Chapter 61: His Highness the Crown Prince Has a Crown Princess, His Legs Are Broken, and He's Put in Iron Shackles...
Li Chengyi visited the Ji residence and learned that Lin Yanshu had not opened the door at all.
When he saw Ji Wenxuan, Mo Langzhuo was meekly massaging her shoulders. Li Chengyi strode over aggressively and questioned:
Where is Lin Yanshu?
Ji Wenxuan had no idea what he was asking, but looking at Li Chengyi's aura, she couldn't help but feel a chill run down her spine. She respectfully bowed and spoke:
"Miss Lin has not been here before. Your Highness must have come to the wrong place."
Li Chengyi was suspicious. Lin Yanshu wasn't at the Ji residence, so where could she be?
He frowned and asked again, "Is she really not here?"
Chi Wen-hsuan gave a negative answer: "Not here."
For some reason, Li Chengyi felt a sense of panic, as if something was spiraling out of control, and this loss of control had already occurred, but he seemed to be only now realizing it.
He asked Huo Zheng to find someone in the city, then returned to the mansion and rushed straight to Lin Yanshu's room.
The room was empty, the furnishings unchanged, even the rouge and powder on the dressing table were the same. Li Chengyi rushed in, opened the cabinet, and started rummaging through it.
Lin Yanshu's medicine kit is gone; her only means of survival is gone, taken away by someone.
Having already suspected this, Li Chengyi's expression gradually darkened, shifting from panic to indifference, until finally he stared grimly at the empty room. He stood up and surveyed the entire room.
He walked to the bedside, where a letter lay.
Li Chengyi did not open it immediately. He simply reached out and picked up the envelope, gently stroking it with his fingers. He felt a slight sense of trepidation.
What's this?
A preemptive, fait accompli notification? Li Chengyi could almost guess the contents of the letter, but he didn't understand why, why they left a letter without saying anything.
Li Chengyi took a deep breath and began to fantasize, but the fantasy contained completely opposite content.
Li Chengyi opened it.
He saw it.
There was only one line: I'm leaving, don't worry.
Li Chengyi sneered in anger. His eyes were bloodshot, and he gripped the paper tightly, his fingertips digging into it. He seemed to be staring a hole through the thin paper.
Just one sentence?
Li Chengyi examined the letter repeatedly, confirming that Lin Yanshu had left him only one sentence.
They wouldn't even bother to write their own names.
What is this? A letter of divorce? She thinks he's a burden and wants to get rid of him? What makes Li Chengyi unworthy of Lin Yanshu? She ran away without a word, leaving him with only one sentence, not even a single extra word.
Li Chengyi was furious. He couldn't wait to drag Lin Yanshu back, lock her up, and interrogate her about why.
Does it mean you dislike or hate him?
But he didn't want to hear the answer because he couldn't accept it.
Li Chengyi now realized that his so-called gentle and refined gentlemanly demeanor in the first half of his life was nothing more than a fragile piece of jade that could be shattered at the slightest touch in front of Lin Yanshu, unable to withstand any hardship.
He couldn't accept that Lin Yanshu had run away; it wasn't his. He had always thought of himself as a reasonable person, but now that Lin Yanshu had sneaked away, this incident truly made him realize his own shortcomings.
He could only accept that he was the one by Lin Yanshu's side. Besides, he had already given himself to her.
Li Chengyi stared intently at the line of words, his breath caught in his chest. He moved his fingers and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the paper, obscuring the farewell line.
Blood seeped through the paper, soaking everything.
Huo Zheng happened to witness this scene, and his prince, overwhelmed with anger, vomited a mouthful of blood.
Huo Zheng quickly ran to Li Chengyi's side and asked him with concern:
"Your Highness, what's wrong!"
Li Chengyi lost his footing and swayed, but was caught by Huo Zheng. He spat out another mouthful of blood, his face contorted in a grotesque grimace, his handsome face stained with blood. At this moment, Li Chengyi resembled a gruesome ghost, terrifying and alluring, inspiring fear in all who beheld him.
He gripped Huo Zheng's arm tightly and said, word by word:
"Lin Yanshu has run away, and I will personally bring her back."
Break his legs, put him in shackles, and lock him up.
Li Chengyi had no time to care about his own health; he was simply furious. He didn't sleep a wink all night, spending all his time looking for Lin Yanshu.
But Lin Yanshu seemed to have vanished from the world without a trace.
Li Chengyi searched for five days straight. During those five days, he did only this one thing, to the point that the emperor heard about it and brought him into the palace.
Xie Ciyan had already heard about Li Chengyi's city-wide search, and he knew the Crown Prince was looking for Lin Yanshu. He didn't know what had happened between them, and could only speculate.
After much thought, he could only conclude that Lin Yanshu did not want to be with the Crown Prince; she only wanted to escape from Li Chengyi.
Xie Ciyan had another thought: since she didn't want Li Chengyi, it wouldn't hurt to find someone else.
He used to care about his future in officialdom, but now he operates in the shadows, and the Crown Prince will not know.
………………
Li Chengyi was summoned to the palace. He had been eating and sleeping poorly for the past few days and had lost a lot of weight. He greeted His Majesty with dark circles under his eyes.
The emperor looked up at him. Li Chengyi was dressed in a black robe, his face was gloomy and pale, and he looked dejected and heartbroken.
The emperor spoke up, displeased, and said:
"I heard you've been so sick lately that you've lost your appetite and caused quite a stir?"
Knowing he was in the wrong, Li Chengyi remained silent, but still offered some advice.
"She's just a woman. You didn't give her any official status. If she ran away, so be it. Your father will find someone else for you."
Status......
Li Chengyi silently wondered, if he and Lin Yanshu had a legitimate and open relationship, would she still run away without a word and abandon him like this?
Li Chengyi requests imperial permission:
"Father, I beg you to bestow the Lin family daughter upon me in marriage. In this way, she will have a proper status and I will be able to go and find her in a reasonable way."
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Are you crazy?
The emperor looked at Li Chengyi before him, and contrary to his usual behavior, he seemed not to recognize his own son.
Seeing that his father ignored him, Li Chengyi knelt down and begged for punishment:
"Your subject knows that this is absurd, but I beg Your Majesty to grant my request. Your subject is willing to accept the punishment!"
The emperor was truly enraged by Li Chengyi. He slammed his fist on the table, his eyes wide with fury, and pointed at Li Chengyi, shouting:
"I only realized today how blinded you are by lust. Don't you want to be punished?"
"I will grant your wish. Twenty strokes of the cane, is that enough?"
Li Chengyi raised his head and asked, "After today's fight, can Father Emperor issue a decree? Or should Father Emperor issue a decree first, as I'm afraid I'll faint after the fight and won't be able to see?"
The emperor was furious and threw all the memorials on his desk at Li Chengyi. Li Chengyi didn't dodge and the mess of memorials hit him.
He even had a red bump on his forehead from being bumped. The emperor clutched his chest, which was heaving with anger, and glared fiercely at Li Chengyi. The eunuchs beside him hurriedly tried to mediate the conflict.
Li Chengyi bent down to pick up the memorials and laid them out one by one on the ground. He had already given up on himself.
For the first time, he experienced the unbridled joy of throwing a tantrum. He had nothing left; Lin Yanshu had run away, and his body and his heart had run away with him, gone.
"Father, you won't lie to your son, right? You'll issue a decree, right?"
The emperor was already being manipulated by Li Chengyi, so why would he want to bestow a marriage upon him and that Lin woman? He even wanted to personally give Li Chengyi twenty lashes.
But to beat him, a marriage must first be arranged, which has led to a stalemate.
The emperor, not wanting to anger himself, decided to give Li Chengyi a beating first. Under Li Chengyi's watchful gaze, he began to write.
Li Chengyi finally obtained the imperial edict he had longed for. He and Lin Yanshu were now legally husband and wife, though Lin Yanshu was unaware of it, he knew. Everyone except Lin Yanshu would know of the edict's existence.
Li Chengyi endured twenty heavy blows without crying out in pain or begging for mercy.
He simply clutched the imperial edict, lying prone on the execution platform. Each blow struck his flesh squarely, tearing his skin and mangled it.
Li Chengyi gritted his teeth, veins bulging, his consciousness gradually fading, his eyes becoming glazed, only his knuckles clenched tightly.
After the last blow landed, Li Chengyi spat out a mouthful of thick blood, staining his entire clothes red, and he lowered his head.
This action terrified the servants around them. If they were to kill His Highness the Crown Prince, wouldn't that be a crime punishable by the extermination of nine generations of their families?
Even the emperor was terrified. He immediately summoned the imperial physician, who only administered twenty strokes of the cane. Moreover, his subordinates were somewhat prudent. Given Li Chengyi's physical condition, how could he possibly vomit blood and faint?
The emperor waited anxiously for the imperial physician to examine him, and he fed Li Chengyi the medicine.
"How is the Crown Prince doing?"
The imperial physician explained earnestly, "His Highness the Crown Prince has been grieving excessively these past few days, which has damaged his heart meridian. Today, he was subjected to the torture of being beaten with a board, which caused him to vomit blood and faint."
The emperor looked at Li Chengyi on the bed and sighed. Just because of a woman, just a woman, he now felt that he had done something wrong.
He couldn't persuade Li Chengyi; his imperial authority couldn't change Li Chengyi's heart, and he couldn't choose whom Li Chengyi loved or who he would spend his life with.
So be it, so be it.
When Li Chengyi awoke, the emperor was sitting beside his bed. Li Chengyi opened his eyes and slightly moved his fingers. The emperor noticed, but he didn't turn around. With his back to Li Chengyi, he slowly spoke:
"I have seen that Lin woman before and gave her a warning."
Li Chengyi stared wide-eyed at the emperor's back, listening quietly to his words.
"I told her that she was of lowly status and not worthy of you. She was quite sensible and agreed to leave without much argument."
The light in Li Chengyi's eyes went out, and he gripped the hem of his clothes tightly.
So... so Lin Yanshu's devotion to him wasn't because... because she liked him, but because of guilt, and because of her premeditated departure without saying goodbye.
Li Chengyi could hardly bear the thought. Lin Yanshu didn't like him. That was right, she never had those feelings for him in the first place, but he was foolish enough to think that she had suddenly come to her senses, not knowing that it was just charity.
If capturing and locking up Lin Yanshu was just a thought before, now it is what Li Chengyi most wants to do.
Doesn't she have any lingering feelings for him? That's enough. His desire for her is enough.
Isn't this how things always are in the world? One side pleads desperately, while the other side turns a blind eye.
Li Chengyi recuperated in the palace, and the imperial decree of marriage was issued, so that almost the entire capital knew that His Highness the Crown Prince had a Crown Princess.
Winter passed quickly, and by the beginning of spring, Li Chengyi still hadn't found Lin Yanshu.
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