Broken Jade - Chapter 88

Chapter 88

Wei Heng could not put into words what he felt in that moment.

Shock. Frenzy. And yet he confirmed the look in her eyes again and again, testing it with the utmost care, not daring to believe it so easily.

A faint red rimmed the corners of his eyes, and even his breathing began to lose its rhythm.

He saw Sheng Zhaoning tilt her head up once more and ask him in a soft voice, “All right?”

How could Wei Heng bear to refuse her now?

He let his heart pound wildly in that instant, cast aside every trace of reason, and stopped suppressing the love that had long since broken through the soil and was now spreading madly through him.

The affection he had once needed to distinguish and define had finally given him its answer without the slightest hesitation.

Beneath the palace gates, the breeze carried his warm, gentle voice to Sheng Zhaoning’s ears.

“All right,” he said.

The procession set out again, leaving the palace gates in a mighty column.

Only this time, there was one more figure at the front of the group: lean and upright, his bearing elegant and firm as a pine.

No one noticed the pair of eyes watching from the shadows as the procession slowly left the city gates. Dark, vicious, cold, and dangerous.

…

The route to the disaster-stricken region passed through fourteen prefectures, half of it mountain roads.

The entire party pushed their horses hard and traveled day and night. At last, after more than a month, they arrived in Jizhou.

In the nearby prefectures where the disaster was not as severe, grain, funds, and supplies had already been transported over in advance. Jizhou had temporarily set up a distribution site, though the facilities were still far from complete.

The moment they entered the disaster zone, a scene of desolation struck their eyes.

The wind swept yellow sand into their robes. Fine grains struck their bodies, bringing faint pricks of pain. Everywhere they looked, houses lay abandoned and ruined. Elderly people and children, sallow and emaciated, sat collapsed on the ground without strength, deathly still, not the slightest spark of life in their eyes.

The porridge sheds had long since run out of porridge to give. Only the last bit of thin gruel remained, and several men were fighting over it.

Wei Heng’s brows drew tight, his eyes filled with shock and unbearable pity.

Along the way, he had already gained some understanding of the barrenness and unrest in the Northern Territory. Even the ambushes they had encountered several times could not compare to the impact of seeing these old people, women, and children with his own eyes.

“Quickly, distribute the grain!” Wei Heng ordered at once.

Sacks of grain were unloaded from the carts one after another. When the people nearby heard there was food, they struggled to their feet in a rush, scrambling forward all at once.

Faced with the flood of refugees, the surrounding guards instinctively drew their blades. Seeing this, Sheng Zhaoning quietly stepped in front of Wei Heng.

“Escort the grain inside first. Maintain order. Do not use blades!”

Wei Heng had only just finished speaking when the officials from the prefectural yamen finally arrived, late and flustered.

The prefect of Jizhou looked utterly haggard. Clearly, he too had gone terribly hungry. His cheeks were deeply sunken, and as he walked over, his whole body seemed on the verge of toppling.

“Crown Prince, this humble official pays respects to the Crown Prince!”

Tears filled the prefect’s eyes. The moment he saw Wei Heng, he looked at him as though he had found his savior and performed a solemn kowtow.

When the surrounding people heard this, the way they looked at Wei Heng changed again, as if a god had descended among them.

“It is the Crown Prince!”

“The Crown Prince has come to save us!”

Wei Heng had always enjoyed a reputation for benevolence among the common people and held great prestige. Now that they saw he had personally come, they knew the court truly valued the lives of refugees like them. How could they continue shoving and fighting? One after another, they knelt on the ground and kowtowed to him again and again.

Wei Heng quickly spoke to soothe them. “The court’s disaster relief grain and funds have arrived. The prefectural yamen can open the granaries and distribute grain at once. Everyone, line up first. Do not crowd. Let the elderly, women, and children receive their portions first!”

The grain had already been unloaded from the carts and sent into the prefectural yamen’s storehouses.

The stoves were lit again at the porridge sheds, and the fragrance of rice drifted out with the rising steam.

Under the guards’ direction, the crowd soon formed several long lines, orderly and calm.

Sheng Zhaoning handed out the measured sacks of rice one by one. Looking at the refugees before her, each of them worn down by suffering, she thought of the countless bones and bodies she had seen starved to death along the roadside on their journey here, and a hundred emotions rose in her chest.

Wei Heng stood inside the porridge shelter with his sleeves tied back, stationed beside the stove. As he fed firewood into the flames, he ladled out the porridge that had finished cooking. There was not the slightest trace of the Heir Apparent’s usual finery about him.

The two of them each tended to their own duties without interfering with the other.

In quiet understanding, they handled their tasks side by side.

Before long, day had turned to night. The refugees who had come from every direction after hearing the news had finally dispersed by more than half, and the line that had once stretched beyond sight now at last had an end.

Wei Heng set down the iron ladle, and Sheng Zhaoning put away the grain sacks.

As if by tacit agreement, they both looked up. Their gazes met, and both of them froze for a brief moment.

Then they smiled at each other.

Wei Heng stepped toward her, and Sheng Zhaoning lifted her eyes to meet his.

An unspoken tenderness quietly spread between them before either of them realized it.

“Are you tired?” Wei Heng asked softly.

From the moment they had left Capital City, none of them had slept through a full night. They had traveled over treacherous mountain roads, hurried day and night, crossed forests and ridges, and narrowly encountered bandits and roving criminals more than once. Now that they had finally reached Jizhou, they had immediately begun distributing grain and providing disaster relief without a moment’s rest.

She surely had never endured hardship like this before.

By now, she must be exhausted.

Sheng Zhaoning did not know what he was thinking. She was only looking at the two black smudges left by the stove smoke on his face, trailing from his cheeks to the tip of his nose. Against that bright, elegant face of his, they looked rather comical.

Wei Heng had probably never been in such a sorry state before.

The noble Crown Prince now had his sleeves rolled up, his hair in disarray, dark streaks stark across his face, and mud caked on his shoes. No one would have been able to tell that he was the same refined man who had once stood in the Imperial City and guided the affairs of the realm.

Seeing him like this, Sheng Zhaoning, rarely so openly delighted, broke into laughter, her eyes curving with mirth.

Wei Heng was taken aback.

He had never seen Sheng Zhaoning laugh so happily before.

It was a laugh without the slightest falseness, heartfelt and utterly unguarded.

As if afraid to disturb her, he did not make a sound. He only looked at her with gentle eyes, and before he knew it, a smile had entered his own gaze as well.

Sheng Zhaoning looked up with smiling eyes and clearly saw the indulgence in his gaze. It was as though no matter what she did, he would tolerate it without limit.

Her heart suddenly seemed to sink in one soft place, and something within it broke through the soil, putting forth a tiny sprout.

“Your Highness, your face…” Her gaze fell on those two black marks, the laughter at the corners of her eyes not yet faded.

The tips of Wei Heng’s ears quietly flushed red. Once he realized what she meant, he raised a hand to wipe his face, only to smear the soot even worse.

Seeing his clumsy attempt, Sheng Zhaoning instinctively lifted her hand to rub it away for him, but just as her fingers were about to touch his skin, she abruptly came back to herself.

Her hand froze stiffly in midair.

“…”

Sheng Zhaoning’s fingertips suddenly burned hot.

Wei Heng had been watching with a trace of expectation in his eyes, only to see that hand retreat as if fleeing.

He lowered his lashes, a flicker of disappointment just settling in the depths of his eyes. But in the next instant, a soft touch suddenly brushed across his face.

Sheng Zhaoning had wrapped her sleeve around her hand and was using the cuff to gently wipe the soot from his face.

Wei Heng looked up, his pupils trembling faintly.

Sheng Zhaoning’s gaze was soft. Inch by inch, carefully and gently, she wiped away the black smudges for him, revealing once more the jade-like warmth of his original complexion.

“Your Highness, I overstepped.”

The tips of Sheng Zhaoning’s ears were faintly red as she withdrew her hand and spoke in a low voice.