The shopkeeper sat alone in the courtyard, maintaining the same position in the night’s cold wind—he didn’t know for how long.
On the stone table before him lay an empty box that should have contained the world’s greatest treasure, the He Shi Bi. But this Imperial Seal had vanished yesterday along with Fu Su.
At this point, even if the shopkeeper wanted to think the best, he couldn’t give himself a satisfactory explanation.
The bright moon in the sky was already round as a jade disc. Tonight was supposed to be the agreed night for Fu Su to return the doctor’s body, but the shopkeeper had no choice but to prepare for the worst. So when he saw a familiar figure appear in the courtyard, he looked over indifferently and said wearily, “Your Highness appears tonight not to honor the agreement, does he?”
Fu Su wore a black windbreaker, standing tall and elegant. He wasn’t wearing glasses on his straight nose bridge, his overly long bangs were combed back revealing his smooth forehead, and his handsome features appeared even more aristocratically imposing. He stopped at the courtyard entrance, hands in his windbreaker pockets, smiling as gently as always: “Actually, I shouldn’t have come, but I feared if I didn’t appear, you would sit here all night.”
The shopkeeper pressed his forehead, already ice-cold from the night wind, and self-mockingly said lightly, “So what if I sit all night? My body won’t catch cold.”
Both fell into awkward silence because of his words. The shopkeeper’s gaze fell on the now-empty jade box, asking woodenly, “When did Your Highness decide not to honor the agreement? Bi Zhi could see that when Your Highness promised, it was sincere.”
Fu Su sighed deeply. The helplessness from his breath turned into white mist in the cold air, then was immediately blown away by the cold wind. “I am already dead, so naturally I cannot harm another innocent person for no reason. But you told me this body was originally my reincarnation.”
“But even so, he is not your property.” The shopkeeper unconsciously reached for the pale jade pendant hanging at his neck. It had been three nights, and the doctor’s soul still showed no signs of awakening.
Hearing this, Fu Su moved, walking directly to the shopkeeper and looking down at him sitting on the stone bench, saying slowly word by word: “But he is important to you precisely because he is my reincarnation, isn’t that right?”
The shopkeeper was thunderstruck, his entire body stiffening, even his blood seeming to congeal.
Was it like that? Did he favor the doctor only because he was Fu Su’s reincarnation?
No, absolutely not. He pursued Fu Su’s reincarnations lifetime after lifetime not because he wanted to do something, but because he wanted to help Fu Su’s reincarnations escape the curse of early death. From initial close protection to later non-interference, his mindset had changed accordingly. But the doctor was different.
The shopkeeper recalled that this time last year, the doctor had even been willing to live and die with him in the Qin Emperor’s underground palace. In these long years, he was one of the few who would unhesitatingly stand before him. All those people from before had died—he didn’t want to lose this last one.
The shopkeeper released the pale jade pendant in his hand, looked up directly at Fu Su who possessed the doctor’s face, and said solemnly, “He and you are not the same person.”
Fu Su’s eyes deepened, but he said nothing. Instead, he changed the subject: “Bi Zhi, do you remember why Father Emperor frequently toured eastward?”
The shopkeeper didn’t understand why he suddenly brought this up, but the questioning tone quickly reminded him of their past discussions of policy and strategy. After a slight daze, he answered: “At that time, an alchemist advised: ‘There is imperial qi in the southeast.’ The First Emperor personally went there, touring prefectures and counties to show strength and intimidate the four seas, suppressing it.”
Fu Su smiled with reminiscence: “Bi Zhi, what do you think of Father Emperor’s action?”
The shopkeeper didn’t answer. This memory slowly surfaced from the depths of his heart. They had discussed this matter several times back then. Though they believed the First Emperor’s action could demonstrate imperial authority and intimidate various forces, a gentleman should not stand beneath a dangerous wall. The First Emperor’s frequent travels created good assassination opportunities for assassins and made it difficult to maintain control over central authority. The final result was indeed so—the First Emperor died on his eastern tour. Without this, Zhao Gao and Li Si wouldn’t have so easily installed Hu Hai as emperor.
“‘Suppression’ means to press down, to suppress.” Fu Su smiled slightly: “Bi Zhi, guess what Father Emperor used to suppress this southeastern imperial qi?”
The shopkeeper was stunned, then blurted out: “Stone tablets!”
“Exactly. Father Emperor made multiple eastern tours and erected seven stone tablets in total, but unfortunately the entire Heaven and Earth Formation required twelve stone tablets to complete. Father Emperor didn’t persist to the end. If the entire formation had succeeded, the Central Plains would have been under Father Emperor’s control, and the Great Qin Empire would have stood for ten thousand generations without falling.” Fu Su’s voice remained unhurried, but the ambition within could heat the air around him.
The shopkeeper fell silent. Though this sounded like fantasy, if combined with the various oddities he had noticed back then, it gave him a sudden understanding. He lowered his head in thought for a moment, then suddenly said: “Stone tablets alone cannot suppress imperial qi. Buried beneath those tablets should be the Twelve Bronze Men, right?”
This time it was Fu Su’s turn to be stunned, then he laughed aloud: “Indeed Bi Zhi—you guessed correctly.”
The shopkeeper showed no joy at guessing correctly. In these two thousand years, the thing he did most was collect antiques. But he had never seen any trace of Qin Shihuang’s Twelve Bronze Men. In the “Records of the Grand Historian: Basic Annals of Qin Shihuang,” it recorded that to prevent unrest in the realm, Qin Shihuang collected all weapons under heaven, gathered them in Xianyang, destroyed them all, and cast twelve giant bronze men, each weighing a thousand dan, placed in the palace courtyard. These were the surface Twelve Bronze Men, but the shopkeeper knew these twelve giant bronze men were merely hollow bronze men made to intimidate the realm, later melted down by Dong Zhuo in the late Eastern Han to make copper coins. But the life-sized Twelve Bronze Men cast from truly precious copper essence were Qin Shihuang’s true favorites, their whereabouts unknown to this day.
So they were used for formation arrangements.
The more the shopkeeper thought, the more chilled he became. What did Fu Su mean by bringing this up now? Did he plan to complete the First Emperor’s formation? And how did he know these things? Had he followed the released Ming Hong yesterday to see Hu Hai? How deep must one’s schemes be to shake hands and make peace with the person who once killed them?
Looking at Fu Su’s still-smiling face, the shopkeeper suddenly felt that after two thousand years, he no longer recognized the person before him.
“Bi Zhi, your thinking is correct. I plan to continue completing the Heaven and Earth Formation.” Fu Su smiled as gently as ever, but his words were imposing: “Then all people over the Central Plains will serve me as master, recreating the glory of the Great Qin Empire.”
The shopkeeper didn’t think Fu Su was boasting. Since this was a formation the First Emperor believed in and was willing to risk completing, it must have its uses. And if he remembered correctly, this Heaven and Earth Formation should have been drawn by his master. Thinking of how he had lived so long because of the immortality elixir left by his master, perhaps this Heaven and Earth Formation could indeed control people’s hearts.
Having lived so long, aside from once seeking revenge under the alias Han Xin and interfering in the Chu-Han conflict, the shopkeeper had never felt qualified to consider himself superior or to change or participate in anything. History’s wheel never paused for any individual’s existence. Perhaps if Fu Su had awakened a few hundred years earlier, there might have been a fighting chance, but now he was pursuing an unrealistic dream.
The shopkeeper lowered his head, looking at the empty jade box. At this moment, scattered snowflakes began falling from the night sky—rare for this city in winter. Having not seen snow for a long time, the shopkeeper was dazed for a while before saying gravely: “Then the He Shi Bi you took is the key to activating the formation.”
“Exactly. This Imperial Seal is a divine artifact personally carved by Father Emperor using the鐻 knife. ‘He who possesses the Imperial Seal rules the realm’—this is known to all later rulers, but none knew the true use of the He Shi Bi.” Fu Su placed his hands on the stone table, leaning forward earnestly: “Bi Zhi, you promised you would always stand behind me. Does this promise still count?”
The shopkeeper didn’t answer directly but lowered his eyes, watching the falling snowflakes melt one by one on the stone table, becoming drops of dark water stains. “Return the body to him. I promise to find you a suitable body later.” After a long silence, the shopkeeper finally spoke: “He’s just an ordinary doctor. If Your Highness has great ambitions, you should naturally find a more suitable identity.”
Fu Su slowly straightened up, but the smile on his face gradually turned cold. “Bi Zhi, you’re putting me off, aren’t you? That foreign pharaoh is in soul form, right? But since returning to rest in his scepter that day, he has never emerged. You promise me? How many years? Decades? Or centuries? Can you guarantee that when I next awaken, Father Emperor’s formation will still exist?”
The shopkeeper remained speechlessly silent. He indeed couldn’t guarantee it.
Fu Su’s soul was different from Xiao Ji’s situation back then. Xiao Ji was newly deceased, while Fu Su’s soul had wandered for over two thousand years.
“So now you have no solution either. If I don’t willingly give up this body, that doctor cannot reclaim his own body.” Fu Su smiled fearlessly: “Bi Zhi, these past days I’ve continuously tested you, waiting for you to change your mind, but you’ve disappointed me time and again. Is that youth who promised to always stand behind me gone?”
The shopkeeper raised his head, looking directly at this man standing proudly in the night sky filled with dancing snowflakes.
Fu Su always spoke unhurriedly, and this time was no different.
“Bi Zhi, you’re still the same as before. When caught in a dilemma, you’ve always found it difficult to choose.”
“It’s alright. As in the past, I’ll help you choose.”
“Bi Zhi, you’ll choose me, won’t you? Just like before.”
That person smiled as he said this, just like two thousand years ago.
He had once so desperately wanted to see such a smile again, but now finally seeing it, his entire body was ice-cold.
“No, I will stop you.” The shopkeeper exhaled deeply. A few snowflakes fell on his face, immediately melting into water drops that slowly slid down his cheeks like crystal tears.
The shopkeeper knew his friendship with Fu Su had been buried in time’s obliteration, covered by history’s dust. The person standing before him was no longer the Fu Su he knew.
Or perhaps he had never truly known the real Fu Su.
“Bi Zhi, actually I haven’t changed.”
“It’s you who has changed…”
A complex sigh came from the night sky. When the shopkeeper came to his senses, no one was before him—only the continuously falling snowflakes from the night sky and the empty jade box on the table accompanied him.
Yes, for Fu Su, it was merely closing and opening his eyes, but he had already experienced two thousand years alone, his heart long since weathered. So it was he who had changed…
After sitting dazedly for an unknown time, a familiar voice suddenly sounded: “Ahem, shopkeeper, could you explain what exactly is the current situation?”
The first smile in days appeared at the shopkeeper’s lips.
“Eh? Shopkeeper, didn’t you say Fu Su was planning to overthrow the realm? How is he still coming to work at the hospital?”
The shopkeeper stood in the hospital corridor, watching Fu Su chatting and laughing with Chun Ge from afar. If not for Fu Su not wearing glasses, he would almost think the person standing there was the doctor himself.
Even the doctor had this illusion, as he angrily complained: “That bastard not only hijacked my body but also my job and friends! That watch on his wrist is the Longines Evidenza mechanical watch I saved money to buy last year! Usually I treasure it and can’t bear to wear it!”
The last sentence was the real point, right? The shopkeeper had long grown accustomed to the doctor’s scattered personality and said lightly: “He needs your identity to quietly implement his plan, and with your memories, performing surgery is naturally no problem. This is good—at least you won’t lose your job.”
“Mm, not bad. Having someone work for me is quite nice, but I’m afraid this young master will spend all the money in my bank account…” the doctor worried. Having his memories meant knowing his bank card password clearly, right?
The shopkeeper pressed his slightly aching temples, feeling the doctor’s concerns were completely misplaced. If Fu Su and Hu Hai had joined forces, would they lack the pocket change in the doctor’s bank account?
“By the way, shopkeeper, have you figured out how to sabotage their plan?” Only now did the doctor develop some crisis awareness. If he couldn’t get his body back, everything would be meaningless!
“To reclaim the body, Fu Su must willingly exchange bodies.” The shopkeeper paused. Actually, he could make Fu Su’s soul scatter, which would also reclaim the doctor’s body, but he subconsciously avoided this method. “So we just need to make Fu Su realize the Heaven and Earth Formation cannot function.”
“Oh? How do we interfere with them?” The doctor felt like he was in a shounen manga—the villain boss had an evil plan, so heroes needed to appear to save the world!
“The Heaven and Earth Formation suppresses imperial qi, so we need to select twelve antiques with imperial qi to separately break the suppression of the Twelve Bronze Men.” The shopkeeper explained lightly. Though the words sounded easy, execution would be very difficult. The Dumb House contained countless items used by emperors, but selecting twelve top-tier antiques was a difficult choice.
He took one last look at Fu Su at the other end of the corridor. The latter also happened to look up at him, showing a gentle smile on his handsome face before turning away without lingering.
The shopkeeper stared blankly at his retreating figure. He had promised to always follow behind him. But this time, he didn’t follow his footsteps—instead, he turned away.
Two thousand years ago, he had said that for the beliefs he persisted in, no matter what price he paid, he would never retreat a step. But two thousand years later, he knew that even the most persistent beliefs would have their day of collapse.
This time, he went left, Fu Su went right. On the same straight line, they walked farther and farther apart.
When they met again, they would be enemies.
Because the beliefs they persisted in were now completely different…