Chapter 50 The Wedding (including the previous life plot)
"Shen Yunqing is my pen name." Shen Shi said, looking into Pei Heng's eyes tenderly, "Chen Shi is the new top scholar and the eldest grandson of the Prime Minister's Mansion. Yunqing is your Yunqing alone."
Pei Heng seemed to finally react and breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank God, Xiao Pei did nothing wrong!
But then, Pei Heng remembered something, held up Shen Shi's face, looked into his eyes carefully, and frowned slightly again.
"But why are the eyes different from yours?"
Shen Shi rubbed Pei Heng's warm palm with his cheek affectionately, lowered his eyes, and lowered his voice a little.
"I once suffered from an eye disease that blurred my vision. My eyes were often bloodshot and gray... It wasn't pretty at all."
"Your Highness may have... dreamt of me back then."
Pei Heng's heart seemed to be tugged at, causing him to feel intense pain.
He suddenly understood where the heartache in his dream and the urge to cover the other person's eyes came from.
It’s not because I don’t like him, but because I like him too much. I like him so much that I can’t bear to see even the slightest bit of his pain and I wish I could bear it for him.
Pei Heng kissed Shen Shi's eyes very lightly.
“It looks very nice.”
The warm embrace and the regained peace of mind made the atmosphere become ambiguous and affectionate again.
Pei Heng lowered his head and rubbed the tip of Shen Shi's nose, "Shen Shi, do you want another kiss?"
…
Deep in the emotion, although Pei Heng was really inexperienced, he seemed to have an inspiration and followed his instinct to respond, explore, and blend their body temperatures.
The sound of rain was trickling outside the window, the room was filled with warmth, and love overwhelmed the two of them like a tide.
Once you have tasted the sweetness, nothing can better express the deep love and tenderness at this moment than such unreserved and intimate contact.
—
Dream.
Just as a rare heavy snowfall stopped, a drizzle of cold rain began to fall in the capital, and the chill was biting.
It seemed as if even the heaven and earth were mourning for the unfinished wedding.
Inside the East Palace, red candles burned brightly, but they could not dispel the chilliness that filled the room.
Pei Heng was wearing an elaborate and gorgeous wedding dress, red with gold embroidery, which made his face look even whiter, but also made him look even more lonely.
He just stood there, looking towards the palace gate, from sunset to deep night, until the red candle's tears dried.
Outside the palace, the wind and rain were raging, and the person he was waiting for never came.
Eunuch Wen watched anxiously from the side, wanting to speak several times but stopping himself. Finally, he stepped forward and said, "Your Highness... It's late at night, the rain is cold and the wind is strong. You... you should take off your wedding dress first, or you will hurt yourself."
Pei Heng seemed to be awakened by these words and slowly turned his head.
Glancing across the hall, he saw that the carefully arranged wedding curtains and red silk had been quietly removed by the palace servants at some point, and even the red lanterns hanging under the corridor had been extinguished.
It was empty, as if the grand wedding that day had never happened.
Indeed... it's no longer useful.
He heard that his father was furious and had a great rage in the Golden Palace. The entire Shen family was severely punished, and the power of thunder shocked the court and the country.
The punishment was severe.
But these are not what Pei Heng wants.
He didn't feel any pleasure at all.
Pei Heng couldn't understand why he and Shen Shi had to overcome all difficulties and personally ask their father for this arranged marriage.
He remembered how genuinely happy Shen Shi felt when he received the imperial edict.
Why... just left without even a single word.
Does Shen Shi really not want to marry him?
Was it his wishful thinking that forced him to escape in such a decisive way?
In the end, no one in the capital dared to mention that heavy snow again.
Until six months later.
As the crown prince, Pei Heng had to go to Dongruo Temple in the suburbs of Beijing to pray for blessings.
The royal procession was magnificent, but it could not suppress the emptiness in his heart. He stood in the solemn and dignified prayer hall, surrounded by the curling of incense and the low chanting of Buddhist scriptures.
He lowered his eyes, tightly grasped a faded red rope in his hand, closed his eyes, and prayed devoutly.
May the people of Pei live and work in peace and contentment, and may my father, the emperor, and my mother be in good health...
May that person, who is unknown where he is, whether alive or dead, be safe and sound.
He was still praying for the safety of those who left.
Little did he know that the person he was praying for came to the room in the Zen temple where he was staying in the deep of night.
Eunuch Wen was the first to discover Shen Shi, but he could hardly recognize him. His clothes were worn and his figure was extremely thin. The most horrifying thing was his eyes... His eyes, which used to be clear, seemed to be covered with an indelible gray film.
Eunuch Wen hurriedly stopped Ling Yue who was moving at the sound, "Don't stop him, let him in!"
He could see clearly that Chen Shi's expression was definitely not one of ungratefulness.
Shen Shi staggered and pushed open the door of the wing room. After entering, Eunuch Wen gently closed the door from the outside.
Pei Heng was staring out the window in a daze, thinking that it was the little monk coming to deliver dinner, so he didn't even turn his head.
"No need to send it, just take it back."
Instead of hearing the expected response, I heard suppressed breathing.
Pei Heng turned around in confusion.
In the flickering candlelight, he bumped into eyes that were both familiar and unfamiliar.
Six months passed, more than one hundred and eighty days and nights.
This was the longest time they had been apart since Chen Shi became his study partner.
Pei Heng looked at the haggard man in front of him, who looked like he could be blown down by a gust of wind. Thousands of emotions surged up and rushed to his lips, but turned into a thorny alienation.
"Who are you."
Shen Shi's tears immediately fell.
"I have no name anymore, Your Highness."
Pei Heng felt a sharp pain in his heart, but he turned his head away and no longer looked at the eyes that broke his heart. His gaze fell on the cup of tea on the table that had already gone cold, and his tone was pretended to be calm.
"Oh...you look a bit like the person who almost became my Crown Princess..."
Before he could finish his words, his hand was tightly grasped by a cold and trembling hand.
Shen Shi held his hand and said, "Shen Shi is the eldest grandson of the Prime Minister's Mansion and carries the fate of the Shen family. But I don't want to be Shen Shi anymore, Your Highness..."
That night, under the dim candlelight of the Zen temple and with the sound of rain outside the window, Pei Heng finally knew the truth.
It's not that Shen Shi didn't leave him a few words.
The farewell letter, which was written with great effort, was hidden in the wedding dress.
But before he could discover it, the wedding dress was disposed of by the people from the Imperial Household Department as an ominous object.
He then learned that during the six months that Shen Shi had disappeared, he had been hunted by the Regent.
He then realized that Chen Shi's resolute departure was to sever his ties with the Prime Minister's Mansion, and more importantly, to protect him from the disaster that was originally heading towards the East Palace.
Pei Heng looked at Shen Shi carefully in the flickering candlelight.
I don't know how much suffering he went through to suffer such irreversible damage.
He stretched out his hand, his fingertips trembling as he wanted to touch Shen Shi's thin cheek, wanting to see how many scars were hidden under his clothes.
My heart aches so much that it's about to break.
But the grievance and resentment that had been suppressed for six months and had nowhere to vent were still stuck in my heart.
Pei Heng withdrew his hand and turned his head, unable to control his temper and grievance.
"But I'm still very angry, Shen Shi."
"I've been sick since you left."
But how could he really blame Chen Shi? He wasn't the only one who suffered during these six months of separation.
His gentle and elegant, as well as his brilliant and talented little study partner, was forced to be unable to return home, unable to keep his fame, and was covered in injuries, struggling on the brink of life and death, but she still tried her best to return to his side.
This also made him unable to sleep peacefully for many years without Shen Shi by his side.
…
"Today, I looked at the prayer tree at Dongruo Temple and saw a piece of writing."
"Yun Qing. Chen Shi, I will change your name to Yun Qing. From now on, you are my Yun Qing alone."
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