CXD - 22

The voice behind him clearly carried a smile, but the question felt like a gust of chilling wind, sending a shiver of unease down one’s spine.

The physician sat before the bed, drenched in cold sweat, feeling as if the cold tip of a sword was lightly pressed against his back. His life hung by a thread; one wrong move, and he would end up the same as the person on the bed—

The “patient” on the bed showed no vital signs. His fingers were frozen in a convulsive state, his mouth and nose were twisted and flattened. Although more facial signs hadn’t yet appeared due to his limbs still being warm, it could basically be deduced that he had died from suffocation caused by external force.

The time was not long ago.

Perhaps, just moments before the  Princess knocked on the door.

The culprit was self-evident.

As a commander, he wouldn’t even kill surrendered enemy soldiers, yet why would he use such cruel means to murder a comrade in arms who was completely incapable of resistance...

And even at this very moment, he was still nonchalantly asking a doctor to take the pulse of a dead man...

Urged by the voice behind him, the physician tremblingly released the hand he was feeling, turned around, and met a smiling gaze.

Yuan Ce: “How is it? Does my deputy general still have a chance to wake up?”

The physician shuddered, stood up, bowed to both of them, swallowed hard, and stammered, “R-reporting to the  Princess and General Shen, the patient’s condition is still... passable...”

Jiang Zhiyi: “What do you mean by ‘passable’? Do you have a good prescription to treat him?”

“Y-yes, I do...”

“Then quickly write out a prescription. No matter how rare the required medicinal materials are, as long as you can cure him, this  Princess will reward you handsomely!”

The physician secretly raised his eyes to look at Yuan Ce. Seeing him nod, as if having been rescued from the edge of a cliff, he let out a big sigh of relief and, with trembling hands, spread out paper and brush on the table, sitting down to write the prescription.

Jiang Zhiyi hooked her arm around the person beside her and lightly raised her chin. “Look, isn’t it still up to me?”

Yuan Ce turned his head, lowered his eyes, and glanced at her. “It seems so.”

“If you had asked me earlier, you wouldn’t have wasted so much effort. Next time you have such matters of seeking doctors and treasures, come directly to me. With me, a dignified  Princess here, how could you ever be short of anything?”

Yuan Ce turned his head away with an ambiguous smile. “Alright—”

—Mu Xinhong walked right to the door of the wing room and saw this bizarre scene.

A dead man, a doctor writing a prescription for a dead man, a  Princess taking credit, and a young general amused by some funny story.

The young general could still be amused? He must be happy from killing someone.

The physician finished writing the prescription with trembling hands, stood up, and looked at the noble couple holding arms and chatting opposite him. He swallowed nervously, unsure whether he should let this useless prescription interrupt this scene...

“Give it to me.” Mu Xinhong took the initiative to step forward and take the prescription, folded it up, and tucked it into his inner garment, looking at Yuan Ce.

The young general, in his busy moment of being held by the  Princess, gave him a look.

Mu Xinhong nodded to indicate he understood, gestured outwards, and said, “Thank you for this trip, old sir. I’ll see you out of the residence.”

Hearing the words “see you out” and glancing at the saber at Mu Xinhong’s waist, the physician fearfully picked up his medicine box and left the wing room. He walked outwards, each step feeling like getting closer to the edge of a cliff.

Near the screen wall, Mu Xinhong stopped.

“G-General, spare my life! I didn’t see anything today...” The physician’s legs buckled, about to kneel.

Mu Xinhong raised a hand to stop him and helped him up. “You can’t have seen nothing today.”

The physician raised his head in confusion.

Mu Xinhong looked back at the direction of the wing room and sighed softly in his heart.

In the battle half a year ago, the reason the eldest young master was ambushed by the Northern Jie people was because this General Gao colluded with the enemy and leaked the army’s battle plans and marching routes.

When the eldest young master first arrived at the border, Gao Shi was just a centurion in the army. Because he once took a knife for the eldest young master on the battlefield, he became someone the eldest young master trusted deeply.

Gao Shi followed the young eldest young master, teaching him how to defend against the enemy, how to kill the enemy, and fought alongside the eldest young master for more than two years, rising all the way to become the eldest young master’s deputy general. To the eldest young master, he was like a teacher and a friend, even like a father.

Who would have thought that such a person was a malignant tumor buried in the Xuan Ce Army? He had targeted the eldest young master’s inexperience and lack of suspicion, which was why he had initially gained his trust with that act of blocking the knife.

In the final ambush, in order to ensure the complete annihilation of his own main force and to frame the Xuan Ce Army and the Shen family for defeat, Gao Shi himself was also seriously injured while maneuvering.

After the young general took over the eldest young master’s position, the first thing he did was to ask the military doctor to save Gao Shi’s life.

Gao Shi was willing to sacrifice himself to achieve his goal, clearly not out of personal gain but under someone’s instructions.

To find out the mastermind behind this, he had to keep Gao Shi alive.

As long as Gao Shi woke up, the young general had hundreds of interrogation methods to make him speak. But for a full half year, their army’s most capable military doctor, Li, had tried every means to treat him, and could only barely keep Gao Shi alive.

The best doctors in the world were in their army. Before returning to the capital, the young general was certain that what Military Doctor Li couldn’t do, no other doctor in the world could—Gao Shi was clearly beyond medical help.

But the dead couldn’t speak, and the living could speak for him.

The young general had sent people thousands of miles to escort a dying man back to the capital, and then put on a show of importance, personally going outside the city to receive him, and then meticulously caring for him, publicly inviting famous doctors from everywhere. All of this was to force the person behind the scenes to become impatient and come to silence him.

Yesterday’s prescription, seemingly life-saving but actually deadly, had already brought this person to the surface.

Now that the fish had taken the bait, the bait was no longer needed.

...

Mu Xinhong came back to his senses from his memories and looked at the trembling little old man in front of him.

“Old sir, today you followed the  Princess’s orders to come and examine General Gao. Unexpectedly, during the examination, General Gao suddenly convulsed all over, foaming at the mouth, and appeared to have died from poisoning while unconscious. The young general was furious, which is why you are so frightened now—is that right?”

The physician nodded repeatedly and hurriedly. “Y-yes, that’s right...”

“As for the  Princess—the  Princess is simple-minded. The young general couldn’t bear to frighten her, so he concealed this matter from her. Therefore, the  Princess knows nothing about General Gao’s death and wholeheartedly believes that General Gao can still be cured. Do you think the young general did the right thing?”

“Y-yes, yes... If anyone asks this old man, I will definitely answer like this...”

Mu Xinhong gestured outwards. “Then, old Mister Huang, take care.”

East courtyard study.

After nearly ten days, returning to this study again, Jiang Zhiyi’s mood had greatly improved, although she was still not very pleased with the arrangement of the study—

“You should change that screen in this room as soon as possible. It almost knocked over my things. I don’t like looking at it.”

“That empty compartment on the display shelf... Since the porcelain vase is broken, just replace it with a new trinket. Leaving it empty like this only makes people think of sad things for no reason.”

“And can you change the calligraphy on this wall? What ‘Is it quiet?’ With me here, do you even need to ask? It’s definitely lively.”

Yuan Ce stood in front of the washbasin stand and washed his hands twice.

Just in the time it took to wash his hands twice, the nitpicking  Princess had already, by herself, completely transformed his study beyond recognition.

“You also know that with you here, it’s definitely ‘lively’?” Yuan Ce slowly dried his hands and glanced over.

Jiang Zhiyi was choked by his gaze. “What? I just did you a big favor, and you’re already complaining I’m noisy?”

Yuan Ce: “I don’t need to complain.”

It was noisy to begin with.

Jiang Zhiyi glared at him angrily.

Although she indeed disliked these things that had hurt her, she wasn’t really being aggressively critical.

“Wasn’t I just trying to distract you by talking, so you wouldn’t keep thinking about things?”

Yuan Ce paused in drying his hands, looking genuinely puzzled. “Thinking—about things?”

“Yes, I noticed it as soon as I entered the wing room. You’re in a bad mood today. Don’t even think about hiding it from my eyes.”

She couldn’t see a dead person lying two zhang away, but she could tell he had something on his mind.

Her cleverness came and went.

However, was it because he knew she had no hostility and wasn’t on guard against her, so he unconsciously showed his worries on his face, or did she understand her brother’s every glance and lowered gaze to this extent?

But the person here at this moment was him, not his brother.

Could it be that when his brother had something on his mind, he looked the same way?

Yuan Ce rarely became interested. “Tell me, how can you tell I have something on my mind?”

Jiang Zhiyi stood up from the daybed, put her snow-white hands behind her back, and haughtily walked around him, her eyes appraising him up and down.

“?” Yuan Ce stood still, his gaze following her slowly as she circled him.

Finally, seeing her stop in front of him, she proudly raised her chin. “I have you in my heart, so naturally my eyes can see everything about you.”

“...”

Why did he think he would get a serious answer?

Yuan Ce, not knowing whether to be angry or amused, turned his eyes away and looked out the window.

In that glance, he saw the door of the east wing room open, and Mu Xinhong leading people carrying the white-cloth-covered corpse out.

The news of Gao Shi’s death had to be spread in order to put the “fish” behind him at ease, so the corpse could indeed be carried out of the Shen residence openly.

It didn’t matter if anyone saw it...

In theory.

Seeing Yuan Ce’s gaze suddenly sharpen, Jiang Zhiyi curiously turned her head towards the window. Halfway there, her wrist was suddenly grabbed, and a pulling force yanked her forward.

Jiang Zhiyi stumbled, and just as she was about to raise her head in surprise, a hand fell on the back of her head, firmly pressing her into his embrace.

Warmth, like a rushing flood, instantly breached the dam of her heart, surging upwards and drenching her from head to toe.

Looking at the piece of clothing so close to her, Jiang Zhiyi leaned against him woodenly, her limbs numb as if they didn’t belong to her, and her breathing slowly ceased.

Yuan Ce pressed one hand on her head and the other on her back, turning his head to look out the window.

His vision strangely slowed down. The stretcher carrying the corpse was clearly moving quickly, but in his eyes, it seemed to be in slow motion.

Watching the stretcher slowly and gradually pass through the corridor and finally disappear from view, Yuan Ce slightly loosened the hand pressing on her head and turned back, lowering his eyes.

Feeling his grip loosen a bit, Jiang Zhiyi raised her flushed face, blinked lightly, her eyes flickering nervously, and said in a whisper, “Brother A-Ce, your heart was beating so fast just now...”

Yuan Ce’s eyelashes fluttered, and the hand holding her stiffened slightly.

Jiang Zhiyi: “I heard it. You have me in your heart too.”

What she heard, he didn’t know.

But he knew that after closing the door and avoiding her for so many days, on this unexpected day, at this unnecessary moment, everything had fallen short.