NOVEL NEXT Chapter 229: Summer time!
To celebrate the end of their academy years, Rian suggested that they go on a holiday.
Unfortunately for him, Alexius also suggested a holiday, overriding Rian. Alexius also wanted to celebrate the end of his first year at the academy.
They first waited for their results to come back; everyone passed. There was also a graduation ceremony for the third-year students.
After they said goodbye to Prince Pollux and Hadrian, who were heading back to Angio, Alexius and his friends and his not-friends (Rian) headed east to the Aegean fief.
Compared to Prince Rian, Prince Alexius was a lot less intimidating and much more friendly. Getting to know Prince Alexius meant being able to do fun things; getting to know Prince Rian meant feeling the pressure to do more work and contribute to the kingdom.
And note: Alexius had made many friends while at the academy, both noble and commoner.
Count Aegean had a headache when a crowd of energetic young people descended upon his fief. It felt like almost the entire first year cohort was here!
—Alexius was very good at making friends and was very generous in providing transportation for those without.
After the last few years, Count Aegean had been recovering in his peaceful home, spending time with his lovely wife and conversing with other people in his generation. News about Prince Rian was a more distant thing. When the Imperial Council held a gathering, he would take his fast floating carriage in, then out, not spending any more time than necessary.
When he saw Prince Rian again, smiling at him, all of his memories returned.
Count Aegean: “…”
What was that sneaky look on Prince Rian’s face? What does he want?!
As it turned out, Prince Rian had wanted to share quarters with Earl Rosewood, and if not, to have a secret door between their quarters.
Count Aegean: “……”
“I don’t care, do as you will,” Count Aegean said, too tired to bother.
Prince Rian smiled happily. “Understood.”
Due to the number of people descending upon the Aegean manor—not only the children, but also some of their family members and their servants—there were not enough rooms for everyone to have their own. So, Rian had an excuse—some people had to share quarters, and as the prince, he was merely taking the lead in sharing quarters with Earl Rosewood!
All the people who knew the truth (King Edric, Queen Mira, Ren Xiyang, Alexius): “…”
People who didn’t know the truth: Ahh, what good friendship is this!
Alexius didn’t let his annoying big brother ruin the trip. He had organised a lot of fun activities. There were a dozen games to be played be on the sandy beach and the blue clear waters, competitions to be had and won, boats to sit on and explore, fish to catch, and food to be grilled and eaten. Alexius particularly loved duelling on the water.
Although everyone there was technically Alexius’s friend (or related to Alexius’s friends), the teenagers still split into separate groups to play around, partaking in the activities that they liked most.
Cassiopeia and her friends were also there. She had a lot of fun on the beach with her friends: the warm sun, the sparkling blue water, the white sand, it was very idyllic.
(Count Aegean would never admit that his heart felt warm hearing the sound of young people laughing and seeing their faces full of joy.)
For Ren Xiyang, the trip wouldn’t be complete if he didn’t take a look at the local food production. He looked at Count Aegean’s agricultural fields, which were doing well. He visited the local fish farms and kelp farms and oyster farms and bought fresh seafood to eat.
And if Ren Xiyang was there, Rian was as well.
The farmers and workers were flattered and flustered to have them visit. They showed the two (plus the background Royal Guards) around and answered all the questions that Ren Xiyang had.
He and Rian also visited the local Royal Healers’ Association branch and the local branch for the Royal Agricultural Development and Food Security Program.
And if spending all that time with Rian wasn’t enough, Rian also dragged him out to a secluded beach to spend more time by themselves.
Indeed, Rian was becoming more shameless and handsome (seductive) with age. Ren Xiyang hadn’t even thought that was possible.
“We should do this every year,” Rian said afterwards, his face full of satisfaction.
Ren Xiyang was too sleepy to give him a look. You’re lucky we have magic, he sent telepathically.
Otherwise, sand would have gotten everywhere.
Rian kissed him on the cheek, but Ren Xiyang was already half asleep. Exertion, and now the warm sun, was lulling him into a doze.
After resting, Ren Xiyang dragged Rian back to where everyone else was playing, to also participate in the games that Alexius had organised. They didn’t duel (that would be bullying), but they did play the non-magical beach sports. Ren Xiyang also had afternoon naps on the beach. On one night, they cooked for everyone.
It was a good break, and Ren Xiyang returned to work, re-energised (literally).
Upon returning to the Capital, Ren Xiyang had two matters to deal with: the continuation of his academy research project, and the reference-healing clinic.
With no more academy classes—and no need to study for the alternative stream exams, it was time for Ren Xiyang to reconsider his work schedule. While he found researching and developing magical plants interesting, ultimately, it wasn’t as interesting and developing agricultural plants. Developing healing pathways for gender transition was important, but it wasn’t work that he had to do personally. Now that it was no longer an academy research project, Ren Xiyang could hire people to do this research for him.
Ren Xiyang decided to sponsor several research studentships and small grants for research into gender transition (oh, how nice it was to be on the other side of the funding line). He spoke with Dr Lady Anya Rose about how best to administer the funds. As a result, Ren Xiyang settled on the reference-healing clinic. The clinic would handle the applications and administer the funds, and the people who received the funds would be considered affiliated to the clinic.
After over a year of running, the clinic had sorted out its initial bumps, and the healers were much more familiar with the reference healing method. Ren Xiyang had withdrawn from doing any healing himself for a while now and only attended important meetings.
These meetings involved extending the reference-healing clinic’s funding and investment. The past year had shown that money could be made at the clinic, as various nobles and wealthy commoners came to the clinic to obtain treatment for ailments that previously couldn’t be healed.
It was increasingly clear that reference-healing method was a powerful ‘hammer’ that had the potential to heal almost all ailments.
And maybe it could be used to extend lifespans. As such, it also attracted individual wealthy investors.
The spells developed from the healers’ experiences and the potions that Ren Xiyang made also showed a viable process for magic product development.
So, the Capital Hospital wanted more healers to learn the reference-healing method, the University was willing to have more people involved in the research, and Duke Schauss could not let his contribution percentage be any less.
Ren Xiyang also felt that it was time to pull in the Royal Healers’ Association, so that some of the healers in the association also had the reference-healing method training.
Hence, all these meetings examining the clinic’s funding and future trajectory were just as lengthy as the initial meetings where Ren Xiyang had been trying to convince people to invest. Ren Xiyang had to attend these meetings—if not, they others might just sweep gender transition under the rug, and completely forget about making explicit provisions to treat people who weren’t ridiculously wealthy.
Despite all the wealthy senior men and women in the meeting room, Ren Xiyang was never fazed. After all, no one could forget that the founder of the reference healing method was him. Slowly but surely, the new stage of plans for the clinic formed.
While Ren Xiyang was busy in meetings, Rian was also busy in meetings. There were all his initiatives, product-development with Ren Xiyang, and his numerous secret projects.
Then, Rian had heard a rumour. Certain nobles were gossiping about him, saying that he was biased and invested a lot of gold in the Rosewood fief; they said that the Rosewood fief had become rich because of that, and not because Earl Rosewood was amazing.
“If Prince Rian invested in my fief, wouldn’t I also become twice as wealthy? Only a fool wouldn’t profit!”
Rian thought that was very interesting, oh so interesting. So he sent letters to these nobles, expressing that he was interested in investing in their fief, on the order of one thousand to ten thousand gold coins, and whether they would like to meet him to discuss cooperation.
The nobles were stunned. At first, their complexion wasn’t very good. Clearly, Prince Rian had heard their gossip!
But then, they recovered. Clearly, Prince Rian wasn’t angry, because he just expressed interest in giving them money!
The first nobleman who met with Rian came in with high spirits.
Prince Rian was friendly, asking about the noble’s trip, his family, and his fief.
“I won’t leave you in suspense any longer,” Prince Rian said with a chuckle. “Yes, I’m interested in investing in your fief. What would you like me to invest in? What do you want to achieve? What are the expected outcomes or returns? I don’t necessarily expect any personal monetary return, but my investment should make an impact. Have you prepared any documents for me?”
The noble was dumbfounded. Huh? Wasn’t it just a matter of giving him money and going on their merry ways?
“Of course, you would be investing in my fief,” the noble said.
“Yes, but I’d like to know what you’ll be doing with the gold,” Prince Rian said.
“Due to the short timeframe, and because I was not certain about the amount, I have not been able to prepare anything detailed,” the noble said, feeling that he was quite eloquent. “But rest assured, it will benefit my fief.”
Prince Rian’s smile became apologetic. “Then, in that case, shall we organise a meeting at a later date, when you are ready?”
The noble’s expression stiffened. “Yes, your Highness.”
The noble left that meeting in disgrace and went to complain to his friends.
His friends, who had meetings scheduled with Prince Rian very soon, internally sweated. After they went their separate ways, they gritted their teeth. Damn it, clearly, Prince Rian was toying with them! But it was too shameful to cancel their scheduled meetings now, which meant they had to hurry up and prepare something!
The downside of not attending the academy anymore was that Rian couldn’t sleep with Ren Xiyang every night. They could only meet every day or so instead. After Rian’s meeting with the noble, he hugged Ren Xiyang with a grievous expression.
“Yangyang, you’ve spoiled me.”
“You like being spoiled. What happened?”
Rian relayed the disappointing meeting with the noble earlier. “—Ugh, here I was hoping I could make money, but instead, I just wasted my time.”
“Perhaps these nobles had never seen a written proposal or business case before,” Ren Xiyang said, patting the big baby (Rian). “You can give them some of the old Rosewood ones.”
Rian made a face. “You’re too nice.”
“The kingdom is a big place. If you can trick more people into working to improving the fief, that’s a good thing.”
“So devious, my dear.” Still hugging Ren Xiyang, Rian asked, “So, have you thought about attending the university?”
Nobles: *gossip about Prince Rian*
Rian: Oh?
Nobles: *gossip about Earl Rosewood*
Rian: Oh. 😇
The_other_Abe asked about Count Aegean ✅ I think Count Aegean would have preferred we didn’t bother him… 🤣🤣
Also, thank you to The_other_Abe who literally reminded me about graduation. I’m the kind of person who forgets about graduations because they’re long boring events and also not the reason why I went to school/university…
2-year anniversary event: TWO WEEK EXTENSION
Following the time-honoured tradition of extensions for submissions to academic conferences (and because the main story hasn’t quite completed yet ), there is a two-week extension for any fanart/fanfic submissions.
✨NEW Submission deadline: 21 July 2024 23:59 anywhere on Earth✨
How to submit: just drop me a comment on whichever platform you read These Side Characters on, or send me an email (bafflinghaze at gmail dot com), or send me a message on tumblr/discord
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