That frank declaration caused Zhenzhen’s thoughts to suddenly freeze. This was a more difficult problem than managing fields or taverns. She stared blankly for a long time, gradually feeling her face burning hotter than the sun’s rays, yet she still couldn’t think of an appropriate response. Then she noticed that Zhao Ai had closed his eyes and stopped speaking. Not knowing whether he was asleep or unconscious, she immediately felt uneasy. She gently patted his face and called “Second Brother,” but Zhao Ai showed no awareness and didn’t move at all. Zhenzhen became increasingly panicked. She pinched his philtrum but still couldn’t wake him. Remembering Crown Prince Zhuangwen’s final moments, that heavy grief struck her again like a massive wave of black ink. For a moment, everything spun around her and her heart ached as if it would split open. She knelt beside Zhao Ai, holding his hand and weeping silently. Under extreme anguish, she gradually bent down, but when her forehead touched his chest, she heard his heartbeat. She immediately listened carefully and felt his heart still beating steadily. She quickly wiped away her tears, forcibly suppressed all discomfort, struggled to stand up, and walked as fast as she could toward the dike with unsteady steps.
She climbed onto the dike and looked around for a long time, finally seeing an ox cart loaded with wheat ears appear at one end of the dike. She waved both hands toward the cart, and when it approached, she called out loudly, making the driver urge the ox to speed up to reach her. She explained Zhao Ai’s poisoning to the farmer, who immediately followed her into the wheat field, carried Zhao Ai on his back, and brought him to the ox cart. Seeing the ox cart moving slowly and knowing there wasn’t time to return to the city, Zhenzhen asked the farmer to drive to Shopkeeper Gong’s inn while she mounted her horse, led Zhao Ai’s horse, and followed behind the ox cart.
She already had an extreme headache and had struggled to hold on until now, being completely exhausted. She drowsily lay across the horse’s back, letting the horse walk slowly. Fortunately, the horse had been with her for several months and was quite intelligent. It now knew to follow the ox cart and safely arrived at the Gong family inn.
Seeing their condition, Shopkeeper Gong was startled and quickly called for people to help Zhao Ai and Zhenzhen upstairs to rest. He didn’t forget to give money to generously thank the farmer who had driven them.
After hearing Zhenzhen’s account, Shopkeeper Gong said: “The weather is warm now – it’s the time when snakes emerge from hibernation. These nearby fields have been abandoned for a long time, and there are indeed venomous snakes. Fortunately, there’s a snake catcher living nearby who usually catches snakes, raises them, and extracts venom. He also knows many remedies for treating snake venom. I’ll have someone fetch him immediately.”
The snake catcher was named Luo Shihua. He claimed to be sixty years old, but his body was robust, his face ruddy, and he had very few white hairs. He examined Zhao Ai’s injury, asked Zhenzhen about how the injury occurred and the snake’s appearance, then judged: “It should be a banded krait, one of the most venomous snakes. Fortunately, you promptly sucked out much of the poisoned blood for Prince Wei. Though he’s unconscious now, he can still be saved.”
He cleaned Zhao Ai’s wound and took out several herbs from his medicine box – lobelia, purslane, paederia, and others – mashed them up and applied them to the wound before bandaging it. He also took some medicinal powder and asked Shopkeeper Gong to immediately fetch water for Zhao Ai to take it, while giving Zhenzhen a small amount of powder to take as well.
After taking the medicine and resting briefly, Zhenzhen gradually felt that her dizziness and nausea weren’t as severe as before, but Zhao Ai still hadn’t awakened, and she couldn’t help showing worry. Seeing this, Luo Shihua comforted her: “Please don’t worry, madam. My medicine is very effective against snake venom, and Prince Wei is young – he should be fine. He’ll wake up after sleeping a few more hours.”
He prepared another dose of medicine and had Shopkeeper Gong take it to brew, asking that Prince Wei drink it when he awoke. He also wrote out a prescription for Zhenzhen, instructing her to have Prince Wei take medicine according to this for the next few days. Zhenzhen accepted the prescription and asked if she also needed to continue taking medicine. Luo Shihua smiled: “Madam, after taking this one dose, you’re fine and don’t need to take any more. This snake venom is said to seal the throat upon contact with blood, but the snake must actually bite through skin and let the venom enter the bloodstream to kill someone. Madam only had oral contact with the snake venom and wasn’t bitten by the snake, so your life isn’t in danger.”
“You mean the snake venom must contact blood to poison someone?” Zhenzhen asked in surprise. “Then why did I also have poisoning symptoms like dizziness, nausea, and weakness in my limbs?”
Luo Shihua asked in return: “Does madam have a small mouth ulcer or tongue sore?”
Zhenzhen was stunned, then immediately realized that recently, due to being busy with tavern affairs, lack of sleep, and irregular eating, her internal heat had risen, and she indeed had a grain-sized mouth ulcer.
Seeing Zhenzhen acknowledge this, Luo Shihua continued: “If madam were in good health with no ulcers in your mouth, esophagus, or stomach, and your lips and gums hadn’t bled, even swallowing snake venom would make it difficult to be poisoned. Madam felt dizzy and nauseous earlier because a small amount of snake venom entered your bloodstream through the mouth ulcer, causing these symptoms.”
Zhenzhen looked thoughtful, then asked: “If someone frequently has stomach pain, does that mean they have stomach ulcers? If they consumed food contaminated with snake venom, they would be poisoned, right?”
“Very likely,” Luo Shihua said. “Frequent stomach pain is usually due to damage to the stomach’s inner wall. Snake venom entering the stomach from the esophagus would then contact blood and poison the person.”
Zhenzhen pondered for a long time, then asked: “Shopkeeper Gong said you make a living catching snakes, raising them, and extracting venom. So snake venom can be extracted from snake mouths for other uses?”
Luo Shihua answered: “Yes. Extracting snake venom isn’t difficult. You grip the snake’s neck and place a small porcelain dish in its mouth for it to bite, and venom will flow from its mouth. Later, you remove the dish, and when the venom dries, it congeals into dried snake venom.”
After speaking, he searched in his medicine box for a moment and took out a small porcelain bottle, opening it for Zhenzhen to see: “Look, this is dried snake venom.”
Zhenzhen took it and saw crystals in the bottle like grains of sugar or salt. Gathered together, they appeared very pale yellow, while individual crystals were nearly colorless.
“Extracting snake venom isn’t difficult, but it’s troublesome,” Luo Shihua smiled. “Don’t look at just this little bit of venom – it takes over a thousand extractions to produce this much.”
“So…” Zhenzhen’s hand holding the porcelain bottle trembled slightly. “This dried snake venom – if you just took a tiny bit and put it in food for someone with stomach damage to eat, would it be equivalent to them being poisoned by dozens of snakes?”
“About right,” Luo Shihua said. “However, snake venom isn’t entirely without benefits. If someone has no injuries in their mouth, esophagus, or stomach, taking a small amount of snake venom orally can stop bleeding, relieve pain, and treat some illnesses… Oh, there’s a eunuch named Cheng Yuan in the palace who was favored by the late emperor and empress dowager. A few years ago he had headaches due to blood stasis, and it’s said snake venom cured him. When news reached the common people, the price of snake venom doubled again…”
Speaking to this point, he noticed Zhenzhen seemed absent-minded and pale, so he asked with concern: “Does madam still feel unwell?”
Zhenzhen shook her head and smiled weakly, saying “I’m fine,” then continued asking: “Snake venom should be quite fishy, right? Would it be difficult to swallow when used as medicine?”
Luo Shihua answered: “It does have a fishy smell, but the medicinal amount is extremely small. Taking it quickly with water, you wouldn’t taste much fishiness. Or it could be dissolved in soup to drink – strongly flavored foods can mask its fishy taste.”
Before he took his leave, Zhenzhen asked one final question: “Can snake venom be detected with silver needles?”
Luo Shihua immediately denied this: “Silver needles can only detect arsenic poison. They have no reaction to snake venom.”
Zhenzhen recalled Zhao Ai’s poisoning symptoms this time and felt they were very similar to Crown Prince Zhuangwen’s before his death – both involved nausea, vomiting, dizziness, weakness in limbs, and muscle numbness. Only Zhao Ai’s condition progressed more slowly while Crown Prince Zhuangwen’s poisoning developed rapidly. If the Crown Prince had been poisoned by snake venom through food, then many questions she had been unable to understand before would have answers: the Crown Prince had stomach damage, so even though he ate the same food as her, only he died from poisoning while she only fainted but was otherwise unharmed… Thinking back, the only minor skin damage she could have had then would be on her lips or oral mucous membranes. Snake venom is concealed – even if the imperial physicians tested for poison in the Crown Prince’s mouth and vomit afterward, they would find it difficult to detect anything. Silver needles would be ineffective, and even having small animals taste the vomit might not cause poisoning…
If this were the case, the poisoner was truly malicious… Zhenzhen felt half-chilled. This person was familiar with the Crown Prince’s physical condition, so they “prescribed poison accordingly,” making it impossible for imperial physicians to detect, leaving only her to blame… Could it be Cheng Yuan? He understood snake venom properties and would certainly know how to use poison. At that time, the Crown Prince was investigating Lady Ju’s matter. If Cheng Yuan had noticed and worried his actions would be exposed, he would have motive to harm the Crown Prince. But was this motive sufficient for him to take such desperate risks and dare to poison the heir apparent? If it was him, how could he have put poison in the Crown Prince’s food under her watchful eyes? Even if the amount was tiny, with her sensitive taste, wouldn’t she detect that fishy smell?
Zhenzhen repeatedly recalled every dish the Crown Prince ate that day, even suspecting whether the Songjiang bass might have been poisoned. But she had personally selected that fish from a tank of live fish, and it had been lively throughout – what signs of poisoning were there? After thinking it through repeatedly without finding any suspicious points, her head began to ache faintly again. Zhenzhen could only temporarily set aside this problem and went to observe Zhao Ai’s condition.
Shopkeeper Gong prepared separate rooms on the second floor for Zhao Ai and Zhenzhen to rest, but Zhenzhen, worried about Zhao Ai’s injury, remained in his room sitting silently on guard, occasionally checking his complexion and testing his temperature. By nighttime, feeling Zhao Ai’s forehead somewhat hot, Zhenzhen fetched warm water to wipe his head and palms, wanting to cool him down. But Zhao Ai frowned tightly, dodging left and right, and began talking in his sleep. Zhenzhen stopped her actions and spoke soothingly, but Zhao Ai became more and more agitated, calling “Zhenzhen” while tensely sitting up, waving his hands wildly as if trying to grab something.
Zhenzhen went to hold his hands, telling him: “I’m here.” But Zhao Ai acted as if he hadn’t heard, shook off her hands, and continued calling her name while reaching forward, gasping and trying to get up.
Seeing his voice and movements getting louder, his emotions chaotic, yet showing no signs of waking, Zhenzhen wrapped her arms around his shoulders, patted his back, and called repeatedly: “Second Brother, wake up quickly! I’m here!”
He was still struggling and about to break free from her control. Zhenzhen didn’t dare loosen her hands. Seeing his head turning constantly with anxiety all over his face, in desperation she held him tightly and pressed her lips to his forehead, like a mother comforting a child, hoping he would find peace in the love she expressed.
He indeed became quiet. When she slowly released him and pulled back some distance, he opened his confused eyes and stared at her in the red candlelight for a long while, calling out tentatively in disbelief: “Zhenzhen?”
“Mm,” she smiled and responded, “it’s me.”
Seeing his still-doubtful expression with two parts childishness, Zhenzhen couldn’t help touching his flushed face, looking at him tenderly, and confirming again: “It’s me.”
He was completely awake now. After lowering his eyes in contemplation for a moment, he suddenly asked sadly: “Am I dreaming or are you dreaming?”
Zhenzhen was startled, not quite understanding what he meant.
“Are you being so gentle with me because you’ve mistaken me for someone else again?” Seeing she seemed stunned, he couldn’t help smiling sadly. His finger lightly supported her chin as he closed his eyes and planted a light kiss on her lips, then withdrew and opened his eyes. In his water-colored shimmering pupils escaped the sorrow he had always kept locked in his heart.
This solitude in a bedroom late at night and this tenderness flowing between lips seemed familiar. Zhenzhen suddenly remembered a dream she once had… the dream she had that night when she first successfully brewed plum wine, dreaming that the Crown Prince she had been thinking of came to see her again… Her mind roared as she stared at Zhao Ai and asked softly: “That night, was it you?”
Zhao Ai silently turned his head and kissed her again, his gaze penetrating into her eyes as he answered: “It was me.”
Zhenzhen shrank back at a loss, thinking of her improper behavior then and his imaginable pain, as well as his subsequent long pretense of acting as if nothing had happened. She suddenly felt shame, guilt, and sadness intertwined, momentarily unable to face him.
But Zhao Ai grasped her wrist, preventing her from continuing to retreat.
“If I were to die today, would you cry for me?” he asked.
She didn’t answer but gazed at him steadily without blinking. After a moment, a clear tear fell from the corner of her right eye, glimmering briefly before disappearing into the night-soaked shadows.
He sighed softly, pulled her into his embrace, and held her silently. After a long time, he whispered in her ear: “Zhenzhen, the day draws to its close, and life is short. I hope we won’t become each other’s regrets.”