After receiving ten strokes with the cane, Fang Youcheng directly passed out. Bai Ruofeng grabbed the imperial physician by the back collar and used lightness kung fu, returning just in time to catch the end of the punishment.
While the eunuchs and maids clustered around their unconscious master in a chaotic mess, chattering nervously about choosing three or four people to carry their master onto the long couch, the impatient Bai Ruofeng could not bear their dawdling. With a single hand, he scooped the person right off the ground, half-supporting and half-carrying him in a few strides to place him onto the couch.
What followed next was the imperial physician examining and applying medicine.
The guards sent by the Emperor had all departed, leaving Chunfu to lead the other servants in assisting the imperial physician with fetching water and retrieving clothing.
Bai Ruofeng dragged a low stool over and sat where he could see the bed, waiting. After a long while, the person who had passed out still had not woken up, and his anxious and flustered state gradually calmed down as time passed.
His stomach gave an untimely growl, sounding quite distinct in the quiet room. Bai Ruofeng rubbed his abdomen. Since no one in the room had any attention to spare for him, he went to the main hall on his own to fetch a fruit platter, then sat back down to munch loudly on apples. A pair of clear, peach blossom eyes darted around, his gaze shifting momentarily to the architecture inside the hall, then back to the pale face of the unconscious person.
His curiosity had burned with exceptional intensity during his trip to the Eastern Palace this afternoon. In Bai Ruofeng’s eyes, Fang Youcheng was now like a tangled ball of yarn, and he only wanted to find a loose end to pull the whole knot apart so he could finally feel thoroughly refreshed.
Bai Ruofeng licked the fruit juice from his lips, thinking to himself that right now, no one in the entire Eastern Palace except the Crown Prince himself would have the guts to spread royal secrets.
Yet based on the fact that he and Fang Youcheng had known each other for less than a few days, would the other party be willing to satisfy his curiosity? Bai Ruofeng chewed on a piece of fruit and hesitated, his limpid peach blossom eyes gazing at the person on the bed.
Whether due to a lack of gentleness from the servants or something else, Fang Youcheng’s entire body gave a sudden jolt, transitioning from unconsciousness toward wakefulness. Traces of unwiped water still lingered on him, especially around his head.
Under everyone’s bated breath, before Fang Youcheng even opened his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed fiercely first. He tossed his head, looking extremely uncomfortable and impatient. Sweat gradually beaded on his forehead, his face flushed crimson, and he looked as though he was running a high fever. He muttered disjointedly, as if trapped within a nightmare.
Crunch, crunch. Bai Ruofeng picked up another piece of fruit, wiped it casually on his sleeve, and popped it into his mouth.
The Crown Prince trembled all over, clutching his head and groaning with chattering teeth while dressed only in a thin undergarment. Groping around, Fang Youcheng scrambled up into a kneeling position, and before his eyes were even open, he began violently slamming his head against the headboard of the bed.
Instantly, the imperial physician and Chunfu rushed forward in a panic, attempting to pull Fang Youcheng back.
Bai Ruofeng remained seated in his spot without moving, thinking that with so many people tending to him, his own help was unnecessary.
“Scram!” A sudden roar erupted, and everyone surrounding the bed was shoved to the floor by the patient, tumbling over in a large wave all at once.
Bai Ruofeng looked back in astonishment.
An empty space immediately cleared around the bed. Fang Youcheng stood there clutching his head, unsteady on his feet, stumbling back onto the bed several times before struggling back up. After unsteadily shoving away all the people who were getting in his way, he sought out the bedpost and frantically bashed his head against it, trying to use the pain of striking his own skull to ward off the fine, needle-like piercing agony inside his head.
Chunfu, acting as his personal eunuch, rushed forward to wrap his arms around the prince’s waist, pleading with the Crown Prince not to hurt himself.
Fang Youcheng’s state was deeply abnormal, and he clearly could no longer process human speech. At this moment, anyone who tried to stop him met with fierce resistance from Fang Youcheng, who would roar and shove them away, venting all his negative emotions outward. “Scram! All of you, get lost! Scram away!”
Clutching his recurring migraine, in pain so severe that all reason vanished, he turned into a wild beast, knocking everyone who tried to hold him down to the ground. As he searched for an exit, he muttered resentfully, his voice rising and falling, sounding somewhat eerie in the massive room. “Get away, you dogs! All of you, get out of my sight!”
He roared like a madman, circling around like a wounded young wolf searching for a way out of a trap. Toward the Emperor and Empress in his memories, toward those merciless guards in his memories who held him down while their faces remained obscured, toward this world, Fang Youcheng swore fiercely, “Kill them all! Slaughter them all! I will kill every single one of you!”
Did actual water get into his brain and fry him stupid? Bai Ruofeng was so startled that the fruit dropped right onto the platter he was holding.
He watched with his own eyes as the person who had just taken ten cane strokes, despite having impaired mobility, relied on a burst of abnormal strength to shove and kick aside every piece of furniture and servant in his path, venting his pent-up resentment.
At that moment, Fang Youcheng had his back to Bai Ruofeng, allowing Bai Ruofeng to clearly see that the bloodstains on the back of his garments had seeped through and were worsening.
Bai Ruofeng quickly set the fruit platter down, stood up, strode over, and grabbed a handful of Fang Youcheng’s sleeve. “Calm down! It is safe here!”
Fang Youcheng tried to shake off his hand, but Bai Ruofeng nimbly locked his wrist instead.
The hand felt too cold to belong to a living person. Bai Ruofeng paused for a second, then snapped out of it and said, “Wake up. They are not here, acting like this will only hurt yourself.”
Seeing that he could not break free from the restraint, Fang Youcheng tilted his head back, looking as though he meant to headbutt him. Bai Ruofeng promptly released his grip and stepped back two paces.
Striking empty air, Fang Youcheng stumbled forward. Seizing the opportunity, Bai Ruofeng swiftly tied him up like a caterpillar with a piece of rope and stuffed him back under the covers.
He was still struggling down there, writhing back and forth while glaring viciously at the fellow who dared commit such insubordination.
The lives of the palace servants and imperial physicians were all held in the palm of the Crown Prince’s hand, so naturally these people feared him and dared not use real force. With fewer reservations than them, Bai Ruofeng became the only person capable of stopping the Crown Prince.
He called out for the imperial physician hiding at the edge to hurry over, then grabbed a warm towel handed over by a servant and pressed it firmly against Fang Youcheng’s face, rubbing vigorously to wake him up. “Open your eyes and see clearly who I am first. Stop going crazy.”
After repeating this three or four times, even someone utterly out of it was dragged back to lucidity.
“Bai Ruofeng?” Fang Youcheng likely assumed he was experiencing hallucinations. He stared unblinkingly at Bai Ruofeng for a long time before his brow slowly furrowed.
Bai Ruofeng let out a breath of relief, leaning in closer to ask, “Do you recognize me?”
Yet the person did not calm down as Bai Ruofeng had hoped. Instead, Fang Youcheng struggled to prop himself up, his emotions intense, baring his teeth as he interrogated him, “You saw it? You saw everything, didn’t you!”
As for what he saw, there was no need for doubt. Bai Ruofeng belatedly realized that the reason the Crown Prince had rushed him away earlier was precisely because he did not want a newly made friend to witness his unglamorous side.
For a crown prince in his youth, when pride mattered above all else, having someone witness his downfall, especially involving the Emperor and the Empress, was probably a thousand times more humiliating than being executed.
I blundered. Bai Ruofeng hesitated for a moment. If I say I was simply thinking about a meal, would he believe it?
That brief hesitation looked to Fang Youcheng like confirmation of the worst.
This person, a friend he had only recently made, had so easily punctured the harmonious facade he struggled to maintain, so easily stripped away the gorgeous mask he wore to face the world, leaving his true self with nowhere to hide. Why had he not left? Was he doing this on purpose? Was he going to broadcast this to everyone? He was just like those people…
Self-protection provoked by the world’s unprovoked malice bred a stubborn tunnel vision in Fang Youcheng, leaving him with only the desire to solve everything through violence.
“I told you to leave, why didn’t you go? Why didn’t you leave!” Tears welled up in Fang Youcheng’s eyes, hovering on the verge of falling. Trembling all over and breathing rapidly, he even snapped incoherently, “You, you saw everything. I am going to kill you! I will kill you!” No matter how weak his physical manifestation was, he refused to concede defeat at this moment, always protecting himself through active offense, unable to find any solution other than murder.
“Kill me?” Bai Ruofeng raised an eyebrow, observing his feverish, delirious state where his body was freezing yet his face burned red. With a swift, clean motion, he delivered a karate chop directly to the other’s neck, sending the fellow who had just screamed about murder slumping unconscious against the bedding.
Bai Ruofeng tucked him back under the covers and turned to look at the trembling imperial physician. “He looks like he is in pain enough to lose his mind. Letting him sleep is probably for the best, right?”
Seeing the Crown Prince, who kept shouting the word kill, finally fall asleep, the bruised and battered imperial physician could finally release a breath of relief. He nodded repeatedly, “Next, we just need to wait for His Highness to wake up so he can take his medicine, and make sure he stays warm.”
“What if his head still hurts? Are there no painkillers we can use?” Bai Ruofeng asked.
“This… we have already tried many times before,” the imperial physician said with some difficulty. “Some of the internal palace painkillers no longer have much effect on His Highness, so it is best to use them sparingly. Besides, with Lord Bai by his side, His Highness will surely get through it peacefully.”
That meant if he had another headache outburst, he could just knock the guy unconscious and call it a day.
Looking at the imperial physician whose face was plastered with ingratiating wrinkles, knowing that in the man’s eyes he was simply a scapegoat carrying the heavy charge of lèse-majesté, Bai Ruofeng wore a blank expression. “Oh.”
It was all because he had a conscience. For providing this full-service free nursing, he would definitely have to make the Crown Prince compensate him with a few more good meals later.
Crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch. A strange sound brushed against his ears. Fang Youcheng opened his eyes in a haze, taking in the pitch-dark sky outside the window.
With his consciousness still unrecovered, he forced his head to turn and locked eyes with Bai Ruofeng, who was crunching on an apple.
Bai Ruofeng held a fruit platter in one hand and a half-eaten apple in the other. Seeing that the person was awake and seemed to have his wits about him, he swallowed the apple in his mouth and skipped any mention of what had just happened, instead complaining with a hint of grievance, “Can’t your palace kitchen provide a few more varieties of fruit? I am almost sick of apples.”
His mind, which had been completely blank, came to a grinding halt. Fang Youcheng froze in place, staring blankly at Bai Ruofeng without uttering a sound. This silent astonishment seemed directed either at Bai Ruofeng waiting for him to wake up, or at the fact that Bai Ruofeng’s very first words upon waking were to demand food from someone who had just threatened to murder him.
Bai Ruofeng continued crunching away on his apple, speaking vaguely, “I have been waiting for this evening meal from afternoon all the way to late-night snack time. Looks like we can finally dig in now.”
With that, he called out for Chunfu. Chunfu promptly led a group of palace attendants to carry the table right up to the bedside so the heavily injured Crown Prince would not have to get up and move, then laid out the delicacies one by one.
Bai Ruofeng’s stomach was rumbling with hunger. Too many things had happened today; aside from that meal at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion and some fruit in the Eastern Palace, he had not eaten anything else.
The room had already been rearranged and tidied up, showing no remaining signs of damage.
Yet Fang Youcheng clearly still remembered what had happened not long ago. He pressed against his head, which no longer throbbed like needles, lowered his gaze, and upon waking spoke of something seemingly unrelated. “You just eat fruit, why didn’t you have the servants bring you something better?”
Because his voice had cracked from shouting earlier, his throat still sounded a bit raspy.
At that moment, the servants finished setting out steaming hot dishes on the tabletop one by one and filed out in an orderly line.
“Wasn’t I waiting for you? The master is still lying down, how could the guest start eating by himself?” Bai Ruofeng picked up his chopsticks, and just as he was about to dig in, seeing Fang Youcheng sitting foolishly by the side of the bed, he casually shoved a pair of chopsticks into the other’s hands. He thought for a moment, then looked toward Chunfu, who looked eager to stay and serve. “You go out too. I will call you when it is time to clear away.”
Since the Crown Prince was awake, Chunfu no longer wished to obey Bai Ruofeng. He cast a yearning look toward the pale, gloomy Fang Youcheng, but Fang Youcheng did not spare him a single glance, coldly spitting out a single word: “Scram.”
Chunfu knew he had courted disaster this time. If he had not gone to fetch the Emperor, perhaps his master would not have suffered ten cane strokes in vain.