Xiao Yi bit his lip. Fine beads of sweat dotted his forehead, but he didn’t make a sound.
“That should do it.” Achou tied off the bandage and took two steps back to admire her handiwork. Smiling with satisfaction, she said, “It’s a little ugly, but it should hold.”
Xiao Yi glanced down at the leg, wrapped in splints and strips of cloth until it looked like a rice dumpling, then looked at Achou.
“You were in Marquis Yongchang’s Residence,” he suddenly asked, his voice very soft. “What did you do there?”
Achou froze. She hadn’t expected him to ask her a question.
“Chop wood, boil water, wash clothes… and clean the chamber pots. I did a bit of everything.”
Xiao Yi was silent for a moment.
“Then where did you learn these ways of treating injuries?”
Achou smiled sheepishly. “No one taught me. I just rescued a few cats and dogs in the back courtyard and figured it out on my own.”
“Cats and dogs,” Xiao Yi repeated.
“Mm.” Achou nodded. “Cats and dogs have lives too. I couldn’t just watch them die.”
As soon as she said it, she regretted it.
Was comparing him to cats and dogs a little insulting?
But Xiao Yi didn’t get angry.
He closed his eyes again and leaned against the headboard.
A long while passed. Just as Achou thought he had fallen asleep, he suddenly spoke.
“Why don’t you run?”
Achou froze.
“Why don’t you run?” he repeated.
Achou lowered her head, folded the remaining strips of cloth, and tucked them into her bundle.
“I can’t.” she said. “I’m a maid from Marquis Yongchang’s Residence. I signed a death contract. Under Great Yong law, if a runaway slave is caught, they’ll be beaten, branded, and exiled even farther away.”
She paused and gave a small smile. “I’m already being exiled now. What would be the point of running only to be exiled again?”
Xiao Yi said nothing.
Achou tied up her bundle, then checked again to see whether the splints on his leg had loosened. As she worked, she went on, “Besides, you still have a fever, and your leg is in this state. What would happen to you if I just left?”
“What does that have to do with you?”
He said it calmly—not as a challenge, but more like a statement.
A statement of fact: his life or death had nothing to do with her.
Achou’s hands stilled.
She looked up at his pale face. Beneath the moonlight, a glimmer seemed to stir in his eyes, deep as a cold pool.
“Your Highness, I’m not good for much. I just can’t bear to see living things suffer.”
“When a stray cat in the back courtyard had kittens, no one cared for them, so I secretly saved some of my own food to feed them. When the neighbor’s puppy broke its leg, I wrapped it in cloth for half a month and managed to heal it.”
“Whether you’re Xiao Yi or a cripple, it’s all the same to me. You’re just someone who’s sick and injured and needs looking after.”
When she finished, she felt she’d rambled a little and scratched her head awkwardly.
“And,” she added, grinning, “you paid for it. That medicine was bought with your silver. If I don’t get you better, wouldn’t that money be wasted?”
Xiao Yi looked at her.
This ugly maid really was unpleasant to look at.
Her skin wasn’t fair to begin with, and she had a birthmark. When she smiled, her eyes curved into two crescents, making her look almost comical.
Like a clump of shepherd’s purse that hadn’t fully grown.
But her eyes were bright.
In the candlelight, they looked like two stars.
He looked away and closed his eyes again.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll drag you down with me?”
“Drag me down how? I have nothing to begin with.”
This time, Achou understood what he meant.
He wasn’t looking down on her. He was looking down on himself.
She parted her lips, wanting to say something, but every word she could think of felt too slight.
Someone who had once stood among the clouds and was suddenly trampled into the mud, who now thought himself worthless—there was no soothing that with a few words.
She said nothing more. She pulled the thin quilt from the foot of the bed and gently covered Xiao Yi with it, then picked up the trousers he had changed out of. “Since we have hot water, I’ll wash these. You’ll have them to change into.”
She tucked in the edge of his quilt, then took the trousers out into the courtyard to wash them.
As she washed, she wondered what crime Xiao Yi had committed. How could the Emperor bear to have his own son beaten like this?
The window of the room behind her was half-shut. The soldiers escorting them were drinking and playing finger-guessing games, their voices rising in wave after wave.
Now and then, their careless chatter drifted through.
At first, she paid it no mind. But then one word floated into her ears—
“Xiao Yi…”
“…too capable. His achievements overshadowed the Emperor, so His Majesty doesn’t trust him.”
“Exactly. I heard that last winter, when Xiao Yi accompanied the Emperor on an inspection of the camps, the soldiers of the Xiaoqi Battalion saw the Emperor and didn’t bow. They just shouted for Xiao Yi…”
“Shh… keep your voice down!”
Achou didn’t understand the twists and turns of court politics, but she did understand one thing.
At Marquis Yongchang’s Residence, if you were more capable than the Head Nanny and more favored by the Madam, you were as good as dead.
Xiao Yi was probably in the same position.
She sighed, wrung the washed trousers dry, and hung them on the clothesline.
Achou rubbed her reddened hands. She was about to turn and pour out the water when she suddenly heard voices, quieter than before.
Without thinking, she moved closer and listened carefully.
It was Head Zhao’s voice.
“…The people above said it’d be best if he made it to the border alive. If he doesn’t… well, then he was fated to die.”
The other voice belonged to the young soldier, and there was a note of hesitation in it. “But, Head Zhao, he’s the Emperor’s own son…”
“So what if he is?” Head Zhao gave a cold laugh. “If the Emperor still thought of him as his own son, would he have broken his leg? Would he have exiled him three thousand li away? Wake up, boy. The affairs of the imperial family are beyond you and me.”
“But…” The young soldier tried to say more.
“But what?” There was a harsher edge to Head Zhao’s voice now. “You think we were given this assignment for nothing? The people above offered us this much—” He made a gesture, and two fingers appeared against the paper window. “Enough for us to buy land and build a house back home, and live off it for the rest of our lives. If you don’t want the job, fine. I’ll report you for incompetence as soon as we get back, and you can forget about ever getting a raise in your military pay.”
The young soldier fell silent.
Head Zhao’s voice softened a little, as if coaxing him. “Besides, it’s not as though we’ll have to do anything ourselves. The road is long and the mountains high. He could be attacked by bandits, fall ill, or tumble off a cliff… Any of those would kill him. And Qingzhou in particular is a lawless place, crawling with bandits. We can make it look like he was killed by bandits. Who could pin the blame on us then? Just close your eyes, cover your ears, and do what you’re supposed to—keep moving when it’s time to travel, drink when it’s time to drink. Someone else will take care of the rest.”
“Someone else?” the young soldier asked. “You mean there are others besides us?”
Head Zhao didn’t answer directly. He only chuckled twice. “You think we’re the only ones on this job? Don’t worry. There’s another safeguard behind us. We just have to escort him to Qingzhou. Someone far more capable will take over from there.”
“Someone far more capable…”
“Enough, enough. Don’t ask. Knowing too much won’t do you any good.” Head Zhao stood up, and his chair scraped loudly against the floor. “Finish your drink and get to bed. We have to get back on the road early tomorrow.”
Inside, she heard liquor being poured, followed by the crisp clink of bowls.
Achou stood in the courtyard, her blood seeming to freeze in her veins.
The wind blew in through her collar and made her shiver, but she couldn’t feel the cold.
Only one thought kept turning over in her mind: Someone was going to kill the Crown Prince.
Who? Someone in the palace? The person who had beaten the Crown Prince into a cripple?
Or… someone else?
Achou didn’t know. She only knew that the head of the escorting soldiers had already been bribed.
They had never intended to let the Crown Prince reach his place of exile alive!
She clenched her fists and dug her nails into her palms, forcing herself to come back to her senses.