AEOGA CH48

Bright sunlight filtered through the window. Opening his eyes, Xie Chongjin was immediately greeted by the sight of the quiet, sleeping face of the young man in his arms, his messy strands of hair clinging to his cheek—strikingly beautiful and enchanting.

Xie Chongjin reached out and gently brushed away the black hair from Lu Xuechao’s face.

The ticklish sensation of his fingers brushing against his cheek made Lu Xuechao knit his brows slightly, and he woke up soon after.

Glancing at the daylight outside, he immediately sat up: “What time is it? Isn’t disaster relief grain being distributed in the east of the city? I wanted to go take a look…”

As he spoke, he was about to get out of bed to dress.

His black hair fell loosely, veiling the crimson kiss marks on his snow-white nape.

Xie Chongjin held him down: “With the imperial envoy keeping a close watch, every last grain will certainly be handed down. Would those corrupt officials dare to pull any tricks at a critical moment like this? As for you, thinking about these things the moment you wake up—do you even have the strength to walk around?”

Lu Xuechao looked at him, his voice cool and clear, yet his words made one’s face flush red: “Why wouldn’t I have the strength? Am I made of porcelain? Did a single crash from you shatter my bones into pieces?”

Xie Chongjin: “…”

Last night, Xie Chongjin had ultimately been lured into bed by Lu Xuechao.

Still, mindful of Lu Xuechao’s delicate constitution, he hadn’t dared to act recklessly in the bath pool for fear of him catching a chill. Even after carrying him to the bed, he hadn’t dared to leave anything inside.

Lu Xuechao wasn’t made of porcelain, but his flesh and skin belonged to a true enchantress capable of bewitching people out of their minds. That Xie Chongjin could still consider Lu Xuechao’s body under such circumstances showed remarkable restraint.

Lu Xuechao continued dressing, fastening his buttons all the way to the top. His drooping eyelashes were long and slender, his side profile flawless. The thin, lightweight summer clothes outlined his slender waist, making him appear even more delicate.

Xie Chongjin murmured under his breath: “Isn’t it precisely because I’m afraid you’ll fall apart…”

Who wouldn’t want to protect someone like this upon seeing him?

He watched Lu Xuechao dress in his cold, abstinent white robes, fully aware of how many of his own marks were hidden beneath that white fabric.

Thinking that such an peerless beauty was his spouse, a young boy’s surge of excitement filled his heart.

No matter how many cycles of reincarnation he had experienced, or how long they had been an old married couple walking hand in hand, looking at Lu Xuechao could always ignite the ardent love of his youthful first crush. No matter how much time wore on it, it would never fade.

He was no longer a youth, but he would always love him like one.

Lu Xuechao looked up: “Are you getting up or not? If not, I’m heading to the east of the city by myself.”

Xie Chongjin hastily grabbed his clothes: “Getting up, getting up, getting up.”

A long line had formed in the east of the city, packed with commoners waiting to receive relief grain, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Looking across the crowd, the disaster victims were all clad in rags, thin and emaciated, their long-numb eyes reflecting a glimmer of hope due to the arrival of the imperial envoy’s party.

The imperial court had allocated three million taels of silver for disaster relief, while simultaneously opening the granaries to release grain, strictly investigating local officials, and constructing water conservancy projects. Following the flood, epidemics had spread, leaving the commoners with no money for medical treatment; thus, several imperial physicians accompanied the disaster relief team to offer free medical consultations at the city gates.

With all these measures put into practice, the commoners living in dire straits were granted a shred of hope.

Far more terrifying than natural disasters were human greed, a ruler without virtue, and an inactive court. The game setup was absurd, yet in certain aspects highly realistic—for instance, if local disaster relief was ineffective, public support would plummet, eventually leading to riots and the execution of the monarch. Beyond external threats from enemy nations, internal troubles were the root cause of a nation’s turmoil and fall.

Water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it.

Treating the masses like ants would only cause a dam of a thousand miles to collapse from an anthill.

Therefore, the people’s livelihood was of paramount importance.

Standing behind the crowd, Lu Xuechao and Xie Chongjin suddenly caught a whiff of a savory food aroma wafting from a ruined temple.

Was someone having a picnic here?

In the east of the city stood a dilapidated temple originally dedicated to the Dragon King. During the flood, it had been submerged by the waters—a literal case of flooding the Dragon King’s temple.

Thereafter, the ruined temple had gone unmaintained, losing its incense offerings and gradually becoming a shelter for a band of beggars.

This chicken aroma was slightly different from ordinary stir-fried chicken. Intrigued, Lu Xuechao followed the scent and saw a group of disheveled, grime-covered beggars gathered around a fire inside the ruined temple. A clump of mud was suspended over the fire, and the delicious fragrance was emanating directly from the mud.

A few beggars wiped their drool while laughing and scolding, “Big Yellow, you went stealing and sneaking around again!”

“What do you mean stealing and sneaking around? This is called robbing the rich to help the poor! Aside from Great Benefactor Jiang, which of those treacherous merchants isn’t black-hearted? What’s wrong with stealing a chicken? Stealing it benefits everyone!”

The beggars were merely egging him on, without any genuine blame. When on the brink of starvation, who would still fuss over noble morality or refrain from stealing and looting?

They took the clump of mud down and cracked it open, revealing a thoroughly cooked roasted chicken inside—crispy on the outside, tender on the inside when the skin and meat were pulled apart. Salivating wildly, the beggars quickly divided the entire chicken and devoured it ravenously.

As they ate, one beggar inadvertently looked toward the entrance and suddenly stammered, “Th-There’s someone.”

The other beggars raised their heads, instinctively swallowing their spit.

A young master in white stepped into the temple, tall and erect, elegant and untamed. The veil draped from his bamboo hat concealed his visage, yet even without seeing his true face, one could feel he was a peerless beauty capable of ruining nations.

The beggars instinctively glanced at the Dragon King statue inside the temple, wondering if the Dragon King had manifested his power.

This gentleman in white certainly didn’t look like a mortal…

Lu Xuechao spoke politely: “I was drawn here by the fragrance inside the temple.”

Even his voice was as pleasant as celestial music, lacking any superior arrogance despite facing a band of beggars.

One beggar immediately tore off a piece of chicken leg meat, eagerly holding out his hand to offer it: “H-Here…”

Food was extremely precious to them; casually sharing it with outsiders would usually earn a beating from the others, yet no one raised an objection right now.

Lu Xuechao’s beauty lay not just in his skin, but in his very bones. His beauty was enchanting—even without showing his face, his sheer presence alone was enough to make people surrender everything willingly.

Lu Xuechao did not take it; accustomed to luxury, why would he take food from beggars?

The beggar felt a bit embarrassed. The beauty looked so fair, delicate, and untouched by dust, whereas his own hands were filthy and black; how could anything he held be worthy of him?

“Does this dish have a name? May I ask how it is prepared?” Lu Xuechao remained gentle-voiced and impeccably polite.

When he cooked, he had access to the most complete kitchen utensils available. The beggars had no cookware, yet they could make chicken taste so delicious. This was another method Lu Xuechao had never seen before.

With a beauty asking, the beggars naturally held nothing back, telling him everything they knew.

Having acquired the chicken, they had struggled with the lack of cookware to pluck and cook it. Though beggars, they weren’t so crude as to eat raw meat and drink blood, so they had devised a method—wrapping the entire chicken in yellow mud and roasting it over the fire. Once the mud dried and was peeled off, not only did the feathers come off automatically, but the chicken meat inside was cooked through as well.

“This chicken doesn’t really have a name. It’s just a method my brothers and I figured out ourselves. Since we’re eating it, it’s called Beggar’s Chicken,” the beggar chuckled happily. “But if you eat it, it’s called Wealth and Honor Chicken.”

Lu Xuechao fell into thought: “Thank you.”

He left behind a gold coin and turned to leave.

The beggars froze, watching him walk away before scrambling toward the gold coin. After grabbing it, one of them bit it: “It’s real!”

“We’ve truly met a benefactor!”

…

Stepping out of the temple, Lu Xuechao found Xie Chongjin waiting outside.

Xie Chongjin asked, “Did you get your answer?”

Lu Xuechao nodded.

Lu Xuechao hadn’t allowed Xie Chongjin to follow him into the temple. It was merely asking about a chicken recipe; Lu Xuechao had a approachable demeanor, making it easy to ask. Xie Chongjin carried an innate majestic pressure of an emperor, which might have frightened those beggars.

Xie Chongjin burst out laughing: “A true master chef—running off to ask for a recipe the moment he smells something delicious…”

“Have the kitchen prepare a chicken when we return,” Lu Xuechao said. “I’ve thought of a new dish.”

Last time at Huaman Pavilion, they had eaten ordinary chicken dishes, and Lu Xuechao had been pondering new ways to prepare chicken ever since. These beggars had given him inspiration.

Xie Chongjin: “We’ve only been out for half a day, and we’re heading back already?”

Lu Xuechao shook his head.

They wouldn’t be returning to the imperial villa just yet. Having visited the east of the city, Lu Xuechao wanted to check out the west as well.

He had assumed that since the commoners were all heading east to collect relief grain, other areas would inevitably be deserted. To his surprise, there were quite a few people in the west of the city as well.

And just like before, a long queue had formed.

Lu Xuechao and Xie Chongjin exchanged a glance. They remembered that no disaster relief stations had been set up in the west.

Approaching the line, they heard several commoners conversing among themselves.

“Why are there so few people today?”

“Your news is way too outdated! The court came to deliver disaster relief these past two days, so everyone ran to the east of the city to get grain. I went to get a token, too, but the line was so long I couldn’t get a turn, so I came back here.”

“I know the imperial envoy arrived, but in previous years, didn’t disaster relief just mean putting on a show and handing out a bowl of thin rice soup… It wasn’t even as much as Great Benefactor Jiang gives.”

“I thought so too at first, but this year is different! I heard the Emperor himself came to supervise. My next-door neighbor went over yesterday and brought back two bags of rice, two bags of flour, and a string of cash…”

“Gasp, that much? Then I better hurry over too!”

…

At the porridge distribution booth, seeing the queue much shorter than usual, a servant voiced the same sentiment: “Young Master’s Spouse, there are so few people today.”

Yesterday, most commoners hadn’t heard the news yet and still came west for porridge. Today, most knew the court was distributing generous relief in the east, so they had all rushed over there in a frenzy.

Yun Luo said, “Isn’t that a good thing? Relying solely on private efforts is ultimately a drop in the bucket. The court stepping in for disaster relief is where true hope lies.”

Although it was said that all merchants were treacherous, Jiang Yue was a rare conscientious businessman. He and his wife had started from scratch, working hard for half their lives based on integrity to build a great reputation. Coupled with a monopoly in the medical industry, he had become the richest merchant in Jiangnan. When the flood struck and other wealthy merchants exploited the situation by raising grain prices to make a fortune off the national crisis, the Jiang family instead lowered grain prices so people could eat, lowered cloth prices so people could stay warm, sold medicines at cost price, and opened soup kitchens to relieve the commoners, earning the title of Great Benefactor Jiang.

Because of this, Yun Luo had initially been willing to manage affairs for the Jiang family.

Only after taking charge of the Jiang family’s finances did Yun Luo realize their situation was far from optimistic. When the Jiang family was rich, they were indeed wealthy, but in recent years they had virtually squandered their fortune on charity, leaving various industries running at a loss and their restaurants on the brink of bankruptcy. The only profitable sector left was pharmaceuticals, and even the thickest family fortune couldn’t sustain such drain forever.

Yun Luo had asked for Jiang Yue’s opinion, to which Jiang Yue expressed he had already set aside enough assets for Jiang Jinxu to live a worry-free life, while committing the rest to charitable endeavors.

When asked why, his wish was to accumulate virtue and do good deeds to pray for his wife’s next life, as well as to atone for his own role in causing his wife’s death.

Changli possessed pregnancy pills, but taking them merely granted a man the same pregnant constitution as a woman; it didn’t mean one would conceive immediately. Just as some women struggled to conceive, the same applied to men, and the former Lady Jiang was one such case.

Jiang Yue cared little for heirs, but his wife desperately wanted a child. Thus, Jiang Yue painstakingly formulated a medicine to increase male conception rates, which directly established the Jiang family’s position as the titan of the medical industry and the richest in Jiangnan, prompting even Yujing nobles to spend a fortune seeking the drug.

Yet what Jiang Yue regretted most in his life was developing that very medicine.

He had enabled his wife to conceive, but the probability of a Changli man dying in the delivery room was far too high, let alone for his wife who was an endangered, advanced-age father.

He lacked the ability to develop a medicine that could reduce mortality rates during childbirth.

What worried him even more was that Jiang Jinxu had inherited his mother’s constitution.

Therefore, when Jiang Jinxu and Yun Luo married, Jiang Yue made Yun Luo swear never to let Jiang Jinxu take the pregnancy pill, unwilling to let his only son repeat the tragedy.

Yun Luo had agreed.

In any case, the imperial court coming down for disaster relief helped relieve the Jiang family’s pressing crisis.

Otherwise, no matter how shrewd Yun Luo’s mind was, he wouldn’t be able to salvage a Jiang family whose assets had been bled dry.

Yun Luo scooped up a bowl of porridge and handed it to the commoner waiting in line, who expressed his thanks before leaving.

Just as he was about to scoop the next bowl, he caught sight of two familiar figures.

All three paused simultaneously.

Unexpectedly, it was such a coincidence—two strangers who had seemed like passing acquaintances met once again today.