The impact with the mountain path was sudden, heavy, and loud enough to draw an immediate gasp from Lian’er.
Rulan let her full weight hit the dirt and immediately reached down with both hands, clutching her right ankle tightly, and let out a sharp, breathless groan that echoed cleanly across the quiet clearing.
“Your Highness!”
The senior guard officer’s face went dead white in a split second.
All four armored men bolted forward simultaneously, their boots thundering against the loose gravel.
They dropped to their knees around her in a panic, their hands hovering helplessly in mid-air, terrified to physically touch her lest they cause further injury—or trigger a royal rage—from His Majesty’s younger sister.
“Where are you injured, Princess?” the senior guard asked frantically, his eyes darting between her hands and the thick, twisted cypress root she had ‘tripped’ over.
“Is it broken? Can you move your foot?”
“Do not touch it!” Rulan snapped, wincing dramatically for effect as she leaned back against the dirt embankment.
She waved away their reaching hands with a sharp motion.
“I do not need all of you fussing over me like hens. I simply need someone who actually knows how to examine a joint to look at it.”
Across the sunlit clearing, Master Lu Zhen had stopped his work near the raised wooden herb beds.
He set down a small bundle of dried bitter-roots, dusted off his faded grey cotton tunic, and watched the commotion on the dirt path with a calm, discerning eye.
Lu Zhen picked up his wooden walking staff and slung his medicine satchel over his shoulder, approaching the panicked circle of soldiers with slow, measured steps.
“I am a practicing physician,” Lu Zhen announced dryly, leaning lightly against his staff as he looked down at the scene.
“Moving her unnecessarily across rough terrain before checking the ankle would be foolish. The inflammation will only worsen if the joint bears weight.”
Rulan looked up, playing her part with seamless, grounded precision.
She seized upon his words instantly, letting her tone reflect the sharp impatience of a spoiled noblewoman in pain.
“He is right. Stop hovering and let him examine it. I am not walking another step on this path while my joint is throbbing.”
She kept her expression irritated and impatient, giving no indication that the fall had been deliberate or that she had come to these woods specifically looking for him.
To anyone watching, she was merely reacting to an inconvenient injury and demanding the quickest available relief.
The senior guard officer’s eyes narrowed as he stepped into Lu Zhen’s path, his hand instinctively dropping to his sword hilt to block the old man.
“Hold. Who are you? What is your identity, and who authorized you to touch an Imperial Princess?”
“My name is Lu Zhen. I tend the medicinal garden in this area with the head abbot’s explicit permission, and I have treated people at this temple for years. If you prefer to stand on protocol while Her Highness sits in the dirt, that is your affair.”
The guards remained noticeably uncomfortable.
Allowing an unknown doctor near an imperial princess during a security lockdown was a risk the guards could hardly ignore.
“We will send a runner to fetch the Imperial Physician from the royal convoy immediately,” the officer declared firmly, gesturing to a subordinate guard.
“Stand back, old man.”
“I am sitting in the dirt right now!” Rulan interrupted, her voice dropping into a sharp, icy command that froze the subordinate guard in his tracks.
“My ankle is throbbing, and I am not waiting twenty minutes for an imperial physician to stroll up a mountain path carrying a tea box. I want the injury examined now, not after everyone wastes time fetching another doctor.”
Her cold, unyielding tone made it abundantly clear that this was not a suggestion.
It was a royal mandate.
The guards winced under her sharp words.
Caught squarely between General Meng’s strict security protocol and the immediate, furious demands of an Imperial Princess, the guard officer finally relented, bowing his head in tense defeat.
“Very well,” the officer conceded reluctantly.
“You may check her ankle, old man. But we will remain standing right here throughout the entire examination.”
Lu Zhen accepted the condition without a single word of protest, his expression remaining entirely impassive.
Rulan internally recognized the subtle brilliance of his demeanor.
By casually agreeing to the guards’ presence, Lu Zhen made himself seem entirely harmless and un-suspicious.
He had understood her maneuver the moment she hit the dirt, and he was seamlessly playing along with her game.
The guards assisted Rulan in shifting slightly so she could sit comfortably against a flat stone near the edge of the garden, while the four armored men formed a tight semicircle around them, keeping their eyes glued to the doctor’s hands.
Lu Zhen crouched down beside Rulan, his movements calm, economical, and thoroughly practiced.
He lifted the heavy edge of her silk hem, exposing her ankle, and lightly pressed his fingers against the outer joint.
He checked the lateral flexibility of the ankle, pressed around the slightly swollen area to test tissue tension, asked where the pain was most acute, and had her move her foot in a slow, controlled circle.
“A minor strain,” Lu Zhen declared after a few moments of careful physical assessment, letting her hem drop back down over her slipper.
“There is some mild bruising, but no serious structural damage to the bone or ligaments.”
Rulan let out a quiet, internal breath of relief.
Her fake fall had achieved its objective, and more importantly, she wouldn’t have to waste the next several days limping around to maintain the lie.
“You will need a cooling herb ointment and a short period of rest,” Lu Zhen added, standing up slowly and dusting off his knees.
Then, as if making a routine, casual afterthought, Lu Zhen looked down at her.
“Since Her Highness is already seated and has experienced a sudden physical shock from the fall, perhaps I should take your pulse as well to ensure your circulation has not been disrupted.”
Rulan agreed immediately, keeping her face a mask of mild indulgence.
“Very well.”
The four guards stood by, completely unbothered by the request.
To soldiers trained only in blades and perimeter defense, checking a pulse was standard, harmless medical fluff—the sort of routine thoroughness expected of any doctor.
They had no idea how much information an experienced physician could draw from something as simple as a pulse.
Rulan extended her right arm, resting her wrist lightly over her knee.
Lu Zhen crouched back down beside her in the quiet mountain shade.
He pressed his middle three fingers firmly against her radial artery, settling into complete, unmoving silence.
Rulan watched his face carefully, her eyes tracking every microscopic shift in his features, waiting for some indication of what his fingers were reading beneath her skin.
At first, Lu Zhen’s expression remained completely ordinary.
His breathing was slow and steady, his weathered features completely unreadable under the shifting tree canopy.
His fingers stayed against her pulse for several long, silent breaths.
Then, his attention sharpened.
His eyelids flickered, and his fingers shifted slightly against her skin, pressing a fraction deeper past the superficial blood flow to check again—far more carefully this time.
Rulan noticed the subtle change before he said a single word.
She felt the sudden, rigid tension enter his forearm.
The dry, mildly amused, detached expression he had worn since approaching her on the dirt path disappeared completely.
The casual mountain doctor vanished.
Lu Zhen slowly raised his head, looking up into Rulan’s eyes.
The dry amusement was gone.
His face had turned utterly grim.