When Pei Huaiche had first met her, he never imagined that this rustic village girl who insisted on taking him as her husband would turn out to be the Liang Kingdom's princess, hidden among the common folk.
He had originally assumed the rest of his life would be spent with her in obscurity on the frontier, so he hadn't put much effort into fabricating his identity.
He simply claimed that his father had died when he was young, his mother when he was a boy, and that with no land or property to his name, he had drifted from place to place doing odd jobs to survive.
The few characters he could recognize came from a period after his mother's death when he had worked as a helper at a private school. The kind-hearted teacher had allowed him to study alongside the young students during his spare moments between chores.
Learning in such a haphazard fashion, his scholarship was naturally nothing profound, but he had unexpectedly developed a fine hand at calligraphy. Later, when he was older, he worked as a long-term laborer at a wealthy household. The master of the house, seeing his neat script, would occasionally have him copy documents and classical texts.
At that time, his heart had been deadened by his nephew's betrayal, and he couldn't be bothered to craft a more elaborate lie—whatever could fool Cuihua and the neighboring villagers would suffice.
After all, when he claimed that his numerous knife and arrow wounds were the work of mountain bandits, they had believed him. No one would dig deeper into such a barely plausible story.
Before Cuihua had brought him to the medical clinic today, Pei Huaiche had harbored some misgivings, fearing that this Doctor Qu, rumored to be highly skilled, might examine his old wounds and see through them.
To that end, he had already prepared a story in his mind—if asked, he would say that based on the bandits' attire, they were most likely Western barbarian raiders who frequently crossed the border to plunder.
The common folk of Liang surely had heard tales of such men—cruel and bloodthirsty by nature. If they couldn't squeeze money from travelers they captured, they would often use them as living targets for their new recruits to practice their blades and arrows on.
But he was no physician, and he never expected that Doctor Qu would not even look at his scars—merely three fingers pressed to his pulse would reveal that he had martial training beneath his skin.
Pei Huaiche's face remained as calm as still water, but his heartstrings suddenly pulled taut, his breath and pulse faltering for a single instant.
Doctor Qu looked up, his gaze moving between him and Cuihua with a hint of curiosity.
Cuihua was also stunned, her apricot-shaped eyes wide open, her clear dark pupils brimming with confusion as she stared blankly at him, as if unable to comprehend that the husband she had lived with day and night had kept such a past hidden from her.
Under their combined scrutiny, Pei Huaiche's thoughts raced. After a long moment, he finally found a vague excuse: "Something like that… In my time at the master's household, I didn't just copy texts—I also served as a mounted servant."
The moment the words fell, the room fell silent.
For an ordinary person to work at a wealthy household, there was no reason to hold multiple positions—unless they had signed an indenture binding them to servitude.
And a "mounted servant" was not something any ordinary household could maintain; only noble families and officials would have such a need.
Having sold oneself into servitude at such a household naturally meant there was no dignity to speak of. Anyone who had managed to escape that status would hardly wish to speak of it again.
Doctor Qu had practiced medicine for decades and seen countless people and events. Considering that Steward Di had never mentioned this before, and that Cuihua was clearly just as shocked, he understood most of the picture.
After the young man's mother passed, his life had likely taken a difficult turn, leading to that unbearable chapter. Later, whether through his master's mercy or by finding a way to buy his own freedom, he had finally regained his liberty.
Yet the scar remained buried in his heart, and he had kept this past completely hidden from the young wife he later married, as well as from the "distant uncle" he had apparently had little contact with before this search for family.
Doctor Qu was perceptive and tactful, and naturally would not expose him. He simply steered the conversation back to the illness: "If not for the foundation your early martial training gave you, with your external wounds unhealed, internal injuries worsening, and the heavy burden of worry draining your vitality, you might not have lasted until today to reach my clinic."
His tone was calm, but every word struck like a thunderbolt. Cuihua's face went pale, all thoughts of martial arts and mounted servitude instantly forgotten, replaced by overwhelming waves of lingering fear and heartache. Before Pei Huaiche could respond, her slender hand had already seized his other wrist with such force that her fingertips turned white.
Doctor Qu was not exaggerating—Pei Huaiche's injuries were indeed grave.
Though the flesh wounds on his body appeared to have healed, the inside had never truly recovered. Take his legs, which ached from time to time and worsened every bitter winter—the multiple fractures and torn tendons had never been properly set by the rustic physician Cuihua had summoned back then.
Cuihua recalled that time, and regret surged in her heart: "Before I found… before I came upon him, I had never seen anyone wounded so severely. He was covered in blood, with hardly a patch of good flesh left on him. Several bones in his legs were sticking out. The physician only said the shattered bone fragments couldn't be pieced back together—he could only try to push them back into the flesh and hope that applying some wound-healing medicine would stop the bleeding. Otherwise, he wouldn't survive more than three to five days, let alone keep his life."
Doctor Qu sighed. "So he only managed to survive at the time. The shattered bone fragments inside were never cleared, and his sinews and meridians were never realigned. Moreover, I can tell he's not the type to stay obediently in bed just because it hurts. If this drags on any longer, never mind his legs rotting from the inside out—the inflammation alone entering his body would be enough to kill him again."
Cuihua's heart was in a panic, her eyes reddening with tears brimming at her lashes. "Then… can he still be treated?"
Doctor Qu nodded, though his expression was grave. "It can be treated, but not right now. The internal injuries to his heart and organs are more urgent than the external wounds on his legs. Like the leg injuries, they are a case of external healing while internal decay continues. Those two spots are matters of life and death. After two years of neglect, the toll has left him too weakened to absorb nourishment, and he cannot withstand the taxing treatment required to re-break and realign the bones and reconnect the sinews."
Hearing this, Cuihua's voice trembled even more. "Doctor, please, I beg you to find a way… He's my only husband, and I want to grow old with him…"
Doctor Qu said no more, gathering his sleeves and picking up his brush, pondering as he wrote out a prescription.
In his many years of healing the sick and saving the dying, he had grown accustomed to family members of patients turning pale with shock upon hearing bad news, just as Cuihua had. But this was the first time he'd encountered a patient like Pei Huaiche.
No matter how much one suffered, everyone had some will to live. Yet here was a man whose very life hung in the balance, and upon hearing such a diagnosis, he hadn't even furrowed his brow—not as tense as he'd been when his former martial skill was exposed…
After writing the prescription, Doctor Qu walked around Pei Huaiche and handed the prescription along with care instructions directly to Cuihua, who was on the verge of tears. "Set your mind at ease. There is still room for recovery. For now, make sure he takes his medicine on time and rests carefully. Come for a follow-up visit once a month. Once his constitution is stronger, we'll discuss further treatment."
Cuihua nodded repeatedly, fetched the medicine with the doctor's wife, and after expressing her profuse gratitude, pushed Pei Huaiche—who still wore a complicated expression and had remained silent all this while—out of the clinic.
Outside the clinic, a carriage waited. The driver was perceptive; seeing that both the princess and "Master Huai" wore grim expressions, he knew something was amiss and wisely kept his mouth shut, not mentioning the itinerary the princess had briefed him on before leaving the estate that morning. After helping Cuihua secure the wheelchair properly once they boarded, he drove the carriage steadily to the roadside and waited for orders.
He naturally had no idea that although the two wore equally solemn expressions, their thoughts were worlds apart.
Cuihua's mind was in turmoil, her fingertips trembling faintly within her sleeves. Even though Doctor Qu had spoken with certainty that he could still be saved, the moment she thought of how—had it not been for the remnants of his martial arts foundation—he might not have survived to share in this "glory and prosperity," her heart felt as if pierced by fine needles, twitching with pain.
Meanwhile, Pei Huaiche's mind was racing through a thousand thoughts.
He was pondering how to avoid completely overturning his earlier offhand fabrication while further weaving a backstory that would hold water flawlessly in the future.
He was not unafraid of death—at least, compared to when she had first picked him up, he had since developed a deep reluctance to part with the woman who had saved his life.
But his past experiences had taught him, earlier and more thoroughly than anyone else, the truth of the saying "life and death are determined by fate."
That was why, once he'd discerned from Doctor Qu's words that his life could be saved, he found it hard to fret over dangers that had not yet come to pass.
Setting aside how many people had wanted him dead after he became regent, and how many brushes with death he'd faced in his numerous personal campaigns—even his second imperial brother's path to the throne had been paved over the bones of their other six imperial brothers.
And though he had narrowly survived due to his birth and age, his entire upbringing had been a walk on thin ice.
In a sense, his claim of slave status and having once been a riding slave wasn't entirely a fabrication.
His mother had indeed been born into servitude, not even knowing who her birth parents were. As a child, she had been sold into the Central Plains along with livestock and horses by a merchant caravan from the western regions.
Later, a frontier military governor purchased her for his household, and because of her beauty and skill in dance, presented her as a novelty to his father—then nearly seventy—when he went to the capital for an audience with the emperor.
Moreover, since he was younger than several of his imperial nephews who had died young, he too had been ordered about as a riding slave in his childhood.
At this thought, Pei Huaiche's gaze darkened slightly. He knew well that fabrications spun from thin air were prone to revealing flaws; a clever lie needed to mix one part falsehood into nine parts truth.
With such calculation in mind, he carefully smoothed out the "past" he was about to recount in his heart, and only then did his expression ease somewhat as he raised his eyes to look at Cuihua beside him.
But before he could speak, he caught sight of his young wife's beautiful eyes—always brimming with bright smiles—now lowered, her red lips pressed white. Before he could even utter a word, crystalline teardrops fell like beads from a broken string, rolling down silently one after another.
Earlier at the clinic, and then in front of the driver, she knew she couldn't cry.
After all, she was a princess now. Whether it was Steward Di or the driver, even though these were loyal people Pei Huaiche had vetted for her, she still needed to maintain a measure of princessly dignity before them.
Now that the carriage held only the two of them, the fear and heartache she had been suppressing could no longer be held back. She only wanted to let the tears flow freely before him.
She still did not dare to sob aloud, only choking back her tears in a muffled voice, trembling as she spoke: "Husband, am I being too foolish? I thought that by saving you, it was only right that you pledge yourself to me, but in the end, I nearly got you killed… Before, we simply couldn't afford a good physician, there was no helping it, but I knew your body had remained weak even after your wounds healed, and yet it wasn't until Steward Di reminded me that I thought to take you to seek medical treatment anew…"
Word after word, all revolving around his injuries and ailments, and as for the "slave registry" past he had just mentioned, she seemed utterly unconcerned.
Pei Huaiche felt a warm current quietly flooding through his heart.
He thought, how could he have ever suspected that she would change her heart once she gained the noble status of princess?
When she was still a village girl, she had never scorned him, a crippled husband who could not provide labor for the household. Now, honored as a princess, upon hearing him confess what he deemed shameful history, she bore not a trace of resentment, still calling him "husband" through tear-misted eyes, hoping he would be hale and hearty, and soon become her consort in name and in truth.
He let out a soft sigh, raised his hand, and gently wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb: "If not for you taking me in that day, my life would have long since been lost. If someone else had saved me, there would be no fortune today of following you into the princess's manor and encountering a good physician to treat me. How could it be that you harmed me?"
Cuihua only cried even more sorrowfully, tugging at his sleeve and lifting her tear-streaked little face: "Husband, I'm still afraid… Hold me, will you?"
With such soft pleading, how could Pei Huaiche bear to refuse?
Seeing that she had already nestled close of her own accord, he spread his arms and drew her into his embrace.
The young woman's body was soft and warm, and even through two layers of clothing, he could feel her full, curved figure pressing against his chest—undoubtedly the most irresistible temptation to him.
Just as his heart was swaying, he heard her speak again in a soft, glutinous voice thick with tears: "Husband, I may be foolish, but I think you're very clever. If there's something you don't want me to know, you could probably hide it from me for a lifetime, couldn't you?"
Pei Huaiche was just lowering his head to kiss her when he heard this, and his heart paused slightly, sensing something amiss.
Yet with her warm, fragrant softness in his arms, and one delicate hand restlessly slipping into his lapels, her fingertips tracing idle circles on his chest…
In an instant, his mind went hazy, and without thinking, he murmured a low response: "Mm."
Cuihua seized the opportunity to continue: "Tell me the truth—did you already know the state of your own body? Just like those unpleasant experiences of yours, you simply didn't want to tell me, so you kept it from me?"
Provoked by her like this, Pei Huaiche was nearly lost in passion, instinctively about to assent again, until he lowered his gaze and met her eyes—though brimming with watery light, they held a stubborn persistence—and it was like cold water poured over his head, sobering him somewhat. He hurriedly said: "Mm… no…"
He paused, and under her burning gaze, helplessly curled his lips and added: "Truly, I only knew my body hadn't fully recovered, but all I thought was that perhaps I'd be a burden to you for the rest of my life, so on days when I ached or fell ill, as long as it wasn't too severe, I didn't want to tell you."
Cuihua rubbed against his chest, as if seeking a more comfortable position, and spoke with a hint of coquettish willfulness: "Fine, I suppose you couldn't bear to truly make me a widow. I'll trust you this time, but let's make a pact—from now on, no matter where, if you feel even the slightest discomfort, you must tell me immediately. And some things, if I don't ask, so be it, but if I do ask, you may refuse to answer if you don't want to say, but you must not lie to me again!"
So she hadn't been unconcerned about his earlier deception regarding his identity—she had been waiting for him here?
Pei Huaiche suddenly understood, and beyond his helplessness, he actually felt a measure of relief.
How was his little wife foolish? She had just employed both the beauty trap and the covert crossing of the Chencang passage in succession, and had even taught herself to use military strategy to manage her husband without any instruction. How much cleverer could she be?
No one likes being schemed against, yet Pei Huaiche loved nothing more than her adorable little cunning before him.
The man's long fingers gently lifted her small chin, just about to continue the unfinished kiss, when suddenly a clamor arose from outside the carriage.
Startled by the sound, Cuihua scrambled out of his embrace in one swift motion, reached out to lift the carriage curtain, and looked out: "What's happening out there?"
There, on the long street, pedestrians were scattering in panic, and in the middle of the path they had cleared stood a young man in red robes, carrying on his back a great dark-iron sword not much shorter than himself, sprinting at full speed in pursuit of a panicked half-grown colt that was bolting wildly.
In the countryside, Cuihua had only ever seen people riding horses, or horses throwing their riders and chasing people—when had she ever seen such a "novel" sight?
Considering that their carriage had already been parked by the coachman beside the stone lion at the entrance of the medical hall, with no risk of being struck, her curiosity for entertainment stirred. She opened the curtain a bit wider and turned to Pei Huaiche: "Husband, come look—this Xiangjing truly is the capital, all sorts of strange things happen here. That man chasing the horse is even wearing a face veil strung from copper coins! Is some troupe putting on an acrobatics show?"
Pei Huaiche's experience was far broader than hers. He had even once delved deeply into formations for defeating cavalry with infantry to counter the Westerners' superior horsemanship and archery, yet he had never seen anyone chase a galloping horse on foot.
Setting aside the question of what this meant, could a man on two legs truly outrun a fine horse?
He followed Cuihua's pointing finger, his gaze landing on the youth chasing the horse, and the surprise in his eyes only deepened.
The heavy sword strapped to the youth's back was about five feet long, forged entirely of black iron, weighing no less than thirty catties. Even though the horse he pursued was not a fully grown adult steed, and was constrained by the crowded streets from running at full gallop, the fact that he could bear such a burden and still keep pace was nothing short of extraordinary talent.
Cuihua watched with great relish, while Pei Huaiche mused silently to himself. It was at this moment that the coachman's voice, shrill with panic, suddenly rang out: "Princess, Master Huai, please hold on tight—this servant must move further away… This, this is the Third Prince, the Natural Born Demon Pill!"