His entire being radiated a pristine coldness — white robes drifting, the wind stirring his long hair, strands grazing across his strikingly handsome face, devastatingly beautiful yet icily resolute.

Those thin, cool lips seemed as though they could never hold warmth — cold and pure as a lotus, yet as otherworldly as an immortal.

This figure, this silhouette, came crashing suddenly into Feng Jiu’er’s line of sight.

All of heaven and earth, all the ten thousand things of the world, seemed to blur completely because of that single figure.

The true energy she had been gathering in her abdomen — the very energy holding the snake venom at bay — drained away rapidly the instant she caught that fleeting glimpse of him.

The snake venom surged through her bloodstream, sending a sharp pain through Feng Jiu’er’s chest, and her steps grew unsteady.

With a thud, she collapsed, and as she fell, she looked up at his face backlit by the sun — and somehow, it was as though she had forgotten the pain entirely.

So it was true — beauty really could make a person forget their suffering, however briefly.

Food, beauty, desire — it was human nature. A man this beautiful was truly… enough to make one’s eyes go blank with longing.

The guards standing behind her caught a clear look at that figure, and one by one, their expressions shifted dramatically. They dropped to their knees with a series of thuds.

“Ninth Prince!”

“We pay our respects to the Ninth Prince!”

The Ninth Prince… this man — it wasn’t as though she had never seen him before. So why was it that every time she did, he seemed even more beautiful than the last?

That air of serene elegance and lofty aloofness, in particular, was the sort that could drive women absolutely mad.

No wonder he had earned the title of the most beautiful man in the world.

Feng Jiu’er reined in the open wonder in her eyes and looked up at the man standing before her — the man whose tall boots her hand had inadvertently brushed against.

She clutched at Zhan Qingcheng’s robes and wept: “It hurts — Jiu’er hurts so much, please save me, it hurts so much…”

“Insolence!” The surrounding guards scrambled over, intending to pull Feng Jiu’er away — but they were stopped by Yu Jingfeng.

“It hurts — Jiu’er hurts…” She was like a child, clinging tightly to the Ninth Prince’s robe as though she had seized upon a lifeline, utterly unwilling to let go, even at the cost of her life.

“They had a snake bite me — Jiu’er hurts so much, please save me, please save me…”

“You wretched girl — how dare you sully His Highness’s robes!” The captain of the pursuing guards bellowed in fury.

But every one of them was on their knees, and until the Ninth Prince spoke, not a single person dared to rise.

And so, there was simply no one who could pull Feng Jiu’er away.

Zhan Qingcheng lowered his gaze and looked down at the girl sprawled at his feet. His eyes settled on the back of her hand.

There upon it, plainly visible, was a pair of fang marks — two small puncture wounds.

The skin around the wounds had turned black, and even the blood seeping out was a dark, purplish-black.

His brow furrowed ever so slightly. Yet that single furrowed brow was enough to make every guard kneeling on the ground break out in a drenching cold sweat, not one of them daring to breathe.

“Summon the imperial physician.” The moment those cool, low words fell, Zhan Qingcheng suddenly bent down — and to everyone’s astonishment, he personally lifted Feng Jiu’er into his arms.

The Ninth Prince had picked up the Feng Family’s ugly, foolish Ninth Miss! The peerlessly beautiful Ninth Prince had lifted the hideous Feng Jiu’er into his arms!

Every guard on the ground was left slack-jawed, so shocked their hearts nearly shattered.

Did they even know each other? How could the Ninth Prince possibly know this ugly monster?

And even if they did know each other — it was still… still impossible that he would pick this woman up and carry her!

Just look at the Ninth Prince — a man with the bearing of a divine being. Was it even fitting for him to hold such a hideous woman?

But for Zhan Qingcheng, there had never been any such concept as “fitting” or “unfitting.” There was only “willing” or “unwilling.”

That white robe continued to drift lightly in the wind, yet his cool, aloof figure had already walked far away.

The guards could hardly believe what they had witnessed — yet there was no changing the fact that Feng Jiu’er had been carried away by the Ninth Prince.

They were still convinced they must have seen wrong.