The sky before dawn was always the darkest, like a mass of twisted black wrapping around countless struggling, squirming creatures.

Cui Shi braced himself on the ground with both hands, moving bit by bit toward the roadside. His leg had been stabbed, and later Murong Duan’s people hadn’t taken him along. He could only struggle on this mountain path in the middle of the night.

Long trails of blood were left on the ground. He felt his body growing colder and colder. If he couldn’t get help soon, he feared he would meet his end here.

Suddenly there was a gurgling sound overhead. He looked up and saw a dark shadow rolling down from the hillside, crashing heavily in front of him.

By the faint starlight, he saw a man covered in blood, already missing one hand, barely breathing.

But Cui Shi had no intention of saving anyone. He hurriedly tried to crawl away, but his clothing was suddenly grabbed by a hand.

He turned back in terror and saw the blind old man gripping him tightly, long fingernails piercing through his clothes and into his flesh. He felt half his body go numb instantly.

After the numbness passed, his leg no longer hurt and the bleeding stopped. Looking at his slowly withering wound, his heart pounded with fear.

The old man behind him spoke in a hoarse voice: “…Save me… and I’ll spare your life… I can even teach you martial arts…”

Cui Shi was silent for a while. Ever since being driven out of his quarters by Tie Ci, his days had become increasingly difficult, and he inevitably harbored resentment. Previously, when Senior Brother Mu had conflicts with Tie Ci, he had deliberately gotten close to Senior Brother Mu and helped him during the archery competition. After Senior Brother Mu disappeared, he had behaved himself for a while, but as Tie Ci’s identity was revealed, he became increasingly anxious, sensing his future prospects were completely ruined. In desperation, when those assassins stormed into the lecture hall to kidnap people, he had actively approached them, wanting to cooperate with the assassins to eliminate Tie Ci, so he could blame everything on the assassins afterward.

Thinking it over, his prospects were already ruined—this was his only chance. Who would have thought that even taking such desperate risks, he still hadn’t succeeded? How could the Crown Princess spare him now?

He could vaguely guess the identity of the person before him. Earlier, when he was with those assassins, he had heard them mention that there was also a backup super expert tonight. Looking now, this expert they had gone to great lengths to hire hadn’t been able to defeat the Crown Princess either?

Cui Shi’s heart turned cold, but at this moment he had no choice but to accept. He could only get up, hoist the old monster onto his back, and following his directions, stumble into the depths of the mountains.

…

The aerial tour of Tie Ci’s group soon encountered trouble—the umbrella was blown by the wind and got caught under pine trees on the opposite cliff, leaving several people hanging in mid-air.

Fortunately, they weren’t far from the ground. Tie Ci was about to carry Rong Pu on her back and take him down, but Feiyu snatched him away, saying, “I’ll carry him.”

Tie Ci laughed, “A grown man doesn’t need a woman to carry him, does he?”

Second Senior Brother directed from behind, “Miss—what was it, Miss Feiyu? You carry me, and my junior brother can carry the doctor.”

Feiyu: “Senior Brother, you’re a dignified man asking a woman to carry you—where’s your face?”

Second Senior Brother: “I have acrophobia!”

Feiyu turned around with a smile and kicked him down.

“I told you, for acrophobia, just fall a few more times and you’ll be fine!”

Second Senior Brother’s struggling curses echoed from mid-air.

Tie Ci waved cheerfully, her mood delighted.

In a blink, she saw Feiyu already actively carrying Rong Pu down, looking as if she was afraid Tie Ci would compete with her for the task.

Tie Ci crouched among the messy pines on the cliff, watching that figure moving downward, and suddenly frowned.

That whatever—the top courtesan was lazy and wicked, but aside from being somewhat nice to her, when had she ever been so attentive to anyone?

Could it be that she had taken a fancy to Rong Pu?

With this thought, suddenly the trees weren’t green anymore, the flowers weren’t red anymore, and all her good mood from earlier had flown away.

She slowly made her way down. Below was a flat meadow with a babbling brook beside it. Second Senior Brother, still slowly moving at a height of about ten feet, kept his eyes closed and shouted, “How far am I from the ground? Huh? Someone come catch me!”

No one paid him any attention.

Tie Ci slapped Rong Pu awake with one palm.

Rong Pu sat up, and seeing Tie Ci, he was startled, then his expression tightened. Obviously understanding what had happened, he reached out to check her pulse. “I had no idea you were the one poisoned… How are you?”

That hand hadn’t even touched her when it was intercepted halfway.

Feiyu thrust out her own wrist first, smiling, “Divine Doctor, I’m the one who’s more severely poisoned.”

Rong Pu’s hand was blocked, and he instinctively glanced at Feiyu. She was backlit at the moment, so he could only see her blurred silhouette, vaguely making out that she was a beautiful woman. Rong Pu looked at Tie Ci, then suddenly pulled out a handkerchief from his sleeve, placed it over Feiyu’s wrist pulse, and then pressed down.

Tie Ci found this somewhat amusing and glanced at Feiyu, who was also looking at her. Their gazes collided, both startled for a moment, then each looked away.

Both couldn’t help feeling a bit dazed. Tie Ci’s heart became even more confused, while Feiyu frowned, wondering if he was paying attention to Rong Pu.

He had gone through great trouble to disguise himself as a woman simply because he could see that winning over Ye Shiba would be difficult, so in a flash of inspiration he thought it would be better to approach in women’s clothing. In women’s clothing, Ye Shiba wouldn’t have concerns about male relationships, making it easier for him to get close. Over time, with intimate contact and back-and-forth interaction, even an iron man would melt into tender softness. When he revealed his gender then, with emotional roots already deeply planted, no matter how much Ye Shiba worried, he wouldn’t be able to let him go.

He had always been bold in both thought and action, so he returned under Feiyu’s identity. To maintain his disguise, he had specifically asked Rong Pu to bring back specialties from towns a hundred li away as cover.

Now that Rong Pu had been dragged here to treat them, Feiyu couldn’t help calculating in his heart. His own poison injury, being directly inflicted by the old monster, must be quite troublesome. If things went badly, Rong Pu might need to stay and treat him for a while. This wouldn’t do—this guy had always had an ambiguous attitude toward Shiba, and he absolutely couldn’t let him interfere between the two of them.

Having made up his mind, he secretly drew his finger across his ankle, and blood flowed out—first black, then red.

He hadn’t released the poisoned blood before because the injury location was too critical. To release poisoned blood required making a cut—if it was too light it would be useless, if too heavy he might accidentally injure his tendons. But now he didn’t care, deciding to release blood first to reduce the poison.

Feiyu didn’t care much about his body—compared to having someone else interfere, he’d rather limp for a while.

If he was lame, he could have Shiba carry him all the time, which would also be quite nice.

Rong Pu took her pulse and found it very strange—first the poison was fierce and turbulent, but in a moment it had lightened somewhat. After taking her pulse, he thought for a moment, dictated a prescription, and mentioned that many of the medicines would need to be slowly gathered.

Just as he was speaking, Second Senior Brother shouted again from over there: “Hey, where am I now? Have I arrived? Have I arrived?”

Rong Pu looked up and saw him, immediately remembering his earlier treatment. He smiled lightly and said, “You climbed to the wrong place. Go a bit east, yes, a bit more, good, don’t go down anymore. You’re very close to the ground now, just jump down. Yes, I’ll count to three and you jump. It’s grassland below, don’t worry. One, two, three!”

“Splash!” Second Senior Brother jumped into the stream. Water splashed up half a zhang high.

Tie Ci: “Hahahahahaha.”