Chapter 58

Xingyi was badly injured as a result of excessive loss of blood and poisoning, so Lingxiao was reluctant to go to so much trouble to cure her. However, for the sake that she got injured because of Zixiu, plus Zixiu’s pleading, Lingxiao had to set aside his prejudices against her for the time being and started treating her.

To prevent too much poisoned blood from flowing into her heart, Lingxiao struck her acupuncture point and then fed her with a hemostatic pill. After carrying Xingyi to the bed with Zixiu, he ripped off her sleeve and was about to treat the wound for her when he suddenly heard someone approaching.

Time was of the essence! Without looking up, Lingxiao went on his work. As Zixiu’s hearing and alertness were not as keen as Lingxiao’s, he didn’t sense anything wrong until that person walked into the inner room.

It was none other than Yueying. As Xingyi hadn’t been back after she rushed out of Nangong Du’s bedroom to hunt the assassinator, he thought something bad might have happened to her, so he went out to look for her. When he looked carefully and found that the person who was busy bandaging Xingyi’s wound was Physician Ling, who had just come to the mansion in the morning, he felt his heart skip a beat. However, nobody could see any emotional fluctuation on his face. “How is Xingyi doing?” he asked, sounding calm.

Taken aback, Zixiu stared at Yueying blankly, feeling like his brain was going on a strike. On the contrary, Lingxiao remained calm. “It’s just a kind of common poison, so if she can make it through the night, she will be fine!” he answered.

“Common poison?” Yueying frowned. From the dark blood on the floor, he was certain the poison on the assassinator’s weapon couldn’t be ordinary. “Ling Xiao is so capable at such a young age, so his background couldn’t be simple! But is he our friend or enemy?”

After pondering for a while, he turned to leave, showing nothing special on his face.

Like a frog killed by a wheel, the assassinator was lying still on the ground. After ripping his mask off, Yueying could tell he had never seen this person. He then asked a few guards to carry him into the dungeon.

The next day, the news that an assassinator had broken into Prince Mu’s mansion the night before reached the emperor and the empress dowager. Prince Mu’s sudden unconsciousness had stirred a sensation recently and all the officials thought that Princess Liuxu of the Wen Kingdom was a jinx who had brought bad luck to her husband. Now the princess’s near assassination sparked a new round of discussion and everyone was speculating about who might be behind all this.

The emperor ordered the head of the Ministry of Justice and the governor of the capital city to see into this case. Therefore, not only the prostitutes, the cleaning staff of the Land of Bliss, but also those who had ever stepped into this brothel on the day Prince Mu got drunk were taken away to assist in the investigation. Meanwhile, out of concern for the safety of the prince and the princess, the emperor sent a team of imperial army to the Prince Mu’s Mansion.

However, Lingxiao was the one who was under the most pressure. The emperor had issued the edict, saying that if he couldn’t wake Prince Mu up in three days, he would be beheaded!

To be honest, Lingxiao wasn’t quite sure if he could revive Nangong Du within three days. After all, he had never tried to remove the poison “A Thousand Years of Intoxication” from anyone else. Moreover, to avenge Zixiu, he had figured out some ways to torture Nangong Du, such as sticking a number of silver needles in him, “steaming” him in a massive bamboo steamer, etc. Though these methods were helpful to detoxification and dredging meridians, they were not necessary for getting rid of this particular poison. Lingxiao was stressed not because he feared that he might be executed, but because he was worried that the reputation of the Valley of Fallen Blossoms might be ruined because of him if he failed to fulfill his promise to save the patient on time. Though he didn’t tell anyone about his surname and his real identity, the almighty emperor might find them out one day. Lingxiao was sensitive and he had seen the situation clearly.

As he had promised that he would revive Nangong Du in three days, after secretly torturing the latter for some time, Lingxiao suddenly changed his uninhibited attitude and started curing the patient seriously. As he was busy taking pulse, doing acupuncture, and decocting medicine soup for the prince day and night, he couldn’t even find time to have meals and rest, let alone secretly meet his ‘fiancée’ at midnight!

Prince Mu’s personal guard, Yueying, didn’t dare disturb him, so he could only hold back his doubts and was about to discuss with his master about it after the latter woke up.

Xingyi had never been a weak, delicate young lady, and as she had started practicing martial arts since her childhood, she was much stronger than ordinary women. Therefore, though badly injured, she was out of danger and woke up the next morning.

Zixiu felt much relieved at the news. Although he disliked Xingyi and always cursed her, he didn’t mean to expect anything bad to happen to her. Now that Xingyi had risked her life to save him, Zixiu felt ashamed of his meanness. The next morning when he learned that Xingyi was awake, he immediately ran to her room. He even showed no such solicitude for Prince Mu, but Xingyi didn’t seem to buy it!

As the princess’s personal maidservant was seriously injured and needed to rest for some time, the empress dowager sent her own maidservant, Tinglan, to come in the afternoon in case the other maidservants in Prince Mu’s Mansion were too clumsy to take good care of the princess.

At the same time, Yan Ke’s first disciple, Luo Huali, who was practicing medicine in a remote village suddenly received a letter from his master, who asked him to find his junior brother Yan Lingxiao and his Uncle Liu’s ‘daughter’ Liu Zixiu!

Though his master didn’t explain in detail in the letter why he wanted him to find the two, Huali had figured something out. “Lingxiao has always wanted to compete with me in everything ever since he was a child, so he must have left the valley secretly following me. But how come Master Yan is also asking me to find Zixiu? Doesn’t Uncle Liu know that he’s married to Prince Mu, Nangong Du?”