WWC | Chapter 2

“Qinghai!” Su Tingyan instantly perked up, his voice turning much more urgent. “Where is the spare official robe? Take me there at once!”

Qinghai was startled by his master’s sudden rise in volume, but he reacted quickly. “It’s usually kept in the side chambers behind the hall. Not far from the Meridian Gate!”

“Go!” Su Tingyan no longer cared about appearances. He grabbed the hem of his soaking robe and, under Qinghai’s umbrella, broke into a run toward the side chambers.

The rain showed no sign of letting up. It struck the bluestone path and the umbrella surface with sharp, crackling pops.

Along the way, he occasionally ran into a few lower-ranking officials hurrying back into the palace in equally miserable states. Seeing him in such a bedraggled, waterlogged condition, they all looked shocked.

But Su Tingyan had no mind to care about anyone else’s gaze. His head was full of that minus 10 charisma value.

The system kept adding to the chaos in his mind: [Player, please remember to maintain your image at all times and preserve your image. Being soaked can make you a drowned dog, but it can also make you a lotus emerging from the water. Please do not do anything that lowers your charisma!]

Su Tingyan roared inwardly, “Shut up. If you’re so capable, why don’t you give me a buff that keeps me dry in a downpour?! Aren’t those legendary experts supposed to be so badass they can knock rain off their bodies the second it lands?”

The system said: [That’s for wuxia games, not our little danmei harem game. And even if there were such a skill, it would probably need a charisma value of 10,000 points to unlock!]

Su Tingyan: “…” Get lost!

By the time he finally rushed into the side chambers, a minor official was frantically drying his own hair. The moment he saw Su, the great scholar, barging in in such a sorry state, he was so startled he nearly dropped the cloth in his hand.

“Y-Yours truly greets Lord Su!”

“No need for formalities. Where are the spare robes?” Su Tingyan asked.

The minor official hurriedly pointed to a cabinet. Qinghai moved quickly and found a dark blue official robe that matched Su Tingyan’s rank, then helped him change into it at once.

Su Tingyan had just undone the ties of his soaked outer robe when the not-so-thick wooden door to the side chamber banged open from the outside. A gust of fierce wind, rain, and cold air rushed in along with a figure that carried overwhelming pressure.

The newcomer seemed not to have expected anyone inside at all. His strides were huge, bearing the ferocious momentum of charging through thousands of soldiers and horses on a battlefield.

He was soaked through as well. A black, gold-woven martial official’s robe clung tightly to his tall, straight frame, outlining his broad chest, as though sun and moon were his armor and rivers and mountains his helm, every inch of him steeped in killing intent.

He was entirely unlike Su Tingyan’s refined, scholarly bearing. Rainwater dripped from the hard line of his jaw. Instead of seeming disheveled, he looked wild as a wolf and fierce as a tiger.

The minor official and Qinghai were so frightened they scarcely dared breathe, and both hurriedly bowed. “We greet General Xie!”

A soft chime rang in Su Tingyan’s head.

The system said: [Detected the first romance target: Anxi Marquis, Martial Might General Xie Zheng.

Character attributes: High martial strength, high power, personality: upright and cold, hates evil with a passion, and has a low favorability toward the civil officials’ faction, especially you.

Tip: This is one of the targets you may pursue by interacting with him. Doing so can greatly affect the story direction and charisma gains!]

Su Tingyan: “…” So the difficulty spike came this fast?

And he especially had a low favorability toward civil officials, particularly “me”?

That kind of character usually ended up being the most hopelessly obsessed one in the end.

Xie Zheng’s razor-sharp gaze swept through the room. It passed over the shivering minor official and Qinghai before finally landing on Su Tingyan, who had only half-undressed and whose appearance was not at all neat and proper.

Su Tingyan did not look dignified at the moment.

His outer robe was half off, revealing the damp inner garment beneath. The collar hung loose, showing a small stretch of collarbone. His black hair, wet with rain, clung in wisps to the sides of his face and draped over his shoulders.

Because of the running and changing clothes, the corners of his eyes were faintly red. In the dim oil-lamp light, he looked like a piece of jade soaked through with water, elegant and noble, yet carrying a touch of lush beauty.

Their eyes met in midair.

One was cold as ice, carrying scrutiny.

The other did not flinch at all, while inwardly speaking with the system.

Su Tingyan: “Did you people calculate his timing this precisely? If he’d come in a minute earlier, I wouldn’t have stripped yet. If he’d come in a minute later, I’d already have finished changing!”

The system: [Heh heh.]

The air seemed to freeze. Only the rain outside pattered on and on.

In the end, Xie Zheng moved first. As if he did not see Su Tingyan at all, he strode toward another cabinet, his voice deep and resonant. “No need for formalities. I’m here to change into my spare clothes.”

His movements were crisp and decisive. He opened the cabinet, took out another set of black martial official robes, then turned his back without a second thought and began unfastening his soaked outer garment.

The system said: [The target is actively showing his body. An interaction opportunity has arrived! Recommendation: the player should also strip and go forward, which may trigger a small charisma reward!]

Su Tingyan: “…Idiotic.”

Seeing Xie Zheng change clothes on his own, Su Tingyan actually stopped rushing. Instead, he folded his arms and leaned casually against the cabinet, his expression faint as his gaze slid inch by inch over that narrow waist and long, powerful arms.

Xie Zheng was only twenty-six, yet his bronze-toned skin was covered in crisscrossing scars.

One vicious new scar cut diagonally from his left shoulder blade all the way to the right side of his waist like a coiling dragon. One could imagine how deep and dangerous the wound had been, almost splitting him in two.

The rest of his body was no better. Round, sunken scars left by arrowheads were scattered here and there, and beneath his ribs there were several clearly visible puncture wounds from sharp weapons. Small, yes, but placed in especially treacherous spots.

This was not the body of some pampered young noble from the capital. It was the thunderous frame of someone who had truly clawed his way back from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. Just looking at him, one could already feel the killing aura of a man who had beheaded enemies amid ten thousand troops, his battle robe soaked red with blood.

Suddenly, Su Tingyan said to the system, “I’ll pay later. Give me a bottle of the best external wound medicine.”

The system said: [Player, your charisma is almost in the negatives!]

Su Tingyan said, “Treat it like a newbie gift. Hurry up and conjure me a bottle.”

After a brief silence, the system finally replied: […Given that the player is encountering a romance target for the first time, the system will grant an advance on one bottle of superior wound medicine. Cost: the first 100 points of charisma you earn in the future will be directly deducted. Confirm?]

The corner of Su Tingyan’s mouth twitched.

100 points? That was like being screwed a hundred times!

Was this game the reincarnation of a loan shark?!

“Confirm,” he told the system in his mind.

The next moment, a small white jade bottle appeared silently in his wide sleeve.

By then, Xie Zheng had already changed into dry robes and was tying his belt. From start to finish, he did not look at Su Tingyan again, as though the other man were merely an annoying piece of furniture in the side chambers, and once he was dressed, he was ready to leave directly.

“General Xie,” Su Tingyan suddenly said, his voice clear and cool, breaking the oppressive silence that had been filled only with rain.

Xie Zheng paused. He did not fully turn around, only tilted his head and cast a glance at him with those deep, sharp eagle eyes, carrying obvious impatience and inquiry.

Su Tingyan seemed not to notice. He took the small bottle from his sleeve at an unhurried pace. The bottle was translucent, gleaming against his slender, pale fingers.

He tossed the medicine bottle toward Xie Zheng. “General Xie’s new wounds have not yet healed, and they look alarming. Though this medicine is not rare, it does have some effect on dispersing bruising and promoting new flesh.”

His tone was flat, with a trace of distant politeness. “Getting drenched in the rain can easily make wounds fester. Please take care of your honored body, General.”

His action caught everyone off guard.

Xie Zheng lifted a hand and caught it, his gaze fixed on this excessively young, and excessively handsome, rising star of the court.

The two of them had always stood on opposite sides of a clear divide, and there had even been much friction between them.

“Scholar Su, there’s no need for such pretended courtesy.”

This Su Tingyan was clearly a close minister of the emperor, a newly favored court darling. Yet now he was showing favor toward him, a crude martial man?

Xie Zheng only took it as having hidden motives.

Qinghai was anxious to death. My lord, what are you provoking this fiend for!

But Su Tingyan did not care at all. He smiled, and with that smile the spring breeze seemed to be cut down and then sheathed again, like a sword drawn and returned to its scabbard.

“We are both officials of the same court. I’m only expressing a little concern. If the General thinks it’s abrupt, then discard it.”

He said it lightly, as though the thing he had given away were nothing more than an insignificant trinket.

But inside, he was vomiting blood. Go ahead, try actually throwing it away??

This was 100 points of charisma value!

Xie Zheng looked down at the porcelain bottle in his hand. Having spent years on campaign, he naturally knew good medicine from bad. Though he had not opened it, just from the jade bottle’s quality and the faint, cool medicinal fragrance seeping through, he knew it was definitely not as simple as Su Tingyan made it sound.

After a moment of silence, he said, “Scholar Su, was my memorial returned by you with your original annotations?”

Su Tingyan had seen this part in the original novel. It said that the court’s expenditures were now excessive, the Lu faction was rife with corruption, and with years of disasters and frequent warfare, the Great Zhao treasury had become empty.

The Ministry of Personnel could not balance the accounts, so it found a way to dump the blame on the Ministry of War.

Xie Zheng had swallowed the loss in silence. The Ministry of War had been saddled with five million taels’ worth of military pay and supplies on paper, but what actually reached the front lines was all moldy grain and inferior horse fodder. The difference had all been pocketed by the Ministry of Personnel.

How could Xie Zheng let it go? He submitted memorial after memorial to make the matter clear, yet there was no response for a long time. In the end, all he got was a single line from the emperor: “I won’t read these complaints. If you have grievances, you may explain them to the Grand Secretariat.”

Su Tingyan understood. Xie Zheng had taken him for someone on the Lu faction’s side.

But at this point, Su Tingyan had only just taken the post of Grand Academician of the Hall of Central Harmony and had not yet chosen a camp.

Su Tingyan said, “Reviewing and annotating memorials is the duty of the Palace Secretariat.”

“The General’s memorial,” he said, each word ringing with steel and without a shred of guilt, “never passed through my hands.”

But after denying it so flatly, he added, “Still, I did read the General’s memorial.”

“It really was written terribly.”

“What did you say?” Xie Zheng’s thick brows instantly drew together. He almost thought he had misheard. Did this man actually dare to dismiss his memorial so bluntly?!

The system shrieked in Su Tingyan’s head: [The target’s anger level is skyrocketing, and the threat of physical violence is extremely high. If you don’t want to be beaten, I recommend the player immediately kneel and apologize or use the pitiful and fragile skill (not yet unlocked)!]

Su Tingyan ignored the noise.

“The whole thing is just resentment from beginning to end, listing accusations without a shred of evidence. You say they’re corrupt, but you provide no detailed proof.”

“General, the emperor is swamped from morning till night. Do you expect him to finish reading pages full of ‘I’m furious, they’re bad people,’ and immediately order the investigation of high officials?”

He shook his head. “Impeachment is not battlefield shouting. It’s not enough to have momentum. You need complete evidence, clear logic, and a single fatal strike.”

“If you send up that memorial, all you’ll do is make the emperor think General Xie is throwing another tantrum. What effect could it possibly have?”

Xie Zheng froze in place, the fury on his face solidifying.

He had never imagined that this would be the reason. Their military men were used to speaking directly. On the battlefield, one swung a blade and cut down the enemy. When had there ever been a need for such roundabout nonsense?

Seeing Xie Zheng’s hand tightening unconsciously around the medicine bottle, Su Tingyan knew when to stop. He changed tack. “The General is loyal, devoted, brave in battle, and your heart is as clear as heaven and earth. But the court has its own rules. If you want to bring down a great tree, you have to cut its roots, not rage helplessly at the leaves.”

His words sounded like a lecture, but they were really guidance.

Thinking of the fact that he had only half an hour to change clothes and go to court, or else he would lose another 10 charisma points for being improperly dressed before the throne, Su Tingyan no longer looked at Xie Zheng. Instead, he turned to Qinghai and urged, “What are you standing there for? Change my clothes.”

Qinghai came to his senses and hurried to help him continue changing.

At that moment, the system chimed again: [Target Xie Zheng has fallen into confusion and thought, and his fixed impression of the player has been shaken. Favorability -1 (for being bluntly offended) ??? Favorability +10 (for receiving useful information and the gifted medicine) …]

[Current overall favorability toward Xie Zheng: 9 points. Achievement unlocked: [Wet in the Side Chambers, Meet the General]]

Su Tingyan: “……..”

So saying a few words to him really did deduct favorability? What a petty man!

He tied his belt, adjusted his appearance one last time, and was once again a picture of luminous elegance.

Then he gave Xie Zheng a slight nod, just about to take his leave, when Xie Zheng suddenly asked, “Scholar Su, shouldn’t you be standing on Lu Xuan’s side?”

Su Tingyan lifted his eyes. The smile at the corner of his lips only deepened, as though he had heard something interesting. He asked back, “Which side does the Grand Secretariat think I should stand on?”

He tossed the question back with lightness, his tone carrying no emotional lean, only pure curiosity.

Seeing Xie Zheng remain silent for a long time, he continued, “General Xie.”

“The Grand Secretariat belongs to the emperor, belongs to Great Zhao, and not to the Lu faction, nor to me, Su Tingyan alone.”

“I did not help you because of factional struggle, but because your memorial was unusable and would only have annoyed His Majesty. I already made that clear just now.”

After a brief pause, he went on, “As for which side I’m really on…”

His gaze swept over Xie Zheng’s tightly held medicine bottle, then over the scars on the back of his hand, and finally returned to Xie Zheng’s eyes.

“I didn’t give medicine to Lu Xuan.”

“So tell me, which side do you think I’m on?”

With that, he did not linger. He walked gracefully back into the rain with Qinghai, heading toward the direction of the Purple Spring Hall.

His final words drifted through the rain. “Also, next time you have to call me Grand Academician Su. You can’t call me Scholar Su anymore.”

One word less, and he’d been demoted by two ranks just by being addressed.

Inside the side chambers, only Xie Zheng remained, still standing there in a daze.

He clenched the medicine bottle and looked toward the disappearing figure. The official cadence in the other man’s speech had sounded exceedingly pleasant. His voice was like a gust of wind crossing a barren plain, and together with the clattering rain, it kept striking at the roof again and again.

As for the departing Su Tingyan, he was quietly doing the math in his head.

“System, that move I just made should’ve been pretty impressive, pretty flirty, right? How was it? How much charisma did I gain? Enough to cover the interest?”

The system did not answer for a long time, and only then said: [Judgment: the player’s behavior provided useful information and included a gifted item, but it was mixed with verbal offense. The merits and faults cancel each other out…]

[Charisma +0.5.]

Su Tingyan staggered and nearly fell into a puddle.

“How much?!”

[0.5.] The system repeated mercilessly.

Su Tingyan looked up at the sky and let the cold rain beat against his face.

……..

He had traded 100 charisma points for a 0.5 return, turning from being screwed once into being screwed a hundred times…

Fun. So fun. This goddamn game!

Author’s note:

———————-

Was Ranyan screwed today?

Not yet.

Current romance target:

Xie Zheng, favorability: 9

Current charisma value: -99.5