When Xie Lin asked this question, Jiang Yunshu blushed, realizing she had misunderstood.
But—but it wasn’t her fault!
After all, Xie Lin always washed his hands meticulously before… those times. The way he had just scrubbed his hands was exactly the same as before.
And then he came straight over to undo her skirt—how could she not have misread the situation?
Jiang Yunshu widened her eyes and shot Xie Lin a fierce glare.
Xie Lin retrieved a small medicine box, his slender fingers picking out a white porcelain vial. When he uncorked it, the scent of medicinal powder wafted out.
It dawned on Jiang Yunshu—he was going to apply medicine for her.
If the injury had been anywhere else, she wouldn’t have minded. But thinking of where the chafing was, she clutched her skirt, her face burning even hotter. "I… I can do it myself…"
Without a word, Xie Lin grabbed her hand and moved it aside.
"This servant was the one who took Your Highness riding and carelessly injured you. Naturally, it should be this servant who applies the medicine."
Jiang Yunshu shook her head repeatedly. "It’s not the Chief Eunuch’s fault… It’s just a minor injury, it doesn’t even need medicine…"
Xie Lin pushed up the hem of her trousers, all the way to the top of her thighs.
His eyes darkened. Jiang Yunshu’s skin was even more delicate than he’d expected, far more prone to chafing.
He knew this was her first time riding—she lacked the calluses of seasoned riders and didn’t know how to adjust her posture to avoid injury.
He had estimated the time carefully, taking her out for only a short ride. Yet even in that brief span, she’d been rubbed raw.
The inner sides of both thighs were flushed red, slightly swollen.
Xie Lin pressed lightly with his fingertip, and Jiang Yunshu immediately sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.
He poured the medicinal powder into his palm, then pressed his entire hand against the side of her thigh.
Jiang Yunshu felt both the coolness of the medicine and the heat of his palm as Xie Lin spread it in broad strokes.
"It hurts… hurts, hurts…" Jiang Yunshu whimpered, trying to shrink back, but Xie Lin held her leg firmly, leaving her no escape.
Amusement laced his voice. "Your Highness, keep your voice down. It’s easy for others to misunderstand."
Jiang Yunshu froze. Only then did she notice that the carriage had slowed to an almost imperceptible crawl.
The curtains swayed in the mountain breeze, lifting occasionally to reveal a sliver of the outside.
Through the gaps, she saw that the guards who had flanked the carriage earlier were now gone—they had ridden ahead and behind, keeping a deliberate distance.
Humiliation and indignation flooded her. Tears pooled in her eyes, threatening to spill.
Everyone must have misunderstood… and there was no way to explain!
Seeing her distress, Xie Lin chuckled. "Your Highness isn’t entirely blameless, though."
Jiang Yunshu followed his downward gaze to her exposed legs and immediately looked away, too embarrassed to watch him tend to her.
Xie Lin’s smile deepened. "If Your Highness still feels wronged by the false reputation, perhaps we could—"
Jiang Yunshu glared at him. In the carriage, surrounded by guards and palace attendants?
"Don’t even think about it!"
---
Returning to Weiyang Palace, Jiang Yunshu felt an odd sense of homecoming.
Leaving the palace had been fun, but exhausting!
First the snakebite, then the chafed thighs from riding… Thankfully, Xie Lin’s medicine worked wonders, soothing the pain almost immediately.
Still, the trip had drained her. Back in the palace, she fell into a deep sleep, spending more time unconscious than awake.
Oddly, Xie Lin—the one who had nearly died—seemed far more energetic than her.
He dove straight into handling the backlog of affairs accumulated during their absence, along with investigating the truth behind the snakebite at Black Mountain.
After handing over the evidence she’d kept, Jiang Yunshu washed her hands of the matter.
Mission accomplished!
The trip had unexpectedly given her a glimpse into Xie Lin’s nature.
She sensed a quiet resignation in him, a faint aura of death.
If her instincts were right, Xie Lin… didn’t particularly want to live.
Yet despite that, he worked overtime every single day?
Jiang Yunshu shook her head. Unfathomable. Truly unfathomable.
Then again, she was the exact opposite—someone who cherished life and loathed work.
She wanted to live but hated working.
Xie Lin didn’t care to live but worked tirelessly.
Jiang Yunshu: …Maybe people who don’t want to live just love overtime?
Back in Weiyang Palace, she resumed her idle routine—eating, sleeping, and soaking up gossip.
Wen Shiyi brought her a particularly juicy piece of news.
Her elder sister, Jiang Zhaohua, had recently had a massive fight with Duan Jinxing.
It was so bad that Duan Jinxing had stopped returning home, spending every night at the Imperial Stables instead.
Jiang Yunshu’s eyes sparkled with gossip-fueled delight. "What did they fight about? Tell me everything, word for word!"
Wen Shiyi looked scandalized. "The Eastern Depot’s spies weren’t hiding under their bed—how could we possibly know every word?"
Jiang Yunshu was equally shocked. "But aren’t there tons of ‘under-the-bed’ rumors sourced from the Eastern Depot?"
So those were all lies!
Still, even without the salacious details, Wen Shiyi’s account was thorough.
The conflict between Jiang Zhaohua and Duan Jinxing likely stemmed from his demotion to a lowly stablehand at the Imperial Stables.
It all began two months earlier, at the Duan Family residence.
When Duan's mother learned her son had been reduced to feeding horses, she wailed in despair.
"My son—the prodigy who topped the imperial exams three times! The reincarnation of a celestial star! Ruined by this ill-omened woman!"
She pressured Jiang Zhaohua to seek help from her family: "Your father is a marquis! Even if you offended the Nine Thousand-Year-Old Lord, there must be other connections."
"Hurry and pull some strings! Get my son a proper position. Or do you intend to let your husband waste his life tending horses?"
Jiang Zhaohua, of course, didn’t want her husband stuck in the stables either.
She was the Marquis’s daughter—a peerless beauty and talent, the envy of the capital since childhood.
Her marriage should have been equally enviable: to a triple-crowned scholar, a future chancellor, a man devoted to his wife alone.
Her life should have been praised and coveted, just as she’d heard in her past life!
Why had Duan Jinxing, who married Jiang Yunshu in that life, elevated her to a first-rank noblewoman admired by all, while now, with Jiang Zhaohua as his wife, she’d become the laughingstock of the nobility?
