HNYWEF -Chapter 27 A Brute

By the time Li Shimin returned to the imperial palace, the sun had already begun to set.

He and Fang Xuanling remained silent the entire way back before entering Liangyi Hall.

Li Shimin sat down behind the desk without saying a word.

Fang Xuanling stood nearby, also silent.

After a long while, Li Shimin suddenly spoke.

“Someone.”

An attendant stepped forward.

“Go summon Qin Qiong.”

The attendant acknowledged the order and withdrew.

The room fell quiet again.

Fang Xuanling looked at Li Shimin as if he wanted to say something, but swallowed the words back down.

Li Shimin sat there staring at the memorials on his desk, not turning a single page.

Qin Qiong arrived quickly.

As he entered, he glanced at Fang Xuanling before turning toward Li Shimin.

“Your Majesty, you summoned me?”

Li Shimin raised his head and looked at him.

“Shubao, I want to ask you something.”

Qin Qiong cupped his fists. “Please speak, Your Majesty.”

Li Shimin was silent for a moment.

Then he asked:

“When Bear Blindman was in Wagang… did he ever study?”

Qin Qiong froze for a second.

He looked at Li Shimin, then suddenly smiled.

It was only a faint smile, but Li Shimin noticed it.

“What are you laughing at?”

Qin Qiong shook his head.

“Your Majesty, that question of yours…”

He paused.

“You went to see him today, didn’t you?”

Li Shimin nodded.

Qin Qiong asked again, “And you called him a brute?”

Li Shimin’s brows twitched slightly.

“How did you know?”

Qin Qiong didn’t answer.

Instead, he smiled again.

This time the smile was more obvious.

Li Shimin looked at him, frowning.

“Shubao?”

Qin Qiong suppressed the smile, though the corners of his mouth still curved upward.

“Your Majesty, allow this subject to ask—when you were with him today… did he leave you stunned again?”

Li Shimin said nothing.

Seeing his expression, Qin Qiong suddenly burst out laughing.

This time he truly laughed aloud.

Li Shimin’s face darkened.

“Qin Shubao!”

Qin Qiong hurriedly bowed.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. I’m not laughing at you. I just…”

He paused and looked up at Li Shimin.

“I just remembered something from back then.”

Li Shimin paused.

“Back then?”

Qin Qiong nodded.

“In the early days at Wagang, there was one time when Second Brother Shan got drunk and made a bet with someone. He said Bear Blindman was just a rough brute—other than blacksmithing and treating injuries, he couldn’t do anything else. The wager was a jar of fine wine.”

Li Shimin listened silently.

Qin Qiong continued:

“Second Brother Shan lost.”

Li Shimin’s brows moved slightly.

“Lost to whom?”

Qin Qiong looked at him and answered:

“To Cheng Yaojin.”

Li Shimin froze.

“Cheng Yaojin?”

Qin Qiong nodded.

“At the time, Cheng Yaojin only said one sentence: ‘Second Brother Shan, you’re looking down on people like a damn fool.’”

Li Shimin opened his mouth—

but no words came out.

Qin Qiong looked at him and continued:

“Later, Shan Xiongxin asked Cheng Yaojin how he knew the man had studied. Cheng Yaojin said, ‘When he stitches me up, I hear him cursing people out. Half the words he uses, I can’t even understand. You think he hasn’t studied?’”

The room fell silent.

Then Fang Xuanling suddenly spoke from the side.

“I happened to be there when Cheng Yaojin said that.”

Both Li Shimin and Qin Qiong turned to look at him.

Fang Xuanling said, “That day, I had gone to Wagang to discuss matters and just happened to witness the whole thing. Shan Xiongxin’s face was red as Guan Gong’s, while Cheng Yaojin laughed like he’d found treasure.”

He paused.

“And where was Bear Blindman at the time? In the smithy hammering iron, completely unaware of any of it. Later, when he heard about it, he only laughed once and said, ‘If Second Brother Shan wanted good wine, he could’ve just said so. I’d have gotten him a jug. Why go in such a huge circle for it?’”

Qin Qiong smiled.

“That’s just his temperament. He never takes anything seriously.”

Li Shimin listened in silence.

He remembered the two poems Zhou Yi had recited in the courtyard today.

Poems like that—

he had never seen them before.

Fang Xuanling had said the same.

And now Qin Qiong was telling him that even back in Wagang, Bear Blindman had never been some uncultured brute.

It was Li Shimin himself who had assumed so.

He was the one who had simplified that man in his mind.

Li Shimin suddenly let out a soft laugh.

A very soft laugh.

Qin Qiong looked at him but said nothing.

Neither did Fang Xuanling.

Li Shimin said:

“Today, I asked him: ‘Do you want Zhou Yi to grow up into a brute?’”

Qin Qiong froze for a second.

Then he laughed again.

Li Shimin looked at him.

“And now what are you laughing at?”

Qin Qiong shook his head.

“Your Majesty, what I’m laughing at is…”

He paused.

“If Cheng Yaojin heard you call him a brute, he’d laugh at you for an entire year.”

Li Shimin said nothing.

Because Cheng Yaojin really would.

Qin Qiong continued:

“And if the old brothers from Wagang heard it, they’d laugh at you for a whole year too.”

Li Shimin looked at him.

Qin Qiong said seriously:

“If Bear Blindman counts as a brute, then there isn’t a refined man left in all of Wagang.”

The room quieted again.

Li Shimin sat there motionless.

Fang Xuanling stood nearby, studying his profile.

After a long time, Fang Xuanling spoke softly:

“Your Majesty, on the way back today, I kept thinking about those two poems. I thought about them the whole journey, yet I still couldn’t figure out where he learned them, or from whom. But there’s one thing I do know—”

Li Shimin looked at him.

Fang Xuanling said:

“You all say he’s glib, talks too much, loves cursing people. But today I finally realized—”

He paused.

“That’s not glibness. The man truly has substance.”

Li Shimin said nothing.

He rose and walked to the window.

Outside, the sky had already darkened. The moon had just risen, hanging faintly at the edge of the heavens.

He looked at that moon.

He simply stood there, staring at it.

The moon was bright.

Its light shone across the rooftops of Chang’an, into the winding alleys both deep and shallow.

It shone upon the door of that little smithy.

And suddenly he remembered the iron signboard.

Zhou Family Iron Shop.

He had forged that sign himself. Carved it himself.

And those characters—

only now did Li Shimin remember.

The handwriting on that sign had been very good.

Better than many iron shop signs he had seen.

He simply hadn’t paid attention at the time.

But now he remembered.

He stood by the window, looking at the moon.

For a very long time.

Then he softly murmured a sentence.

So softly it was almost inaudible.

“I truly have… humiliated myself.”