Several guards stood before Xie Ciyuan’s bed, exchanging bewildered glances. Xuan Lie, who had just returned with water, immediately sensed the strange atmosphere in the room the moment he stepped inside.
Clutching a waterskin and standing at the doorway, he hesitated, unsure whether to enter or leave. Stammering, he spoke up, “Princess, your water…”
“Give it to me.”
A delicate, fair hand reached up from beside Xie Ciyuan. Xuan Lie was so startled he choked on his own saliva, coughing violently, yet he still remembered to hand the waterskin to Yun Jiuqing.
“If any of you have waterskins, you’d best fill them up as well. Also, don’t just keep an eye on Wang Jingkang—keep watch over Nangu Ying too.
Wang Jingkang’s side most likely won’t cause any problems, but Nangu Ying is harder to predict.”
At the very least, if she were the new emperor and wanted to destroy Nangu Ying and cut off Xie Ciyuan’s escape route, she wouldn’t place complete reliance on those few incompetent fools tasked with the escort.
The one who tied the knot must be the one to untie it—she had always believed that breaking something from within was easier than attacking from the outside.
Moreover, they were facing the current emperor, who held absolute power, ruled with full legitimacy, and had the entire empire’s wealth at his disposal.
And while Nangu Ying was indeed a force Xie Ciyuan had built with his own hands, a military camp was never a monolith. If even one man was swayed by personal gain, the emperor would find it all too easy to win him over with bribes.
Yun Jiuqing’s warning came from caution, but Xuan Qing snapped angrily, “What does the Princess mean by that?
The soldiers of Nangu Ying are all elite members of our Zhenhun Army, brothers who have faced life and death together with us. They could never betray the Prince.
I admit you’ve helped us a great deal today, but telling us to be wary and suspicious of our own brothers—what kind of intention is that?”
“Xuan Qing, don’t get so worked up. Not everyone is as open and upright as our brothers in the Prince’s residence.
The inner quarters of great noble families are full of hidden schemes and calculations. Didn’t you see how the Princess was abandoned by her own family the moment the residence fell into trouble? The Princess is probably treating this place like her Vice Minister of Revenue’s Residence.”
Ning Ruobing walked in carrying a quilt. Seeing Yun Jiuqing lying beside Xie Ciyuan, her gaze fixed intently on Yun Jiuqing, she wished she could rush forward, yank Yun Jiuqing up, and take her place.
In the end, however, she merely set the quilt down before Xie Ciyuan’s bed. “My cousin’s health is frail. If he only has something to cover himself with and nothing beneath him, he might catch a chill.
Would the Princess mind getting up for a moment to help me spread this quilt over my cousin’s bed?
As for the matter of Nangu Ying, my cousin and the brothers inside and outside the camp will make their own judgments. The Princess is a woman—it’s best not to meddle in affairs that don’t concern you.”
Hearing this, Xuan Qing shot Ning Ruobing an approving glance and said enthusiastically, “Cousin, you’ve worked hard. Let me help you.”
Not forgetting to recruit others while offering his own assistance, he added, “Xuan Lie, give me a hand…”
Mid-sentence, he realized the bed was only so big—if Yun Jiuqing didn’t move, there was no way to spread the quilt for Xie Ciyuan. Without the slightest hesitation, he said, “Princess, would you mind stepping aside for a moment? Once we’ve laid out the quilt for the Prince, you can come back and sleep?”
In truth, summer nights weren’t all that cold, and Xie Ciyuan, covered with a wolf pelt, wouldn’t feel cold at all.
Moreover, if all this had happened before the argument between Xuan Qing and Yun Jiuqing, it might have been tolerable. But after Xuan Qing had interrogated Yun Jiuqing in such a manner, asking her to give up her spot—even if the intention was for Xie Ciyuan’s sake—still made Yun Jiuqing seem to be at a disadvantage.
Yun Jiuqing remained lying where she was without moving. She didn’t care about the attitudes of these subordinates, but she couldn’t ignore Xie Ciyuan’s attitude.
Ancestor or War God—neither had the right to make her, Ninth Master, offer her warm face to a cold backside.
After waiting a long while with no reaction, she sprang up with a carp-like flip, jumped directly from the inner side of the bed to the floor, and made to leave.
But then Xie Ciyuan spoke coldly: “In the heat of the sixth month, a wolf pelt on top and a thick mattress below—are you trying to rot me on this bed?”
Ning Ruobing was left speechless. How could she possibly admit that everything she did was meant to use her gentleness and virtue to highlight Yun Jiuqing’s lack of consideration?
Instinctively, she tried to defend herself. “Cousin, I…”
Before she could finish, Xie Ciyuan had already dismissed her, speaking again. “And another thing—you still firmly believe the Zhenhun Army is a monolithic block that no one can infiltrate.
Do I need to tear open my own wounds and personally remind you how we were defeated in Bei Huang?”
As he spoke, he threw open his pant leg, revealing the hideous scars and the arrowhead still embedded in his bone that had yet to be removed.
Ning Ruobing instinctively took a step back. Xuan Qing snapped to his senses and immediately stepped forward. “Prince, Old Ghost said your wounds must not be exposed to the wind.”
Xie Ciyuan couldn’t move his lower limbs, and he wasn’t truly intent on sulking, so he didn’t refuse Xuan Qing’s assistance.
He only continued his cold reprimand. “The Princess, who used her own strength to spare you from physical suffering and helped Nangu Ying escape danger—not a single word of hers do you heed.
But the words of someone who acted willfully and recklessly, causing everyone to miss lunch, forgo rest, and spend the day exhausted—those you treat as gospel. Is this how I taught you?”
In the military, whoever had the biggest fist made the rules.
Seniority and nepotism—those kinds of conventions held no sway in the Zhenhun Army.
Otherwise, the main generals of the 100,000-strong Zhenhun Army wouldn’t all be young men around twenty years old, and every one of them had fought their way up through sheer strength, with no help from Xie Ciyuan.
But Xuan Qing and the others were constantly wary and distant toward Yun Jiuqing, while toward Ning Ruobing they were endlessly tolerant, turning a blind eye to her inappropriate behavior. It was clearly a kind of unspoken seniority-based hierarchy.
At these words, before Xuan Qing and the others could even react, the color in Ning Ruobing’s face faded a shade first.
It was true that today she had been the one making a fuss about wanting to rest, angering Wang Jingkang and causing everyone to lose their rest.
But because Ning Ruoyu had later helped her out of the situation, and she was the favorite granddaughter of the Second Madam, no one had said anything.
Yet she hadn’t expected that their silence didn’t mean they had forgotten, nor had she expected that the one to bring it up and embarrass her would be Xie Ciyuan, whom she had been carefully currying favor with all along.
“Cousin, you know I didn’t mean it.”
She looked at him with grievance, and even knowing full well that Xie Ciyuan couldn’t see, she still bit her lip in hurt, her face full of humiliation.
“Being suddenly exiled is hard for everyone to get used to. I’ve been trying my best to take care of everyone. How could you say that about me?”
Xie Ciyuan’s cold face turned toward her. “Take care of everyone?
You mean the kind of care where you fill your own stomach and then offer that fool Ning Ruoyu’s food as a gift from someone else’s garden?
Or the kind of care where you provoke the officials yourself, then stand by and watch while they beat people?
This prince’s body is disabled, but I’m neither blind nor blind-hearted.
Put away your little schemes, or else, even if you are a daughter of the Ning family, this prince will never tolerate it!”
Xie Ciyuan had become the commander of the three armies before he was even twenty. Betrayed by those he trusted most, schemed against by the reigning emperor and the empress dowager, and still he had crawled back from the brink of death. How could he fail to see through Ning Ruobing’s petty tricks?
Before, he had simply thought them harmless and couldn’t be bothered to deal with them.
But now she had already disrupted military morale—how could he let it slide?
In the old days, the Third Miss of Cheng En Gong Fu didn’t need to say a word; others would fight for her and defend her on her behalf.
But now, the maids who used to speak for her had long been resold to the brokers, and that fool Ning Ruoyu was busy tending to Old Madam Ning.
Besides, if she wanted to get close to Xie Ciyuan, she couldn’t very well bring Ning Ruoyu along. At this moment, all she could do was maintain her image of serene elegance with tearful eyes.
“I only wanted to take care of you, Cousin. I never imagined I’d be so worthless in your eyes.
If you’ve already decided I’m that kind of person, then think whatever you like. I have nothing more to say.”