Chapter 24: A Strange Woman

This man was clinging to her worse than a tarred plaster - this was Shen Yu’s conclusion after living with Fang Rui at the Court of Judicial Review for several days.

Except for times when she went to the toilet or bathed, Fang Rui was almost always at Shen Yu’s side. Of course, Shen Yu wasn’t an easy target either. When she went to bed she would lock the doors and windows tight to guard against fire, theft, and lecherous wolves.

Normally she could catch her breath, but what made her truly suffocate was bathing. At other times he might follow, but when she bathed he stood outside the room. The fact that he could hear the gurgle of water was one thing, but most worrying was Shen Yu’s fear that he would peep.

She thought about telling him to go away, but she didn’t want to talk to him. And even if she sent him away he would come back when she bathed. So now every time before bathing she checked the beams and the roof for anyone. She always felt he would take any chance to look.

He was a despicable scoundrel to begin with, so he certainly wouldn’t have refrained from such nasty deeds.

Shen Yu bathed after nightfall. She always felt a bit safer at night.

After a quick check to see no one hiding on the beams, no gaps on the roof, she finally relaxed.

There was a reason Fang Rui shadowed Shen Yu so closely: after all, Wang Zhongyuan had told Cui Hao that if necessary Shen Yu’s mouth could be silenced, and since it was Fang Rui who had sent her to the Court of Judicial Review, he must take full responsibility for her safety, no slip-ups allowed.

Fang Rui, who had been guarding outside the bath, pricked up his ears as if hearing something. The sound came from behind Shen Yu’s bathing room. He immediately grew alert, lightened his steps, and moved toward the back of the room.

Shen Yu was indeed bathing, and if she were accidentally seen the consequences would be serious.

When Fang Rui rounded to the back he saw a figure in black lying on the wall, looking like they intended to climb in. Spotting Fang Rui, they started in alarm and, caught in the act, immediately flipped back over the wall.

Shen Yu was bathing and he could not alarm others to rush over, so Fang Rui silently followed.

Shen Yu, who lately bathed in quick strikes, was staying in the bath longer today. Despite being very wary she failed to notice a small-statured woman in maid’s clothes crawl out from under the table where things were stored. The woman glanced at the silhouette on the folding screen, then at the garments hanging on it. After examining them she saw a red cord dangling from the clothing and her eyes flashed with delight.

Tiptoeing close to the screen, she planned to silently steal the key and slip away, but as she reached for the red cord Shen Yu happened to rise. When Shen Yu turned to take her clothes she saw, from very close, someone standing behind the screen with a hand already on her garments.

With a splash, Shen Yu snapped back into the tub, and the maid who had been about to steal the key stared in utter shock.

The silhouette appearing behind the screen had a finely proportioned figure: narrow shoulders, slim waist, and a faint swell at the chest. Clearly a woman!

Shen Yu couldn’t fight and couldn’t instantly dress like someone trained in combat, so all the more in such a moment she told herself to stay calm and quietly consider what to do. If the person behind had already noticed her gender and forced her out, the consequences would be unimaginable.

“Come over here.” Shen Yu’s voice was very calm. So calm that the maid suspected she must have imagined what she had seen.

The woman glanced at the key in her hand and narrowed her eyes slightly, thinking that if this influential court official really was a woman, it would be splendid. With such leverage, wouldn’t Shen Yu show deference to Lord Cui?

Her confidence surged. No longer tiptoeing, she strolled leisurely past the screen and stood before Shen Yu, her gaze falling on the water’s surface in the tub. A towel obscured the bottom, but precisely because of that the woman was all the more convinced she had not been mistaken.

The woman stood before Shen Yu, and Shen Yu got a clear look at the maid’s attire. Though dressed as a maid, she was clearly someone from the jianghu, appearing in her thirties with a strange face. Her eyebrows had been shaved off above the brow bone, and she had a copper ring above her mouth. No ordinary person would dress like that.

The woman’s mouth curved in a wicked smile as she taunted, “So the Emperor’s favored favorite is actually a woman.”

Sitting lower in the tub than the woman, Shen Yu showed not the slightest fluster. Calmly she smiled with composure and asked, “And? Do you intend to report my identity to His Majesty?”

The cool expression on Shen Yu’s face betrayed no flaw. She seemed utterly unconcerned that her being a woman might reach the Emperor’s ears.

There was a reason Shen Yu was so composed: she already had one scheming, lecherous Jia Ming keeping her in check. She did not want a second Jia Ming. Once there were two, there would be three, and she didn’t even want the first.

Shen Yu’s composure was so complete that the woman couldn’t fathom where such confidence came from.

Suddenly Shen Yu rose from the water. Her flattering figure was laid bare before the woman as she stepped from the tub and slowly fetched an outer robe, casually slipping it on without drying off. The thin white fabric clung to her, making the sight more striking than if she had been unclothed. The sculpted curves contradicted her usual slight appearance, and even the woman, also a woman, couldn’t help stealing another glance.

Shen Yu looked at the woman, smiled faintly, her eyes full of implication. “Tell me, why do you think the Emperor favors me so much?”

Shen Yu herself didn’t know the answer to that question, but what she could do now was buy time.

Where on earth had the ever-present Jia Ming gone?!

The woman, hearing Shen Yu’s counterquestion, looked from Shen Yu’s exquisite figure to her flawless face and suddenly wore an expression of realization. “I see now.”

Shen Yu was a bit stunned by that response. She didn’t even know whether the Emperor’s original favor had been for her talent or because they had met before and felt familiarity upon reuniting in court, leading to trust and then favor. But this woman seemed to know.

Shen Yu dared not reveal the slightest clue. If she showed even a flicker of doubt now, the woman would realize she was stalling.

“No wonder you were so promoted by the Emperor as soon as you became the top scholar.”

While Shen Yu was parrying with the woman, Fang Rui, who had chased the figure in black out of the Court of Judicial Review, suddenly remembered that when he used to slip from the General’s mansion to the Grand Guardian’s mansion he had used the very tactic of luring the tiger away from the mountain.

Every time he went to spy on Shen Yu he’d just “throw the cat” as a distraction. And now, conveniently, someone had literally thrown a person right at him.

Realizing he had been the tiger lured from its mountain, and just as he was about to catch the cloaked figure, Fang Rui suddenly gave up and turned, leaping back toward the Court of Judicial Review.

Sensing there were no pursuers behind him, the cloaked man dropped from the roof to the ground, tore off his face cloth, panted hard and fanned himself, incredulous. “Who is Huyan Suoyun sending to run after me?! Someone who can nearly catch up with my lightness skill?”

The man Fang Rui had chased was a great thief Huyan Suoyun had captured years ago. His lightness skill was superb. He had been caught because of drunkenness, but when Huyan Suoyun learned the thief had used his loot to help the poor he let him go, and so the thief owed Huyan Suoyun a favor.

This time Huyan Suoyun asked him to draw someone away. Thinking it wasn’t an evil task, he agreed. He’d thought it simple, but nearly came a cropper.

Fang Rui rushed back at top speed. Because this was the Court of Judicial Review, where many experts were around, it was impractical to have too many people hovering near Shen Yu. So whenever Fang Rui was present the other covert guards would automatically pull back and hide farther away. Covert guards were human too and needed rest, so they came in shifts.

Since Fang Rui was at the Court of Judicial Review this time, they naturally stayed out of Shen Yu’s immediate vicinity.

When Fang Rui returned he heard voices from the bathing room and, while relieved, a terrifying thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

His Shen Yu had been seen completely before he got there!!!!