Chapter 615

"Holy cow!" There was actually a lake on Mount Qilin, and it wasn't small either! "Is the water deep?"

"At least four or five zhang." Fu Shanyue stroked his chin. "It's great for fishing here, or..."

He gestured a swimming pose.

"A good place." He Lingchuan also smiled.

The water weeds by the lake were very tall, and the bushes on the shore were dense; as long as he entered the water from here, no one could keep an eye on him.

Water escape was truly more convenient than anything else, and it could also block spiritual sense detection. Didn't the Concentric Guards want to tail him? Let's make it difficult for them.

"The Emperor actually bestowed a villa with a back door—no, a back lake—to you."

Fu Shanyue laughed loudly: "The Emperor is busy with ten thousand matters a day; how could he delve into these details? How many mountain peaks and how many such villas are there in Spirit Void City? How could the Emperor count them one by one?"

He added: "I heard that two servants of the original owner once lost a child here, and only later did they find out that a catfish in the lake had become a monster and eaten people."

"Was it caught?"

"It took nearly half a year to catch it." Fu Shanyue threw a stone into the water, and unexpectedly, the water surface splashed, as if some creature underneath had been startled. "There is live water flowing down from the mountain, so this lake water cannot be drained."

He Lingchuan stroked his chin: "In that case, it would be bad if someone escaped in via the water route. There should be a few guards placed in the lake."

"Find a few monsters to do it?"

He Lingchuan smiled: "Leave it to me; I happen to know some."

Over the past three days, the rumors had been given ample time to spread well. Crown Prince Huan killing people and setting fires at the Pan Mansion was witnessed by countless people; not only commoners, but also spies and informants from various families were at the scene, and they reported it clearly upon returning.

Therefore, not only did the upper crust of Spirit Void City know, but the news even spread across districts to the outside.

More crucially, the Emperor turned around and bestowed a grand mansion upon Fu Shanyue.

Everyone knew this was appeasement, an apology; no matter how it was whitewashed, it proved that Crown Prince Huan had committed the offense and the royal family was admitting its mistake.

To be able to make even the Emperor silently apologize, hey! The name of the Crown Prince of Chi Yan once again resounded through Spirit Void City.

Thus, on the day Pianxiang Shanzhuang reopened, this ancient mansion that had been silent for seven years was bustling with visitors, with nobles gathering to congratulate the Crown Prince of Chi Yan on his housewarming.

The protagonist was Fu Shanyue, and the spotlight belonged to Fu Shanyue, so He Lingchuan was naturally happy to be idle; no matter how noisy the front hall and back courtyard were, he just needed to hide in the kitchen to eat and drink.

Of the few cooks newly hired by Fu Shanyue, three were skilled in hot dishes, one was skilled in cold platters, and another chubby cook-maid was a master at brewing wine and making pastries. He Lingchuan said a few nice words to her and immediately received two large plates full of various pastries.

The hawthorn cake melted in his mouth. He Lingchuan ate two in a row and inexplicably thought of Lady Ying.

Back in Heishuicheng, he and He Yue would also often sneak the cook-maid's pastries; the cook-maid knew it too and would often hide a basin of pastries in the back cupboard for the two brothers, although the taste was far inferior to what He Lingchuan was eating now.

It had been a long time since he saw He Yue; that kid should be the second-in-command of the Dunyu Governor's Office by now.

He wondered if the garden that Lady Ying had spent so much effort building had been repaired yet.

He Lingchuan sighed, and the hawthorn cake in his hand suddenly didn't taste as good.

Recalling the days as the eldest young master of Heishuicheng, the happiness back then was simple happiness, and the troubles back then were also just simple troubles.

It had been barely a year, yet it felt like a lifetime ago.

The cook-maid was anxious: "Eldest Young Master, is it not tasty?"

He Lingchuan was dead serious: "It's okay, there's room for improvement."

"That might be because it's cold." The cook-maid thought for a moment and took out another portion of white pastries from the back cupboard, only palm-sized, which clearly weren't for guests: "Wait a moment."

"..." Did every cook-maid have a back cupboard for hiding things? She fiddled around in the kitchen for a while and soon came out; that portion of pastries was steaming hot: "Here, try the lard cake."

He Lingchuan picked up a piece and tasted it; it was chewy and soft, with osmanthus mixed into the lard, fragrant but not greasy, especially satisfying to eat in autumn.

"Delicious. This isn't for guests, right?"

"Not for guests. This was made from a batch of osmanthus newly harvested from the old osmanthus tree in the villa; the quantity is too small to serve."

Osmanthus flowers had to be shade-dried and stored in airtight containers after harvesting; it took time.

Over the past three or four days, He Lingchuan had become familiar with the place. He was approachable, and the people in the kitchen didn't treat him as an outsider, so they gossiped while working.

He Lingchuan listened while eating and learned that two more pieces of gossip had broken out in Spirit Void City these past few days.

First, Jia Qingmin, the Assistant Prefect, was involved in corruption and bribery, and the Court Marshal had submitted a report to have him dismissed and investigated.

"How much did he embezzle?"

"It's said to be two million taels?" the cook-maid muttered in a low voice, which everyone within a three-zhang radius could hear.

"Two million taels? For such a big official to embezzle this much money, it doesn't seem like much, does it?" That was two billion large coins. It might be shocking elsewhere, but they, the people of Spirit Void City, had seen the world; this figure wasn't very surprising for an official in Spirit Void City. Therefore, the cooks were actually a bit disappointed. "I heard that the Ke family—yes, that Ke family that is wealthy across the four seas—spent nearly nine hundred thousand taels just to buy a broken sword a while ago."

"Can those be the same thing?" the cook-maid added, "Gold, pearls, and treasures don't count. Also, do you know about that Golden Hook Gambling Den at the head of the Water Gate that has the best business?"

"I know it, I... I have a friend who went there a while ago and said it's very thorough inside!" The person gave a dry laugh, "Very thorough, everyone speaks very nicely!"

"That's a golden hen laying eggs; it's said the boss behind the scenes is the Jia family."

Everyone gave a long "Oh."

"Also, the prospective son-in-law of the third master of the Hu family on Tiantong Island recently had a joke exposed..."

He Lingchuan ate a few pieces of pastry here and heard several pieces of gossip.

He asked the cook-maid: "Is Spirit Void City always this lively, with big news every few days?"

"That's hard to say." The cook-maid smiled, "It's been too lively lately; the things to talk about at the dinner table are all strung together."

Just as He Lingchuan was eating with great satisfaction, Jiao Yu ran over from somewhere, holding something in its mouth, and placed it in front of him.

A stack of invitations. "For you."

"Mine?" He Lingchuan opened them while eating.

Sure enough, they were for him.

Clearly, more dignitaries had noticed "He Xiao" than a few days ago.

He Lingchuan asked it while reading: "Did you know the Assistant Prefect is being investigated?"

"I know." Jiao Yu said as a matter of course, "The Court Marshal has been investigating the Jia family for half a month; the Emperor only ordered the arrest in the last two days."

"In the last two days?" He Lingchuan was thoughtful.

Over the past three or four days, had there been a few too many big and small events in Spirit Void City?

Consequently, the heat surrounding the Anti-Aging Pill case and the Crown Prince Huan arson incident had also been diverted quite a bit.

Who was setting off smoke bombs?

He cast these thoughts aside and looked at the invitations in his hand first.

These were mostly invitations for him to attend activities hosted by various families. There were banquets, salons, operas, hunting, etc., almost every day on the floating islands; this was a tradition cultivated for many years, and even monsters had long since integrated into it, considering it fashionable.

He Lingchuan flipped through a few and let out an "Eh," picking up one invitation: "The Ke family's?"

This gold-stamped invitation was sent by the Ke family.

Yes, the Ke family, the giants of Spirit Void City who had mines at home.

He Lingchuan had originally wanted to find an opportunity to get into the Ke family through Old Ge or other intermediaries, but he didn't expect them to take the initiative to invite him.

He and the Ke family really had a meeting of minds and a mutual attraction.

"Why would the Ke family invite me?" The invitation also included a gift list, and the gifts listed on it were all very expensive; they considered gold, pearls, and agate vulgar and didn't send them, and the very first item was a potted sculpture.

He Lingchuan had someone move the potted sculpture over and saw that it was carved into a mountain rock flower house, and the carving itself was extremely exquisite. Through the windows of the flower house, one could see that there seemed to be something inside, flowery and green.

He Lingchuan tried to reach in and explore, eh? He pulled out a fruit vine.

A real, lush green vine, two fingers thick, was actually laden with fruit; the red fruits it bore looked like strawberries at first glance, but they had a strange fragrance.

Like... cream? The tiger came up and sniffed a few times: "It's ripe, can eat."

He Lingchuan immediately threw a red fruit to it.

Jiao Yu swallowed it in one gulp and smacked its lips: "Doesn't seem to have tasted anything."

He Lingchuan tasted one himself; it was exceptionally sweet, a top-tier item among berries.

He reached in again, and this time he actually pulled out a jade melon.

The cook-maid also wanted to join in the fun and came over holding a kitchen knife: "Let me!"

A melon larger than a soccer ball was opened with a few clicks. He Lingchuan grabbed a piece to eat; it was sweet as honey, juicy, and full of liquid, just a bit cold to eat in autumn.

"Hey, don't be polite, everyone come."

At his call, the cooks and handymen who had just become idle hurried over, smiling as they each took a piece.

"This thing, isn't it just carrying an orchard with you?" He Lingchuan examined the mountain rock flower house, "Tch, no user manual either."

The squirrel crawled out from somewhere, jumped onto the table, and pointed to two lines of small characters on the side of the mountain rock flower house.

Weren't they right there? Eyes wide but missing the details.

Plant seeds and water, get fruit in two days.

"So you can grow it yourself?" Plant whatever you want to eat, and you can harvest it within two days.

In the current era of weakening spiritual energy, this treasure was truly magical. The tiger asked: "No need for profound crystals to stimulate it?"

"Heh, maybe." Using precious profound crystals to grow fruit was something normal people couldn't do, but that didn't mean the dignitaries of Spirit Void City couldn't. Especially since the Ke family had their own profound crystal mines; what difference did profound crystals have to them compared to copper and iron? Weren't they all dug out from underground? He Lingchuan guessed blindly that the time flow inside this treasure was faster than outside.

Just didn't know if it needed fertilizer.

He picked up the gift list and looked down; the next two items were the same as the mountain rock house, and sure enough, they were the kind of treasures rich people would send—good-looking and fun but not very practical.

Compared to this mountain rock flower house, He Lingchuan would rather the Ke family send him gold; he didn't consider it vulgar, he was short of money right now.

But the fourth item was truly valuable. Jiao Yu looked at it and was also surprised:

"The Ke family actually sent you a boat?"

"A painted pleasure boat!" He Lingchuan corrected it, "It's clearly a painted pleasure boat!"

Thanks to the enthusiastic support of the dream-loving Hua Tongxie!

(End of chapter)