#97: Falling Sick from Wine (Part 8)

The surrounding guards swarmed forward, holding up iron shields to protect Song Lan, but he didn’t care. He pushed them away with one hand and stared intently at Luo Wei, who was standing at the stern of the boat. He asked, “Where are you going?”

Luo Wei looked behind her and replied, “I’m going along the river. I can’t say for sure where I’ll stop.”

Song Lan’s emotions were in turmoil. His chest rose and fell more and more quickly, and the wound on his shoulder throbbed with pain. “After parting at Guyou Mountain... do you know... I...”

He couldn’t even bring himself to use “I,” so he slammed his uninjured arm on the stone railing. The veins on the back of his hand bulged. “How dare you!”

After saying this, he swallowed and put on his most familiar sad expression. “If you leave the capital today, when you return one day, you will be here to kill me, won’t you?”

Ye Tingyan stumbled to his feet and let out a soft whistle.

Then, to Song Lan’s astonishment, he heard the sound of a mechanism. A group of soldiers suddenly emerged from the cabin below, fully armed. They calmly operated the mechanisms around them.

Only then did he realize that the boat they were on was not an ordinary pleasure boat but a converted warship!

A soldier tore down the silk cloth that was used to cover the cabin. He even heard the sound of the people on the boat drawing their bows.

Chang Zhao’s face was grim as he looked around, and he shook his head slightly at Song Lan.

He had just come straight from the market to the forbidden palace. Song Lan had not brought many people with him from the palace. He had planned to coordinate with Yan Ping and the others. But Yan Ping and Ye Tingyan were together and had not arrived yet, so they were probably not coming.

The identity of Ye Tingyan was now clear. Song Lan’s suspicions of him had come too late. Now, he realized that a lot of people in the Zhuque Office, the imperial guards, and the city guards and Jintian guards had become his confidants.

In the future, when he wanted to clean them out, he would face the same trouble as when a single sword tassel had rendered the Jintian guards useless.

Song Lan’s heart was filled with hatred. He grabbed the arrow that had pierced his shoulder and pulled it out with a little force.

The pain of the tearing flesh almost made him lose his footing. Chang Zhao reached out to catch him and called out “Your Majesty” twice, but his heart slowly sank.

They were now standing on the broken bridge with no cover, while Luo Wei and the others had the protection of the warship. If a fight were to break out, the outcome would be uncertain, and it would be too risky.

Furthermore, this place was not close to the inner city. Even if his people were to come as ordered, how long would it take? Judging by Ye Tingyan’s calm expression, he probably had another trick up his sleeve. In this situation, it would be better for both sides to stand down.

Although he knew very well in his heart that these two were his formidable enemies, letting them leave the city today would be like letting a tiger loose in the wild. Ye Tingyan had been maneuvering in the palace and the city for so long that he must have placed his people in every important position. If they were to return one day, he might not be able to resist them.

But no matter what, Song Lan was the object of their hatred.

After making up his mind, Chang Zhao took advantage of the moment he was helping Song Lan up to quickly say, “Your Majesty, why bother with a stray dog? You’ve already driven them out of the capital. They won’t be able to cause any trouble. Your Majesty is injured today. If a fight were to break out and they were forced to fight to the death, it would not be good.”

On any normal day, if Song Lan were to calm down, he might have been able to find the flaws in his words.

But ever since Luo Wei had escaped from Guyou Mountain, the advice of Jingqiu, the grief of losing his son, and what he had heard in the Empress Dowager’s palace, as well as Ye Tingyan’s betrayal, had all exhausted him. He had become increasingly manic.

Song Lan let out a cold laugh and said bitterly, “Do you think I’m afraid of them?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Ye Tingyan picked up the longbow, re-strung it, and aimed it at him.

The sun had already set, and only the afterglow remained in the distant sky, a deep red.

“Protect His Majesty!”

The guards once again lined up in front of him, but in that instant, what Song Lan remembered was the spring hunt at the end of spring.

Lin Zhao and that horse tamer had manipulated a mad horse to attack the Emperor. In that moment of crisis, his peripheral vision caught sight of Ye Tingyan.

At that time, he was just like he was now, his face unchanging, calm, and composed. He steadily drew his longbow, his eyes deep, looking for a flaw in the field, looking for the best timing.

One arrow was shot, piercing the horse’s eye, as if it had the power of a thousand pounds.

Even though he had more people with him now, he was still blocked by the iron shields. For some reason, he still felt that this arrow had the power of a thousand pounds. As long as a single flaw was exposed, it would be able to penetrate the shield’s protection and pierce his heart.

He knew that Ye Tingyan’s eyesight wasn’t very good. Before he shot that arrow, he had seen Ye Tingyan squint because of the light of the setting sun.

Now that the sun had set, would this arrow still miss?

For a moment, Song Lan was drenched in a cold sweat. He wouldn’t even admit to himself that after all these years of doing things that angered both heaven and man, he felt a sense of fear because of an arrow that this young official had not yet shot.

A guard came forward to bandage the wound on Song Lan’s shoulder. Chang Zhao waved his hand, signaling the people around him not to shoot arrows for now. He stood on the bridge and spoke, thinking, “Minister Ye, you have a good plan. When did you prepare all of this? What if she hadn’t saved the person today or had taken the land route? What would you have done?”

He laughed at himself. “Fortunately, I thought highly of you and killed him in advance. Otherwise, if you had rescued him alive, I would have shot myself in the foot.”

Ye Tingyan pressed down on Luo Wei’s trembling hand. He was still as composed as before. “I used to dislike taking risks. Although I often take risks now, I’m still used to planning everything. No matter which path we took today, I would naturally have been prepared. Even if you only gave me an hour to save someone from the crowded streets, I would have been able to come up with a foolproof plan! Minister Chang, why are you stalling? You know very well in your heart.”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but Chang Zhao understood his mockery. Why was he stalling? Song Lan might not understand, but he should know very well that he and Song Lan had set a trap today, and yet, Ye Tingyan and Luo Wei had fought back and won a beautiful victory in such a hurry.

Other than letting them go, he had no other choice.

The arrogance in his tone was something he had never heard from Ye Tingyan before. This person was just like him. Although he was cunning and resourceful in the inner court, his sharpness was mostly reflected in the cold edges of the overt and covert arrows. It rarely overflowed from his person.

Chang Zhao was a little dazed, and Song Lan also seemed to have been intimidated by Ye Tingyan’s arrow. Although he knew in his heart that they probably wouldn’t be able to stop them today, he roared as if he had remembered something. “That’s right, Su Luowei, do you know—”

The water rippled, and a wind rushed up. Song Lan faced the wind and let out a strange laugh. “I still had a trick up my sleeve for you! Do you know that I had mixed some other things into the incense you lit to guard against me? Hahaha... That’s also a rare poison in the world. This is you reaping what you sowed! If you hadn’t guarded against me, you wouldn’t have been poisoned to the bone now!”

He roared with a twisted expression. “Only I in this world have the antidote! I can let you go today, but if you want to live, you will have to come back to me one day! I’ll give you a chance. If you come back to the palace today, you will still be the esteemed Empress from before. I can forgive and forget...”

Before he could finish, the arrow in Ye Tingyan’s hand left the bowstring.

The arrow shot through the iron shield in front of Song Lan with a clang, and the arrowhead stopped just an inch from his face.

Song Lan’s face was pale, and his breathing was momentarily a little stagnant.

After he came to his senses, he shouted angrily, “Someone...”

Ye Tingyan took out a third arrow and interrupted him. His tone suddenly became chillingly intimidating. “I have been practicing archery since I was a child. When I was ten, I could shoot a wild goose from a distant mountain and hit a willow leaf at a hundred paces. I know Your Majesty didn’t believe me before, but would you like to bet now? Bet whose arrow is faster, theirs or mine?”

Luo Wei looked up at him and suddenly laughed out loud.

The wind was blowing on the river. She had not styled her hair in a proper palace updo, so the loose strands of hair were slightly damp from the wind mixed with water vapor. She didn’t care. She reached out and brushed away a strand of hair that was blocking her eyes, looking calm and composed.

“Even if my corpse is left in the wilderness...” she said slowly, one word at a time. Her voice, mixed with the sound of the wind and the water, was as ethereal as a divine sound. “I will never return to your cage.”

Ye Tingyan did not look away. He commanded in a low voice, “Set sail!”

After receiving the order, the people in the boat were bold enough to throw away their weapons and neatly called out from front to back, “Set sail!”

The guards on the bridge were in a state of commotion. They had not received any orders and did not know what to do.

Luo Wei took a step closer to Ye Tingyan, looked back at Song Lan, and finished her sentence. “Just sit on your pile of beautiful corpses and wait for yourself to die before I do.”

After the sun had set, a steaming mist rose from the water. The mist was hazy, but in the vast darkness before night, Song Lan saw the two people standing side by side on the boat.

Ye Tingyan still held the posture of shooting an arrow at him. In the night, only the cold light from the arrowhead was astonishingly bright. Luo Wei stood beside him in a pure white dress, like the goddess of the Luo River who had waded ashore from the reed bank.

He suddenly felt that this scene was too familiar, so familiar that it touched the hidden pain in his heart.

Chang Zhao thought that Song Lan had figured out that he had no choice but to let them leave to protect himself and that was why he hadn’t spoken. But when he looked at him, he saw Song Lan muttering to himself as if he were possessed. “No, no, you, who are you—”

He pointed at the boat that was gradually moving away and suddenly became excited. “Who are you, who are you! Someone, shoot arrows! Stop them for me! Hurry, hurry!”

Scattered arrows flew through the twilight and were lost in the vastness. Other arrows came flying and made dull thuds against the shields.

The sun completely and heavily set. The Emperor’s order came too late. He could only watch as they hoisted their sails and disappeared into the vast river.

They were sailing with the wind and the current tonight. Even if he were to gather people to chase them as fast as he could, he would definitely not be able to catch up to them.

Song Lan sat down dejectedly on the edge of the broken bridge, feeling as if he had lost all his strength.

After an unknown amount of time, the moon appeared from the east, where they had left, and cast a silver light on the water. Yan Ji rushed over with his soldiers and reported with grief that Yan Ping had been killed and that there were casualties among both the Zhuque and imperial guards. It was still not certain how many of them were traitors.

“And, and...” Yan Ji stammered, “They left a handkerchief for Your Majesty on my brother’s corpse.”

Song Lan looked up and took the handkerchief that was half-soaked in blood from his hand. On the handkerchief was a line written in blood, “You have not yet exhausted my skills, but you already claim to have done so.”

“You have not yet exhausted my skills, but you already claim to have done so.”

Song Lan read this sentence over and over again, then looked up and let out a long laugh.

“Your Majesty!”

Chang Zhao was still pondering the meaning of the sentence when he saw Song Lan clutching his wound. His laughter came to an abrupt halt, and then he coughed up blood and passed out.