Chen Changsheng had only said what he truly thought. However, to onlookers, his words would seem like ridicule mixed with some shamelessness. It was very obvious that Mo Yu was thinking this way, her voice slightly gloomy as she said, "Let us discuss the engagement."
"That is a matter between me and the Divine General of the East's estate."
"You clearly understand that this is not a fact. This matter must be resolved somehow."
The two spoke very calmly and unquestionably.
Mo Yu's voice was as cold as ice. "If there were not someone that insisted on your survival, the marriage contract in your bosom would, in truth, be nothing more than a scrap of waste paper."
For a powerful figure like her, although the marriage contract had the signature of the Pope and was very special, it would be easy to render the marriage contract ineffective. The simplest method was to just kill Chen Changsheng—with the person dead, the marriage contract would just be waste paper.
Chen Changsheng gazed into the darkness and said, "Many people saw me enter the palace."
Mo Yu replied, "Who would care if a person like you lived or died?"
Chen Changsheng answered, "I'm now a student of the Orthodox Academy, so many people will care…in the past few days, those people did not appear, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. They are watching the Orthodox Academy, watching me, and also watching all of you."
As he said this, he very naturally thought of the Archbishop of the Bureau of Ecclesiastic Education.
Even now, he still had not even spoken a word with the archbishop, but he knew that the source of the Orthodox Academy's changes lay with him.
"Killing me is a very simple matter, but simultaneously also a very troublesome one."
He continued, "You could think of a way to have Luoluo leave my side, but you have no means of making those gazes resting upon the Orthodox Academy take their leave."
Mo Yu's voice was somewhat apathetic. "My desire to kill you has nothing to do with the Orthodox Academy. Those old fellows are not even present in my eyes."
"Yes, your wanting to kill me has nothing to do with the Orthodox Academy. It's a pity that nobody knows, nor would anyone believe that."
Chen Changsheng ended, "Unless I announce my engagement with Xu Yourong to the world. Then I would think that everyone in the world might support you killing me. The problem is that this would bring on its own set of problems, so I really want to know, just what do you plan to do?"
Upon coming to the capital, especially after entering the Orthodox Academy, he seemed to disregard all things except the sound of the wind, rain, and reading. He passed his days very calmly, but in reality, he and the Orthodox Academy had always been within the wind and rain, their positions both very unstable.
(TN: 'The sound of wind, rain, and reading' is part of a line written by a major figure of the Donglin Academy. The full line is "The sound of wind, the sound of rain, the sound of studying, sound after sound enters one's ear. The matters of home, the matters of state, the matters of the world, matter after matter is one's concern." Its meaning is that when studying, one should not forget about one's country.)
In these past few weeks, he had remained in the Orthodox Academy, studying and bitterly cultivating, not once stepping past the academy's gates. Just as Mo Yu had said, he was using Luoluo's background to intimidate those who attempted to do him harm. Although Luoluo had proposed this idea herself, he was the one that had agreed to it. At the same time, he had used the history and recovering prestige of the Orthodox Academy and aimed it at the other party of the still-unknown engagement, making it so that even the Divine General of the East's estate found it inconvenient to move. Only this way could he ensure his safety.
As an ordinary youth from the remote Xining going up against the powerful and wealthy families of the capital, and even an important personage of the Imperial Palace, he had already made all the responses he could think of. He was thankful to his identity as a new student of the Orthodox Academy, thankful to his so-called character, for allowing to him persevere until tonight.
"What a nasty little schemer you are."
Lady Mo Yu's voice made no effort to conceal her contempt and sarcasm. "It's a pity that little people have never seen the ocean, so how can they understand what it means to be vast? They have never plucked stars from the sky, so how can they know what it means to be boundless? You are just a summer insect that knows nothing of ice and snow."
Chen Changsheng suddenly felt an intense uneasiness. His right hand gripped the rhino horn button in his sleeve, and his left gripped the hilt of his dagger.
But he was too late.
His mind suddenly felt dazzled and the scenes in front of his eyes grew blurry.
The sights of the Imperial Palace in the darkness had originally been rather indistinct, but the blurriness in front of his eyes was clearly different.
An indescribable Qi entered his mind and he suddenly felt sleepy.
Soon after, a chill ran through his mind and he became clear-headed once more.
The scene in front of him was already different. He discovered that he was in an abandoned garden. In front of him, he could faintly make out a cold pond, giving off a thick aura of wetness under the starlight. Several plum trees were scattered about the shore of the pond. It was still autumn, so the plum branches had not blossomed. They didn't even have flower buds, so they looked very lonely and bare.
He was too shocked for words. Just a moment ago, he had clearly been in the corridor outside Weiyang Palace, so how did he get here?
Just what sort of method had she used to produce such a strange result?
The abandoned garden was still and deserted. From the distance, the sound of music could barely be heard.
He turned around and saw that the palace hall several hundred zhang away was still brightly lit. Although he could not see, he could also imagine that it was unusually lively within.
The southern diplomatic mission had probably arrived.
Standing in the abandoned garden and gazing at the bright hall, his figure seemed very lonely.
Mo Yu's voice could once more be heard, except now it was not in his mind, but at the other end of the abandoned garden, from some place in the darkness. "Take a good look. Tonight, you only need to play the part of a spectator, and then everything can be easily resolved."
Chen Changsheng turned to the pitch-black night and said, "This is not fair."
Mo Yu replied, "These are childish words. They shouldn't come out of the mouth of a treacherous person like you."
For some reason, her voice seemed rather exhausted.
Chen Changsheng replied, "Such childish words should not come from the mouth of the legendary Grand Lady Mo."
Mo Yu believed that his concern over whether this entire matter was fair or unfair was very childish.
He believed that Mo Yu's view on this matter was what was truly childish.
These were not opposite sides of a topic, but different views on the world.
Mo Yu's voice was very cold. "Fairness has never been the most important thing."
After a pause, Chen Changsheng replied, "When the Scholar of Shining Light froze to death after being unjustly charged, he probably was not thinking this way."
Scholar of Shining Light Mo Wenshan was the greatest scholar of the Great Zhou Dynasty in his generation. In the later years of Emperor Xian's reign, he offended an important official of the palace and was unjustly imprisoned. On a cold winter day, he was dragged out of his prison cell by a ruthless official and had water spilled over his body until he froze to death. Every able-bodied person of the Mo clan was executed, with only a single granddaughter surviving by chance.
Mo Yu was precisely this granddaughter.
The darkness suddenly erupted with Mo Yu's cold and furious voice. "Audacious little scoundrel!"
Chen Changsheng replied, "People of the world speak of matters of the world. How is it audacious?"
For a very long time, Mo Yu did not respond to these words.
"Yes, this truly is not fair, but you are too insignificant…compared to this palace hall. In order to resist the demons, humanity requires unity, requires new blood. For this purpose, both the Great Zhou and the sects of the south are willing to spare no expense. Thus we have the Ivy Festival, we have the Grand Examination, we have…the marriage between her and Qiushan Jun."
Mo Yu's voice gradually grew calm as she continued, "Of course, none of these are important. What is important is that the Empress is fond of Xu Yourong, thinks highly of Xu Yourong, feels that in this world, only Qiushan Jun's talent is barely enough to match up with her. Thus, she can marry her off to him."
Chen Changsheng did not agree with this argument. He wanted to leave this abandoned garden and return to Weiyang Palace.
He knew that leaving in front of a legendary being like Mo Yu was an impossible task. It was assuredly extremely difficult to leave this seemingly desolate and uninhabited abandoned garden that didn't even have a perimeter wall, so without hesitation, he threw the button he had always been gripping in his palm to the ground.
This button made of rhino horn was an extremely precious magical artifact—the Thousand Li Button.
When Luoluo gifted the Thousand Li Button to him, she also taught him how to use it.
A plume of smoke rose from the abandoned garden as Chen Changsheng's body vanished.
But in the next moment, his body reappeared at its original position.
The cold pond remained the same, the plum trees did not shake.
His face had become somewhat pale, with a drop of blood slowly flowing from the corner of his lip.
The abandoned garden was surrounded by an extremely formidable barrier, even more formidable than the Heavenly Net the demon expert used on that night in the Orthodox Academy.
As expected, the Great Zhou Imperial Palace was an extraordinary place.
As expected, the place Mo Yu wanted him to remain in was not ordinary.
Even though it looked just like an abandoned garden, he still could not leave.
...
...
"Everything you have has been factored into my plan, so just give up." Mo Yu's voice was calm and chilling.
Chen Changsheng raised his head and used his right sleeve to wipe away the blood on his lip. He gazed at the Imperial City in the darkness, gazed at the capital that he had lived in for several months yet still found unfamiliar and hard to grow close to. He looked at all the people that lived here that he couldn't see.
"In truth, I really did come to end the engagement."
His voice was rather exhausted, but it was calm as usual. "She is the one that everyone, including the Divine Empress, loves, the highly regarded Phoenix, but I've never thought about marrying her. I…really did come to end the engagement, but no one ever believed me."
The darkness was eerily silent, the abandoned garden still desolate, very much like the look on his face.
He had come to the capital to end the engagement. In the Divine General of the East's estate, he had said it twice. Today, in this abandoned garden of the Imperial Palace, he had said it two more times.
Yes, why had nobody ever believed him?
Just because she was the aloof reincarnation of the true Phoenix while he was just an ordinary youth that did not cultivate?
"I know more than the vast majority of the world just what is the most important thing about living. That matter is extremely important, more important than this engagement, more important than all the humiliations and setbacks I received in the capital added together, so I don't care about them."
He drew back his gaze from the distance and turned to the darkness across the cold pond, saying, "But all of you have done many meaningless things, constantly reminding me that I have a fiancée and that she needs to be married to someone else. Even now, you're still reminding me…
"Fine, I have to admit that I've begun to care.
"Just like I said to Madam Xu in the Divine General's estate.
"This time, I really have changed my mind.
"I will not marry Xu Yourong, because I don't like her and the rest of you.
"But I also won't annul the engagement, because I don't like her and the rest of you.
"This is very fair.
"This way, as long as I don't agree, she can't get married to Qiushan Jun or anyone else.
"I know that this is unfair to her.
"But it's very fair to me."
The abandoned garden was still and noiseless.
The chill of the cold pond pierced to the bones.
Mo Yu was quiet for a very long time when she suddenly felt like she had done something wrong.
At the beginning in the Divine General of the East's estate, Madam Xu had also felt this.
But right after, she smiled. This smile ridiculed herself and also ridiculed the words of this youth.
"Then you must inform the entire continent of the engagement between the two of you.
"Tonight is truly your best opportunity.
"But first, you have to be able to leave here."