Chapter 43

The innkeeper was a local farmer from Quzhou. Having lost his wife and eldest son early in life, he had built a two-story lodge on his ancestral property in the city to earn a living and keep himself occupied.

Though the place was packed to capacity after the Mid-Autumn Festival, business was usually mediocre; lodging earnings could not even compare to the tea profits from the second floor.

Upon hearing the rumor that his youngest son, who had served as a soldier, had miraculously returned from the dead, many regular patrons came to offer their congratulations, making the inn unusually lively.

It was a double blessing, and for once being generous, the innkeeper hosted two lavish, home-cooked banquet tables in the main hall. Cups clashed, and the din of voices rose into the air.

Before anyone could react, the situation dramatically shifted. A troop of soldiers surged into the main hall like a tide, their plate armor reflecting a piercing, cold white light.

The noisy banquet instantly transformed into a solemn magistrate's court. Remaining completely silent, the soldiers stood at one-meter intervals like fierce guardians, tightly surrounding everyone in the inn so densely that not even a fly could escape.

The innkeeper racked his brains, utterly unable to figure out whom he could have possibly offended. Just as he was about to step forward to inquire, a person descended from a luxurious carriage outside the gates.

In the blink of an eye, the figure reached the entrance of the inn.

The man's hair was secured with a jade hairpin, and his inner garments and outer robes were of a uniform pearl-white. A gentle, soft luster resided in his brows and eyes, making him as noble as the bright moon.

The wide sleeves and hem of his robe were trimmed with pale moon-colored hidden embroidery which, upon closer inspection, resembled silver-glinting flying dragons. Aside from that, there were no other ornaments on his person; a mutton-fat jade pendant, hollow-carved in the shape of a snow dove, hung from his waist with bamboo-joint-like tassels.

Accompanied by a sound resembling wind chimes by a window, he reached the front and walked straight toward the host's seat.

Though the innkeeper felt he had truly done nothing to prick his conscience and did not recognize this young nobleman before him, he felt an inexplicable guilt, as if he had been seen through from head to toe.

Xizhi led men upstairs to search. Feeling a sense of injustice, the innkeeper demanded, "Even officials cannot casually break into private residences! What are you people doing?"

Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the man offered no reply.

Xizhi descended from the upper floor with a gloomy expression, shaking his head despondently.

Pei Muchi lowered his chin, letting out a laugh that sounded half-sigh, half-hum.

He placed a sheet of painted paper before the innkeeper and spoke softly, "I must trouble you. Have you seen this person?"

The painting was so lifelike that even someone ignorant of art could easily tell the creator possessed exquisite skill, or had perhaps engraved the appearance of the person in the painting deep into their bones.

The innkeeper's pupils contracted in profound shock.

The portrait clearly depicted the young lady they had sent off not long ago.

Had he not caught a glimpse of her beauty when she boarded the carriage, even he might not have recognized her.

Remembering his promise to the couple to keep their secret, the innkeeper choked on his words, hesitating and unable to speak.

Pei Muchi tilted his head impatiently.

Countless cold blades flashed from their scabbards, lawlessly pressing against the necks of everyone present.

Pei Muchi forcefully dragged out a stool, the legs scraping against the floor with a harsh sound.

"Shall we waste time like this?" His posture was exceptionally elegant, hands clasped and resting on his lap.

The blade slowly drew closer; the wound would not be large, but the pressure was intensely heavy.

"S-she and they left in a carriage not long ago." Seeing his hard-won youngest son gradually being pressed beneath the blades, and fearing further accidents, the innkeeper abandoned his conscience and poured out everything.

Upon hearing this, without waiting for Pei Muchi to speak, Xizhi and Xixing took half the troops and dashed toward the city gate.

The oppressive atmosphere abruptly eased.

"How many people were with them?" Pei Muchi turned his gaze to the innkeeper, seemingly judging the credibility of his words.

He wanted to know if Yun Ting was with Qingwu. If there were three of them traveling together, finding Yun Ting first would make everything that followed much easier.

Daring not tell any more lies, the innkeeper stammered, "Just the husband and wife. The woman didn't look well; she was frail and passed out after seeing the military formation upon their return. She hasn't regained consciousness since they left."

Something unreadable seemed to spread across the depths of Pei Muchi's eyes, and his finger joints cracked as he clenched his fists.

At the time, he had felt a very familiar gaze resting upon him; it turned out not to have been an illusion.

As it happened, while he was on that stretch of road returning to the prefectural government, she had been hiding in this unassuming inn, watching him all along.

"Continue," Pei Muchi said flatly, his posture unchanged.

Alarmed at heart and unsure of what else there was to tell, the innkeeper could only pick out what he had seen and heard over the past two days. "This humble commoner only knows that the man is a rare and peerless divine doctor with a benevolent heart and deep pockets, and the two of them are exceptionally devoted to each other."

"Devoted?" Pei Muchi rolled the two words between his teeth, chewing on them repeatedly before letting out a laugh devoid of meaning.

"Devoted." His tone was level as he repeated the word, the curve of his lips chilling to the bone.

"My lord, a letter has arrived from the capital." Anqi hurried into the inn and handed a letter to Pei Muchi.

Upon opening it, Gu Hanjiang's scrawled handwriting revealed that rumors concerning the lineage of the soon-to-be ruler were spreading in the capital, urging Pei Muchi to return to Bianjing immediately.

"This was sent via courier by Military Counselor Gu," Anqi added.

Folding the slip of paper bearing the words "Return swiftly," Pei Muchi stepped out of the inn.

Initially, the innkeeper had been guessing the man's identity, but upon hearing words like "the capital," he had merely assumed him to be a spoiled aristocrat following the army from Bianjing.

Not long after, however, the streets buzzed with rumors that the city's commanding general had deployed three thousand cavalrymen to turn the Southern Dynasty Princess's encampment upside down. Following the crowd, the innkeeper pressed against the roadside to watch the victorious troops.

When his gaze shifted to the blood-drenched leader, he finally recognized the face and widened his eyes in horror.

—

The purplish-red sun sank slowly, threads of golden silk sinking below the horizon. Dim candles were lit inside the room, their light gradually stretching toward the bed.

Qingwu had been brought back to Peach Blossom Village, where she developed a high fever during the night.

With a hazy consciousness, she stubbornly refused to take her medicine. Du Jin spoon-fed her, but she spat out half of every mouthful she swallowed, rendering the medicinal effect negligible.

"Bitter."

Qingwu shook her head, her lips tightly pressed together, her brows knitted into a knot.

She felt as though she had fallen into a furnace, only to be dragged down into an ice cellar. Amidst her delirium, she seemed to catch a familiar scent.

It was the crisp fragrance of a bamboo forest after rain, instantly flooding her senses.

She felt as if she had fallen into a fluffy mass of cotton.

"Your Highness." A soft sigh brushed against her ear.

Unable to open her eyes, Qingwu searched through her memories for a long time, failing entirely to find the source of the voice, and broke out in a sweat of anxiety.

Du Jin wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead, startled when she murmured a single name.

"Yuanxi."

His hand froze in mid-air, but a moment later, he resumed his movements as if indifferent.

"Who is Yuanxi?" Huo Xun asked, his gaze sharp and missing not a single detail.

Du Jin dampened a fresh, cool cloth and placed it on her forehead, replying indifferently, "Just a young gentleman from the Princess's Manor."

"Where is he now?"

Du Jin fell silent, casting a faint glance at his companion. "On the day the city fell, A-wu went back to look for the Emperor and saw His Majesty commit suicide from the city tower. Traumatized, she forgot some things."

"What does that have to do with this young gentleman she's calling out for?" Huo Xun believed Du Jin was evading the heavy to focus on the light, perhaps harboring unspeakable secrets.

Back when he served by the Emperor's side, he knew the Princess had a deeply favored imperial scholar.

Exhausted from a night of travel and caring for Qingwu, Du Jin looked somewhat haggard. "I didn't tell A-wu about this gentleman's identity in time, causing her to witness her imperial father driven to death by him. Perhaps out of excessive grief, she deliberately forgot matters concerning him. Right now, she might simply be dreaming and recalling his name."

Entrusted by the dying Emperor, Huo Xun had sworn to protect the Princess well.

Over the past half-year or so, watching the Princess and Physician Du in such perfect harmony, he had assumed he would spend the rest of his days simply acting as a household guard. Never had he imagined that a trip to Qi Qiu city would reduce them to their current plight.

"Don't you have a medicine that can make the Princess forget all about those things?"

Standing by the bed and watching Du Jin calmly tuck the blanket around Qingwu, Huo Xun failed to understand his behavior. "Aren't you panicking at all?"

"Panic about what?" Du Jin led Huo Xun out into the courtyard, standing watch over a pot of medicine boiling vigorously.

"The Princess forgot him and chose you. If she remembers everything, aren't you afraid?" Huo Xun had once been loyal solely to the Emperor, having witnessed His Majesty's condition deteriorate day by day, sinking into a depression no longer fitting for a sovereign. Before the fall of the nation, the Emperor had even begged him to look after Qingwu and dissuade her from grieving over these matters.

Yet now he knew: the Emperor had been driven to death atop the city tower.

Unable to bear it at the time, the Princess must have simply chosen to forget that man entirely.

"And what if I am afraid?" Du Jin's lips parted slightly.

As he spoke, Qingwu let out a few more fragmented murmurs.

Her nose was flushed, her lips slightly parted as she struggled to draw in fresh air, her eyes and brows radiating a pitiful vulnerability.

Du Jin reached out to stroke her face, but before his fingertips could touch her skin, he withdrew them in time.

"In any case, I will not let go easily."

The hilt of the sword at his waist poked his hipbone. Adjusting his posture, Huo Xun happened to notice that the candle in the side room burned even brighter than that in the main chamber.

"What is Yun Ting up to lately? He's always cooped up in his room writing letters. Didn't he say he had no surviving family? I saw him mail another letter the other day, and heaven knows who it's for."

With his mind still replaying the scenes in Quzhou city, Du Jin missed what Huo Xun was saying and merely nodded perfunctorily.

Walking away on his own, Huo Xun approached the window of Yun Ting's side room and saw him unfolding a glued sheet of paper to insert a newly written draft.

—

Bianjing experienced three days of light drizzle, washing away the bloodstains before the palace gates.

The capital, its undercurrents surging in secret, changed overnight, and the air seemed imbued with a metallic stench of rust.

Gu Hanjiang had originally intended merely to arrest and interrogate those plotting rebellion, but upon his return, Pei Muchi killed the chicken to scare the monkeys, wiping out the aristocratic families that had spearheaded the dissemination of rumors.

In times of chaos, whoever held military power held the right to speak.

Those families had merely uncovered some intelligence regarding Pei Muchi's lineage while he was away on campaign.

The head of the Wang and Xie clans was decapitated as a warning to others. The entire city seemed draped in a layer of hazy yellow sand, and no one dared to question the choice of emperor ever again.

Amidst such a repressive atmosphere, palace attendants could constantly hear intense shouting emanating from the Hall of Loyal Counsel—mostly the angry roars of the military counselor, accompanied by the loud crashing of scattered bottles and jars falling to the floor, while the other person's voice remained inaudible.

Whatever Gu Hanjiang ultimately said, Pei Muchi finally yielded to his persuasion, accepted the imperial jade seal, and changed the name of the dynasty to Dayilin.

Everything had been prepared in advance, and the enthronement ceremony was scheduled for the second day of the next month, five days away.

Late at night on the thirtieth, during the Hour of Chou, the ceremonial robes for the grand ceremony two days later were delivered to the Qianquan Palace, with a letter resting lightly upon them.

Pei Muchi unsealed it casually and glanced through it.

His head gave a muffled hum, sounding like a collapsing building.

So consumed by fury that he could barely make out the words on the page, his face froze like a carved slab of bluestone, coated in a layer of frost.

"M-my lord?" Anqi rushed in from outside, greeted the moment he entered by his master's increasingly gloomy expression. Unaware of what had happened, he quickly motioned for Xizhi to fetch Gu Hanjiang.

Noticing someone enter, Pei Muchi lifted his eyelids and let them fall again.

The few thin sheets of paper differed on the final page; the handwriting was less fluid than the preceding pages, clearly penned after prolonged and careful deliberation.

Crushing the crisp letter paper until it was wrinkled, Pei Muchi irritably rolled it into a ball and tossed it toward the door.

"What is it this time?" Receiving the message, Gu Hanjiang hurried over, picked up the paper ball rolling near his feet, smoothed it out, and placed it on the desk.

Those glaring lines of text re-entered their field of vision. Clenching his back teeth, Pei Muchi almost burned holes through the thin sheets of paper.

Leaning down to glance at the letter and stealing a peek at Pei Muchi's expression, Gu Hanjiang quickly pulled it away. "You'd better not look."

The final line of that page read: A propitious date, auspicious for weddings.

"You..." Seldom had Gu Hanjiang seen Pei Muchi wear such an ugly expression. Weighing his words, he adopted what he felt was a palatable approach: "You must not lose your sense of proportion. The grand ceremony in two days is the most important matter; do not lose your head."

"Tell me, will she think of me in these days?" Wave after wave of piercing heartache assailed Pei Muchi, leaving him feeling suddenly short of breath and with a tight chest.

Clenching his fists, he massaged his chest, his knuckles turning pale as he dug his fingers into his palms.

"Pei Yuanxun! Have you lost your mind?!" Gu Hanjiang slammed a hand onto the desk, showing him no courtesy whatsoever as he roared.

With only two days left until the auspicious date, and Quzhou far away, he was terrified this man would pull some foolish stunt on the day of the ceremony, hoping only to curse him into sobriety today.

Sensing the dangerous momentum, Anqi waved for the guards to retreat outside.

In matters involving the former dynasty's princess, they were useless here; advice fell on deaf ears, and they risked being implicated.

Expressionless, Pei Muchi's unchanging lip curve slowly flattened. Tapping a fingertip lightly against the tabletop, the ferocity in his deep pupils resembled storm clouds gathering—dark, heavy, and refusing to dissipate.

Without a word, he stood up, removed the polished lamp cover, and held the letter close to the candle flame.

The flickering wick was split into mottled fragments of light, casting a shifting, gloomy shadow over his handsome face.

"Stay safely in Bianjing. A few days from now, I'll go there personally and chop that person into a thousand pieces to vent your anger." Feeling deep irritation toward the former dynasty's princess, Gu Hanjiang insisted he must go see who this sacred personage was, and incidentally bring back the physician capable of curing the poison.

Pei Muchi abruptly turned and swept the stack of official documents off the desk with a wave of his sleeve.

They clattered down in a cascade.

With a face as dark as water, he stood aside and cast a sidelong glare at the desk.

Squatting down to pick them up, Gu Hanjiang muttered, "Venting your anger is one thing, but if you make yourself sick with grief while they're over there happily getting married..."

These words were no different from pouring oil on fire.

With a grim expression, Pei Muchi flicked his sleeves and strode toward the inner chamber.

Surging with a rush of blood and daring not provoke him further, Gu Hanjiang shouted at the top of his lungs, "Anqi!"

Timidly, Anqi ran in from outside with a squad of men.

"Clean this up! And go move all the memorials from the Hall of Loyal Counsel to Qianquan Palace—don't let him have idle time!" Kicking a table leg, Gu Hanjiang glared fixedly in the direction of the inner chamber.

Stationed right here to keep watch, could Pei Muchi possibly run away?

Enveloped by a pitch-black night sky and sparse starlight, the candles in the inner chamber burned throughout the night.

Layers of gauze curtains fluttered, casting a solitary silhouette against the light.

Seeing that Pei Muchi had not shifted his position even once all night, Gu Hanjiang felt slightly reassured. When the sky began to turn pale with dawn, unable to stay awake any longer, he rested his head on the desk for a brief nap.

He never expected that when Anqi shook him awake, the sky had darkened once again. Tomorrow was the long-awaited enthronement ceremony for the new emperor.

"What is it?" Opening his eyes hazily, Gu Hanjiang lost track of time.

Anqi looked on the verge of tears, his voice laced with overwhelming panic.

"The lord is gone!"

Struck by a sudden jolt, Gu Hanjiang sprang to his feet. "What did you say?"

Staring at the empty palace hall, Anqi added that not only him, but Xizhi, Xixing, and Pei Muchi's direct personal guard unit had all vanished as well.

"Could the lord have gone looking for the former dynasty's princess?"

Letting loose a string of profanities and cursing the entire staff of Qianquan Palace until they dared not talk back, Gu Hanjiang finally vented some of his frustration.

"Go after him, then! Do you really want him to die out there?!"