Edited by White Whale
In the end, Shi Qingzhou seemed to be persuaded by Long Xiaoyuan. At least, he didn’t refuse to read the memorials to the throne.
Since his empress joined him to deal with those boring memorials, Long Xiaoyuan found…the atmosphere quite comfortable.
In his previous life where he was in a bad shape, his family only allowed him to read novels. Besides, he was able to choose what he liked to learn.
Of course, his family asked a family teacher to teach him. Anyway, his family was rich.
He was thereby good at collecting historical books and memorizing things, but it didn’t indicate that he would like to handle those memorials.
Therefore, he found it quite pleasant that a charming person accompanied him.
More importantly, he could be a slacker!
After he turned lazy, he passed his memorials to Shi who dealt with them fast with remarkable reviews.
Strikingly enough, Shi Qingzhou was capable of finding the focus among the nonsense and telling it to Long. Wow! His ability was so awesome! He was really an ancient person in name and in fact!
Under the company of his empress, Long finished the memorials early that afternoon. What speed!
Seeing that it was still early, he was eager to make a move.
Having glanced at him, Shi Qingzhou asked, “Your Majesty, what’s up?”
He stared at Shi with his bright eyes. The latter paused for an instant and asked with a smile, “Your Majesty?”
He said immediately, “Qingzhou, it’s still early, so let’s get out of the imperial palace.”
Shi was astounded for a while with his pupils shrunk unnoticeably and said lightly after a while, “Your Majesty, did you forget that the imperial concubines can’t go out of the palace privately?”
“How can you go out privately since you’re with me?” he asked with surprise.
Shi was stunned for a while and looked at him with doubt. “Your Majesty, will you go out with me?”
“Yes, I’ve said it just now,” said he. Having walked over and held Shi’s hand, he continued, “Qingzhou, let’s get prepared.”
Shi’s body slightly shook. How long had it been since the last time he got out? It felt like it happened in his previous life.
Shi said gently with his eyes closed, “OK.”
Even if it was a dream or there was a trap waiting for him to enter, he still wanted to go out of the palace at any cost!
Hence, attired in casual clothes, Long Xiaoyuan and Shi Qingzhou appeared outside of the palace. Led by Chief-eunuch Zhou Qing, they were also followed by more than five Shadow Guardians who were unseen to Long, though.
The original emperor had Shadow Guardians, too. However, when Shi Qingzhou decided to kill him, most of those guardians had actually sworn allegiance to Shi.
There was still three months before Shi killed him, so half of the guardians must have pledged loyalty to Shi.
The novel didn’t describe those Shadow Guardians in details except for the three ones.
The leader of the Shadow Guardians was deathly loyal to the original emperor and thereby was killed by Shi. The assistant leader transferred his allegiance to Shi. What was his name? Oh, he was called Ying Qiu.
The leader of the Shadow Guardians who was deathly loyal to the emperor was called Ying Feng. Shi also respected his loyalty and abilities and thereby killed him quickly, making him not suffer.
Three Shadow Guardians were mentioned in the novel. The last one was Ying Shou, a 60-year-old drillmaster in charge of training Shadow Guardians. When Shi Qingzhou succeeded to the throne, he “resigned” himself. Shi was grateful for his contributions in training the Shadow Guardians, so Shi let him go instead of killing him. But Shi asked him to live with his identity concealed and never show up in the imperial capital…
This time, Ying Qiu, who was loyal to Shi, followed them, too. However, Long Xiaoyuan didn’t care about it.
