Grasshopper

Shen Xiu opened his mouth helplessly.

The emperor had fallen asleep. Shen Xiu didn't dare to speak and could only mouth the words, "Un... Uncle? Should I... Should I put him over to you, or will you take him?"

Shen Que withdrew his gaze. "No need. Let him sleep well."

The carriage continued to bump along, and Jiang Xun's head felt heavy and drowsy.

He wasn't sleeping very peacefully. Shen Xiu had sloping shoulders and had been hoeing fields in the mountain valleys for two years; resting on him felt like resting on bones. Slipping down constantly, Jiang Xun's neck automatically adjusted its direction, and he continued to sway from side to side.

Shen Que glanced at him from time to time.

He wanted the emperor to sleep more comfortably, but was afraid that moving rashly would wake him up. Thus, he merely shifted his shoulders, then watched helplessly as Jiang Xun leaned further and further to the side in his sleep, and just as he was about to lean against him—

He woke up.

Jiang Xun kept a tight string in his heart, afraid of crossing the line in his dreams and annoying people. Subconsciously, he wouldn't let himself lean over, so the moment he made contact, he woke up.

The emperor had just woken up and was still dazed. He blankly adjusted his veiled hat, draped the white gauze over again, then adjusted his posture and leaned towards Shen Xiu once more.

"..."

Shen Xiu: "Hey, hey, hey!"

Compared to the wrath of the good-tempered emperor, the wrath of his own uncle was a bit more terrifying.

After all, when he went back to Lianghu to farm, the mountains would be high and the emperor far away. But if his young uncle wanted to send him to kneel in the ancestral hall, it would just take a single word.

Shen Xiu discussed with Jiang Xun, "Master Xun, my... my shoulder is a bit numb. How about you lean a bit to the left?"

Jiang Xun: "...Oh."

He didn't say yes, nor did he say no. He stood up with unsteady steps and signaled for Shen Xiu to move to the middle.

Shen Xiu: "?"

He couldn't argue with the emperor and shifted to the side. Jiang Xun then sat in his original position.

Then, they watched Jiang Xun adjust his veiled hat, lean against the carriage wall, and start sleeping.

This carriage was of the highest standard used by the Marquis of Zhenbei for travel. The carriage walls were lined with a layer of cotton batting, so leaning against it was fairly comfortable.

—The emperor fell asleep in this posture.

"..."

The carriage was dead silent.

After three days of bumpy travel, the group arrived at the Capital City.

Jiang Xun asked the driver to drop him off at the Loquat Courtyard, and then he returned to the Imperial City.

The head eunuch Wang An had been waiting for him with eager eyes. He inspected the emperor from head to toe, confirming that Jiang Xun was alright, and then hurriedly ordered people to prepare the bathwater and new clothes, waiting for Jiang Xun to wash and change.

Jiang Xun took off his outer garment. This clothing was made of commoners' fabric, inferior to the fine and precious materials of the Imperial City. Having been used to wearing fine clothes, he was still a bit unaccustomed to it. Wang An took the outer garment, bowing and scraping beside him: "Would you like to summon Lord Shen to join you?"

Jiang Xun's movements paused: "What?"

Wang An: "Lord Shen? Would you like to summon him to join you?"

Only then did Jiang Xun react, shaking his head and saying, "No need."

He paused for a moment, then added, "There's no need to summon him anymore in the future."

Jiang Xun summoned Shen Que for System 55's tasks, but as of today, there were no more tasks involving him.

At this point in history, the Northern Di were about to cross Qingping Pass and head straight for the Imperial City. The palace gates would fall, and the short and absurd life of the Deposed Emperor of Wei was about to end. Jiang Xun also didn't need to follow the plot anymore.

He dismissed the servants and stepped into the hot spring. System 55 floated happily around in the pool, a few bubbles popping out of its connection port. It opened the plot: "Well host, we have reached the end. The next relatively important plot point is the palace catching fire, you dying, and then Xue Jin ascending the throne. That will do."

By Jiang Xun's generation, there was no one left in the royal family. The only general holding massive military power was Xue Jin, so it was only natural for him to ascend the throne.

Jiang Xun: "Did it say which specific palace must catch fire?"

System 55: "It didn't specify, it only said the emperor's sleeping quarters."

Generally speaking, the emperor's sleeping quarters was Qianqing Palace.

Jiang Xun pondered for a moment: "I understand."

The system paddled over, asking curiously, "In the previous life, it was Qianqing Palace that burned down. Are you not planning to burn Qianqing Palace this time?"

Jiang Xun: "No. If Qianqing Palace catches fire, all the palace servants in the entire hall would be beaten to death with staves. Wang An is old, and there are so many maids and eunuchs; there's no need to implicate them. It's better to find an empty place. Besides, this palace is quite beautiful. Rebuilding it would waste manpower and money. The national treasury is not full, and there will be post-war reconstruction. I'm afraid they won't be able to allocate the funds, so let's just leave it for them."

System 55: "Then where does the host want to go?"

Jiang Xun thought slightly: "Chenglu Hall then. That is where I was born."

Chenglu Hall was a small courtyard in the corner of the inner palace. It wasn't the cold palace, but it was worse than one. The emperor's carriage hadn't visited there in decades.

The young Jiang Xun liked it there very much. Although he couldn't eat his fill or sleep well, and there was no charcoal fire in winter, many wild grasses and flowers grew in the small courtyard, left unattended. His mother would snap them off and weave grass grasshoppers. By the time he moved into the prince's mansion and later became the emperor, the flowers and trees in the entire palace had been meticulously pruned. No weeds could be seen, and grass grasshoppers were nowhere to be found.

But later he grew up and understood what Chenglu Hall meant. It meant being despised and looked down upon; it was a place everyone scorned. Later, when his mother passed away and the last bit of memory dissipated, he no longer liked it.

But now, Jiang Xun actually kind of wanted to go back and take a look.

System 55: "Alright, then we will burn Chenglu Hall."

The original text explicitly required the emperor's sleeping quarters. Chenglu Hall had been uninhabited for a long time, so of course it wouldn't count as such. Thus, that very night, Jiang Xun moved to Chenglu Hall under the pretext of missing a deceased loved one.

When Shen Que came looking for him, he found empty air.

He had rushed back and finished reviewing the urgent memorials, and had picked out a few interesting ones, wanting to coax the emperor into reviewing them himself. After all, Jiang Xun had reviewed them so well at Qingping Pass; there was no reason he couldn't do it now.

But when the moon rose above the willow branches and the sky was full of stars, and he arrived at Qianqing Palace bathed in moonlight, the lights inside the palace were dark.

Shen Que stopped a palace servant at the door: "Has His Majesty rested? Did he not summon me today?"

Since entering the palace, he had always slept with Jiang Xun. Previously in the carriage, however, he had been repeatedly given the cold shoulder by "Master Xun", and at Qingping Pass he hadn't dared to get too close. Shen Que was eager to confirm if the emperor's health was alright after the half month in Saibei, and whether he had lost weight.

The attendant lowered his eyes: "His Majesty is not in Qianqing Palace."

Shen Que paused for a moment: "Not here? Do you know where he went?"

The emperor had no inner palace concubines, and the entire harem was empty. Besides Qianqing Palace, where else could he go?

The attendant: "This servant does not know."

Shen Que: "Did he say when he would return?"

The attendant still said, "This servant does not know."

Since the emperor hadn't given any instructions, his whereabouts were a secret and could not be easily revealed.

The commotion at the door disturbed Wang An. The head eunuch came out from the hall with a face full of smiles to greet him: "Oh my, Lord Shen, the night is deep and the dew is heavy, why have you come? Please go back quickly." His Majesty did not summon anyone today.

Shen Que frowned: "Eunuch Wang, are you not attending to His Majesty?"

Wang An was the head eunuch, Jiang Xun's close attendant, and should theoretically accompany the emperor at all times. If Jiang Xun went to another palace, why didn't he take him along?

Wang An smiled apologetically: "His Majesty wouldn't let me follow. He said he didn't want people making noise and wanted to find some peace and quiet, so he didn't bring this servant."

Shen Que's brow twitched slightly: "...Find some peace and quiet?"

Looking for peace and quiet in the palace, and not even bringing his personal eunuch?

Wang An sighed: "We don't dare to casually guess His Majesty's thoughts. Perhaps he got tired of staying in Qianqing Palace and wanted to find a new place. He'll move back tomorrow. Lord Shen, please don't make things difficult for this servant. Without His Majesty's summons, this servant cannot tell you his whereabouts."

Saying this, he looked at the moonlight and issued an order for the guest to leave: "Oh, it's getting late. Lord Shen must be exhausted from the journey, and there is still morning court tomorrow. You had better go back and rest early."

As he spoke, he waved his hand in a "please" gesture.

Shen Que: "Sorry to intrude."

He turned and left.

However, Shen Que didn't return to rest as Wang An had suggested. He held his lantern, paused for a moment, and following his memory, headed towards the northwest corner of the Imperial Palace.

Having used the excuse of getting lost to find his way there several times before, Shen Que was now quite familiar with the route.

Jiang Xun was sitting in the courtyard looking at the moon.

It was now the sunny third month of spring. The apricot and peach blossoms in the Capital City were blooming one after another. It was no longer cold, so there was no need for charcoal fires. He dragged an old chair out of the room, wiped the dust off the surface, and lay back on it leisurely.

System 55 lay on his shoulder, curiously looking around: "Host, is this the place where you grew up as a child?"

Jiang Xun scratched its monitor, like scratching a kitten's chin: "Yes."

It was a small, square courtyard, surrounded by high palace walls. When Jiang Xun was a child, he felt this place was very big; it took half a day to run from one end to the other. But now he felt it was very small, so small that looking up at the sky from here was like looking at the moon from the bottom of a well. One's line of sight was firmly boxed in; it was a cage from which one could neither walk away nor escape.

Jiang Xun's material desires had always been relatively weak. In his previous life, he wasn't much happier even after ascending the throne and living in extreme luxury. Now moving over to sleep, he didn't make any changes to this room; everything was still the old objects from back then. He just had the servants wipe away the dust and bring over new quilts, planning to make do for a few nights like this.

The flowers and trees in the courtyard hadn't been renewed either, they just had pests removed casually during every cleaning. Now, many weeds were growing haphazardly in the ground.

Jiang Xun snapped off a thick and long weed from the ground and showed it to System 55: "Wow, it grew really well. Shall I weave a grass grasshopper for you?"

System 55 lay there looking at him: "Yay!"

Jiang Xun folded the grass blade in half and threaded it through: "When I first gained memories, there was no good grass left in the ground. My mother said she plucked it bare to amuse me when I was little. As a result, by the time I could remember, there were only small grasshoppers. I really wanted a big grasshopper back then. Today I'll fold a big one for you."

As he spoke, he flipped the grass blade in his hands, folded it a few steps, and then undid it and opened it up again.

System 55: "What's wrong?"

Jiang Xun said in distress: "I don't remember."

It had been too, too many years. He didn't remember how to fold a grass grasshopper.

System 55 patted its screen and guaranteed: "It's okay host, I'll access the database for you. I know how to fold a grasshopper!"

It quickly found the records in the complex piles of data and displayed them on the screen, but Jiang Xun looked at them one by one, shook his head, and said blankly, "It's not this way of folding."

Origami, weaving grass ropes, folding paper cranes, and folding grass grasshoppers—these small folk handicrafts had different customs in every world, and every dynasty and region had its own way of weaving. Although System 55's database was huge, it was not omnipotent. It didn't know the folding method of Jiang Xun's mother.

The small screen drooped down in dejection.

Jiang Xun then picked the system up: "It's okay. We still have a few days before we leave. Let me think hard, and when I remember, I'll fold it for you."

System 55 dragged out its tone: "Okay—"

At this time, it was almost time to rest, so Jiang Xun moved the chair inside, preparing to rest.

The bed had been changed to a new one, soft to the touch. Jiang Xun closed the door, blew out the candle, and turned over to rest.

He greeted System 55: "Good night, System 55."

The system yawned softly: "Good night, host."

Then, Jiang Xun pulled over the quilt, the system pressed shut down, and they started to sleep.

No one noticed that someone holding a lantern had walked into the courtyard.