Wei Xun had originally been extremely dejected, curled up in his bedding for a long while before finally crawling out. Who would have thought that upon seeing Baozhu’s bold and elegant handwriting left on the desk, his mood would be stirred, staring in a daze as he silently recited the eight characters “arrows never miss their mark, vengeance never waits overnight” many times over. By nature arrogant and unrestrained, he had never cared about these empty martial world reputations, but the Green-robed Guest’s “vengeance never waits overnight” paired with her “arrows never miss their mark” seemed to carry some special meaning.
Baozhu had always been unwilling to let her handwriting circulate, demanding that any paper she had written on be burned. Wei Xun secretly hid away this note along with that poem “Returning to Garden and Field,” planning never to return it even if she demanded it back in the future.
After a thoroughly satisfying fight and quite a bit of wine, Baozhu slept very soundly that night.
However, some hot-blooded young knights still refused to give up, following rumors all the way from Jade City to Lingbao County, restlessly lurking around the inn, hoping to catch another glimpse of the red-dressed maiden and seeking positions as donkey-leaders or burden-carriers. Some literate ones even sent flying daggers as love tokens, the gleaming blades stuck in the door planks, frightening the innkeeper so badly his legs went weak, wondering where he could burn incense to send away these strange guests staying at his establishment.
This forced Wei Xun to constantly patrol his territory, using fists and feet to discuss life philosophy with his colleagues, persuading them to retreat through moral influence, keeping him busy all night with barely any sleep.
Perhaps seeing the princess trapped in dire straits with no one to care for her, Yang Xingjian felt great anxiety, believing that only an old general stepping forward could turn the tide. Burning with loyalty to Prince Shao, his illness improved by more than half in just one day and night.
The next day, Baozhu questioned Shisan Lang, Wei Xun, and Huo Qi in succession, cross-referencing their testimonies to ensure nothing was concealed. Chen Shigu had left behind that infinitely harmful dying words, whose motives could no longer be investigated, and who had spread them was unknowable, but his disciples truly did not know the truth about that object.
Baozhu actually did not believe there existed any divine artifact in the world that could truly “overthrow the Tang Dynasty and bring chaos to the realm.” Sharing Yang Xingjian’s attitude, she believed that anything so closely tied to the nation’s fate, even if it was merely mystifying nonsense, must be controlled by herself. Otherwise, if obtained by those harboring ill intentions, it would become a true source of chaos.
What was now bound to this mysterious object were simply Chen Shigu’s disciples. Looking again at Wei Xun, she had another realization. Baozhu secretly thought that in the future, no matter what conflicts or disputes arose, she must never let this person go, but keep him firmly grasped in her own hands to feel at ease.
Seeing her stare at him solemnly without speaking, Wei Xun felt somewhat guilty. She hadn’t pursued the incomplete copying assignment, and he wondered if she had discovered the truth about his secret escape.
Baozhu suddenly said, “That donkey you bought in Chang’an is quite useful,” her words carrying considerable praise.
Wei Xun’s heart settled slightly, but then she immediately returned to an old topic: “I still want Huo Qi.”
Wei Xun’s hand trembled, crushing his teacup with a crack as hot tea splashed on his clothes. Not knowing which meaning her “want” carried, he pressed his lips tightly together, unable to speak.
Seeing his loss of composure, Baozhu nearly laughed out loud, saying, “One mountain cannot contain two tigers. I already understand these annoying rules of your sect. I won’t keep her by my side, but plan to use her for other purposes.” She then told both present her intentions.
Yang Xingjian reminded, “Such an arrangement is very prudent, but… that wandering knight will sooner or later discover Your Highness’s true identity.”
Baozhu said confidently, “Suspect not those you employ, employ not those you suspect. She is illiterate, and by the time the letter reaches Youzhou, she’ll already be at my brother’s side.”
Though Wei Xun felt uncomfortable, he truly could find no reason to obstruct this, so he had to acquiesce silently.
She suddenly remembered another matter and asked Wei Xun, “Did you kill someone named Lu Songzhi in Chang’an?”
After reflecting a moment, he shook his head in denial, “Who is that?”
Baozhu recalled being trapped in Cuiwei Temple with no one to trust or rely on, so naturally she hadn’t told him of her suspicions then. Now she could speak openly about it in detail.
“Fourth-rank Remonstrance Official Lu Songzhi, nicknamed Pepper Minister, was that person.”
Wei Xun, recalling that jar of heart-wrenching pepper porridge, said with lingering fear, “I don’t even want to know pepper, much less know any minister.”
Baozhu frowned, “Strange, when I left Chang’an, he had just died suddenly. What a coincidence.”
Yang Xingjian remained silent for a long while, then suddenly coughed twice quite unnaturally. Baozhu shifted her attention to him, seeing his grave expression.
“Does the Registrar have some inside information?”
Yang Xingjian glanced at Wei Xun, seeming to find some words difficult to voice.
Baozhu said straightforwardly, “He is already my person now. Whatever secrets there are, speak freely.”
Upon hearing “he is my person now,” Yang Xingjian’s face couldn’t help but twitch. He thought to himself that during his severe illness these past days when he was unconscious, he didn’t know what these two had been up to. Could it be that… He glanced at Wei Xun, seeing the young man lower his eyes while unable to suppress the upward curve of his mouth—whether it was secret joy or mockery was unclear. Yang Xingjian grew even more suspicious, secretly thinking he must find an opportunity to probe indirectly later.
Baozhu urged, “Registrar?”
Yang Xingjian came back to his senses and spoke truthfully: “Your Highness, Lu Songzhi was killed by this minister.”
This statement was earth-shattering. Both Baozhu and Wei Xun were shocked. Wei Xun said, “A fourth-rank official travels with at least seven or eight attendants. I doubt you could even beat a gatekeeper.”
Yang Xingjian’s expression was extremely serious and earnest, “Of course I didn’t do it personally, but hired a formidable assassin.”
Baozhu urgently asked, “Tell me everything from the beginning!”
Yang Xingjian said, “When Prince Shao sent this minister to Chang’an, he gave two orders. First was to thoroughly investigate the true cause of Your Highness’s sudden death. Second was that if no cause could be found, then kill Lu Songzhi to vent Your Highness’s anger.”
Seeing Baozhu’s astonished expression, he simply revealed everything: “The imperial physicians who usually served Your Highness were Chen Yuange and Shen Lexian. They were familiar with Your Highness’s health condition, and if anything unusual occurred, they should have been the ones caring for you. However, after Your Highness’s death, the executed physicians were Zhao Chengyi, Huang Zhe, and Zhou Mingzhi. Lu Songzhi supervised the Imperial Medical Bureau and had long-standing grievances with Your Highness. With the physicians being temporarily replaced, his suspicion was greatest.
Zhao Chengyi and Huang Zhe were experienced senior physicians with clean backgrounds and rich experience, often entering the palace to take pulses for the dowager consorts. With Your Highness’s illness coming urgently, temporarily replacing them with these two was reasonable. But Zhou Mingzhi was a young student who had just graduated from the Imperial Medical Academy. In terms of qualifications and experience, he should not have been assigned to treat you.”
Baozhu clenched her fists, her face grave, finally squeezing out a sentence: “Cunning and malicious, with vicious intentions.”
Wei Xun was somewhat puzzled, asking, “Was it this Lu Songzhi who instructed the three physicians to cause trouble?”
Baozhu shook her head, “This treacherous minister didn’t need to give instructions. The combination he sent out was naturally prone to accidents.” She asked Wei Xun, “In your sect, apart from yourself, who ranks first in martial arts, and who ranks last?”
Wei Xun said, “Second Brother Xu Baozhen ranks after me. As for the bottom among those who’ve completed training, that would be Seventh Brother.”
Baozhu asked, “If you had to deal with an extremely difficult enemy who might defeat you, and the three of you went together to face him, how would you arrange your formation?”
Wei Xun said, “Apart from Master, there’s never been an enemy requiring three people to attack together. But if I had to imagine such a person, it would definitely be me and Second Brother attacking while Seventh Brother provided support.”
Baozhu said, “Such is the martial world, but court rules are completely different. Hearing I was critically ill and likely poisoned, the three temporarily assigned imperial physicians rushed over. The two most experienced might not exert their full effort, likely letting that inexperienced young student treat me. If things went wrong, this young man would become the scapegoat.”
Wei Xun was stunned, never imagining that different social strata would handle crises so differently. These court people never prioritized success, but instead would first consider how to shirk responsibility.
Yang Xingjian sighed, “For the imperial physicians, this assignment was fraught with danger, and they would certainly rack their brains trying to protect themselves. Lu Songzhi’s temporary personnel change, combined with arranging such an easily problematic combination, was clearly malicious. If nothing happened, it had nothing to do with him, and if something went wrong, he could use ‘accident’ as an excuse.”
He pulled out a writing brush from his chest, removed the brush head, and extracted a roll of yellow paper from the hollow shaft. Unfolding it, he handed it to Baozhu.
“This is evidence the assassin found in Lu Songzhi’s house. I originally intended to take it back to Youzhou for Prince Shao’s examination, but since I’ve revealed everything today, please examine it yourself to judge the whole story.”
Baozhu took it and found it was a prescription. Though she completely didn’t understand medicine, the prescription clearly bore the signature at the end: Zhou Mingzhi.
Yang Xingjian said, “This is the last prescription Your Highness used before your ‘death.’ Imperial medication records should be archived in the Palace Secretariat, but Lu Songzhi had switched out this prescription and taken it home, proving his guilty conscience. The one who prescribed for you was indeed that young student Zhou Mingzhi.”
Three people went, two shirked responsibility, one bore the blame. But they never expected that Princess Wanshou’s death would have wide-reaching consequences, with all three executed and their entire clans exiled. None escaped the emperor’s wrath.
Yang Xingjian said, “His Majesty should have been able to perceive Lu Songzhi’s scheming and penalized him with a year’s salary reduction for dereliction of duty, ordering him to reflect behind closed doors. But in recent years Lu Songzhi had recommended many alchemists to enter the palace, and His Majesty could not do without elixirs, so he didn’t pursue the matter further. However, you have always been Prince Shao’s beloved. Even if Lu Songzhi hadn’t personally plotted against you, just his supervisory suspicion over the Imperial Medical Bureau meant Prince Shao would never allow this person to live.”
Wei Xun took the prescription from Baozhu’s hands, reading line by line. Melon pedicle, chalcanthite, dichroa, gleditsia… He declared, “This is a powerful emetic medicine.”
Baozhu knew he had read many medical texts to treat his condition. Though he might not have the ability to prescribe, he should be able to recognize prescriptions. “I remember vomiting desperately after taking the medicine then, almost vomiting up my gall bladder, then my vision went black and I lost consciousness. Did that student prescribe wrongly?”
Wei Xun said, “Emetic formulas are the most basic treatment for poisoning. The principle is to quickly make the person vomit out ingested toxins. If you were truly poisoned, taking this prescription wouldn’t be wrong. But the monarch-minister-assistant-guide proportions are unbalanced, with too powerful medicinal properties. After taking it and vomiting violently, someone needed to provide careful nursing, constantly replenishing with salt water and rice water. Otherwise, after dehydration leading to unconsciousness, even if you wanted to force liquids down, you couldn’t.”
Wei Xun recalled digging her out from the imperial mausoleum’s underground chamber then—sunken eye sockets, cold hands and feet—clearly symptoms of severe dehydration, not the blue-black complexion of poisoning. If not for her good physical foundation, she would have been claimed by death before he could open the coffin. He had held her, using internal energy to sustain life, massaging throat acupoints while slowly feeding hot broth and rice water, stealing her back from the King of Hell.
Hearing Wei Xun’s assessment, Yang Xingjian was secretly alarmed. He had taken this prescription from the assassin, made a copy, and shown it to famous Chang’an physicians for examination. Their conclusions were similar to what Wei Xun said. Though this man was a rough martial world wanderer, his knowledge was not to be underestimated.
“Before Lu Songzhi’s death, he was dismembered. He only admitted to manipulating the physician selections but consistently refused to confess to poisoning you. My investigation reached this dead end. When I heard rumors of ‘Pearl’ at Anhua Gate, I followed news of you and left Chang’an.”
Yang Xingjian drank some tea to moisten his throat and continued, “What I still can’t understand is that even if Zhou Mingzhi’s prescription was somewhat careless, it was still appropriate for the symptoms. With servants surrounding Your Highness, how could there be no one to care for you, letting you deteriorate to unconscious near-death?”
Wei Xun said, “Those around her weren’t just buried alive—they all suffered torture before execution. Perhaps when the imperial physicians diagnosed poisoning, the emperor immediately arrested these people for interrogation under torture, instead leaving her unattended.”
Yang Xingjian showed an expression of unbearable sorrow, “But even if familiar palace servants were detained, wouldn’t new people be assigned to serve?”
For the first time in over two months, Baozhu heard about the fate of her close female officials, wet nurses, and maids before death. Her face turned deathly pale, tears suddenly streaming down.
With a hoarse voice, she speculated, “Nearly forty people were arrested by the Imperial Guards. Some probably died on the spot. The physicians must have panicked and didn’t leave detailed medical instructions for care. The newly assigned palace servants were trembling with fear and unfamiliar with me. If they made even the slightest mistake, they too faced clan extinction. With everyone terrified, doing nothing was the safest strategy.”
She had been a princess blessed with imperial favor, but due to human nature, after taking the inexperienced doctor’s harsh medicine, she was left unattended and dragged to near-death unconsciousness. The emperor’s elixir-induced violent temper meant he vented his anger on everyone before seeing the truth. If one or two familiar maids from childhood had been left by her side, she could at least have had water to drink.
Someone harbored evil intentions, some were negligent and perfunctory, some sought only self-preservation. Various accidents and coincidences wove together, leading to the inevitable “death of the princess.”
Yang Xingjian, hearing Baozhu’s reasoning, found it very logical and sighed, “From top to bottom, if even one living person had faithfully performed their duties, it wouldn’t have reached such a state. Unfortunately, the origin of this disaster will probably never be uncovered.”
Lu Songzhi had already been executed, yet Baozhu still felt surrounded by mysteries.
Even if dragged to near-death by continuous accidents, as long as the lying-in-state period was long enough, someone would eventually become suspicious. Having another imperial physician check the pulse would discover the truth. Why was she buried so hastily? The post-mortem covering of her head and face with evil-warding talismans—what was the reasoning behind that?
After a long while, she wiped her eyes and asked, “This assassin’s methods were rather brutal. How did you hire them?”
Yang Xingjian said, “Since Your Highness asks, I won’t conceal it. It was arranged through Prince Shao’s contacts in Chang’an, reportedly the most formidable assassin leader in Guanzhong. And…”
He coughed once, his eyes lighting up as he spoke in the curious tone used for ghost stories: “I heard it’s a woman! A beautiful Xianbei woman.”
Both Baozhu and Wei Xun were startled. Yang Xingjian continued enthusiastically, “I found it incredible and wanted to see her myself, but such people are mysterious and never meet clients personally, only sending subordinates to negotiate with me. They charged five hundred taels of gold and completed the task in three days. Ruthless and concise—truly an extraordinary woman of the martial world.”
Baozhu thought to herself: You already saw her a few days ago during that chaotic sect gathering at the inn. The woman with the pipa was that very ghost.
Wei Xun suddenly said, “Her rates have risen that high?”
Yang Xingjian, unaware of their relationship, said, “Of course it wasn’t just Lu Songzhi’s head. Prince Shao wanted his entire family eliminated—five hundred taels was the total price for Lu and his wife plus three sons.”
Baozhu found it hard to believe and couldn’t help asking, “My brother is a refined gentleman, gentle and elegant. How could he give such… such decisive orders?”
Yang Xingjian showed some embarrassment, hemming and hawing before finally saying, “Xingjian has been an old retainer since Prince Shao established his household, serving him for many years. Even wearing a mask to flatter him, I wouldn’t use ‘refined gentleman, gentle and elegant’ to describe my lord. He has kept a low profile for years, usually not revealing his edge, and naturally treats Your Highness with tenderness and consideration because he deeply loves you. If I had to use one phrase to describe him…”
After long consideration, Yang Xingjian said, “I think… ‘decisive in killing’ would be more appropriate.”
Wei Xun sneered, “In our terms, that’s called ruthless and merciless.”
Yang Xingjian immediately became angry: “Don’t be insolent! This is praise for a superior person. How can you compare it with your crude martial world language!”
Wei Xun curled his lip disdainfully, “You’re all so noble, yet you still need to hire us martial world people to do your dirty work.”
Baozhu listened to their bickering, her thoughts flying far toward Youzhou. She had previously admired Tuoba Sanniang’s expertise and wanted to recruit her but couldn’t, considering it a great regret. Who would have thought her brother had already established that connection?
She and her brother, as members of the imperial family, somehow always ended up entangled with the rough knights of Sunset Court. Was this coincidence, or fate?
Her own burial case seemed to have revealed one corner, yet hadn’t truly come to light. What shocked her more was Li Yuanying’s other dark side.
Thinking without reaching any conclusion, she suddenly remembered something and asked Wei Xun curiously, “When I was hanging by a thread and had been buried alive for days, with nothing available at Cuiwei Temple, how did you save me?”
Seeing her saddened by past events, Wei Xun thought for a moment, then revealed a sly smile and said casually, “Nothing special really, just drinking more hot water.”
Author’s Note: “The World is a Giant Makeshift Operation”