effortlessly slicing through the glued pages as if they weren't even stuck together.
They reveal paper thin copied documents detailing the accumulation of money in vast sums and other important governing issues. Another page falls out, and this time, it's a picture with holes. Inspired by connections, Wei Ying lines up the previous paper with the holes that he found first and sees that they're identical.
"I bet this was a genius way of the Emperor and those closest to him to send each other messages. Think about it: he must have realised that his own advisors were acting against him, and he might even have tested out his theory by giving them false information, just to see what they were going to do. If he was onto them, then he knew that he could not openly send any messages out to his people without them being read by the wrong eyes first. So he made sure that all the important people around him had an exact copy of these books. I bet if we asked General Huang if he had one, he'd say yes."
"But how would they use these books?" Hui Gai picks one up to dangle it by his talons.
"Like this." Lan Zhan places the paper with the holes over the text and it shows only the characters that were meant to be used in a single message.
"So what if I accidentally used it like this?" Hui Gai turns it around and copies what Lan Zhan had done. "It's not idiot proof."
"Oh my goodness! That's why there were numbers!" Wei Ying reaches for the first ever blank paper with the holes and points to the numbers in the corners. "That's why these exist. The Emperor's message would just be a number and there's no way it could make sense to any opposing party, they would probably just dismiss it as the ramblings of an old man."
"But when their plans were thwarted, the First Prince decided to take it further and physically prevent his father from taking action." Lan Zhan surmises.
"You're right, my love. That explains the timeline." Wei Ying says, putting all the books and papers away tidily and surprising his husband. "What? I can be tidy!"
Hui Gai grins and waves before disappearing. Lan Zhan merely looks around the Jingshi as his proof.
Wei Ying pointedly ignores that and climbs into his lap.
"There's nothing we can really do until the Emperor gets better," he says, fluttering his eyelashes and grinding down on Lan Zhan.
"Mn. But there's plenty we can do." Lan Zhan says, rising easily before throwing Wei Ying onto their bed and not even letting him bounce.
YOU ARE READING
WangXian Forever Book 10
RomantizmWei Ying and Lan Zhan must step up to the new challenge that awaits them when they find something that was given to them in secret. What is it, and why is it so dangerous? They embark on a new adventure to find out.
