Mo Yu broke into a cold sweat: “Your Highness, the people sent by the Prime Minister’s residence indeed said so.”
The gentle smile at the corner of Xiao Jingchen’s lips deepened, and he stared at the two people in the bamboo pavilion with that faint smile for a long while: “It seems the illness has recovered. Still able to be lively and energetic—that’s a good thing.”
However, beneath his sleeves where no one noticed, his palm clenched tightly, veins bulging, until the thumb ring was forcibly snapped, piercing his flesh as several streams of blood trickled down.
He swung his sleeve heavily and turned to leave, the smile in his eyes vanishing, inadvertently revealing a trace of intense ferocity in his pupils.
Over at the bamboo pavilion, the two seemed to have caught sight of Xiao Jingchen’s retreating figure.
“Crown Prince Brother.”
Wen Shuyu called out, quickly rising and running toward Xiao Jingchen’s direction.
The Seventh Prince, Xiao Yi, also looked up: “Imperial Brother?”
Seeing Wen Shuyu chase after him, Xiao Yi picked up the unfinished talisman in his hand and called out toward the direction the two had left:
“A’yu, are you still going to learn later? Should I wait here for you? A’yu?”
Meanwhile, on the other side.
After catching up to Xiao Jingchen’s pace, Wen Shuyu tugged at his sleeve: “Crown Prince Brother, walk slower. Did you just finish paying respects to Aunt Empress?”
Xiao Jingchen ignored her, not even sparing her a glance, and withdrew his sleeve, continuing forward on his own.
Wen Shuyu followed, her voice tinged with confusion: “Crown Prince Brother, are you in a bad mood today?”
Xiao Jingchen finally stopped in his tracks. He looked at her calmly, his voice betraying no emotion: “Wen Shuyu, I have no time to play these games with you, do you understand?”
“Crown Prince Brother, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Look up.”
Wen Shuyu gazed at him, her eyes in that moment exceptionally bright, as if filled with a galaxy of stars. She pinched a talisman between her fingers.
The moment the talisman flew out, plum blossoms fell from the sky like a flurry. The pure, cold white plum blossoms resembled shattered jade and precious stones accidentally scattered by the moon palace immortal. Amidst the drifting hidden scent, the petals swirled leisurely, gently brushing past Xiao Jingchen’s stunningly beautiful profile before settling on his shoulder. Such a scene was like a breathtakingly beautiful painting falling into Xiao Jingchen’s eyes.
“Crown Prince Brother, I wanted to learn the Plum Blossom Talisman from the Seventh Prince to give you a surprise.”
“I know Crown Prince Brother loves plum blossoms the most. Tomorrow is your birthday, and this is the gift I wanted to give you.”
“It’s just… I’m too incompetent. I studied for so long but couldn’t master it… Now that I’ve finally learned it, I’m afraid my body won’t last until tomorrow, so I… I’m giving it to you early…”
She suddenly lowered her head and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Her face instantly turned pale, and under Xiao Jingchen’s gaze, the color gradually drained from the corners of her lips.
Xiao Jingchen sensed something was wrong with her condition. The moment she was about to collapse, he caught her: “Wen Shuyu?”
Plum blossoms stained with blood on the ground reflected in Xiao Jingchen’s eyes, and his voice grew urgent: “Mo Yu, there’s something wrong with this Plum Blossom Talisman. Summon the imperial physician and the alchemist, quickly!”
By the time Imperial Physician Hu and the alchemist hurried over and saw the plum blossoms on the ground and Wen Shuyu’s condition, they were so shocked their beards trembled.
“It’s a Blood Talisman! A talisman made using one’s own essence blood as a medium, at the cost of lifespan and vitality! The princess originally had no spiritual power at all—a mere mortal using her lifespan to create a talisman, is she mad?!”
The alchemist, who possessed high cultivation and was a close friend of Prime Minister Wen, had watched Wen Shuyu grow up since childhood. “Why didn’t anyone stop her? Why wasn’t anyone watching over her? If the princess wanted talismans, she could have bought as many as she pleased! Why did she have to use her life to make them? Someone tell me what exactly happened!”
Meanwhile, Xiao Jingchen in Wen Shuyu’s arms was breathing weakly: “Big… big brother the Crown Prince… tomorrow…”
“Happy birthday…”
As soon as the words fell, Wen Shuyu seemed unable to hold on any longer. A streak of glaring blood spilled from her pale lips, and she completely lost consciousness.
“Wen Shuyu!”
The alchemist panicked: “Princess! Quick, quick, quick! Fetch a top-grade Consolidating Vitality Pill and feed it to the princess! Then move her to the nearest Kunning Palace, hurry!”
The entire palace descended into chaos.
In less than a moment, the Empress Dowager, the Emperor and Empress, Prime Minister Wen from the ministerial residence, and even the Seventh Prince in the pavilion were all alerted.
The Seventh Prince was utterly stunned. Blood Talisman? What?
The plum blossom talismans he had taught A’yu to draw were all spirit talismans. It was just that A’yu lacked spiritual power, so what she made were essentially useless scraps of paper. When had she gone and drawn a Blood Talisman?
As for Xiao Liu, who had been hidden within Wen Shuyu’s consciousness all along, it was now completely dumbfounded by this series of events.
From the first day when the master went to learn talisman drawing from that Xiao Jingchen, to the second day when she feigned illness and skipped, deliberately letting Xiao Jingchen see her learning talisman drawing from the Seventh Prince—using “the Seventh Prince” and “feigning illness to deceive” to provoke Xiao Jingchen’s anger—and then, just when Xiao Jingchen was truly angry and ignoring her, suddenly producing a Blood Talisman.
Creating a sky full of plum blossom rain, using her life to make a talisman as a birthday gift for Xiao Jingchen, claiming that learning plum blossom talismans from the Seventh Prince was also to surprise Xiao Jingchen, and finally fainting with a pale face—to others, it appeared she hadn’t feigned illness; using her life to make a talisman would naturally cause genuine illness.
As for that talisman, no wonder last night the master had asked it: “If I buy a few talismans first and drip some blood into them, would others sense the blood essence in the talismans and mistake them for Blood Talismans?”
After all, under normal circumstances, aside from Blood Talismans, who would add blood to talismans?
Then she took a pill that could temporarily reverse her qi and blood, weakening her body.
So this was the plan all along.
Xiao Liu was left speechless.
In the capital, it wasn’t long before news spread: Wen Shuyu, to celebrate the Crown Prince’s birthday, burned her own essence and blood, sacrificing her lifespan to create plum blossom talismans, all for the Crown Prince’s happiness. Yet she herself turned deathly pale and fainted on the spot.
Even though Wen Shuyu was a prominent figure in the capital, with many discussing her daily, quite a few were still shocked upon hearing this news: “What? Has Wen Shuyu gone mad?”
“That’s a Blood Talisman! She was already a mortal without spiritual power, with a short lifespan to begin with, and she used her remaining years to make talismans!”
“Hey, did you all hear? Wen Shuyu took an elixir, but she’s still weak and needs proper rest. Do you know where she went to recuperate?”
The person exclaimed loudly: “The Eastern Palace!”
“The Crown Prince took her away!”
“A man and a woman, unmarried, and His Highness actually brought her back to the Eastern Palace! What do you think they…”