The elderly physician upended everything from his medicine chest onto the table, sorting through the contents to select the medicinal herbs he needed to compound his remedy. The wound had torn open again and again — if something wasn’t done, it would surely fester. This young woman had already suffered enough; there was truly no need to add to her misery.
Gu Yanxi kept his gaze lowered, watching A’Zhi without daring so much as to blink. Because she had been wearing an official’s cap, her hair had been bound at the top of her head, and now it looked somewhat disheveled; her official’s robes were in tatters. One needed no further inquiry to know how much she had endured throughout this ordeal. He had ridden day and night to return, and still he had been too late.
The silence weighed on Hua Zhi, and she deliberately chose a topic to break it. “When did you realize something was wrong?”
“The Chaoli tribespeople had dispersed their forces in all directions, which meant there were actually fewer of them visible at Yaiguan Pass. I understood their intention at once.” Gu Yanxi’s voice was soft, even as he spoke of killing and warfare. “Before I came back, I led troops to blow up the island where they lived.”
Hua Zhi was slightly taken aback. She looked up at Yanxi, though she did not ask how many had died — she understood that to show mercy to one’s enemies was to be cruel to oneself.
A general’s glory is built upon ten thousand bleached bones. It has always been thus.
“I dispatched Wu Xing to assist Shao Yao.”
“With Zheng Zhi serving as advisor, and black powder as a lethal weapon, Shao Yao would have no face to come back if she still couldn’t take down the Yan Kingdom.”
Gu Yanxi raised an eyebrow. “You persuaded Zheng Zhi to enter government service?”
“Whether he formally enters service in the future, I can’t say — but for now, he is willing to serve the imperial house. He is, after all, a man with ambitions of his own.” Hua Zhi nestled against his chest. “I suspect there are still inside agents within the palace who haven’t been exposed yet. Yuxiang could certainly facilitate a great many things, but the Imperial Guards are not blind men. I can understand how so many Chaoli people could hide within the palace and evade the Seven Lodges Division — after all, the Seven Lodges Division cannot move freely through the inner palace. But the Imperial Guards are the very ones charged with protecting the imperial palace. How could they have possibly concealed that many Chaoli people, given their sheer size?”
Gu Yanxi gave a slight nod. “The problem lies within the Imperial Guards.”
“That’s my thinking as well. We need to root this person out. They are far too close to the Crown Prince — we mustn’t come ninety-nine steps of a hundred only to fail on the last.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t escape.”
Hua Zhi let out a long sigh. “Yuxiang was a Chaoli inside agent — things I couldn’t make sense of before now all fall into place. The fact that Hao Yue knew that sinister remedy was most likely connected to her as well. But she entered service before the Empress Dowager at such a young age — how could she have known back then that the Empress Dowager would one day become the Empress Dowager?”
Zhu Bowen came in carrying two jars of liquor. The elderly physician submerged the catgut sutures into one of the jars, then poured out a bowl from the other and gestured for Zhu Bowen to bring it to Hua Zhi.
Gu Yanxi understood immediately. He lifted A’Zhi slightly, took the bowl, and fed it to her sip by sip. “Would you like a little more?”
“That’s enough. I already had a few mouthfuls earlier — this bowlful alone must be two or three liang.” Her untrained body had no tolerance for alcohol, and with Yanxi beside her, the moment it went down she felt the intoxication rising. Hua Zhi closed her eyes and murmured softly, “There’s a whole heap of matters outside that need someone to make decisions. Go on.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
Hua Zhi smiled and nestled against him, no longer pressing him to leave. She had truly hoped Yanxi would stay with her — she had already experienced once what the suturing felt like, and it had been absolutely excruciating.
The elderly physician picked up the liquor jar and came over. “Lift her up a little, and hold her arms still.”
He then passed over a roll of fine cloth. “Have her bite down on this.”
Gu Yanxi’s expression of anxious, tender care was so vivid that Hua Zhi could picture it even with her eyes closed. In her hazy state, she bit down and let her thoughts drift — how wonderful it was to have fought this far and still be alive. The Emperor who had made her life difficult was dead. The Chaoli tribe, that troublemaking threat, had been eliminated. The return of her family was something she could now look forward to. Her man was still alive. The road ahead would, at last, be smooth and open.
The strong liquor poured over her wound, and a searing agony crashed over her. Hua Zhi let out a muffled groan. Yes — this was her final tribulation. If she could only endure it, dawn would come.
In her haze, she marshaled every last ounce of strength to withstand the pain. She did not notice that her body was trembling uncontrollably; she did not notice that pained sounds were escaping her; she did not notice the great beads of sweat rolling down her face — mingling with a man’s tears.
“Please, be gentler.” The man who had fought his way through mountains of blades and seas of blood made a hoarse plea to the elderly physician, whose needle flew with the swift, practiced ease of one sewing cloth. The moment he imagined that not long ago A’Zhi had gone through this very same suturing, his heart ached so sharply he wanted to throw his head back and cry out to the heavens. They say that great ability brings great responsibility — yet who ever decreed that a capable person must bear burdens that were never hers alone to carry?
It was as though everyone knew that Hua Zhi was fiercely protective of those she loved, and so everyone took it as a matter of course that she should endure whatever came her way. After all, was she not the Crown Prince’s Mentor? Did she not wish to see her family return to the capital? But had anyone ever tallied the accounts? The merit of supporting the throne’s ascension, the merit of her tutelage, and the contributions she had made to the welfare of the realm, piece by piece and matter by matter — all of it was more than enough to have secured the return of the entirely innocent Hua family. Everything Hua Zhi was doing now was for the Crown Prince, for him, and for the bigger picture in which, when the nest is overturned, no egg is left unbroken.
She could not bear to let the old ones charge forward, and yet she had to shield the young and inexperienced behind her. And among both civil officials and military generals, there was a gaping void — no younger officials capable of carrying the weight. She had been left with no choice but to step forward herself, earning in exchange this body covered in wounds.
But how long would any of it be remembered? The human heart is fickle. He could not even guarantee that Xiao Liu would not someday forget this debt of gratitude — when some so-called greater good demanded it, who could say whether that greater good might require sacrificing Hua Zhi to preserve everything else? If it ever came to that, what then?
Watching the elderly physician finally snip the last of the thread, Gu Yanxi pressed his forehead against A’Zhi’s damp brow and let out a long, slow breath. From now on, we will never be separated again. I will never give anyone the opportunity to scheme against you. Let them try — a Crown Prince’s Mentor and a Prince Regent combined — who would dare test the edge of that blade?
The elderly physician applied the compounded medicine to the wound. “This medicine must be applied once every hour, to reduce the risk of festering as much as possible. If the wound does fester, I’m afraid her body may not be able to withstand it.”
Gu Yanxi’s expression shifted. On the battlefield, how many soldiers had fallen at exactly this hurdle. Afraid he might miscalculate the time, he removed the roll of fine cloth from A’Zhi’s mouth, then looked up — and saw that a number of people had already gathered at the doorway. He pointed to one of the Seven Lodges Division members. “Go to the Hua household and escort Nian Qiu and Fu Dong into the palace.”
The man received the order and departed at once.
“Bring an hourglass that marks one hour.”
Listening to A’Zhi’s soft, pained sounds, Gu Yanxi kissed her forehead gently, then leaned down to blow cool air over her wounds. The gentle breeze brought some relief to the burning pain. Breathing in a familiar scent, Hua Zhi whimpered that it hurt, her voice small and soft — the vulnerable, aggrieved tone she only ever showed in front of Gu Yanxi.
Gu Yanxi’s throat tightened. He blew even harder.
And so he continued blowing, until his lips grew dry and cracked with fine lines. More and more people came looking for him outside, and he ignored them all — until Nian Qiu and Fu Dong came rushing breathlessly through the door that he finally stopped.
With great care, he laid Hua Zhi face-down on the bed and said quietly, “Keep watch on the hourglass. When the time is up, apply the medicine at once. No delays.”
Neither of the two girls had taken their eyes off their young mistress for even a moment, but they had heard every word, and answered in rapid succession that they understood.
“Blow on her wounds more — she’s in pain.”
“Yes.”
Author’s note: My stomach has been hurting for several days. Today I couldn’t hold on — only one update. Tomorrow I need to go to the hospital for an examination. I’ll try to post two updates.