The voice behind clearly carried a hint of laughter, but this question swept through like an eerie wind, sending a chill of dread through one’s heart.

The physician sat at the bedside, cold sweat streaming down his face. He felt as if the cold tip of a sword lightly pressed against his spine, his life hanging by a thread. One wrong move, and he would meet the same fate as the person on the bed—

The “patient” on the bed showed no vital signs. His fingers were frozen in a state of spasm, his mouth and nose distorted. Although his limbs were still warm, preventing more facial symptoms from appearing, it was clear he had died from suffocation by external force.

It had happened not long ago.

Perhaps, just moments before the Princess knocked on the door.

The identity of the murderer was self-evident.

As a general, one typically spares surrendering enemy soldiers, yet why would he use such cruel means to kill a military comrade who had completely lost the ability to resist…

And even now, with an unchanged expression, he was asking a physician to check the pulse of a dead man…

Urged by the person behind him, the physician tremblingly released the wrist he had been checking and turned around, meeting a smiling gaze.

Shen Yuance: “Well, does my deputy general still have a chance of regaining consciousness?”

The physician shakily stood up and walked forward, lowering his head to bow respectfully to both of them, then swallowed and said: “In…in reply to the Princess and Young General Shen, the patient’s condition is… stable…”

Jiang Zhiyi: “What do you mean by stable? Do you have a good remedy?”

“I… I do…”

“Then quickly write out a prescription. No matter how rare the required medicines are, as long as he can be healed, this Princess will reward you generously!”

The physician secretly glanced up at Shen Yuance. Seeing him nod slightly, the physician felt as if he had been pulled back from the edge of a cliff, exhaled deeply in relief, and with trembling hands spread paper and brush on the desk, sitting down to write a prescription.

Jiang Zhiyi, arm linked with the man beside her, gently raised her chin: “See, didn’t it take my intervention after all?”

Shen Yuance tilted his head, looking down at her: “It seems so.”

“If you had asked me earlier, you wouldn’t have wasted so much effort. Next time you need to search for doctors or treasures, come directly to me. With me, a Princess at your disposal, how could you ever lack for anything?”

Shen Yuance turned his head away and smiled enigmatically: “Very well—”

—Mu Xinhong had just stepped into the doorway of the wing room when he witnessed this bizarre scene.

A dead man, a physician prescribing a dead man, a princess claiming credit, and a young general who seemed amused by something.

Could the young general be amused by someone? More likely, he was pleased by the killing.

The physician finished prescribing with shaky hands, stood up, and seeing the noble figures across the room with linked arms, anxiously swallowed, unsure whether to interrupt this scene with a useless prescription…

“I’ll take it.” Mu Xinhong stepped forward and took the prescription, folded it, and tucked it into his robe before looking toward Shen Yuance.

The young general, busy being held by the Princess, gave him a meaningful glance.

Mu Xinhong nodded slightly to show he understood, then gestured toward the exit: “Thank you for your trouble, venerable sir. Let me escort you out of the residence.”

Hearing the words “escort you,” and noticing the saber at Mu Xinhong’s waist, the physician picked up his medicine box and left the wing room in terror, feeling with each step as if he were approaching the edge of a cliff.

Near the spirit screen wall, Mu Xinhong paused and stopped.

“Sp-spare my life, General. I saw nothing today…” The physician’s knees buckled as he tried to kneel.

Mu Xinhong raised a hand to stop him, holding him up: “You cannot say you saw nothing today.”

The physician looked up in confusion.

Mu Xinhong glanced back toward the wing room and sighed softly in his heart.

Half a year ago, in that battle, the reason the Elder Young Master fell into the North Jie people’s ambush was because General Gao had colluded with the enemy, leaking the army’s battle plans and marching routes.

When the Elder Young Master first arrived at the frontier, Gao Shi was only a centurion in the army. After once taking a blow for the Elder Young Master on the battlefield, he became someone the Elder Young Master deeply trusted.

Gao Shi followed the young Elder Young Master, teaching him how to defend against and kill enemies. He fought alongside the Elder Young Master for over two years, rising to become the Elder Young Master’s deputy general. To the Elder Young Master, he was both teacher and friend, even a father figure.

Who would have thought that such a person was a malignant tumor buried within the Xuance Army? He had precisely targeted the Elder Young Master as an inexperienced newcomer lacking vigilance, which was why he took that initial blow to win his trust.

In the final ambush battle, to ensure the annihilation of their main force, to implicate the Xuance Army and the Shen family in the crime of defeat, Gao Shi maneuvered in the midst of it all and was himself severely wounded.

After the Young General took over the Elder Young Master’s identity, his first action was to ask the military doctors to save Gao Shi’s life.

Gao Shi’s willingness to sacrifice himself to achieve his goal wasn’t for personal gain but because he was acting under someone’s orders.

To uncover the mastermind behind it all, they had to keep him alive.

Once Gao Shi woke up, the Young General had a thousand interrogation methods to make him talk. But for half a year, their army’s most capable physician, Doctor Li, had used every possible method of treatment and could only just barely keep Gao Shi breathing.

The best physician in the world was in their army. Before returning to the capital, the Young General was certain that what Doctor Li couldn’t accomplish, no other physician in the world could—Gao Shi was beyond medical help.

But while a dead man couldn’t speak, a living person could speak for him.

The Young General had people escort a dying man all the way back to the capital, made a show of importance by personally going outside the city to receive him, then carefully nursed him and ostentatiously invited famous doctors, all to force the person behind this to become impatient and come to silence him.

Yesterday, with the arrival of that prescription that seemed life-saving but was lethal, this person had finally surfaced.

Now that the fish had taken the bait, the bait was no longer needed.

…

Mu Xinhong returned from his recollections and looked at the trembling old man before him.

“Venerable sir, today you came at the Princess’s command to examine General Gao. Unexpectedly, during the examination, General Gao suddenly convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and died from poison while unconscious. The Young General was furious, which is why you were frightened into your current state—is that correct?”

The physician nodded repeatedly in haste: “Yes, yes, that’s right…”

“As for the Princess, the Princess has a pure mind. The Young General couldn’t bear to frighten her, so he concealed this matter from her. Therefore, the Princess knows nothing about General Gao’s death and firmly believes General Gao can still be treated. Would you say the Young General did the right thing?”

“Right, right… If anyone asks this old man, this old man will certainly answer as such…”

Mu Xinhong gestured toward the exit: “Then, Physician Huang, go safely.”

In the east courtyard study.

After nearly ten days, returning to this study again, Jiang Zhiyi was in much better spirits, though she still wasn’t pleased with the room’s arrangement—

“You should change that screen as soon as possible. It almost crushed my things, and I don’t like looking at it.”

“That space on the curio shelf… since the porcelain vase is broken, put something new there to replace it. Leaving it empty just reminds people of sad things, doesn’t it?”

“And can’t you change the calligraphy on your wall? What’s this ‘Quiet or Not’? With me here, do you even need to ask? It’s certainly lively and bustling.”

Shen Yuance stood at the basin, washing his hands twice.

In just the time it took to wash his hands twice, the nitpicking Princess had already talked herself into completely transforming his study.

“So you know that with you around, it’s certainly ‘lively and bustling’?” Shen Yuance deliberately wiped his hands slowly and glanced over.

Jiang Zhiyi was caught off guard by his look: “What? I just did you a big favor, and now you’re complaining that I’m noisy?”

Shen Yuance: “I don’t need to complain.”

You’re naturally noisy.

Jiang Zhiyi glared at him, cheeks puffed in anger.

Though she indeed disliked these things that had once hurt her, she wasn’t actually being pushy and nitpicking.

“I’m just trying to make conversation to distract you, so you won’t keep thinking about what’s troubling you.”

Shen Yuance paused in wiping his hands, genuinely confused: “I’m thinking about troubles?”

“Yes, as soon as we entered the wing room, I noticed you were in a bad mood today. You can’t hide it from my eyes.”

She couldn’t see a dead man lying twenty feet away, yet she could tell he had something on his mind.

Her cleverness came and went.

But was it because he knew she harbored no hostility, so he hadn’t guarded against her, thus writing his troubles plainly on his face without any defense? Or did she understand her elder brother’s every raised eyebrow and lowered gaze to such an extent?

Yet the one here now was him, not her elder brother.

Could it be that when her elder brother had troubles, he looked the same way?

Shen Yuance rarely felt such curiosity: “Tell me, how can you tell I’m troubled?”

Jiang Zhiyi stood up from the luohan couch, folded her snow-white hands behind her back, and circled him with an air of superiority, her gaze examining him up and down.

“?” Shen Yuance stood in place, his gaze slowly following her full circle.

Finally, she stopped in front of him, raising her chin with evident self-satisfaction: “I have you in my heart, so naturally I can see everything about you.”

“…”

How did he ever think he would get a serious answer?

Shen Yuance looked away, either irritated or amused, gazing out the window.

In that moment, he saw the door of the east wing room open as Mu Xinhong led people carrying out the corpse covered with a white cloth.

The news of Gao Shi’s death needed to spread anyway, to let the “fish” behind this lower their guard, so the corpse could indeed be openly carried out of the Shen residence.

It didn’t matter who saw it…

Theoretically speaking.

Seeing Shen Yuance’s gaze suddenly tense, Jiang Zhiyi curiously tilted her head toward the window. Halfway through the motion, her wrist was suddenly gripped, and a pulling force yanked her entire body forward.

Jiang Zhiyi stumbled, and as she started to raise her head in alarm, a hand fell on the back of her head, firmly pressing her into his embrace.

Heat like a rushing flood instantly broke through the levees of her heart, shooting straight to her head, drenching her from head to toe.

Looking at the robe so close before her, Jiang Zhiyi stood motionless like a wooden statue against him, her limbs numb as if they weren’t her own, her breath slowly held.

Shen Yuance pressed one hand on her head, his other arm around her back, looking out the window.

His vision strangely slowed down. The stretcher carrying the corpse was moving quickly, but in his eyes, it seemed to be in slow motion.

Watching as the stretcher very slowly and gradually passed through the corridor and finally disappeared from view, Shen Yuance slightly loosened the hand pressing her head and looked down.

Feeling him release some pressure, Jiang Zhiyi raised her head with a flushed face, gently blinking her eyes, her gaze nervously flickering as she whispered: “Elder Brother A-Ce, your heart was beating so fast just now…”

Shen Yuance’s eyelashes fluttered, and the hand embracing her slightly stiffened.

Jiang Zhiyi: “I heard it. You have me in your heart, too.”

What she heard, he didn’t know.

But he did know that after avoiding her for so many days, on this unexpected day, at this unnecessary moment, everything had been ruined.