Meng Qianzi seemed to hear her father’s booming voice: “Who’s been bullying my precious girl? Dad will get you even!”
Just like that time as a child when the Marquis of Yongning’s heir pushed her into the lotus pond, her father had the boy tied up and brought to her so she could beat him for satisfaction, and it wasn’t until the Marquis of Yongning himself came to the door to apologize that her father let the boy go.
If her father were still alive, he would never let Pei Yanci bully her like this. He loved her so much, he could never bear to let her suffer the slightest wrong…
“Wretched girl, get up and train!”
“Who’s the one always yelling about wanting to learn real skill and go fight on the front lines? Don’t you dare slack off on me!”
So loud!
Meng Qianzi opened her eyes and saw a tall man standing before the door, his proud, peerless face full of severity.
She looked around in a daze. Inside a bamboo hut, there was only a plain table and a few bamboo chairs, and she was curled up on a simple bamboo bed…
Her eyes flew wide open. She had been reborn!
Reborn to the time when she was studying martial arts under her master, Dugu Yuan.
She asked urgently, “Master, what year, what month, what day is it?”
Dugu Yuan was startled for a moment, then frowned. “The twenty-third year of Qingping, the sixth day of the eighth month. Did you sleep yourself stupid?”
“The sixth day of the eighth month!”
The sixth day of the eighth month, that was the very day her father returned to the capital, nearly two months before the ruin of the Meng family. Everyone was still alive. She still had time to save them!
In her past life, in the twentieth year of Qingping, North Jin invaded, and her father Meng Zheng took command of the army sent to meet them.
That war dragged on for three years. The hardship of it need not be said. North Jin’s wealth and troops were nearly spent, and they could barely hold on. Just as her side was on the verge of victory, the Emperor sent twelve gold tablets in succession, summoning her father back to the capital.
The moment her father stepped through the city gate he was seized, and soon after the Censorate announced evidence that he had conspired with North Jin. The Emperor ordered every man of the Meng family beheaded, and every woman sent into the Jiaofangsi.
Her mother and her second aunt would not bear the disgrace and both cut their own throats. Her cousin fell into the Jiaofangsi, and three years later was tortured to death.
When she got word of it and rushed back to the capital, it was already the day of the execution. She knew her father could never have colluded with the enemy, but there was no time left to clear his name, so she decided at once to storm the execution ground.
But she was alone and her strength was no match. After fighting until she had nothing left, the Yulin Guards seized her.
She watched the people of the capital hurl rotten vegetable leaves and sharp bits of gravel at her father, cursing him with righteous fury as a traitor who sold out his country.
She watched the crowd surge up to her father and tear at his flesh with their teeth…
His bones showed through, but he was not yet dead.
Meng Qianzi’s eyes went red as she glared at these people with hatred, the fury in her heart making her want to destroy the whole world. Her father had spent most of his life on the frontier holding off foreign enemies, all so the people behind him could live and work in peace, and in the end he had been torn apart like this by the very people he had devoted himself to protecting!
She dared not imagine how much pain her father was in.
In his last moment, her father looked at her with eyes full of heartache and reluctance, and said with great difficulty, “I’m sorry. Dad can’t protect you anymore…”
The executioner’s blade swung down, and the blood gushing from her father’s neck stained the sky red, so red it left no room for a single point of light.
His head rolled several times over, his eyes staring up at the heavens in unyielding fury.
He died with his eyes open!
Meng Qianzi snapped back to herself, her heart pounding wildly.
She scrambled off the bamboo bed and snatched up the long sword beside it. “Master, I have to go down the mountain!”
Ten days later, on the seventeenth of the eighth month, in heavy rain.
Meng Qianzi’s steed collapsed beneath her on the government post road, forty li outside the capital.
She abandoned the horse without hesitation and ran headlong for the government post station a few li away. The mud kicked up beneath her feet splattered half her body, and the wild wind swept up withered branches and leaves to sting her face, but she seemed to feel nothing at all.
She had to see one person, the ninth prince, the current Emperor’s most beloved son, the Commander of the Jinyu Si whose power reached to the heavens, Little Prince Yong, Xiao Jiuyi!
Since her rebirth she had gone over every event, every person, again and again in careful detail.
The day after her father returned to the capital, the Censorate had already submitted evidence of his collusion with the enemy. The Emperor’s order: beheading on the twenty-seventh of the ninth month.
The Emperor’s word was law, with no possibility of change, unless she could find evidence proving her father had been wronged, but a month and ten days was far from enough time.
Her only hope was to seek Little Prince Yong’s help, to beg him to ask His Majesty for a reprieve, to beg him to use the strength of the Jinyu Si to help her find evidence.
She had never known him in her past life, and yet he was her only chance.
In her past life, she had heard that he had gone out in disguise to investigate a case, and returned to lodge the night before at the post station outside the capital, only to have his old illness flare up on his way back into the city the next day, after which he fell unconscious for several days and did not wake until the beginning of the ninth month.
Meng Qianzi felt for the precious pill wrapped in oiled paper against her chest. This medicine could ease Little Prince Yong’s chronic illness. She had rushed here almost without sleep or rest, all to seize this fleeting chance.
Her gaze in the wind and rain was unusually steadfast. She had come prepared, she would surely be able to persuade him!
Through the dense curtain of rain, a carriage sped out of the post station. Meng Qianzi’s heart leapt with joy, and she gathered every ounce of strength in her body and ran flat out toward it, stopping twenty paces in front of the carriage.
“Whoa—”
The driver hastily hauled hard on the reins. The horse’s forelegs came up off the ground, and the carriage barely came to a stop less than five paces from Meng Qianzi.
The driver burst out cursing at once, “Are you blind? You’re courting death!”
Meng Qianzi quickly took in the man, about twenty years old, clean and neat in appearance, with large, bright eyes and a red mole at the tip of his right brow, exactly matching the description others gave of Little Prince Yong’s personal attendant, Qingzhou.
She dropped at once to one knee and called out loudly, “This subject, Meng Qianzi, begs an audience with Little Prince Yong!”
Qingzhou’s fingers tightened around the whip he held, a sharp light flashing in his eyes. How did this woman know His Highness was inside?
Inside the plain, unremarkable blue-canopied carriage, the noble man leaned against the wall, his jawline extending in a perfect line down to his neck, his eyes closed beneath brows drawn as if with ink, as though unaware of anything happening outside.
In the dim expanse between heaven and earth, all that remained was the sound of the sudden downpour striking the ground and the blue canopy, a rapid crackling patter.
Meng Qianzi grew more and more anxious in her heart. Had she still come too late?
The medicine she had brought could only ease him, it could not wake him from unconsciousness.
If he had already lost consciousness, her whole plan would come to nothing.
She raised her voice and called out again, “This subject, Meng Qianzi, begs an audience with Little Prince Yong!”
Her clear voice cut through the roaring rain, and Qingzhou waved a hand to drive her off. “Get out of the way, or I won’t go easy on you!”
Meng Qianzi sprang to her feet at once and asked urgently, “Has His Highness’s old illness flared up?”
Qingzhou’s whole bearing suddenly turned sharp and dangerous, and the whip in his hand swept toward her.
Meng Qianzi did not dodge or flinch. Instead, she reached out and seized the whip as it came whistling at her with fierce force, not caring that the skin at the edge of her palm was torn open, and called out quickly, “I can help His Highness ease his suffering!”
But Qingzhou suspected she was an assassin, and without a word he flung the whip aside, drew his sword, and leapt down from the carriage to attack her.
“Let her up.”
From inside the carriage came a man’s voice, cold and icy.
Qingzhou froze in place, watching warily as Meng Qianzi hurried forward and climbed into the carriage.
The thunderstorm weather of the eighth month carried a faint chill beneath its coolness, but inside the carriage, fine charcoal of the best quality was burning, making it warmer, if anything, than the height of summer outside.
Before Meng Qianzi had even settled into her seat, a hand with sharply defined knuckles suddenly shot toward her neck…