When Xia Lanshi woke, it was already the morning of the third day.
Outside the tent, patrolling soldiers passed by, the light clinking of their armor muffled by the heavy tent cloth. Farther away, the low murmurs and coughs from the refugee camp drifted over, as though the lingering sickness had been carried along by the wind.
He opened his eyes, and his vision was blurred for a moment.
The patterns on the canopy above him were hazy and then clear again. The strong smell of medicine filled his nose. His chest felt unbearably heavy, and his limbs were so weak that it was as though someone had pulled the bones from his body. Every breath brought with it a faint trace of pain.
He stared blankly for a while before slowly remembering what had happened before he lost consciousness.
Zhou Jin.
The poisoned paper.
The faint prickling pain in his fingertips.
And that mouthful of black blood that had surged up his throat.
After that, there had only been snow.
Endless snow.
So cold that it seemed capable of freezing the last trace of life inside a person’s bones.
Xia Lanshi’s long lashes trembled slightly. His fingers instinctively moved, touching the red silk cord and white jade peace clasp around his wrist. Only then did it feel as though something had finally pulled him back into the world of the living.
Someone at his bedside set down a stack of official documents.
“Awake?”
Xia Lanshi turned his head.
Xiao Yuan sat beside the bed. He still had that same cold, composed appearance, except there was more fatigue in his eyes than usual.
Unfinished documents were piled on the table, and the lamps in the tent had not yet been extinguished. Clearly, he had not slept all night.
Xia Lanshi opened his mouth. His voice was terribly hoarse.
“…Your Highness.”
Chi Banyue immediately poured him a cup of warm water and held it to his lips.
“Drink first.”
She then hurried out of the tent to fetch his medicine.
Xia Lanshi did not force himself. Supporting the cup, he slowly drank several mouthfuls.
The warm water slid down his throat, and the dry, raw pain finally eased somewhat.
He set down the cup and was silent for a moment.
Yet the first thing he asked was not about his own poison.
“Where is Zhou Jin?”
Xiao Yuan’s eyes turned cold.
“Dead. He died in the prison last night.” Xiao Yuan’s tone was flat. “By the time the jailer discovered him, he was already dead in his cell.”
The tent fell silent for a moment.
Xia Lanshi lowered his eyes, not surprised by the answer.
“Suicide out of guilt?”
Xiao Yuan let out a cold laugh.
“That’s how it appears.”
Xia Lanshi did not ask further.
Zhou Jin was greedy, cowardly, and terrified of death.
A man like that would kneel and beg for mercy. He would bite out the names of everyone he could expose, simply to exchange them for a chance at survival. The one thing he would not do was commit suicide while the matter had yet to be settled.
So he had not killed himself.
He had been silenced.
A dead man was the safest man.
The Crown Prince’s people were faster—and more ruthless—than they had imagined.
Xia Lanshi closed his eyes.
“The Crown Prince is getting anxious.”
“He has no choice but to be anxious,” Xiao Yuan said.
The situation in Linzhou had been broken open. With Zhou Jin’s death, the clues appeared to have been severed, but this instead proved that the Eastern Palace had already been forced into a position where it had no choice but to clean things up personally.
This was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Xia Lanshi understood this.
Thinking of something, he suddenly asked, “What about Physician Su?”
Xiao Yuan’s expression relaxed almost imperceptibly.
“Nothing happened.”
Xia Lanshi looked at him and suddenly smiled.
The smile was faint, carrying the weakness of someone recovering from illness, yet there was also a hint of gentle understanding in it.
“I was asking whether Physician Su was frightened.”
Xiao Yuan glanced at him.
“He’s fine.”
Xia Lanshi said softly, “Whenever Your Highness mentions Physician Su, you always have very little to say.”
Xiao Yuan remained expressionless.
“You just woke up, yet you certainly have plenty to say.”
Xia Lanshi tactfully fell silent.
He was still lying in bed, after all. It was indeed not appropriate to provoke a ruler who had just dragged him back from the gates of death and had not slept all night.
At that moment, the tent flap was lifted.
Chi Banyue entered carrying a bowl of medicine, wearing her usual delicate yet prickly smile.
“Oh? Quite energetic, aren’t we?”
Xia Lanshi looked at her.
“You have my thanks for worrying about me, Miss Banyue.”
That single sentence blocked her completely.
The half-bellyful of sarcastic remarks she had prepared all got stuck in her throat.
She stared at him for a moment before finally setting the medicine bowl down heavily.
“If you know I was worried, then stop touching filthy things from now on. Your life is already too fragile to withstand much, yet you still insist on running into poison.”
Xia Lanshi said gently, “If I had not taken it, His Highness might have touched it.”
Chi Banyue sneered. “So you took it for His Highness?”
Xia Lanshi did not answer.
Xiao Yuan’s expression darkened.
Xia Lanshi was usually cautious, yet at the time, he had personally taken the poisoned account book.
Zhou Jin had been involved in numerous cases, but the crimes alone had not yet reached the point where he would immediately be sentenced to death. However, openly attempting to assassinate an official of the imperial court was a grave crime, and the evidence was conclusive.
The Crown Prince would inevitably move to destroy the evidence.
This allowed them to eliminate Zhou Jin and seize control of Linzhou in the shortest possible time.
“Drink your medicine.”
Xiao Yuan did not ask anything further and handed him the bowl.
Xia Lanshi silently accepted it.
The medicine was bitter.
So bitter that the root of his tongue went numb.
But compared with the sensation of the poison entering his heart and veins, dragging him into an abyss with its icy chill, this bit of bitterness instead made him feel at ease.
Chi Banyue stood to one side, watching him finish the medicine.
Only after confirming that he could truly move and speak did the tension that had been suppressed in her eyes for several days finally loosen.
She suddenly leaned closer and lowered her voice.
“Chief Steward Xia.”
Xia Lanshi raised his eyes slightly.
The fact that Chi Banyue was addressing him this way gave him a bad feeling.
“Yes?”
A meaningful smile appeared in Chi Banyue’s eyes.
“I think I may have found the person you’ve been searching for all these years.”
Xia Lanshi instantly froze.
He was still holding the medicine bowl, but his fingers suddenly tightened around it. His eyes lit up as well.
The reaction was far too obvious.
So obvious that even Xiao Yuan looked over.
Chi Banyue immediately laughed.
She had originally only been testing him.
Now she was almost certain that there really was such a person hidden in Xia Lanshi’s heart.
Some years ago, someone had jokingly asked Xia Lanshi about marriage.
At that time, his health had already been poor. He had white hair, red eyes, and was constantly plagued by illness, yet he was exceptionally handsome, as cold and pure as jade and as frail as snow. If he had not been under Prince Su’s command, who knew how many people would have tried to win his affection?
Back then, Xia Lanshi had only replied indifferently:
“With my prolonged illness, I may not be able to have children. I dare not mislead another person.”
Everyone had assumed that he was merely refusing.
Chi Banyue had privately pressed him about it many times.
Only after remaining silent for a long while had Xia Lanshi finally said that there was already someone in his heart.
Someone who had saved him on a snowy night when he was young.
That person had been dressed in black and masked, coming and going in haste. He had taken a wound on his back for Xia Lanshi and left behind only a red silk cord bracelet and a white jade peace clasp.
After that, he had never appeared again.
Chi Banyue had always found it absurd.
Someone whose face he had not even seen clearly, a memory that might have been nothing more than a dying hallucination, had actually remained in Xia Lanshi’s heart for so many years.
But now, she suddenly no longer thought so.
She had seen Owl with her own eyes.
And she had also seen the momentary loss of composure that Owl could barely suppress when he looked at Xia Lanshi.
Xia Lanshi asked in a low voice, carefully,
“You’ve seen him?”
Chi Banyue raised an eyebrow.
It was rare to see Xia Lanshi so flustered, so she deliberately dragged things out.
“I wouldn’t dare say for certain.”
“Then… what does he look like?”
Chi Banyue thought about it and deliberately said, “Not bad.”
Xia Lanshi’s fingers tightened further, his eyes filled with anxiety and hope.
Chi Banyue continued slowly, “Tall. Black hair. Refined and scholarly in appearance, but he doesn’t look like a good person.”
Xia Lanshi: “…”
Xiao Yuan: “…”
As though she had not noticed their expressions, Chi Banyue leisurely added,
“And his mouth is quite sharp.”
If the circumstances had not been so urgent at the time, she might have been angered to death by Owl’s tone.
Xia Lanshi frowned slightly.
Yet his heart accelerated uncontrollably, and a faint blush appeared on his pale cheeks.
That benefactor he had carried in his heart for so many years, the person he had thought of day and night, the person he had searched everywhere for, hoping only to see him once again—
Now there were finally some clues.
The deep emotion he had hidden in his heart for so long had always been sustained by the white jade peace clasp that person had given him.
It had accompanied him through countless dangers and hardships.
And now, at last, there were traces of that person.
“Banyue.”
Xiao Yuan knew whom she was talking about.
He also knew what had happened to Xia Lanshi when he was young.
But he did not think it was a good thing for the two of them to recognize each other.
After all, that person was from another world.
There could be no easy future between them.
Chi Banyue pouted.
“I didn’t say anything wrong.”