Rulan’s eyes narrowed into sharp, analytical slits as she held Lian’er’s trembling shoulder to steady the maid.
“General Meng?” Rulan repeated, her voice dropping an octave into a low, level tone.
“Did the escort guards discover I left the main terrace?”
“No—well, yes, but that is not why he is furious!” Lian’er gasped, clutching Rulan’s torn, mud-stained green sleeve as if anchor-bound in a storm.
She pressed a hand to her aching ribs, trying to force air back into her lungs.
“A quarter of an hour ago, an intruder was spotted near the rear corridor of the main shrine! General Meng intercepted him near the rear corridor. The guards had barely reached them when the intruder died.”
Rulan’s posture went instantly rigid.
The quiet satisfaction of her successful encounter with Master Lu Zhen evaporated, replaced by familiar, cold focus.
“Died how?” Rulan demanded flatly.
“Did General Meng strike him down?”
“No! The man bit into a hidden poison capsule!” Lian’er squeaked, casting another terrified look over her shoulder toward the sweeping red roofs of the central court.
“He bled from the mouth and collapsed before the guards could even force his arms behind his back! General Meng immediately ordered a complete lockdown of the temple grounds. And when he went to your guest pavilion to secure you…”
Lian’er swallowed hard, her face draining of what little color remained.
“…you were gone. The junior maids told him you went for a walk alone. He was… Princess, I have never seen a military commander look so terrifying.”
Rulan processed the information in a fraction of a second.
Someone had entered a guarded temple carrying a poison capsule and had chosen death rather than capture.
Whoever he was, he had known what he was doing.
‘Was the target me?’ Rulan questioned internally, calculating the probabilities.
It was possible.
Her sudden exit from the palace for the White Cloud Temple had been officially scheduled through the Household Bureau; anyone tracking her movements from the capital could have set a trap along her route or waiting at the monastery.
Yet, as she scanned the grand stone layout of the temple complex rising against the cliffside, she re-evaluated.
White Cloud Temple was currently crammed with powerful figures: high-ranking court ministers, wealthy merchant patriarchs, senior Buddhist prelates, and visiting noble matriarchs.
In a court rife with silent warfare, the dead operative could have been hunting any number of high-value targets.
Regardless of the dead man’s original objective, her own situation had just spiraled into an operational mess.
“Where is General Meng now?” Rulan asked.
Before Lian’er could open her mouth to reply, the heavy, rhythmic thud of iron-soled boots echoed sharply across the flagstones of the terrace.
A squad of eight black-armored imperial cavalrymen rounded the corner of the scripture hall at a quick march, their hands resting firmly on the hilts of their heavy sidearms. The source of this chapter is novelping dot com.
At their head walked General Meng.
The border commander’s face was an iron mask of absolute, icy discipline, but his dark eyes burned with a lethal, suppressed fury.
His jaw was set so tight a muscle twitched near his cheekbone.
He had spent the last twenty minutes facing every military commander’s worst nightmare: an active security breach combined with a missing princess.
When General Meng’s eyes locked onto Rulan standing near the tree line, he stopped dead in his tracks.
His sharp gaze swept over her.
He saw the Fourth Imperial Princess—a royal lady who should have been sitting inside a pristine tea room—standing on an unpaved forest trail.
Her expensive green silk robes were smeared with dark, wet river mud, her cuffed sleeves were torn and frayed, her gold hairpins were loose, and her hands were distinctly dirty.
For two full seconds, the general simply stared, his professional composure visibly straining against the sheer absurdity of the sight.
General Meng stepped forward, halting three paces away, and delivered a short, rigid military bow.
“Your Highness,” Meng said, his deep voice clipped, tight, and laced with cold steel.
“I am relieved to find you… intact.”
Rulan smoothed down her ruined sleeves as best she could, her expression entirely unreadable.
“General Meng. You look as though you are preparing to lay siege to the mountain.”
“An armed operative infiltrated the inner eastern corridor and committed suicide upon capture by my officers, Princess,” General Meng replied, his tone dropping into a hard, uncompromising register.
“We do not yet know his origin, his employer, or his intended target. And while my men were securing the perimeter against a potential second assassin, Your Highness was completely unaccounted for.”
Lian’er shrank back behind Rulan, trembling at the commander’s dark tone.
Rulan, however, met General Meng’s burning gaze without a single flinch.
She knew that look.
General Meng was not angry with her.
He was angry with the situation.
“I was in no danger, General,” Rulan said calmly, providing a direct, grounded explanation while cleanly omitting Lu Zhen’s existence.
“I took a walk beyond the terrace to clear my head, encountered an apprentice boy trapped beneath a collapsed wooden bridge near the creek bed, assisted in shifting the timber to free his leg, and walked back. I heard no alarms.”
General Meng looked down at her mud-stained hands, then up at her calm eyes.
He did not care about her strange willingness to perform structural rescue work in the dirt, nor was he interested in conducting an interrogation.
“Regardless of Your Highness’s recreational activities in the woods,” General Meng declared, his voice leaving zero room for debate, “the presence of a dead assassin means this compound is no longer secure. Effective immediately, all movement within White Cloud Temple is restricted.”
Rulan’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Restricted?”
“I am double-guarding all pavilion exits,” General Meng stated firmly, gesturing to his lieutenants.
“A full squad of Imperial Guard officers will be stationed outside Your Highness’s quarters around the clock. No member of the royal party will step past the main terrace without an armed military escort, and all secondary mountain trails leading into the forest are sealed.”
He bowed once more, his armor clanking softly.
“I will escort Your Highness back to the main guest quarters now. Please.”
It was a polite court request wrapped around an absolute military command.
Rulan stood silent on the stone flagstones, watching the silver-armored guards fall into a tight, protective formation around her.
A cold, heavy realization settled over her chest.
She had set out for White Cloud Temple believing the vast, sprawling mountain compound would offer her breathing room and operational freedom away from the eyes of the palace.
Instead, a failed covert operation had just slammed the cage doors shut far tighter than they had ever been in the Imperial Household Bureau.
She glanced briefly over her shoulder toward the dark, dense line of pine trees on the eastern slope.
Somewhere past those woods, up an unpaved trail near the cliffside, sat Master Lu Zhen’s medicinal garden.
Tomorrow morning, she was supposed to meet the reclusive physician for an accurate diagnostic check on her poisoned body.
Now, getting to that isolated garden was no longer a simple matter of taking a quiet morning stroll.
Tomorrow morning, she had to reach Lu Zhen’s garden.
Rulan glanced toward the temple gates.
Guards had already doubled at the exits.
‘Fine.
She would simply have to find another way.’
Escaping palace surveillance, Rulan thought dryly, turning her steps back toward the guest pavilions under the watchful eyes of eight armored soldiers, was apparently infinitely easier than escaping General Meng.
Her eyes drifted briefly toward the guards.
One group had already begun changing positions.
Rulan watched in silence.
She had until dawn to learn how they moved.