As cartloads of grain shipped to the capital, prices in the stores showed signs of weakness until they finally decreased into a somewhat expensive range that the people could accept. The shroud of grief that’d surrounded the capital after the prince’s death slowly began to lighten again.
After all, whether or not they would go to bed hungry was the primary concern of the people. What else could ordinary people affect and care about?
With a month’s rest, Qin Yining’s shoulder wound finally healed. Bingtang wrote prescriptions that further bolstered her robustness and created a healthier tinge in the fourth miss’ face. She was no longer white as a sheet and prone to dizzy spells.
On this evening, Bingtang was on night duty. The two were slowly waving fans and chatting in the bedroom when the window in the washroom creaked open.
“The wind is strong tonight and it’s probably blown the toilet window open again,” remarked Bingtang. “I’ll go secure it.”
“No worries, I was about to go myself.” Qin Yining put on her shoes with a smile. “Why don’t you make the beds? It’s getting late — we should be heading to bed.”
“Alright.” Bingtang put her blankets on the luohan bed in the outer room while her mistress headed for the washroom, a thinly padded jacket around her shoulders and lace lantern in hand.
But when she lifted the curtains to the washroom, a black shadow rushed out at her.
Shock jolted her heart and she almost screamed, but the shadow enveloped her in its arms and covered her mouth with a large hand. A strange yet familiar scent dominated her senses. There was the smell of grass, of gunpowder, and of blood.
Qin Yining trembled despite herself. It’s him!
A burning kiss landed on the nape of her neck as Pang Xiao’s low voice sounded by her ear. “My dearest Yi, I’ve come to see you.”
Qin Yining’s heart pounded, the lantern almost slipping out of her hands. With his quick reflexes, Pang Xiao caught the lantern and blew the candle out.
If it was brightly lit, it would be easy to see multiple silhouettes through the window.
“Are you crazy?! How dare you come when things are so tense right now? Aren’t you afraid of being captured?!” Qin Yining breathed in anxious alarm.
Pang Xiao laughed softly and answered in the same inaudible tones next to her ears, “I would’ve gone crazy from missing you if I didn’t come. Let me see if your wound is any better.”
He made to inspect her shoulder, making a bright blush suffuse her cheeks. She closed her hands around her collar. “It’s fine, it’s healed. Don’t be like this.”
Bingtang’s curiosity was aroused when she heard the disturbance. “Miss, are you alright?”
She lifted her lantern high and headed inside.
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Chapter 258: Heartache
Chapter 258: Heartache
Qin Yining hastily responded, “I’m fine.”
She looked back uncertainly at Pang Xiao, not sure what he had in mind.
The prince chuckled and walked out holding the girl’s hand. He rumbled, “It’s me.”
Surprise enlarged Bingtang’s eyes. “Your — your Highness? What are you doing here?”
Thanks to the maid’s still lit lantern, Qin Yining took her first proper glance of Pang Xiao.
He was much thinner and his facial features much more defined. A pair phoenix eyes glistened with bright radiance. The tenderness in them when he looked at Qin Yining could drown someone, and his upturned lips indicated his good mood.
Her heart pounding, Qin Yining averted her glance. He was wearing patched robes and, upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a dark patch of blood around his stomach.
She thought of the faint hint of gore that’d filled her nostrils when he hugged her just now. Caressing his stomach gently, her fingers came away warm and sticky.
“You’re hurt!” exclaimed the Qin fourth miss softly.
Pang Xiao looked down at his abdomen with some vexation. “It’s nothing, just a small wound. It’s bleeding probably because I moved around a bit more just now.”
Qin Yining hastily pushed him to take a seat on a nearby rounded, intricately carved stool. She called out to Bingtang, “Come take a look at him.”
Though the maid was sorrowed by the Prince of Ning’s death, she knew that all was business in times of war. Blades and spears flew blindly in the battlefield, so she nodded without hesitation and retrieved her medicine kit.
The fourth miss looked around and lowered her eyes. “This isn’t the best place for this. Come with me.”
They needed light to inspect a wound, but lighting the lanterns here would clearly show those outside that there was someone else inside the house.
Qin Yining tugged Pang Xiao’s hand and led him into the inner room. She lifted the curtains around the formal bed and had him sit on the edge of it. Her bed was made of purple sandalwood with flower reliefs on it, and was actually divided into an inner and outer space.
The inner space held a bed large enough that two could roll around several times on it, and the outer space housed some end tables, drawers, and the step for the bed. A gauze curtain that blocked light divided the two areas, creating another small room within the inner room. As long as they pulled shut the curtains of the outer area, no silhouettes would be glimpsed even if they lit lanterns inside.
Pang Xiao sat down with an expansive motion and looked around curiously. He noted the baby-blue pear blossom embroidery on the curtains, the pale-green and pale-pink sheets. The gentle fragrance unique to a girl seemed to waft into his nostrils whenever he took a breath, touching the most tenderest of his heart.
“You’ve gotten a lot skinnier.”
Qin Yining smiled at this. “So have you.”
She placed a lamp with a decorative box exterior on one of the small end tables. When she bent over with the fire starter, her loose collar revealed delicate collarbones. The angle she was inclined at further emphasized her palm-sized face, and her long, soft locks fell forward over her shoulders with the motion.
The warm glow of the lantern illuminated the space around Qin Yining. When he looked at the girl, Pang Xiao felt the anxiety and weariness from recent days completely fall away.
Qin Yining fetched another two lamps to provide the best illumination possible and pulled the curtains tight around the bed.
“Hurry and let Bingtang look at your wound.”
Pang Xiao had spent all this time staring dumbly at her and didn’t immediately react. He smiled. “Then I’ll be taking my shirt off now.”
He fixed his stare at her, not wanting to miss a single change in her expression as he slowly started undoing his top. His movements were a wordless seduction, making Qin Yining flush bright red. She muttered, “Be serious! Doesn’t your wound hurt?”
“Not at all. I don’t feel any pain after seeing you.” He was still staring intently at her.
Qin Yining finally waved the white flag and turned away from him. If she hadn’t wanted to see how his wound was, she would’ve taken cover outside a long time ago.
The prince knew well the importance of moderation. He stopped teasing her and threw aside his top, revealing highly toned arms and a bandage wrapped stomach. He was tall and limber, and though skinny, Pang Xiao was a typical example of having muscles on his frame when he took his clothes off.
However, Qin Yining had no mind to spare for admiring the fluid lines of his shoulders and arms. Her eyes rested on the bloodstained bandages around his stomach, pain twisting her heart and her limbs turning clammy.
“How did you get that wound?” Her voice shook. Bingtang was already taking the wrappings off.
Pang Xiao let the maid do as she would and smiled comfortingly at Qin Yining. “No worries. The Prince of Ning got me once, but it’s no big deal. I’m all better now. How about you? I hear that you were injured very heavily. No wonder you lost so much weight, especially with everything that’s been happening at home. I really wanted to come see
you, but our nations are at war and I can’t easily leave my post. I was also worried that I’d bring you more trouble if I was discovered when I visited you.”
He sighed and refrained from mentioning how Weichi Yan had wanted to make her the empress. He flashed a grin instead. “Thankfully your emperor happens to be selling positions for grain lately, and the new commander-in-chief Li Mian is too cowardly to take to the field. I slipped into the city by pretending to be one of the laborers moving grain.”
Pang Xiao glossing over recent difficulties only made Qin Yining even more distressed. “I’m fine. You’re the one who’s important. Blades and spears fly around blindly on the battlefield, you must be careful.”
“I know, don’t worry. The one who can kill me hasn’t even been born yet.” Pang Xiao smiled gently at her.
“How is his wound?” Qin Yining asked Bingtang.
Bingtang was retrieving a small knife from her medicine kit. She frowned at the question and snorted. “If Your Highness doesn’t take care of yourself, next time I’ll just let your wound turn into a rotting hole in your stomach! It’s infected, you’re feverish, and you still run around like this, making it open up again and again. Don’t drag my miss down with you if you want to die! Go do that yourself!”
Patients who didn’t take care of themselves were always the source of greatest irritation to doctors.
Pang Xiao’s symptoms were the same as the recently departed Prince of Ning. A blade wound, loss of blood, and infection. The difference was that the Prince of Ning had been slightly more injured and he was older. Pang Xiao only had this one injury, and was young and strong. Bingtang was more depressed than usual upon seeing the injury and thus fired back with no holds barred.
Pang Xiao felt a bit sheepish after the lecture. “I’m here because I want to see your miss, no? If I didn’t come, I’d be lovesick again.”
Another snort answered him. “You should listen to me if you don’t want to die in the early years of your life and make my miss a young widow. Take care of yourself. My miss turned down being the empress — fortune and glory for a lifetime! Did she do that just to be sad in the future?”
The prince rubbed his nose and looked apologetically at Qin Yining. “You were in a tough spot these days, weren’t you? I’m so useless as to have you caught in the middle.”
Qin Yining shook her head with tears in her eyes. “Not at all. You never hid anything from me. I knew this would come the day I agreed to be with you. It’s not your fault.”
She watched as Bingtang adroitly dress Pang Xiao’s wounds; first scraping away the putrid flesh, using fierce alcohol to disinfect the area, laying down stitches, spreading medicine over the wound, and wrapping it up again.
The process made her twinge sympathetically and her limbs grow cold, but nary a furrow crossed Pang Xiao’s brow. He still looked at her with the most tender of gazes, as if cherishing any and all time he had to spend with her.
Qin Yining’s heart ached at this, but there was nothing else she could do for him except cry helplessly.
This in turn made Pang Xiao’s heart ache. “Don’t cry, my dearest. Don’t cry. I’m fine, the wound isn’t fatal. Ask Bingtang if you don’t believe me.”
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Chapter 259: Coincidence
Chapter 259: Coincidence
Bingtang was also berating herself for being so rash that she’d made Qin Yining sad. “Don’t worry, miss. This wound will be fine if taken care of properly. I spoke so harshly just now because I wanted His Highness to take it more seriously.”
“I know.” Qin Yining wiped her eyes with her sleeves and forced a smile on her face. “Hurry and treat him. I’ll have Jiyun prepare some late night snacks.”
She made to leave, but —
“Don’t go, I’m not hungry.”
It’d been such a risk to enter the capital so he could see her. How could he bear to have her leave his sight?
“Nonsense. Since you slipped into the city and had to avoid the spies around the manor, you definitely haven’t had the chance to have a good meal. Bingtang says you’re feverish. You have to take care of your body.” An inexplicable blush crossed Qin Yining’s face at this point. “I’ll be right back.”
She left the outer area of the bed through the curtains.
Pang Xiao grinned foolishly for a while as he mind turned over a teary yet embarrassed Qin Yining.
“Don’t say this in front of your miss in the future, she’ll be sad.”
Bingtang snorted. “My miss is very smart. Do you think she doesn’t understand anything just because she doesn’t talk much? She’s just being quiet. If you really want to be good to my mistress, then take care of yourself. Since you’ve captured the miss’ heart even despite being from another nation, don’t ever make her sad again. She’s not the healthiest either.”
Pang Xiao knew all this, of course, but sometimes things were beyond his control given what he’d been born into.
“How is her injury?”
“She’s lost too much blood and harmed her foundations. She needs to rest and recover for a long while. Being who she is, my miss has a never-ending stream of troubles and worries. What constantly down person can live a long life?”
Pang Xiao frowned, perturbed.
“I don’t even have to go too far back. When we ran short on food in the capital last month, the people somehow learned that the previous emperor stole all of the nation’s silver. All of them rushed to Xuan Su Temple to ask her how the troubles will be resolved. It’s frightening to simply think of the scene!
“The miss isn’t an official at court, her titles are all for show. Because he couldn’t take her as a wife, the emperor ordered her to be a nun in a fit of anger. This gave the people a good reason to make life difficult for the miss.
“If she’d said a single word wrongly that day, she would’ve faced the spit and violence of ten thousand people. She came up with an idea for the emperor in the end, but the empress decided to make life difficult for her instead. And the thing is, it’s not like this was an exception. The miss would feel soul weary even if she’s a female Zhuge Liang.”
Bingtang rolled an eye at Pang Xiao at this point and made sure his wounds were carefully wrapped up tight. “Our miss wasn’t born into an easy life, and you aren’t making things any better.”
Since the maid was on her mistress’ side, she laid it on a bit thick, but her words weren’t too far from the truth.
Pang Xiao naturally knew how difficult things were for his beloved. He listened to everything with a tight frown furrowing his brow.
Bingtang put her medicine kit back in order and handed over a prescription. She dropped, “I will go brew the medicine now,” and dismissed herself.
After this heavy blow to the heart, she hoped that Pang Xiao would think more on Qin Yining’s behalf whenever he did anything in the future.
The Qin fourth miss returned at this point with Jiyun, bearing a freshly stewed brown sugar congee, steamed dumplings, and a few side dishes. Jiyun hauled some small tables next to the bed to hold all the dishes and left with a curtsey. After pulling the two layers of veil and curtains together, she stood guard outside.
Qin Yining handed over a pair of chopsticks and sat next to Pang Xiao with a velvet hand. She flung one of her pale-green, padded jackets around his shoulders and waved the fan gently, watching him wolf down the food.
“I already asked Bingtang, make sure you rest well after going back. Don’t fight unless you have to. It’s the troubles of a lifetime if there’s any lasting effects on your health. Who will you cry to in your old age, hmm?”
“Naturally you, of course.” The prince gulped down steamed dumplings one after another, his movements quick and elegant.
Qin Yining shook her hea
d with an involuntary smile. “I can listen to your complaints, but I can’t suffer for you, so you must take care of yourself.”
“Are you promising the rest of your life to me?” Pang Xiao stopped eating and looked at her with burning eyes.
The girl thought back on their conversation and ran through things before she realized what she’d said. Blushing, she smacked him with the velvet fan. “Hurry up and eat, then take your medicine. Thankfully I haven’t recovered yet and need to take medicines all day, so no one will think it’s weird if we’re brewing medicines now. Rest here after you take your medicine.”
Pang Xiao smiled and protested insincerely, “I can leave after seeing you.”
“It’s so dangerous outside and you’re injured. How could I possibly let you leave?” Qin Yining rolled her eyes at him. “Taking a mile after I give an inch, hmm? You just wanted to hear me say that! It’s not like you would’ve turned down staying the night.”
“Of course not.” Pang Xiao grinned. “I just wanted to hear you talk more.”
“How cunning.” Qin Yining dimpled as well. Once the prince was full, she fetched a pot of strong tea to rinse his mouth and a wet handkerchief to wipe his face.
Pang Xiao remained seated on the bed, watching her busy ministrations as if she was his wife. Longing and contentment flooded his heart.
“Take a break, my darling. Let’s chat.” Pang Xiao took her hand and had her sit in his lap.
Qin Yining squirmed uncomfortably, but his arms had firmly secured her waist and she couldn’t struggle free. She gave up in the end and complained, “What’s this for? The bed is so big, there’s plenty of space for me. Let go of me.”
“Don’t move.” Pang Xiao kept himself tightly tensed, tamping down his agitated emotions despite the beauty in his arms. “I just missed you. Even if I stay the night, I need to find an opportunity to leave the city tomorrow. We spend more time apart than together, so don’t hide from me.”
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