Snow blanketed the land.
The carriage stopped before a ruined temple outside the capital.
“Your Highness, the person has been captured. She’s inside the temple.” Qi Yun said in shame, “Nanny Chen was extremely vigilant. As soon as Wang Yue was dealt with, she slipped out of the residence through the back courtyard.”
“She tried to enter the palace, but the Crown Prince’s men seized her. It was thanks to Your Highness’s foresight that we managed to snatch her back.”
Yan Qi’s expression remained impassive. “What about the Fifth Imperial Prince’s men?”
“They’ve all been dealt with.”
Qi Yun paused, then lowered his voice. “But Nanny Chen seems to have gone mad. She’s been babbling nonsense the whole way here. I can’t be sure whether any of it reached the Fifth Imperial Prince.”
It was precisely because of that “nonsense” that Qi Yun and the others had not killed Nanny Chen at once.
The old nanny had been shouting that she held a secret about Yan Qi, and insisting on seeing him. Otherwise, she threatened, once she was dead, Yan Qi’s greatest secret would be exposed to the world.
With no other choice, Qi Yun had to bring Yan Qi here.
Yan Qi’s expression did not change. He stepped down from the carriage and walked straight into the ruined temple.
He raised a hand, and the others withdrew to keep watch outside. Inside the temple’s crumbling, dilapidated hall, Nanny Chen lay on the ground with her hands and feet bound. The guards only pulled the gag from her mouth as they were leaving.
As Yan Qi’s wet nurse, Nanny Chen held a high position in the Prince of You’s Residence. She had always been well cared for, with provisions and comforts that could rival those of the Old Madams in the households of some fourth-rank officials.
But now she looked wretched, with bloody scratches across her face.
She glared at Yan Qi without the slightest deference, her eyes vicious and resentful. She looked nothing like a wet nurse gazing at the child she had raised; she looked at him as if he were her enemy.
“You wanted to see me?” Yan Qi asked calmly.
“Pah!” Nanny Chen spat. Her eyes burned with fury. “You dare call yourself ‘this prince’? Some lowborn hoodlum from God knows where, and you have the nerve to impersonate our prince!”
Yan Qi’s expression remained unchanged. He regarded the old woman coolly.
Nanny Chen panted heavily. With difficulty, she struggled up from the ground and asked in a trembling voice, “Tell me… where is our prince? What have you done to him?”
“I have no need to impersonate anyone,” Yan Qi replied in the same indifferent tone.
Nanny Chen’s expression twisted into something hideous and ferocious. “I raised the Seventh Imperial Prince myself! You may fool the whole world, but you can’t fool me! You’re not him! You’re not him at all!”
Nanny Chen was trembling all over. On the day Yan Qi returned to the capital, she had entered the palace on the Noble Consort’s orders, deliberately giving the fake Madam Chu an opportunity to deal with the foolish Princess Consort in the residence.
But the result had been utterly unexpected. Not only had the fake Madam Chu failed, but the foolish Princess Consort had regained her wits—and Yan Qi had returned to the capital ahead of schedule.
When Nanny Chen got the news, she hurried out of the palace and back to the residence.
The first time she saw Yan Qi from a distance, she went cold all over. She was certain that the Prince of You before her was not the Seventh Imperial Prince she had raised.
Everything the impostor did over the following days, together with the foolish Princess Consort’s sudden recovery, only strengthened her conviction.
Nanny Chen knew all too well what kind of person the child she had raised was. The original Seventh Imperial Prince had been timid and cowardly. Back then, the Noble Consort had only been a concubine, and her birth family had neither power nor influence; she was constantly bullied in the palace.
Before the Seventh Imperial Prince left the palace to establish his own residence, he too had endured mockery and bullying from the other princes. He often had nightmares because of it. How could someone who had been so timid and weak from childhood—someone who even fell ill from fear after dreaming about his brothers—have found the courage to flee his wedding and join the army?
Even less believable was that the Seventh Imperial Prince had ranked among the very worst of the princes in both civil and military accomplishments. How could a piece of rotten wood like him have gone incognito to the border for five years, only to become a general and rout the barbarian tribes until they bowed in submission?
Was that even possible?
It wasn’t just the officials at court who refused to believe it. When the Noble Consort and Nanny Chen first heard the news, they hadn’t believed it either.
Where could the Seventh Imperial Prince have found such ability?
“What proof do you have, Nanny, that I am not Yan Qi?” Yan Qi’s voice was calm, even gentle.
Nanny Chen sneered. “Your face may look very much like His Highness’s, but you cannot possibly be him! His Highness has a birthmark on his chest. We need only examine him to confirm his identity—”
A flash of silver—
The sword sliced through Nanny Chen’s throat. Clutching her neck, she fell to the ground, eyes wide with fury, blood bubbling from her mouth. Gradually, she stopped breathing.
Yan Qi took out a silk handkerchief and unhurriedly wiped the blood from his sword.
That peach-blossom birthmark…
This body did indeed have one.
Considering that she had raised this body, it wasn’t surprising that his wet nurse could tell he wasn’t the original.
Setting this physical body aside, he truly was not Yan Qi.
His soul came from three hundred years ago…
Three hundred years ago, his name was Yan Hun.
His courtesy name: Fuwei.