Chapter 59: She Is Not Wood or Grass, She Certainly…

Nothing is more torturous than waiting idly for doom, especially for someone as impatient as Zhao Rongzhang. Forcing Su Tan to reveal herself was the initial goal of this plan. Although there has been little progress toward that objective so far, it does not mean this was a failed gamble. At the very least, the decision was correct. Guan Xuan’s peril was like a timely beacon of smoke, giving both Shuang An and Prince Su a direction in which to rescue her. She could now take action based on this.

Her greatest difficulty at the moment was the lack of usable personnel. She needed to contact them separately and gather the first batch of capable individuals.

Zhao Rongzhang instructed Ming Luo to immediately prepare the ink. The brush tip was saturated with specially prepared thick ink, almost dripping onto the paper. After a moment of contemplation, Zhao Rongzhang began writing.

Recently, armed clashes had been occurring frequently within the city. Not only were government officials involved, but there were also others wielding knives and swords, speaking various regional accents, searching everywhere for someone called Little Mute. This had caused widespread panic, and people dared not venture outside. With the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, there was no festive atmosphere in the city at all. Only medical clinics and pharmacies dared to keep their doors half-open, receiving patients seeking medicine and those military officers injured in these clashes.

“So cunning! I was clearly about to stab him in the chest, but somehow he turned and vanished! Even with a four-sided blockade, he still managed to escape. Damn it!”

“Hmph, don’t talk about almost hitting him. Yesterday, several of us stabbed him simultaneously with our spears, piercing deep, and he still got away,” said a bare-chested Imperial Guard, gritting his teeth as he finished applying medicine and wrapped his own bandage, his voice filled with hatred. “He’s like a monster, impossible to kill.”

There was a moment of silence opposite, as if seriously considering his words, before someone finally said, “You Imperial Guards, and the Death Warriors accompanying your Left Commander-in-Chief, are far more ruthless than us. Recently, there have also been many other skilled fighters in the city targeting him. With so many people hunting him for half a month, we’ve just watched him escape time and again. I’m really starting to wonder if he’s immortal.”

“Who knows. One of these days, I’ll have to advise the Left Commander-in-Chief to first capture a few Taoist priests to perform exorcisms house by house.”

The companions’ wounds were mostly bandaged, and they all stood up, putting on their clothes and armor, calling out to the Innkeeper: “Where’s the medicine? Isn’t it ready yet?”

“Ah! A few herbs are missing from the medicine drawers. I sent him to the storeroom to look for them. The boy isn’t very meticulous. He’s delayed your duties, officers. I’ll go look myself right away! Please, officers, sit down and have some tea first.” The old Innkeeper hurried to the backyard, inwardly cursing the apprentice for daring to slack off and hide in the back at such a time. Pushing open the storeroom door angrily, he saw only a leg clad in black boots curled in a dark corner.

Sensing something amiss, the old Innkeeper took two steps forward and raised his gaze, immediately meeting a pair of black eyes cold as cracked ice. A glint of sharp blade light flashed within those dark eyes, and a trace of blood instantly appeared on the dagger pressed against the apprentice’s neck.

Trembling, the old Innkeeper promised not to make a sound, begging the cold, stern youth to spare the apprentice’s life. He then quickly found the needed herbs and rushed out to send off the group of guards and Imperial Guards.

The child in his grasp was only thirteen or fourteen years old, trembling like a sieve, extremely timid. Guan Xuan withdrew the dagger and released the hand covering the boy’s mouth.

The child collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, trembling and crying as he crawled outward. The next moment, a flash of white “thwacked” into the ground beside his foot—it was the very dagger that had just been pressed against his throat. His bones turned to jelly, his eyes rolled back, and he fainted dead away.

The several stab wounds on his chest kept bleeding profusely. Guan Xuan rarely felt such exhaustion, leaning against the corner of the wall, wanting nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep. He thought of the Princess’s hands as she once tended his wounds, missing the warmth of her palms. After catching his breath, he thought, I still have to live.

The old Innkeeper hurried back, sorrowfully picking up the motionless little schoolboy from the ground. Just as he was about to weep, he felt the boy’s neck and realized he had only been scared unconscious.

He guessed the identity of the youth in the corner. It seemed he wasn’t truly the immortal monster those soldiers had claimed him to be—his injuries were already severe.

Guan Xuan didn’t stop the old Innkeeper from approaching, allowing the old man’s fingers to rest on his wrist and take his pulse. Guan Xuan lowered his gaze to the Innkeeper’s hands, listening as he got up to rummage for medicinal herbs and pound them into a paste. He took the prepared medicinal paste, tore open his upper garment, and with his head bowed, applied it to his wounds one by one.

Only one stab wound remained, over his heart. Guan Xuan touched the warm blood flowing from it, and his thoughts suddenly drifted far away.

“Shall I… help you?” the old Innkeeper asked, thinking he was too weak to apply the medicine himself. But as soon as the words left his mouth, he saw the youth shake his head. The youth poured out the remaining medicinal paste and placed the empty bowl beneath the wound. Half an hour later, it had collected half a bowl of fresh blood.

Faced with the half bowl of blood the youth handed him, the old Innkeeper felt a chill of horror. “You… what does this mean?”

“Refine it into a blood pill,” the youth wrote on the ground.

From half a bowl of blood, a single blood pill was refined. The medicine brewed for him was also ready. The old Innkeeper hurried back to fetch it, but when he pushed the door open again, the dim room was empty. The bloodstained ground from earlier was now clean, without a trace of blood. The blood pill in the bowl on the table was gone, replaced by a single gold ingot.

The window was half-open, and the autumn breeze drifted in softly.

Guan Xuan wandered aimlessly in the shadows for a while, his vision occasionally darkening. As he walked, a familiar roof appeared before him. Whether it was because the town was too small or because he missed the Princess too much, he had somehow returned to the Old Ancestral Hall.

Water droplets fell “drip-drip” from the eaves. A few sparrows perched for a moment before flying away.

Occasionally, Zhao Rongzhang would sit in the courtyard on sunny days, mending holes in their clothes. She and Ming Luo were posing as a poor “couple,” living a frugal life. Of course, even without the pretense, they were still poor.

She was a clumsy “wife,” her stitches crooked and uneven, the threads she sewed breaking with the slightest tug.

Life in the countryside was dull. Neighbors would bring stools and sit with her to mend clothes, sometimes helping her, sometimes chatting about trivial household matters. Occasionally, their conversations would drift far: “I heard there’s fighting up north. Who knows if it’ll reach us here? Things in the city haven’t been peaceful these past few months anyway.”

Zhao Rongzhang remained silent. The neighbor glanced toward her house and asked, “Are you still sending your husband north for the imperial exams? I think the north is too chaotic. Who knows, maybe the Emperor will change one day.”

“If the imperial exams haven’t been canceled, he might as well take them. What else can he do?”

“Hmm, true. It’s hard enough for common folks to scrape by!”

After finishing her needlework, the neighbor picked up her stool and went back to cook.

Zhao Rongzhang was just one patch away from finishing. The time she should have spent learning needlework as a child had been devoted to practicing horseback riding and archery instead, so she had no skill with a needle and thread whatsoever. But she learned quickly and could now sew quite well. Gaining another survival skill pleased her greatly.

Yet every time she threaded a needle, she would remember Little Mute’s long, lowered eyelashes as he mended her sleeve for her.

Noticing her recent loss of appetite, Ming Luo would tactfully probe her true feelings, asking if she missed Little Mute. She was no unfeeling block of wood—of course she missed him. Without him guarding her side, she constantly felt unsettled, constantly unsafe. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she would dream of him smiling at her. Once, she even dreamed he suddenly gained the ability to speak—the shock no less than hearing a real cat suddenly speak human words. In the dream, they were both overjoyed.

Ming Luo asked her if she would save Little Mute if he were truly in grave danger. Zhao Rongzhang firmly said no. She had no one she could use to save him. Moreover, she had always understood clearly that people were expendable, especially Shadow Guards and servants—their deaths were commonplace.

In the evening, Ming Luo returned from handling matters outside and brought new news: “We’ve finally made contact with Shuang An! But the entire Jiangnan region is sealed tight as an iron barrel—her people simply cannot get in.”

“What about Prince Su’s men?”

“That’s exactly what I was about to discuss with you in detail, Princess—”

Ming Luo securely closed the doors and windows, leaving only a small lamp on the table. Dipping a finger in tea, she wrote and sketched on the table as she explained: “Prince Su wants to take advantage of the chaos. His men clearly infiltrated Suzhou City long ago, yet after reading your letter, they insisted you first provide a route to bypass Haishan Pass! He wants to slip into Jiangnan territory undetected, then march north to ‘purge the court of evil ministers.’”

“What a clever scheme. If he really breaks through, the entire realm will be within his grasp, and he certainly won’t care about my survival anymore,” Zhao Rongzhang sneered.

“This is your most important bargaining chip. If he doesn’t show sincerity, we absolutely cannot give it. But if he refuses to help, we can only continue lying low and wait for an opportunity.”

Zhao Rongzhang remained silent.

“But there’s no need for you to worry, Princess,” Ming Luo analyzed in detail. “Although Shuang An’s people cannot infiltrate here yet to coordinate with us from inside and out, Jiangnan’s lockdown won’t last much longer. Once they realize the Princess is not actually within Suzhou City, they’ll relax their defenses. Moreover, the Rong Di have already begun moving south. The grasslands suffered too severely this year—even before winter, many nomads have run out of food. They’re advancing fiercely, and the court cannot afford to expend too much manpower here…

“Princess, it would be better to lie low for now, conserve your strength, and wait for Su Tan’s response. Once Shuang An’s people arrive and the situation in the realm shifts, we can engage in a more balanced exchange with Prince Su.”

Ming Luo’s reasoning was sound on every point. Yet Zhao Rongzhang’s heart could not find peace.

Wait? Wait until they realize Princess Yingrong is not in Suzhou City? But that could only mean one thing: Guan Xuan is dead. Only if he dies and they still fail to capture her presence can it be conclusively proven she is not in the city.

This indeed wouldn’t require waiting too long. The one-month deadline is approaching. With Little Mute holding out alone in the city, even an immortal couldn’t withstand a second month.

Zhao Rongzhang suddenly felt her heart in turmoil. She clenched her palms tightly, refuting Ming Luo: “No, I must have people I can use myself. Immediately.”

Ming Luo showed a hint of understanding, but Zhao Rongzhang denied it again: “You’re thinking wrong! I won’t recklessly insist on saving him. I’m not trying to save him—I’m just anxious that apart from him, I don’t have a single person around me I can rely on!”

“That is indeed anxiety-inducing.” Ming Luo nodded solemnly. “Does the Princess have any good ideas?”

Zhao Rongzhang pondered with a grim expression.

The current situation was too unfavorable for her; she had too few chips. Chips…

She bit her nails, then suddenly smiled: “Prince Su. He wants the route map to bypass Haishan Pass? What if I hand this map to Shuang An and let him watch helplessly as someone else obtains what he desires? Just as you said, without him, Shuang An will eventually find a way in. We don’t necessarily need his help. But he does. I want him to know that if he dares to take advantage of me at this moment, he shouldn’t even think about the future.”