Meng Qianzi did not move, letting the hand close around her neck.
The man’s eyes, their shape seemingly gentle but carrying a sharp, cold edge within, locked coldly onto her face.
“You have three breaths.”
Just those few words cost him great effort to speak. His finely shaped thin lips were pale, without a trace of color.
Meng Qianzi’s hands trembled with excitement. Heaven be thanked, she had arrived at just the right moment!
If she had been even a little later, it would have been too late for everything!
She quickly fished the oiled-paper packet from inside her robe and carefully opened it to reveal a black pill the size of a fingernail, holding it out before him.
“Your Highness, this pill can ease your suffering.”
The man’s eyes turned sharper still. “How do you prove this isn’t poison?”
Meng Qianzi gritted her teeth and steeled her resolve. She raised her hand, popped the pill into her own mouth, pressed a finger to the Neiguan point on the man’s wrist to force him to release her, and lunged forward at once.
The man’s thin lips parted a crack in shock, and suddenly her warm, soft lips pressed over his cold ones.
A thick bitterness filled his mouth at once…
Meng Qianzi pushed with the tip of her tongue, forcing the pill into his mouth, and sealed his lips shut with her own.
The pill dissolved quickly. Two breaths later, Meng Qianzi drew back and sat properly across from him, and said softly, “Your Highness…”
“Shut your mouth!” The man wiped his lips with his sleeve and closed his eyes in disgust.
Meng Qianzi’s face flushed bright red, and she quietly studied him.
The man’s nose was high and straight, his long, thin eyes hidden beneath slender lashes, giving off a misleading impression of gentleness.
Ink-black hair spilled like black silk over his broad shoulders, and even dressed in a plain black cloth robe, it could not hide the noble air that radiated from within him.
Only, his smooth skin was too pale and cold, showing a hint of illness, which lent him an air of fragility.
Fragility?
Meng Qianzi found her own reaction laughable.
How could Little Prince Yong ever be fragile?
He was the current Emperor’s most favored son. Before he was even born, the Emperor had already chosen his name, Xiao Jiuyi, meaning to stand tall and unmoving for a long time.
He was made a prince at three years old, breaking the dynasty’s custom of not conferring princely rank until a prince came of age. The character “Yong” in his title showed to the fullest how deeply the Emperor cherished and protected him.
That he did not go to his fief after coming of age but stayed in the capital by the Emperor’s side was also a thing never done before.
He was also the man His Majesty trusted most, the Commander of the Jinyu Si whom every court official feared.
The Jinyu Si stood apart, independent of the court, in charge of the imperial escort, of patrols and arrests, answerable directly to His Majesty, able to arrest anyone, including members of the imperial family, and never held open trials.
There were not fewer than eight or ten noble households out of every ten that Little Prince Yong had raided and seized.
Not to mention the officials who were not of noble rank, too many to count.
It was only a pity that this younger full brother of the current Crown Prince vanished from the world’s sight along with the deposing of the Crown Prince and the death of the Emperor.
Some said he died in the struggle for the throne, some said he died when his chronic illness flared up, some said he grew weary of power and went abroad, and some said he was shut up by the new Emperor and went mad…
In any case, his end turned out very different from what his father the Emperor had hoped for him.
“You’ve got some nerve.”
Xiao Jiuyi suddenly spoke, cutting off Meng Qianzi’s train of thought. He no longer spoke with the same difficulty as before.
Meng Qianzi let out a breath of relief, the pill really did have a remarkable effect.
She hastily lowered her head and cupped her hands. “It was a matter of necessity. I beg Your Highness’s forgiveness.”
Xiao Jiuyi lazily lifted a finger and pointed at the cushion, soaked through and speckled with mud from her.
Meng Qianzi awkwardly left her seat and half-crouched to the side. With him this close, her every breath was filled with the faint scent of pine and cypress drifting off him, and she felt suddenly, deeply embarrassed.
The sharpness in his eyes drew back by two parts, replaced with scrutiny and curiosity.
Meng Qianzi kept herself as calm as she could and met his gaze directly. “Your Highness has more nerve than this subject, you dared let this subject up into the carriage, dared to swallow this subject’s medicine.”
The corner of Xiao Jiuyi’s mouth curved slightly into a mocking smile, the arrogance between his brows plain for all to see. “This Prince has no fewer than ten ways to kill you. Since you weren’t afraid, half a life traded for your one life, this Prince isn’t losing out.”
Meng Qianzi ventured, “Is it because this subject’s father is Meng Zheng?”
Xiao Jiuyi’s brow lifted slightly. He did not deny it, and looked her over with an indifferent expression.
She looked to be around fifteen or sixteen. Her delicate, small face carried a fine, straight nose and cherry lips in just the right proportion, and her lively almond eyes held a light, as radiant as spring blossoms, as clear as the bright moon, and nothing less.
Although she wore only plain blue-cloth clothing with no adornment at all, and was soaked through by the rain in bedraggled disarray, it could not conceal even a fraction of her beauty.
Rubbing the ink-jade thumb ring on his thumb, the man’s tone gave away neither pleasure nor displeasure. “You look very much like your aunt.”
Hearing him mention her aunt, Meng Qianzi lowered her eyes, her heart swelling with pain.
In her past life, after her father’s downfall, her aunt, one of the four consorts, had begged the Emperor several times to investigate the case thoroughly. In his anger the Emperor confined her aunt to her quarters, and a month later her aunt fell suddenly ill and died, even a few days before the Meng family.
Half a year after that, her aunt’s only son fell from his horse at the hunting grounds and died of his injuries.
She did not believe the deaths of her aunt and her cousin were accidents. That gilded, glittering cage was nothing more than a den that devoured people…
Fortunately, she had been reborn before any of it happened. Even if it cost her everything, she would stop the tragedy of her past life from happening again!
In the cramped carriage, Meng Qianzi knelt before Xiao Jiuyi and pleaded earnestly, “I beg Your Highness to help me. My father could never have colluded with the enemy and betrayed our country…”
Xiao Jiuyi raised a hand to cut her off, his tone carrying the casual disdain habitual to those born above others. “What reason does this Prince have to help you?”
Meng Qianzi seemed not to notice the disdain at all. She held her back ramrod straight, and every word she spoke rang out firm and clear.
“Because I can help Your Highness rid yourself of your chronic illness. Because my father’s heart is with the common people, iron-boned and devoted only to guarding the mountains and rivers of Great Qian!”
The Meng family had produced generals for three generations. Both her great-grandfather and her grandfather had fought at the front until their last soldier fell, dying together with the enemy, so that Great Qian’s land could be held.
The Meng family’s household precept: a man should die on the frontier and have his corpse wrapped in horsehide and brought home for burial, how could he take pleasure alongside petty men in betrayal?
Raised from childhood on such teaching and example, she, even though born a woman, had set her heart on protecting the country, how could her father possibly have done such a thing as collude with the enemy and betray it?
Xiao Jiuyi’s expression remained cold, unmoved by her. “Not enough.”
In her past life, Meng Qianzi had heard that this man had a cold face and a colder heart, so cold he could not be moved by worldly things, but she had not expected that he cared so little even for his own life, he was even more wild and unrestrained than the rumors claimed.
Fortunately, she had the memories of her past life. She still had a bargaining chip!
She leaned forward slightly and said in a low, steady voice, “Your Highness is braving the rain to hurry back in time for the Empress Dowager’s birthday banquet tomorrow. This subject only asks that Your Highness take me into the palace with you. When the time comes, I will give Your Highness a condition that satisfies you!”
Having said this, Meng Qianzi waited quietly for his response, her fingers curling into fists without her noticing. If this did not work, there was nothing left but to…